George H. Wheeler
Latest News
Former private school employee avoids prison for computer crimes
Alec Linden
Jul 08, 2026
WATERBURY – A former Kent School employee convicted of accessing the private photos of 81 students and staff while working as an IT technician will avoid jail time after being sentenced on June 29.
The outcome was already determined in March when Daniel Clery, 49, of Brookfield, Connecticut entered into a plea deal when he pleaded no contest to two counts of first degree computer crimes, for which he was found guilty. While the deal was already established, Clery was formally sentenced at state Superior Court on June 29.
Under the terms of the agreement, Clery will face a 10-year suspended prison sentence that places him on probation for five years and requires him to register as a sex offender for 10 years.
Clery worked for the private school from 2000 to 2023, when he was fired after a staff member reported twice that he had accessed her personal information. A forensic report commissioned by the school and a police investigation yielded thousands of images taken from students’ and staff’s devices, and he was subsequently arrested in 2024.
A separate class-action lawsuit was allowed to partially proceed in March after a judge found the Kent School may be held liable for negligence in allowing for the data breach to occur. The court denied other aspects of the suit that claimed invasion of privacy, computer crimes and negligent infliction of emotional distress against the school.
The plaintiffs, represented by 17 female students who were minors during Clery’s employment at the school, filed an amended suit in April alleging the school should be held accountable for negligence, invasion of privacy, computer privacy violations, statutory computer privacy violations, recklessness and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
The School responded in May with a motion to strike all but the claims of negligence and negligent infliction of emotional distress. The dispute is currently under legal review. The next deadline is July 15, when the plaintiffs are due to respond to the school’s motion.
At the same time, the two sides dispute whether the class named in the suit should be all Kent School students enrolled between 2017 and Clery’s termination in 2023 or the 70 students identified as victims of the Kent School’s commissioned investigation.
Jennifer Sclar of Silver, Golub & Teitell LLP, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said that the school’s investigation likely does not represent the full scope of those affected by Clery’s crimes. “There is no reason to believe that the universe of victims is limited to the 70 [students] plus 11 [staff],” she said.
“We believe that the notice should go to all students because all students could be victims.”
Keep ReadingShow less
Sharon Audubon Center Director retires
Alec Linden
Jul 08, 2026
Eileen Fielding, who retired from the Sharon Audubon Center after eight years as director, poses with Paloma the white dove. Boomer, the mourning dove in the enclosure behind, looks on.
Alec Linden
SHARON – After eight years at the helm of the Sharon Audubon Center, Eileen Fielding retired from her role as Executive Director on Thursday, July 2.
“It was time,” she said from behind her desk in the 1925 converted residence on a rainy day in late June, but she said that the role has been the perfect culmination of a long career in conservation.
“I mean, how many people get the opportunity to run something that was their happy place when they were 20 years old?”
Fielding took the position in 2018. For many years before that, since 2009, she had volunteered as a wildlife rehabilitator and caregiver for the resident raptors at the Sharon Center while she maintained a role as director of the Farmington River Watershed Association. Eventually, she was invited to join the Board of Directors, from where she eventually was tapped for the director’s role.
Fielding’s exposure to the Sharon Audubon Center began much earlier, though, when she visited the facility for its festivals as a student and early career naturalist. Even before that, she was volunteering at an Audubon Center in Massachusetts at 13-years-old.
“That was the transformative experience,” she said, in directing her career goals as a young person. “There were mentors there that were happy to give me a good grounding in natural history,” she said, “and it put me in touch with other young people that had similar interests to mine and really set the course for what I chose to study in college.”
She went on to have a long and varied career in the conservation and environmental science sphere, directing a wildlife sanctuary in Indiana and multiple watershed protection organizations in upstate New York and Connecticut among other roles. She also gained a doctorate degree in ecology and served as an adjunct professor at several higher education institutions.
