Woodstock CT Café

from Nary

Yes, we need to get this done. It’s 20 years overdue — the need has been overlooked for a long time by many.

The “I and I” problem refers to inflow and infiltration. Essentially, Woodstock is sending clear water along with gray water to Putnam for processing which is costly. Sometimes rain events spike the I and I but sometimes they don’t. This problem will be compounded by the Academy’s addition of flow to the sewer line although most people recognize that the Academy’s need MUST be attended to.

Woodstock has had a “Sewer Avoidance” policy in place since its inception. What this means is that ONLY those residences or businesses that fall in to the clearly designated sewer zone MAY hook up to the sewer line. If you are not in the sewer zone, you can’t hook up — doesn’t matter who you are or where you live or what your need is. Period. This means that Hill residents along with other residences may NOT hook up to the sewer if they want to or feel it is the best alternative for their property.

In my opinion from watching this closely for a number of years — the Academy route that hugs the east side of Rt. 169 for the development of sewer line is the most costly route they can take. If the school could place this line overland that is around the backside of the hill, costs would be significantly lowered with direct gravity feed and no need to expensively blast through a line of ledge along the road that will disturb traffic and take out a number of trees in the process. I believe that what halts this more reasonable and less costly plan is the (understandable) reticence of abutters to grant easements for this purpose.

Again, Woodstock is full of history. We all should return to the age old wisdom of being a good neighbor, of working well together in our community and to envision and then fashion a collective healthy future for all . . that is, one that works well for all. It hasn’t happened here or at least with this specific issue.

This article was published on December 30, 2008. The Academy has received a grant (awarded to the Town) that will cover a significant part of the cost for the sewer extension. I think there is a consensus in town that we need to get this done. We welcome any corrections in what we have said here.

According to the Water Pollution Control Authority, the Town Sewer begins at the Woodstock Volunteer Fire Department and heads south and east to Putnam’s Peake Brook pump station. I was always under the impression that residents on the Hill were hooked up to the sewer, but I guess not. If any Cafe visitor has other information, please let us know. The sewer is managed by the Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA; semi-monthly minutes of this commission are posted at www.townofwoodstock.com ).

From the Sept 24th (2008) minutes: “Still no activity with the Inn at Woodstock Hill or the Woodstock Academy. Allan Walker did have a conversation with Richard Foye of the Woodstock Academy and the Academy has every intention of moving forward with the sewer extension to the school.”

From the Sept 9th (2008) minutes: The Woodstock sewer system which serves South Woodstock including Hyde School has Inflow & Outflow problems that impact the Town of Putnam’s Peake Brook pump station.

Questions that might be answered by the WPCA and/or the Academy: 

• How will 1200-plus new users of the sewer system impact the Town of Woodstock and Putnam?
• How will the costs for this sewer construction be passed onto taxpayers?
• What will this cost the taxpayers compared to the current cost of sewage management by the Academy?
• Will Woodstock taxpayers bare any costs that the other sending towns will not have?
• Will this sewer extension promote further expansion of the Academy?
• Will Hill residents have to share the cost of this sewer line construction if they intend to use it?
• Who will pay the Institutional connection fee (approximately $353,000)?

Where is the current Woodstock Sewer Line located?
(Answers provided by the WPCA at the Town Hall website)
“The sewer line runs approximately 5 miles starting at the Woodstock Volunteer Fire Station on Route 169 near the Woodstock Town Hall and including parts of or all of the following roads: Ellen Lane, Wainwright Drive, Holmeslea Court, Davis Road, Route 169, Butts Road, Liljegren Road, Nelson Road, Lane Road and ending on Peake Brook Road” (see the map of the sewer district at the end of this article where the above listed roads are identified).

When was the Woodstock Sewer Line established?
“The sewer line was established in 1997 by the Water Pollution Control Authority.”

Can I, as a property owner, hook up to the sewer line?
“A property owner is only eligible if their property is within the Town of Woodstock’s Sanitary Sewer District.”

How do I apply for a New Sanitary Sewer Connection?
“If your property falls within the Sewer District, you can receive an application for a new sewer hook-up in the Building Department at the Town Hall.”

How much does it cost to connect to the sewer line?
“Classification - Industrial $400,000.00, Institutional $353,403.00, Commercial $10,398.00, Residential $7,900.00, Apartments $6,900.00″

What are the yearly sewer usage fees?
“There is a sewer usage fee to all residential homeowners and businessess on the sewer line. The yearly residential flat fee for sewer usage is $424.32 per unit and is billed in two installments of $212.16 every July and January. The July billing covers the time period of the previous January 1 through June 30 of the same year. The January billing covers the time period of the previous July 1 through December 31. Businesses are on a metered sewer usage basis. Readings are taken on the businesses monthly and reported to the Water Pollution Control Authority and billed yearly at a rate of $4.65 per 1000 gallons. These bills are mailed August 1st of each year and covers the previous 12 months water usage.”
 
