By Ruth Melville

Susan MacEachron, chair of the town Retirement Plan Committee, attended the first part of the Jan. 10 special meeting of the Board of Selectmen (BoS) by phone to present the committee’s recommendations on the town’s pension plan. The BoS then voted (1) to terminate the defined benefit (DB) plan, (2) to offer lump sum payout to two remaining employees in the DB plan, (3) to move current investments from their current allocation of 40 percent equities and 60 percent fixed income to 100 percent cash and fixed income securities, and (4) to approve hiring Michael Morgenroth of Edgewater Advisors to find a firm to provide an annuity contract to maintain payments to remaining participants. (For a fuller explanation of the changes to the benefit plan, see the article on p. xx.)

Michael Halloran attended the meeting to discuss what will happen when he retires as zoning enforcement officer on Feb. 1. Previous to his tenure, the Planning and Zoning Commission employed both a ZEO and a part-time secretary. Since he’s held the office, Halloran has done both jobs, but he thinks that in future the position should be split again. First Selectman Matt Riiska has asked the Northwest Hills Council of Governments for help in finding a replacement ZEO.

Discussing ongoing projects in his Selectman’s Report, Riiska said that engineering work is continuing on the Mountain Road Bridge. The state and federal government will pay 100 percent of the cost.

Riiska expects that work on the Smith Road Bridge in South Norfolk will begin in spring 2025. Work on the Route 44 wall should begin this spring and will go on for three years. This will be a big and disruptive project. Telephone poles, power lines, sewer lines and water lines will have to be moved, and traffic on Route 44 will be down to one lane.

Aquarion is redoing the water main on Shepard Road from the five corners up to Laurel Way.

The Torrington Area Health District will be informing the four families on Route 44 affected by the fuel spill that the air quality in their houses meets Department of Public Health standards and they can move back into their homes.