Closing out her career at Audubon made sense, Fielding said. “As much as it was meaningful to look after rivers and watersheds, my first love was always birds and mammals.”
Fielding said her time with Audubon was especially rewarding as it’s the only major conservation organization in the U.S. with local chapters that provide community-focused conservation resources and programming. “And it wants to make the most of that asset,” she said.
“As a center director,” she said, “I have tried to make that work for the benefit of the community, as in bringing the resources of National Audubon to the community level.”
One of the highlights of her career at the Center was the installation of a Motus Tower several years ago, which is a research tool that tracks tagged birds as they migrate seasonally. She especially loved that the tower provides an interactive tool, free and open to the public, for both laypeople and experts to track bird movements. It also links the Center to other Motus Towers across the world where similar conservation is being conducted.
She pointed to a recent Sharon Audubon Center-supported project where students at North Canaan Elementary School and a school in Colombia connected over Motus Towers in each location pinging the same bird species.
“That’s broadening the horizons of the kids,” she said, “as well as getting the conservation message out. So that’s what I mean by taking bird conservation as practiced by Audubon and turning it into a benefit for the community.”
Fielding said the Center’s rehabilitation programs also forge a vital community connection. “People will bring us birds in distress,” she said, “and it becomes a wonderful opportunity to build a connection with that person about how to make the world a better place for birds, starting with your own front yard – or chimney,” she said, referring to the Center’s highly successful chimney swift rehabilitation program, which has become the “clearing house” for the acrobatic species.
Reflecting on why she devoted eight years, day and night, to bird conservation, Fielding offered a quote from famed ecologist Tom Lovejoy: “If you take care of birds, you take care of most of the big problems of the world.”
Fielding said she’ll miss working with her team at the Center, but that it remains in good hands with her departure, where she intends to stay involved with the Northwest Corner conservation sphere. “One of the hardest things to walk away from is the people you get to work with,” she said.
As the center searches for a replacement, Fielding said her role will be filled in by other directors and operations officers from Audubon’s Connecticut and New York district. She assured the team is well poised to succeed as the Center expands and faces many exciting projects, including a major renovation of the campus on Cornwall Bridge Road.
“The folks here are all veterans,” she said with a smile. “There will be days that people haven’t even noticed I’m gone.”
Keep ReadingShow less
Sharon Audubon Center eyes major redesign
Alec Linden
Jul 08, 2026
Renderings from Wisconsin-based firm The Kubala Washatko Architects show an entirely redesigned Sharon Audubon Center, built with environmental consciousness and community engagement in mind.
Provided
SHARON – After operating for 65 years from a converted 1920s home, the Sharon Audubon Center is closer than ever to a long-planned major renovation of its facilities on Cornwall Bridge Road.
The project, which has been in the works for well over a decade, will completely replace the 80 year old residence that has housed Northwest Connecticut’s chapter of the national bird conservation organization since 1961 with a modern, energy-efficient design that features a designated exhibit hall, classrooms for school programs and flexible meeting spaces.
The redesign will also move around some key facilities such as the wildlife rehabilitation clinic, which provides critical care for injured, sick and orphaned birds as well as its own resident birds.
A statement from the Audubon communications team said the project represents a necessary update: “Our aging, century-old buildings can no longer meet the needs of our growing programs or the birds we are called to protect.”
The revitalization effort, as the organization is referring to the project, was a key feature of Eileen Fielding’s eight-year tenure as executive director of the Center before she retired last Thursday, July 2.
“I’ve known this building for decades,” Fielding said a few days before she left the Center, “and it’s hard to think of it going away, but it’s time. It is really time.”
The idea began percolating in 2011 under the leadership of former director Scott Heth, to whom Fielding credits essential early momentum for the project. Now, with new renderings from Wisconsin-based firm The Kubala Washatko Architects and a healthy amount of the planning phase out of the way, Fielding said she is confidently passing the reins of the project to her team at Sharon Audubon Center to finish what she spent nearly a decade preparing for.