I trust the maps below show how the Academy plans to hook up to the sewer (these maps came from the Academy website). However, the Legend (below) was confusing to an amateur like me, because the lines indicating the location of the proposed sewer route our not exactly the same in appearance as those placed in the Legend by CME. It appears that the Academy will connect to the current sewer system by laying a sewer pipe along the east edge of Route 169 on the Hill. These maps do not extend all the way to the Fire House.

August 2006 drawing by CME (disregard the blue arrows showing “connection” )

Read the rest of this entry »

by A Student

I’d be interested in hearing if the new CT teen driving laws enacted in August 2008 have changed the amount of crashes/deaths/etc. that teenagers have.

I turned 16 in March 2009. I didn’t get my learner’s permit until the end of April. Now, I still don’t have my driver’s license. I’d rather wait until I’m 18 instead of dealing with all of the restrictions.

The question is, what magically happens at age 18 that makes a new driver good enough to have all the restrictions lifted? I might wait all the way until I’m 18 to get my license. I might be 18, but I’ll still be a brand new, inexperienced driver with no restrictions whatsoever.

I worry about other people who suddenly have all the restrictions lifted, abusing the “freedom”, and getting into trouble. The new laws MIGHT decrease problems age 16-17, but what about 18-on?

I just don’t think it’s fair that every single teen driver has to deal with ever-tougher driving laws because of previous generations screwing up. I go THE speed limit at all times, come to COMPLETE stops under all circumstances, try my best to stay smack in the middle of the lines, treat the car extremely gently, NEVER use ANY electronic devices… yet, older people who speed, slow’n go at stop signs, cut lines on curves, and use cell phones while driving result in swerving all over the road and have the reaction time of an 80-year-old pay less insurance. That’s fantastic, don’t you think? At least higher grades bring down the cost a little bit. Read the rest of this entry »

This article was first posted on May 2, 2009. Because of the intervening by the State DOE this shenanigans is being corrected.

Board of Finance meeting on April 14^th was attended by all six members of the BOF.  A motion was approved unanimously to seat Richard Cass in Beth Murphy’s absence since Beth Murphy phoned in her opinion on the zero based budget. A zero-increase budget composed of the budgets of the Board of Selectmen and Education was approved by a vote of 4 to 2.

For the Town to support a $21,066,099 budget it was projected that there would be a shortfall in revenues of $458,663.

Two proposals were put forth to solve the shortfall problem.

“David Hosmer’s recommendation was to use the total unexpended amount of the K-4 Renovation Project ($217,393) plus half of the remaining shortfall ($120,635) from (general) fund balance and make cuts to the budgets of $120,635 (from the minutes).” Approval of this proposal would require further cuts in the total budget of $120,635.

“Glenn Converse made a counter proposal that the total shortfall be taken from (general) fund balance this year (from the minutes).”

Glenn Converse made a motion, seconded by Ronald Cabana, “to take the budget revenue shortfall from General Fund balances and make no cuts to the budget.  This motion carried 4-2:

Voting YES

Glenn Converse, Vice Chairman
Ronald Cabana
Richard Cass
George McCoy

Voting No

Dave Hosmer, Chairman
Russell Dowd

The final motion of the night was to approve or reject the 2009-10 Town Budget of $21,066,099.

Again this motion carried 4-2:

Voting YES

Glenn Converse, Vice Chairman
Ronald Cabana
Richards Cass
George McCoy

Voting No

Dave Hosmer, Chaiman
Russell Dowd

Word has it that at the Board of Finance meeting held this week, there has been an attempt to amend the Board of Finance’s approval of the Town budget. A reversal of the previously approved budget was proposed and voted on to demand a further cut of approximately $120,000 from the total Town budget for 2009-10 (Dave Hosmer’s proposal at the April 14^th meeting).

Since the BOF was in full attendance and voted to approve the 2009-10 budget on April 14th, a reversal of this action could only have occurred in the absence of voting members and/or a change in vote from YES to NO. Who made this motion, who was absent, and/or who changed their vote. Furthermore, was this change ‘legal’?

At the BOF meeting on April 28th, Glen Converse was late and was replaced by alternate Tim Young. Beth Murphy was present this time and claimed that she did not know about the short fall. Dave Hosmer re-stated his original proposal and a vote was taken.

Voting No (to Hosmer’s motion)

Dave Hosmer, Chairman
Russell Dowd
Tim Young
Beth Murphy

During last budget season (as you know) the economy was pretty tight and many towns cut their education budgets. Woodstock was one of those towns that made such a cut at the 11th hour.

