Three Things

Cheshire Town Council Meeting - October 8, 2024

This is the first of our summary series following each Town Council meeting. Most of what we do at Council is fairly routine and not controversial. Nonetheless we are doing the ‘people’s business’ and voters should know more about what’s going on. Transparency, understanding and public input is important to our democracy and the best functioning of our town. For this series we’ll highlight and expound on ‘three things’ from the meeting. These will usually be the most important or notable debates and/or decisions made by the Council at the meeting. Our usual disclaimer is that this is more commentary and information not ‘news.’ We’re not reporters. We’re presenting our perspective and we’re also endeavoring to represent the objective truth but you’re always welcome to watch the meeting on YouTube Channel 14 for an unvarnished version. Follow this link Oct 8, 2024 Council Meeting to view the meeting.

Before diving in a little table-setting is in order.

• The Cheshire Town Council is elected every two years. The next election is November 2025.

• The Council consists of nine members. There are four District members and five At-Large members.

• The current Council has six Democrats (Chairperson Peter Talbot, Vice Chairperson Jim Jinks, Deena Allard, Patricia Cramer, Fiona Pearson and Greg Wolff) and three Republicans (John Milone, David Veleber, Don Walsh.)

• The Council meets regularly at Town Hall on the second Tuesday of each month. There’s also occasionally a second ‘special’ meeting and subcommittee meetings as needed.

• The Council is the primary legislative body for the town. But it’s perhaps easier to describe what the Council is not responsible for directly - primarily land use decisions (Planning & Zoning Commission) and the schools (Board of Education.)

If you're interested in the full agenda for the October 8th meeting it can be accessed on the town website. Click the link and then click on the Town Council Meeting button (see below) to access the .pdf of the agenda.

If you have any questions about the agenda or otherwise, please don’t hesitate to message us.

THREE THINGS

BARTLEM PARK UPDATE -The expanded portion of Bartlem Park (i.e. ‘Bartlem Park South’) is nearing completion with the exception of a few final items and one big one, the stage/bandshell. Long story short the park will be open to the public in a few more weeks. The bandshell will be completed at a later date this winter or early spring. For further details please see the following Town Manager’s summary from his report to the Council.

REQUESTS TO STATE LEGISLATORS - Every year the Council submits several requests to the town’s legislative delegation. These are generally items of particular interest to the town, the business community and/or residents. There are two asks related to the construction of the ‘North End’ School at Marion and Jarvis Rd. One is a ‘space standard waiver.’ The 50% State reimbursement of the town’s expenses for the construction of the North End School is only up to a certain amount of education space; a calculated amount of space the State deems as ‘standard’ for an elementary school. In our case, due to special education and early education programs, as things stand now a portion of the North End School will not be eligible for the 50% reimbursement rate. Therefore, we’re requesting a space waiver. This waiver is worth at least hundreds of thousands of dollars to Cheshire taxpayers. The second ask of our legislators is also related to school construction. We’re requesting that the North End School qualify for an additional 15% reimbursement. The 15% ‘bonus’ is for educational space for programs providing services to children from birth to five years old. The North End School, with Birth to Three services, should meet the spirit of the requirements to qualify for the 15% bonus. We’re hoping the legislature agrees.

Another notable request to our State legislative delegation is a loosening of the requirement that all public notices be in print. We don’t have a local weekly paper anymore and none of the regional daily papers have significant circulation in Cheshire. We’re requesting that town advertising and public notices be made available online only. This would save taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars per year and would likely result in an increase in the number of Cheshire residents actually seeing the town’s public notices.

For many years previous Council ‘s included an ask in their legislative requests for the State to increase or eliminate the ‘prevailing wage requirement’ on municipal renovation or reconstruction projects of $100k or more. Year after year they requested the legislature increase the threshold. In other words, the ask was for Cheshire to be able to accept bids from contractors that were paying their workers below a ‘living wage.’ But the legislature has never done anything to suggest they’ll increase the threshold. In fact, it’s clear the legislature has no intention of increasing this threshold in the near future either. The current Council majority felt it was prudent to drop the prevailing wage ask. Primarily what this does, in our opinion, is to focus our legislators on the requests that are likely to save Cheshire taxpayers money next year and beyond. We want to focus on savings now rather than keep asking for something that has never been taken up by the legislature. But to be clear and honest, the Democratic majority also has philosophical differences with the idea of raising the prevailing wage threshold all-together.

The following comments from Councilor Deena Allard more or less describe the Council majority’s position on prevailing wages. Deena states, ‘prevailing wage laws were established to protect workers. The prevailing wage rate is the average wage paid to similarly employed workers in a specific occupation for a given location. Prevailing wage laws apply to Federal and Municipal jobs. It requires contractors who wish to bid on government funded projects to pay their workers a livable wage in the area. There are many categories of labor workers for example - painters, electricians, bricklayers, HVAC, drywallers, and many more. To provide an example, with the prevailing wage laws that we have in place, the labor workers installing air conditioners in Cheshire’s school buildings would be entitled to the established average pay for similar HVAC workers in Connecticut.  The contractor trying to win the bid for the job, would not be allowed to hire cheaper labor just to present a more appealing bid. Those who oppose prevailing wage laws theorize that allowing contractors to hire “cheaper” labor will result in a smaller tax burden to the community.  But this is debatable.  In fact, studies indicate that there is not necessarily a significant cost savings to the project since the labor wage is a small percent relative to the expense of materials and equipment needed for a typical job. Additionally, there are many other benefits for communities with strong prevailing wage laws:

• Studies show that labor workers in states that have weak or nonexistent prevailing wage laws are more likely to fall below the poverty line and also more likely to rely on government assistant programs like SNAP.

• States with strong prevailing wages receive more income tax from labor workers than in states with weak or non-existing prevailing wages. 

• Connecticut’s prevailing wage laws protect CT workers. They prevent contractors from importing workers from other areas who might be willing to work for less. When CT construction workers earn a livable wage, the funds stay in our local economy. 

• When prevailing wage laws are in place, the work is often done by more skilled construction workers. This increases the productivity and quality of the job. 

As Cheshire town councilors, we are committed to fiscal responsibility.  When considering municipal building and renovation projects we look for the best value. Yes, we look for ways to save taxpayer dollars.  But we also know the importance of a fair pay for an honest day’s work. We are thankful to the skilled men and women who provide the often times hard labor when building our beautiful community, and we are committed to ensuring they receive a fair wage for their effort.’

STATE GRANT & SETTLEMENT FUNDS ACCEPTED - The town received a second round of grant funds from the state ($8375) to assist with the costs of the upcoming Presidential election. This year will be the first time we have fourteen days of early voting in Cheshire and everywhere in Connecticut. The additional state funds will go largely toward helping to pay for Cheshire residents that’ll be working the polls. All the details of early voting can be found on the Secretary of the State’s website and/or in the graphic below.

The town also received additional ‘National Opioids Settlement’ funds. Over the past several years Cheshire has received these funds from the settlement of various federal opioids lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies and drug retailers. To date we have received over $250,000 from these settlements. The funds are being used by our Human Services Department to help fund an additional substance abuse counselor and other substance abuse programming here in Cheshire.

The October 8th meeting agenda was relatively light. But we hope you found this initial ‘Three Things’ to be informative. Please leave a comment and help to guide us going forward. Also, if you’re not already, follow CheshireStack so you’ll get our posts and other content emailed directly to you as soon as it’s available.