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Showing posts from January, 2024

25% of Budget, 5 Minutes of Questions: What are the Council Republicans up to?

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  Enfield Town Council budget workshop The Town Council is currently preparing the 2026 budget. Department heads present their proposals at public workshops where council members usually ask detailed questions. However, something notable occurred during this week's Department of Public Works (DPW) budget presentation. Despite DPW accounting for nearly 25% of the town's non-education spending, the questioning lasted less than five minutes, with only a few basic inquiries from Republican council members. The Democrats, as the minority party with limited influence on the budget, remained silent. [YouTube video: Q&A starts at about 1:31. The DPW presentation begins at about 1:16) There were no substantial questions or debate during the presentation itself, and nothing raised about the pending outsourcing study—despite its direct relevance to the DPW budget. This limited discussion raises legitimate questions, particularly as the Council is actively exploring outsourcing trash ...

Enfield Town Council's unprofessional action

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  Enfield's Town Council is apparently trying to kill a 70-unit housing project in Thompsonville that the Planning and Zoning Commission approved. The Council's behavior has been egregious and unprofessional in pursuit of that goal. It's doing this in secret and risking a lawsuit for murky reasons. Impact Residential Development recently received PZC approval for this project in a 5-2 vote. It was a remarkable and courageous moment for the commission. But the Town Council Republicans want to block it. They are designing in executive session a way to oppose it. They did not let the developer know of their plan until the last minute. Here's the background The developers plan to build this housing on and near the former Strand Theater site, land which the town had acquired. It combines primarily affordable housing and market-rate units with 70 parking spaces. It faced opposition over concerns about on-street parking. The idea is that since this is a transit-oriented develo...