Good things are happening in February! Colchester began the month with a letter announcing that we’ve received a 2009 CIRMA Risk Management Achievement Award for Outstanding Commitment and Results from Safety & Health Committees. The award was given for the successful efforts of the town’s Safety Committee to encourage and enhance the safety culture with town employees though its innovative monthly newsletters and ongoing safety and wellness program contests. The Town’s Safety Committee is made up of representatives from every department
with a goal to ensuring a safe workplace and helping to keep Colchester’s work force healthy. Chaired by Highway Supervisor Kevin Kelly for many years and more recently by Parks & Recreation’s Anita Miazga, the committee has done an outstanding job at identifying areas of focus to meet the goal. Congratulations to all of them!
You know first-hand about the challenges we are all facing in the current economy. I’ve written several times about some of the issues that we’re going to have to face together as we work through the budget process and how important it is that we hear from you before we get to the public meetings. Much thanks to our Board of Finance Chair Bruce Hayn and Vice-Chair Ron Goldstein for envisioning and working with the Board of Education and Board of Selectmen to put together a community forum at 6:30 p.m., February 18th at Bacon Academy. The purpose? To provide you with an opportunity to tell your elected officials what is and is not important to you and to share any specific thoughts and ideas you have . We know that painful decisions have been made and there are more coming as
we continue through the budget process. This is your budget and your Town. Help us understand what services are important to you and where you believe we can make cuts. Through our collective knowledge and efforts, we will get through this as only Colchester can.
Watch our website and the local paper for more information about specific dates for budget work. As an overview, the Town and Board of Education are due to present our budgets to the Board of Finance in early March. At that point, the Board of Finance will meet with each department head, Maggie Cosgrove, our CFO, and me to review that department’s budget. The Board of Finance will then provide direction as to where they want the Town and Board of Education’s budgets to be, changes will be made as needed, and ultimately the budgets will move forward to public meetings in the last half of April, with the referendum to be held in early May.
As we work through this together, I encourage everyone to think about what “community” means to you. While you personally many not use the library, is it important to you to live in a community that has one? Your children may be grown or you may have none, but is Youth Services working with youth to help them develop life skills important to the community? Are you willing to trade road improvements for maintenance at the parks? Or, the other side – trade maintenance at the parks for road improvements?
Let’s have these discussions and more. I look forward to seeing you on the 18th or at a coffee. As always, if you have a group of individuals in your community or group that would like to sponsor a coffee to discuss issues of importance to you, please call my office at 537-7220 to schedule.
Previous Selectman Notes can be viewed at
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