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Showing posts from December, 2023

Town faces lawsuit after DPW worker killed in North Main Street crash

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  North Main Street at Enfield Town Hall As some people noticed, Enfield got behind in its mowing schedule, in part, because of town employee lawn maintenance training. This training follows a crash in Sept. 2025 between a town lawnmower and a car on North Main Street at the town hall. A Department of Public Works employee operating the mower was killed. The town is being sued by the estate of Jamie Nickerson, the town employee. The plaintiff is his wife, Amy Nickerson. The lawsuit, filed in Hartford Superior Court, also names the vehicle driver, Alexander Torres. The lawsuit alleges the town was not following safety policies for regulating traffic around a worksite or meeting safety standards. It seeks unspecified monetary damages. Police have not released the accident report, citing an ongoing investigation. The lawsuit states the mower was being operated on the roadway during grass cutting and clean-up operations when the crash occurred. The lawsuit argues the town failed to fo...
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PZC approves 70-unit housing development in Thompsonville

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  Screen shot from PZC meeting. Site plan of Impact Residential project. Despite parking concerns, the Planning and Zoning Commission approved a 70-unit housing development on the former Strand Theater site. The Commission voted 5-2 Thursday. The action allows Impact Residential to proceed with its project, which includes 56 units of affordable housing. The project met opposition due to fears of increased on-street parking, with opponents including Mayor Ken Nelson. At its Dec. 4 meeting, the Council rejected a grant application that would have assisted developer Impact Residential. Nelson suggested allocating the grant to a "parking structure" instead. "We have to address the parking, which is already a problem, and we just can't make it worse," Nelson said at the earlier meeting. But at Thursday's meeting, PZC Chair Lewis Fiore, highlighting the area's designation as a Transit Oriented District (TOD), argued that rejecting the project would undermine t...
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Rebuilding Thompsonville will take housing and new ideas

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We're on the cusp of doing something extraordinary with Thompsonville, but we're also steps away from making some bad decisions.  Thompsonville needs help. It has a high percentage of absentee owner buildings. When I graduated from Enfield High School in 1972, some properties that were in bad shape then are still in bad shape. Thompsonville needs investment and housing conversions to condos. We need more owner-occupied. The train station and improved bus transit will help a lot.  The town has already invested considerable effort in revitalizing Thompsonville.  Higgins Park, and their busy schedule of seasonal events, may become a traffic generator for new retail in Thompsonville. The Freshwater Pond improvements are stunning. I walk my dog weekly in the area, and she loves it, and so do I. It's beautiful.  However, these efforts to transform Thompsonville into one of the city's most attractive neighborhoods and an investment hub could easily unravel. Achieving a posi...
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