Selectman’s Corner

By Matt Riiska

It seems like things should slow down in the summer, but unfortunately, they do not.

The Friday Nights on the Green have been a great success. Thanks to Jenna Brown, the Norfolk Foundation and all the volunteers and performers for making this a great event throughout the summer. WIN Weekend was another fun-filled and interesting weekend. With the opening of the renovated Robertson Plaza and City Meadow deck system, we now have another place to gather to listen to music or just relax and enjoy the beautiful views. One more destination that is a must is the newly opened Connecticut-Asia Cultural Center. If you have not had the chance to go through the center, I highly recommend it. Check out their website site at ctasiaculture.com.

On July 26 the solar installation at the transfer station site was approved at a special town meeting. There is little else we can do with the land, which is deemed a brown field by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection because of its former use as a landfill, and the $40,000 we will receive each year, plus interest, will certainly help Norfolk financially. In addition to the revenue for the town, Norfolk residents can also benefit from Eversource’s  Shared Clean Energy Facility (SCEF) program. I encourage residents to go to the Eversource website for further information. 

The Foundation for Norfolk Living has been approved for a Community Development Block Grant through the state Department of Housing for land acquisition and site development work. Property acquisition will take place soon, and the processing of paperwork for the bidding process for the site development is underway, with bids due in October. As with the solar installation at the transfer station, the Haystack Woods Development will bring in much needed revenue for the town.

As you will read in another article is this issue, Infinity Hall will have new ownership in the future. Tyler Grill and Dave Rosenfeld of GoodWorks Entertainment, the owners of Infinity Hall, approached the town to ask whether the town was interested in taking over the iconic venue. As you could imagine, our first reaction was, Wow, what an opportunity, and the second reaction was, Now what are we going to do? The intent of GoodWorks is to turn the building, including the restaurant, over to the town but to continue to work with us to help in booking acts.

To be clear, the town would not own Infinity Hall; for legal and insurance reasons, it would be operated by a 501(c)(3). The intent is to preserve the building while offering Norfolk a venue for music, theater, movies, lectures and other cultural events. This would be a nonprofit operation, and as we do with other nonprofit operations in town, we would work out an arrangement where there would a payment in lieu of taxes. There are still many moving parts to work out, but this is a great opportunity to preserve this historic theater.

There are still a lot of activities planned for the remaining weeks of summer and into the fall. Check out the norfolkct.org website or the email blast from the Hub and participate in or even help out at one of the activities.

Take care and stay healthy.