Governor calls town a well-kept secret

Text by Ruth Melville
Photo by Jon Riedeman

“This is the coolest place in the world,” said Governor Ned Lamont as he walked through the front door of Infinity Hall on Oct. 15. Having visited Torrington earlier in the day, the governor, accompanied by State Representative Maria Horn, had stopped in Norfolk for a brief tour of the downtown.

He started with a visit to Infinity Hall, where he was greeted by owners Dave Rosenfeld and Tyler Grill. Chatting with the governor as he was escorted through the building, Horn and First Selectman Matt Riiska brought up a few of the major issues affecting the economic vitality of the town: the challenges of school financing in a small town with a dwindling number of school-age children, the need for economic development and the value added by beautification projects like City Meadow.

Lamont admired the effort that has gone into creating Infinity Hall and took the time to sit down at the piano on stage and play a few chords. The music hall’s owners told the governor that they are fully invested in Norfolk and praised the town’s beauty and the variety of cultural activities. Horn mentioned the importance of the arts for regional development and the need for towns to work together.“Tourism, culture and the art economy are huge here,” she said. Lamont agreed, saying that Norfolk was “a well-kept secret.”

After a brief stop to check out the Berkshire Country Store, Lamont moved on to the Hub, where representatives of a range of town organizations—including the Foundation for Norfolk Living, Botelle School, Great Mountain Forest, the Planning and Zoning Commission—were waiting, hoping to grab a few minutes of conversation with the governor.

Kim Maxwell, of Northwest Connect, pressed the case for bringing a fiber optic network to town. The governor pointed out that Connecticut had passed a 5G bill, but Maxwell argued that just wasn’t good enough, fast enough, to meet Norfolk’s future needs and attract new residents to town.

Kate Johnson, president of the Foundation for Norfolk Living, showed Lamont a model for the proposed Haystack Woods affordable housing project on Old Colony Road. Johnson told him that a special feature of this development is that the single-family houses will all be “net zero” (i.e., the amount of energy consumed by a house will equal the amount of energy generated by its solar panels). She went on to say that the project had gotten through the local permitting process only to have state funding canceled, presumably for budgetary reasons.

On the issue of school funding, Adam Perlman explained to the governor how the state’s Education Cost Sharing formula, which determines how much money will be allotted to each town’s school budget, was unfair to Norfolk, causing it to receive much less money than similar towns. The governor seemed impressed by his argument and promised to look into the issue.

Finally, speaking up for the town’s natural resources, Great Mountain Forest’s new executive director Tamara Muruetagoiena showed the governor a map of GMF, the largest privately owned forest in the state. “Great Mountain Forest is the lungs of the Connecticut,” she said.