A few months later last September (or thereabout) the state of CT looked around and saw all of the reduced town education budgets and the state didn’t have the money to make up for it. I don’t know exactly what they were thinking but I’d like to believe that they thought all the cuts to education spending weren’t a good thing. So they told the towns whose education budgets for this school year are lower than they were last school year (that would be us) that if they didn’t put that money back into the budget they would cut the state educational matching funds at a ratio of 2:1 of the amount lower. Since Woodstock was $90K lower this school year than the prior school year’s budget, the state was threatening to claw back $180K.

Interestingly enough when we were putting together this school year’s budget last spring we were told by the BoF to come in with a 0% increase. That is exactly what we did and if it was left at that there would have been no problem. Unfortunately at the 11th hour at a BoF meeting one of the regular members was a few minutes late and his seat was filled with an alternate. The BoF members then decided to cut the education budget lower than the 0% increase they had asked for and that was what was sent to the voters, thus setting up this scenario. Read the rest of this entry »

An Essay by A Student

Here in the Woodstock area, students generally get to school one of two ways: driving a car or riding in a school bus. Both offer benefits of motor vehicles in general. Car drivers benefit from independence and lack of rules. Bus riders benefit from economics, safety, socialization, and comfort. While both vehicles are similar in a few ways, they have significant differences as well, but the bus prevails.

School buses and cars are both motor vehicles. They enable you to get to your destination many times faster than if you were to walk or ride a bicycle. Each is a shelter from the outdoor elements (plus insects and other pests) and has climate control for greater comfort. In addition to protection from the weather, buses and cars protect their passengers from other people such as murderers, kidnappers, pickpockets, etc.

The similarities stop here, however. There are several benefits to driving a car that are not found in buses. For example, someone who drives a car gets to be alone, does not put their trust in another driver, can listen to their own music (at whatever volume they want to), and is not exposed to germs from other passengers. Additionally, students who drive to school can arrive at and leave school any time they want to. While the earliest school bus arrives at around 7:00 in the morning, those who drive can wait right up until the first bell at 7:35 to arrive. If a student has a study hall first or last block, they might be able to arrive late or leave early, accordingly. Drivers can put anything they want to in cars, such as large projects and sport bags, while objects carried on the bus must fit in the passenger’s lap or they become a safety hazard. This brings me to rules; school buses have many, many rules that must be obeyed, such as no eating, no drinking, no talking loudly, needing to sit in certain seats, and more, while there are almost no rules inside a car.

While riding in a car has many conveniences, riding in a school bus is much safer. There have been a total of 407,000 fatal traffic incidents in the United States since 1990 (onlinelawyersource.com). 0.38% of these fatalities involved school buses. Only 9% of this 0.38%, or 130, fatalities were of passengers inside of a bus. This translates to just seven fatalities of school bus passengers per year. While processing these statistics, also realize that, being “the biggest type of mass transit in the United States,” school buses carry passengers on twice as many trips as transit buses do (onlinelawyersource.com). On the other hand, in 2008, about 3,500 teenagers from age 15-19 were killed in motor vehicle accidents (cdc.gov); that’s 500 times the fatalities compared to bus passengers! Another 350,000 teens received emergency medical treatment due to motor vehicle accidents. Furthermore, school bus drivers are required to have a commercial driver’s license (CDL) with passenger, school bus, and air brake endorsements (bls.gov). School buses are rigorously inspected at least once annually and put out of service if major problems are found. Read the rest of this entry »

There was discussion in last night’s BoF meeting about reducing the BoE budget. After a fair amount of back and forth it became obvious that there were at least four BoF members who were in favor of keeping the budgets as they are and to send them to the voters to let them decide. That is what they decided to do; even the people who were arguing to cut the budget voted to send it to the voters as is in the end.

There was also an interesting discussion on actually implementing the long ignored capital plan with some side discussion on the difficulty in getting people involved and behind the capital expenditures. I hope the BoF decides to spend more time with this and not let bad experiences of the past deter them from moving forward in the future with the capital plan. Funding capital expenditures out of our operational budgets (town and school) is a terrible idea.

I would also like to say that there is an important town meeting tonight at town hall (7PM). The state of CT let Woodstock know that we could not reduce the BoE budget last budget season. Unfortunately we (as a town) did by $90k. If we do not put that $90k back in the budget the state will penalize the town of Woodstock 2:1 in state funds. That is, if we don’t vote to put that $90k back in the budget tonight the state of CT will short the town $180k. If that happens we may very well end up having to go back to the town and collect that shortfall from the taxpayers (the town gets fewer services for their money and pays more). It would seem like a no brainer that we should pass this but I’ve been surprised before. I hope everyone can make it.

