BOARD OF SELECTMEN
Meeting Minutes
Regular Meeting November 7, 2011
Town Office Building- Lower Level Conference Room 6:30 P.M.
First Selectman Mailhos called the meeting to order at 6:30 P.M. with the following in attendance: Selectmen Millix & Blessington Lynn Nicholls and residents. First Selectman Mailhos led the Pledge of Allegiance.
Approval of Minutes:
First Selectman Mailhos motioned to approve the minutes of October 17, 2011 as written.
Selectman Millix seconded the motion.
Vote: 2 Yes (Mailhos & Millix) 0 No. 1 Abstain (Blessington)
Selectman Blessington motioned to approve the minutes of October 26, 2011 with the following correction: at the vote to adjourn should read: Vote 2 Yes (Mailhos and Blessington) 0 No
First Sectman Mailhos seconded the motion.
Vote: 2 Yes (Mailhos & Blessington) 0 No. 1 Abstain (Millix)
Present to Speak:
No one.
Correspondence:
A list of correspondence was available at the meeting and in the Selectman’s office.
First Selectman Status Report
First Selectman Mailhos said she has not had time to work on the status report because she has been working out of the Emergency Operations Center all last week. She was able to report on the Town Office Building Water Connection: Construction has begun and will hopefully be wrapped up by the end of this week. There should be some money left over to scope out connecting the Willington Hill Fire house as a last phase in the project.
Public Works:
Lynn reported that the crews had their trucks on the road last Saturday around 1:00 PM from the nor-Easter. By 5:00 PM, many trees had fallen, causing several road closures. She said at one point, the crews were practically plowing downed trees and limbs. On Friday, November 4th, we received help from the Towns of Groton, Lebanon, Canterbury, Coventry and Hebron to come clean up debris.
Today we had help from Groton, Lebanon and East Lyme performing clean up on the roads. She also noted that the workers all came with their equipment and they do not expect to get reimbursed for their services; it all comes under the mutual aid agreement; unless FEMA reimburses them.
First Selectman Mailhos asked the status of Potter School Road. Lynn said she checked on the culvert but the water table is up again and has placed it on hold for a few days. The waste oil tank is on order for Public Works and the crews have had the new radios installed. Roadside clean up will continue.
New Business:
First Selectman Mailhos moved to re-appoint Richard Maloney as a regular member of the Willington Zoning Board of Appeals Board – effective December 31, 2011- expiring December 31, 2016.
Selectman Blessington seconded the motion.
Vote: 3 Yes (Mailhos, Millix & Blessington) 0 No.
First Selectman Mailhos moved to re-appoint Kathleen Demers as a regular member of the Willington Conservation Commission – effective December 1, 2011, expiring December 1, 2014.
Selectman Millix seconded the motion.
Vote: 3 Yes (Mailhos, Millix & Blessington) 0 No
First Selectman Mailhos moved to re-appoint Marilyn Schreiber as a regular member of the Willington Conservation Commission – effective December 1, 2011, expiring December 1, 2014
Selectman Blessington seconded the motion.
Vote: 3 Yes (Mailhos, Millix & Blessington) 0 No
First Selectman Mailhos moved to re-appoint Robert Shabot as a regular member of the Willington Conservation Commission – effective December 1, 2011, expiring December 1, 2014
Selectman Millix seconded the motion.
Vote: 3 Yes (Mailhos, Millix & Blessington) 0 No
First Selectman Mailhos moved to re-appoint Barry Wallett as a regular member of the Willington Solid Waste Advisory Commission – effective November 7, 2011, expiring November 7, 2014.
Selectman Blessington seconded the motion.
Vote: 3 Yes (Mailhos, Millix & Blessington) 0 No
First Selectman Mailhos moved to re-appoint Brian Campbell as a regular member of the Willington Solid Waste Advisory Commission – effective November 7, 2011, expiring November 7, 2014.
Selectman Millix seconded the motion.
Vote: 3 Yes (Mailhos, Millix & Blessington) 0 No
First Selectman Mailhos moved to re-appoint Peter Thompson as a regular member of the Willington Solid Waste Advisory Commission – effective November 7, 2011, expiring November 7, 2014
Selectman Blessington seconded the motion.
Vote: 3 Yes (Mailhos, Millix & Blessington) 0 No
First Selectman Mailhos referred to Mr. Thompson as the person who takes care of all the landscaping along Hancock road to Public Works and the Transfer Station. He was sad to see the devastation from the storm, but said he plans to have more daffodils in the spring. Lynn said he has been taking care of the grounds for 4 years or so. First Selectman Mailhos thanked him for all of the work he has done.
- Public Notice posting discussion
First Selectman Mailhos said we currently do not have a policy in place for our public notice system. We get a lot of requests to post information and sometimes are put in a situation where we need to double check if it is appropriate. She will work on a policy and present it at a future meeting.
