WINSTED — According to town Finance Director Henry Centrella, the town has approximately $300,000 left in the general fund balance portion of its 2010-11 fiscal year budget.The 2010-11 fiscal year is set to end on June 30.Centrella said that the figure is an estimate and the town will have a better estimate on the figure when the fiscal year ends.“We still have a month-and-a-half to go,” Centrella said. “As of right now, the town has not run out of money.”Mayor Candy Perez said it might be possible for the Board of Selectmen to find budgetary savings of up to $200,000, if necessary, and put the savings into the fund balance of the budget.“I’ve been worried about [the fund balance] for a long time,” Perez said. “The interesting thing is that in fiscal 2007 we had $1.7 million, but it’s been going down ever since.”Speaking at a special Board of Selectmen’s meeting on Wednesday, May 11, Selectman Glenn Albanesius said he is also worried.“This town is a couple hundred thousand dollars away from going out of business, and that’s reality,” he said. “This town is almost bankrupt. The fact of the matter is that we have to make decisions to keep the town afloat.”In December, Moody’s Investor Service downgraded the town’s general obligation bond rating from Aa3 to A1. A general obligation bond is a type of bond secured by either state or local governments that acts as a pledge to use resources to repay bond holders. Moody’s Investors Service, which was founded in 1909, is a national credit rating agency that conducts financial research and analysis on commercial and government entities. According to the report issued by Moody’s, a major factor in downgrading the town’s rating is due to the decline of the general fund balance.At the end of fiscal 2009, the town ended with a total general fund balance of $991,000, down from $1.63 million in fiscal 2007. Back in December, Moody’s projected that fiscal 2010 would see a further decline in the balance to $686,898, representing a 30.1 percent decline from fiscal 2009. “Operating deficits have been driven primarily by unfavorable budget to actual variances caused by overspending on education, employee salaries and public safety,” the report states. “The town did not budget to appropriate any fund balance in 2011, but management indicated that continued overspending on education is likely, which could require the use of reserves.”
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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