Adjustments made to plans for state grant

SALISBURY — Voters unanimously approved a new five-year spending plan for state funds at a quick town meeting Wednesday, Dec. 12.The Local Capital Improvement Program (LOCIP) provides funds to towns and cities to reimburse the cost of local capital improvement projects such as road, bridge or public building construction or repairs.Salisbury gets about $45,000 per year. A handout from the Board of Selectmen notes that the town in recent years has amassed unused funds in order to finance large projects such as the Lakeville sidewalks.LOCIP projects must be included in a five-year plan that is approved at town meeting. The five-year plans can be modified, with town meeting approval.Rand said on Monday, Dec. 17, that typically the fourth and fifth years of a LOCIP plan get changed as priorities shift. In 2011, the town approved a LOCIP plan for the years 2011-2016, with priorities including repairs at Town Hall and a ball field expansion.Rand said the priorities shifted and required drafting a new LOCIP plan (covering the years 2013-2017) when it became apparent that the ventilation system at the new firehouse, while up to code, was not adequate for handling diesel fumes.And Rand said that representatives from Connecticut Light & Power, looking at the work underway on Academy Street, concluded that it would be less expensive and simpler to bury the utility lines than to refit telephone poles.The revised LOCIP plan also includes lighting at the crosswalk across Main Street in Salisbury village (see photo above) and at Bicentennial Park in Lakeville.Those are the 2013 projects. In 2014, the plan calls for a bridge repair on Mount Riga; in 2015, another bridge on the mountain will be repaired. Work on cemeteries and guardrails and sheds at the town garage are also on the long-term schedule. Rand said the annual $45,000 grant from the state is “intact as far as I know.”“I’d think that would be one of the last things they’d cut,” he said, referring to the state Legislature. “A lot of towns depend on this.”