Delaney defends FOMS

WINSTED — The president of the Friends of Main Street organization has issued a letter to Mayor Maryann Welcome regarding the role of the organization, in light of recent criticisms from an outspoken member of the community.Fran Delaney, president of the nonprofit community organization, said in a July 24 letter to Welcome that “incorrect and misleading information” has been spread about Friends of Main Street and its relationship with the town’s Economic Development Commission (EDC). Delaney was responding specifically to a July 17 email from resident Stephen Kosinski, an outspoken critic of the town who has claimed that Friends of Main Street is overfunded, to the detriment of the EDC. Kosinski claims that, because Friends of Main Street is a nonprofit organization “outside” town government, it is illegal for the town to give the organization more funding than it gives to the EDC.“The recently passed town budget funds the town EDC at $5,700 and FOMS is funded at $11,250,” Kosinski wrote. This disparity in funding is most disturbing as EDC is the primary entity and reigns supreme, “by law,” charged with seeking, encouraging, and supporting businesses to relocate or set up new within the town of Winchester.”Kosinksi went on to say that Friends of Main Street “should have been weaned off the taxpayer’s dollars a long, long time ago” and that “like a drug addict, FOMS has become dependent on annual infusion of Winchester taxpayer’s monies.”Delaney responded by mentioning many projects that are undertaken by Friends of Main Street each year, including Earth Day cleanups, clearing the Mad River, summer concerts in East End Park, mulching and maintaining medians on Main Street, providing and maintaining hanging plants on Main Street, window-painting activities for children, the Fall Foliage Festival, Christmas on Main Street and local ribbon cutting ceremonies for new businesses. Some of these projects were formerly handled by town departments.“‘Friends have also acted as the facilitator for assisting local businesses to file the paperwork and attain State of Connecticut Façade grants and Business Energy Efficiency Program grants,” Delaney added. The return on investment is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, he noted.“The related question is if funding from the town is obligatory,” Delaney wrote. “This question has been raised in the past.” Delaney quoted a letter from John Simone of the Connecticut Main Street Center to then Town Manager Steve Angelo in 2004, in which Simone notes that funding for Main Street groups like Friends of Main Street must be provided for the first four years of the group’s existence, and that the town “is expected to continue to support the program on an ongoing basis.”“Frankly, why would the town not want to continue funding an organization that provides as much of a return on that investment as Friends of Main Street provides?” Delaney asked. “As to the relation with the Economic Development Commission, Friends acts in a complementary fashion so that there is no replication or overlap in activities and duties,” Delaney wrote, adding that EDC Chairman Dick Labich is also an active member of Friends of Main Street. Members attend EDC meetings to ensure both organizations work in concert, Delaney noted.Delaney provided Mayor Welcome with a document that shows the return on investment in Friends of Main Street calculated to be approximately $75,000 in 2010, with total public and private reinvestment in the downtown area totaling more than $500,000 since FOMS was incorporated in 2001.“We trust that the information provided assuages any concerns that have been raised,” Delaney wrote, “and that the town will continue to value the work of both the Friends of Main Street and the EDC toward the betterment of the downtown and community as a whole.”