Thanks,

Kevin

This post represents my personal opinions and in no way should be considered an official act of the BoE or that I am speaking on behalf of the BoE in any way.

Sarah Hamby passed this article on to us published in the Norwich Bull on April 29th.

“Residents at a special town meeting (Preston) Thursday unanimously opposed outsourcing the school’s transportation, a cost-cutting move under consideration by the Board of Education. …’I think we need to stick with the bus drivers,’ resident Kathleen Rabon said. ‘I trust the bus drivers, I like the bus drivers, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable having somebody else drive (children) to school.’ ”

and from a previous article on April 28th

“ ‘What these private companies often do is they submit very low bid contracts, which forces them to come in and offer very low wages, and in order to be able to staff those positions for much lower wages, they hire much less qualified drivers,’ he said.”

Please let us know what happened in the BOF meeting.

from John

Why do we give these deadbeats any respect? Oh, I forgot… we don’t! Why don’t these people just get a real job so that the tax payers don’t have to put up with them and their costs. We should storm the BOF meeting tonight and demand that the school bus drivers be fired … every last one of them.

Never mind that they get up by 5AM to be at work at 6AM. Never mind that their pay is low and they receive no benefits – after all, six to seven hours of work a day is only part-time. Never mind the disrespect that they receive from their own employers … ‘hoity-toity, we are better that you are’. Never mind the challenges that they face every day on the road. Never mind that they have to refuel their buses on their own time (that’s why you see those dreaded yellow buses on weekends sometimes). These people are just second class workers and we wouldn’t employ them if the state did not mandate this.

We all know that it takes no education and no great intellect to drive a bus. And with the bad treatment the bus drivers receive, why do these scum of the earth persist. Let’s beat them back with a stick and maybe they will go away. Some, but not all, probably have no other options. So let’s relieve them from their miserable employment and do what Shultz and Powers have advocated for years. Let’s dump our school transportation system and go with Durham or some other service. Let’s pay out-of-towners to do this work. Afterall, wouldn’t that be cheeeaper? Then we wouldn’t have riff-raff interacting with our kids every morning and afternoon.

Yuk!

A little birdie has tweeted in my ear and let me know that there might be some interesting shenanigans at tomorrow’s BoF meeting. Some special interest groups are again agitating and attempting to pressure the BoF. I don’t know if any of you remember last year the BoF approved the BoE’s budget and then in the next meeting (after a swap of a slightly late BoF member’s seat with an alternate) it was cut instead of sending it to the voters.

I’m hearing scuttlebutt that this may be about to happen again. The BoE’s budget was approved by the BoF and again certain elements are pressuring the BoF to change that decision and send a reduced budget to the town for a vote. It seems that certain minority elements in town think that it is a lot easier to pressure four people on the BoF to get their way instead of letting the voting public have their say.

I know this is short notice and I don’t know if anyone will have a chance to read this. According to the town’s calendar the Board of Finance’s meeting is tomorrow at 7:30 PM in town hall room 1. I hope you can all make it to show your support for our budget and at least give the voter’s a chance to vote up or down.

Thanks,

Kevin

This post represents my personal opinions and in no way should be considered an official act of the BoE or that I am speaking on behalf of the BoE in any way.

from Tea Drinker

While the state of Ct. is experiencing an unprecedented fiscal shortfall, many hardworking people have lost their jobs and have seen the values of their houses plummet, and towns across the state continue to scrutinize their budgets, does anyone really think that the purchase of an obscure piece of land in a far corner of Woodstock is really necessary to “preserving the rural character” of Woodstock?

It’s not as if new homes are being built and the town is being scouraged by McMansions. So while the schools of Woodstock have taken great strides to cutting costs and services to students, the town apparently is not willing to bend.

A Special Town Meeting of the electors and citizens qualified to vote in town meetings of the Town of Woodstock, Connecticut, will be held on Wednesday, May 5, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. at the Woodstock Town Hall, 415 Route 169, Woodstock, Connecticut to consider the following:

“A resolution appropriating an amount not to exceed $100,000 from the Woodstock Agricultural Land Preservation and Land Acquisition Fund as the Town’s contribution toward the purchase price and associated costs of development rights to an approximately 41.4 acre parcel of land in the Town of Woodstock, Connecticut, currently owned by Martin L. and Catherine A. Nieski located on the westerly side of Barlow Cemetery Road.”

I bet the owners of the land are happy about this and I wonder if they had this land wrapped up in PA-490 all these years? Now they want the taxpayers to bail them out in the name of preserving open space! What a farce. What about the taxpayers? Who’s looking out for them?? Who’s going to buy their property when they want to sell it.

Tired of tax payer funded bailouts and frivolous spending while the schools get shortchanged?

Vote NO on the May 13 Referendum.