What a Year It Has Been

By Matt Riiska

To say that 2023 has been a long year is an understatement.

It is hard to believe that one year ago a tanker truck completely disrupted Norfolk, spilling 8,200 gallons of gasoline. After months of clean-up, we are still trying to take care of all the final areas of contamination. Although the roll-off containers and excavators have a reduced presence, the work of monitoring the 60-plus test wells will go on for the foreseeable future. Thank you all for your patience, especially those most affected. Dealing with the constant disruption is not easy.

Although the heavy snows in March and the heavy rains in July are almost forgotten, the clean up and repairs still go on. This repair work has been expensive, the July storms cost the Town $567,000. This does not include the time and materials expensed by our Public Works Department to get our roads back in shape for safe travel. As mentioned in previous articles there are no FEMA funds available. The two bridges in South Norfolk will be replaced through the Federal Local Bridge Program administered by Conn-DOT. This is very good news considering the replacement of the two bridges had an estimated replacement cost of $5.8 million. The downside of this is that the estimated completion date for the bridges is 2026. Note the word estimated. I have had many inquires about the bridges and the need for a temporary bridge at Smith Road. I have been in contact with an engineering company, public works supervisor from New Milford, and the first selectman in Scotland, Conn. to discuss their experience with temporary bridges. The estimated cost for a temporary bridge is $440,000. Although I have been looking for assistance with this, I have yet to locate a source. If a decision is made to move forward with this, there will be a Town Meeting to discuss and vote on this. 

Work on the budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024/25 has started. Our current fiscal year seemed to be the year of natural disasters. Going forward, our focus will be on fiscal conservancy. We have many needed but costly repairs to our infrastructure coming up. We neglected our roads, bridges, and town buildings for too long and now we are in the catch-up process. We are currently working on four bridges. Although we will be receiving significant federal and state funds for these projects, two, Mountain Road at Westside Road and the River Place bridge over the Blackberry River, will require us to pay a portion of their costs. Approved at our town meeting in May was the work on Maple unrelated to the gas spill, along with the installation of a new roof at the school. The Maple Avenue project will continue into 2024 and the new roof at the school will start at the end of the school year. We will start paying off these loans in the 2024/25 FY budget. Other than our continued road projects, which includes the cutting of many dead and dying trees along our roads, we spend about $100,000 per year on this, sidewalk renovations on Station Place, and other needed repair work. We are hoping we have no surprises. 

This brings us to the Route 44 wall project. Unfortunately, this is going to be a very disruptive project. Work on the wall will finally get started in the spring of 2024. After many discussions with Conn-DOT, the first order of business will be to move the electric utilities to the opposite side of Route 44 to service homes and businesses and then to move the three phase power lines to Old Colony Road. Once that is completed, water and sewer lines will be relocated and reconditioned as required. Once the preliminary work is completed the work on the new wall will start. During all this, the plan is to set Route 44 up with traffic signals for alternating traffic. I suggest you adjust your travel plans for your trips to Canaan and beyond. This is going to be a two-year project. 

Probably one of the largest projects that the town has taken on in many years is a new fire house. This long overdue project is going to absorb a lot of time and resources. We continue to look for sources of funding for this project. With the help of Representative Maria Horn, we have secured $2.5 million from the State of Connecticut. We are currently putting together our requests to our U.S. Senators Blumenthal and Muphy, as well as to Congresswoman Hayes. We will investigate every opportunity to assist us in funding this project. We also have a dedicated group working on a capital campaign. More on this in early 2024.

I realize everyone is busy, but our community needs everyone’s help in making it work. So, when you sit down to make your new year’s resolution, include community service. We still need your help. 

I wish you all happy holidays and a happy and a less eventful new year.

Take care and stay healthy.