First Selectman Mailhos reviewed the events of the past week. It started last Saturday when the snow began falling, trees were coming down, and power was lost. The EOC opened early Sunday at Fire Station #13, but they had lost power and phones, so they briefly moved the EOC to Willington Hill Fire Department. It was then determined the best interest for everyone was to move back to Willington #1 as Willington Hill did not have radios to communicate with the Public Works Crews or Homeland Security. By Sunday afternoon, preliminary damage assessment was complete and First Selectman Mailhos realized we were in a true state of emergency. The shelter was opened on Sunday at noon. She posted a notice on Facebook looking for volunteers for the shelter. Erika Wiecenski offered to be there and Kelly
Trueb also showed up and were there the entire week. First Selectman Mailhos thanked Erika and Kelly for all of their hard work and an amazing week. This was a lot worse than Irene, which was only two months ago.
Kelly Trueb ran a spreadsheet of people who came to the shelter to shower:
On Sunday, 35 people came to shower (once opened at noon).
By day two, 137
Day 3: 129
Day 4: 83
Day 5: 81
Day 6: 88
Day 7: 6 – and the shelter had closed at noon that day to prepare for school.
Erika Wiecenski also added that the numbers only reflect one name; and entire families (sometimes up to 4 or more people) would utilize the showers at once, so the numbers were much greater than reflected. Also, many people waited up to two hours to get in to shower on days two and three.
Kelly then said that Wendy Knight is working on the data regarding the number of meals served. One of the days they counted 139 for dinner. She will report back once she gets the proper data.
One of the nights they had registered 32 overnight guests. The shelter also was equipped with a guard overnight for security. In addition, she and Erika brought meals and water to those who chose to stay home during the outages. They also checked on elderly and disabled to make sure they were OK daily.
First Selectman Mailhos added that Tara reported meals on wheels also delivered to their regular customers and reported serving 110 people and let her know that they were ok on a daily basis.
School was also cancelled for the entire week and we had a lot of volunteers at the shelter, and others who offered to cut trees and limbs on roadsides. CL&P will be getting back to us with some statistics, however there were a lot of situations where residents took care of clearing on their own, and were most likely not reported. There was so much damage; we may never know the real numbers.
First Selectman Mailhos also thanked the Cub Scouts, who helped set up and clean up at the shelter. The Boy Scouts also found two dog sleds that were left over from Storm Gloria back in the 80’s that were on stand by to transport those in the event of an emergency evacuation. Chris Deskus delivered one to each Fire Department. She added that thank goodness that we did not need to use them. She thanked Fire Departments, Kelly Trueb, Stuart Cobb our Emergency Management Coordinator and Lynn, who were there the whole time. None of them had power the whole time.
Lastly, we have a report that fewer than 200 houses are still without power and urged those who do not have power to call CL&P to make them aware. The number is 800-286-2000.
Selectman Blessington thanked First Selectman Mailhos and everyone who worked hard to pull everything together. It says a lot of good things about the Town of Willington.
Selectman Millix added that there is still a decent percentage of people without power. He said he feels for those folks.
Kelly Trueb added on a positive note that the people who were using the shelter as a place to sleep is back home with power. She took names and numbers of those who were relocated to Mansfield at the close of our shelter and was happy to report that she made the last phone call at 6:30 last night.
Stu Cobb said FEMA will be in Town tomorrow or Wednesday to pre-assess the damage and make a declaration for public assistance cost incurred during the emergency process. They have not yet declared any individual assistance as of yet. Many times individual assistance involves low or no interest loans based on structural damage. First Selectman Mailhos noted that we need to track the generator at Hall School. Lynn said she has all of the data. First Selectman Mailhos reflected back a few years ago, when she was on the Board of Education and discussion was held on getting the generator, and she could not even imagine a scenario of when we would need the generator to operate an emergency shelter. The Townspeople handled the situation well and even though we are not totally out of the woods, she thanked them
for their patience in getting through this.
Good & Welfare:
Lynn thanked whoever went to her house to clean up the branches in her yard on Sunday. She does not know who it was but it was so helpful, as she has not been home much the past week. First Selectman Mailhos said this is an example of what makes our little Town so great.
Selectman Blessington reminded everyone tomorrow is Election Day – please remember to come out to vote.
Robin Campbell noted that Alyssa’s Coat Closet was rescheduled to November 18th and 19th, due to the power outages. It will be held at the Old Town Hall.
Erika Wiecenski added that the BSA Food Drive has been pushed back a week. Bag drop off will be Saturday, November 12th and pick up will be Saturday, November 19th. Those who visited the shelter asked what they could do to help, and she is relaying the message to please be as generous as you can to the food shelter as we have many more families in need this year.
First Selectman Mailhos said on Wednesday, we had to use one of the bulky containers for overflow from trash because the trash compactor was down, due to lack of power. It should be back to normal this week now that they have power.
She thanked Mr. and Mrs. Wiecenski for volunteering at the shelter and Superintendent Harding for being heavily involved in the shelter operation. He made his custodial and cafeteria staff available every day and into the night. They were huge resources for all of us. There were so many people to thank and she knows she cannot mention everyone personally here.
Lastly, she said, this Board has only one more meeting.
Selectman Millix moved to adjourn the meeting at 7:09 P.M.
First Selectman Mailhos seconded the motion.
Vote: 3 Yes (Mailhos, Millix & Blessington) 0 No.
Respectfully submitted,
Robin Cambpell
Administrative Assistant
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