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Torrington Blue Ribbon Commission
Minutes of Meeting
Friday, October 1, 2010
Torrington City Hall, 7 AM Office of the Mayor
Members Present: Ed Cook, Mike Clark, Ken Traub, Elinor Carbone, Doug O’Connell, Stephen Todd, Lorel Purcell, and Mayor Ryan Bingham. Also present: Stephen Nocera, Chris Leone, Danielle Batchelder,
- The meeting was opened at 7 AM on a motion by Mayor Bingham, seconded by Mr. Cook., and approved by the commission.
- Minutes of the Meeting of 9.3.10 were approved on a motion by Mr. O’Connell, seconded by Mr. Todd and approved by a majority of the members with one abstention by Mayor Bingham due to his absence from that meeting.
- Mr. O’Connell and Ms. Carbone updated the commissioners on the status of their review of contractual services to date. They stated that the task was not proceeding as efficiently as they wished due to the enormity of the variances contained among the several contracts under review. They suggested that a better approach might be for commission members to notify them of recommendations under consideration which would enable them to review the specific contractual agreements involved. It was agreed that each task group would follow that recommendation. Ms. Carbone stated that she had spent time working with the City Personnel Director, and would seek further information from him.
- Mr. Clark stated that his analysis of the comparison of Torrington elections costs versus Connecticut cities of comparable populations/voting districts was nearly complete. He stated that among the municipalities reviewed, Enfield stood out as having a considerably lower elections cost than Torrington, even though their population was nearly 30% greater than Torrington’s. It was noted that Enfield had recently gone through a budget review similar to the one being performed by the BRC. Enfield had combined their districts into fewer polling places, cut back on Elections Office expenses and significantly reduced the staff present at polling sites during elections. A program applied to Torrington’s election administration and polling places/districts and other expenses would result in a budget reduction of
nearly 50%. Mr. Clark stated that the suggested plan had been reviewed with the Registrars and he was awaiting their response and suggestions before formulating a detailed recommendation for the BRC’s review.
- Mr. Cook’s task group presented an update on the status of their review concerning the integration of 11 members of the BOE administration into the City Hall building. Mr. Cook stated that it would not be possible to provide a dedicated “wing” of City Hall for BOE use, however, he had found logical placement for all required personnel by integrating them with City Hall personnel departments performing similar tasks whenever feasible. The relocation would be done with little if any modification to the newly renovated City Hall. Mr. Cook stated that he would not be in favor of a plan to relocate BOE staff into City Hall if that plan did not provide for the use/disposition of the Migeon Avenue building. Mayor Bingham stated that he would direct the City Economic Development director to get involved
with the search for a use or buyer for the building. Mr. Clark stressed that the BRC was obligated to take into consideration the work going on in the City to eliminate and prevent blighted properties and agreed with Mr. Cook that he also would not support an initiative to relocate BOE into City Hall without a program to deal with the empty Migeon Avenue site.
- Ms. Purcell stated that the initial exploration into establishing a “Permitting Office” was somewhat stymied by a lack of adequate, accessible file space since all current offices have volumes of files. In addition, initial budget analysis did not show a significant cost reduction in combining various permitting offices into one place. She emphasized that permitting service to the public would be greatly improved by having “one stop” permitting. Ms. Purcell reminded the commission that the review is just beginning and that IT considerations had not yet been incorporated into the analysis and it was too early to speculate on a recommendation.
- Mr. Todd stated that his task group was not able to meet as yet due to member vacations.
- Mr. Clark stated that he was just beginning analysis concerning establishment of a City motor pool operation and would have more detail by October 29th.
- The meeting was adjourned at 8:15 AM on a motion from Mr. Cook, seconded by Mayor Bingham and approved by the commission.
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