“If I’m not going to stay all the way to ribbon cutting,” Fielding said, “this would be a good time to go.”
Fielding said the motivation behind the rebuild was to prioritize environmentally sound design and a collaborative work environment in parallel with both Audubon’s central mission and the Center’s expanding programming and activities.
“It’ll certainly be a better space for the staff to work with young people,” Fielding said, explaining that the new Center will be able to host educational programs while keeping the exhibits open to the public, which the current space doesn’t allow for.
“It will also enable the volunteers to work in closer proximity to the staff,” she said. Workplace connectivity will be key to the open floorplan, which is intended to be easy to navigate for both staff and visitors alike.
“The building is so big and rambling,” she said of the current early 20th century design, “and our offices are at literally opposite ends of the building… it makes interaction and collaboration just a little more cumbersome.”
Plus, “it’s rather porous,” she said. Leaks are common, and the structure is far from energy efficient. The new building will follow green construction practices, Fielding said, with bird-safe glass, rain gardens and natural filtration systems for storm water runoff and native plants to support native insect populations.
Overall, Fielding said the redesign is meant to make the space more welcoming, functional and environmentally sound with more “visibility” within the community.
“And I do mean visibility literally,” she said. “We want people to see more of it from the road,” she said, “and to not feel so much like they’re invading someone’s house.”
An old residence on the property will also be converted to a raptor care center for the Center’s resident birds of prey and a rehabilitation clinic. The new location is much closer to the raptors’ home in the aviaries, Fielding said, and keeps the clinic, which will specialize in songbirds, separate from the main building where it is currently housed.
“It’s a very specialized activity,” she said, “and it really needs to be in a separate space.”
Fielding said the next steps are submitting applications to the town’s Inland Wetlands Commission and Planning and Zoning Commission, but she won’t be in charge when those hearings are held.
While she said it’s hard to walk away, she’s eager to see the staff carry the project through to its long-awaited fruition.
“I really look forward to coming back when it’s done,” she said, “and knowing I laid the groundwork for it.”
Keep ReadingShow less
Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.
Police Blotter: Troop B
Lakeville Journal
Jul 08, 2026
Police Blotter: Troop B
Police Blotter: Troop B
The following information was provided by the Connecticut State Police at Troop B. All suspects are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Driver flees rear-end
At approximately 11 a.m. on June 29, Kelley Groover, 48, of Norfolk, was traveling east on Route 112 in Salisbury and came to a stop at a stop sign at the intersection with Route 7. Upon stopping, a Subaru Forester with plate number 5FML28 belonging to Rosaura Mazo Palacin of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, rear-ended the Mazda MX-5 Miata Club that Groover was driving. She reported pain in her neck from the impact, but declined evaluation on-scene. The Forester fled the scene, and the investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information regarding the incident is asked to contact Trooper Kathleen Begley #868 at Kathleen.begley@ct.gov or the Troop B barracks phone line at 860-626-1820.
Driver loses control due to deer, fights to regain road
Near midnight on July 1, Kevin Warren, 45, of Lanesville, New York was driving west on Route 4 in Sharon when a deer jumped into the roadway, causing Warren to swerve left across and off the road from the eastbound lane. Warren traveled for approximately 100 yards in his Ford F350 off the side of the road trying to reenter the roadway. While trying unsuccessfully to navigate an embankment, a tire flew out of the bed of Warren’s pickup truck and struck the hood of an unoccupied Subaru Outback parked at a residence. Warren’s vehicle was eventually towed from the scene but he was uninjured.
Disturbance call yields warrant arrest
On the morning of July 2, troopers responded to a disturbance at a Church Street address in North Canaan. Upon arriving, troopers discovered that Michael John Jardine Jr., 42, of North Canaan had an active warrant for his arrest, and took him into custody. He was processed for failure to appear in the second degree, and was arraigned the same day at Torrington Superior Court.
Animal evasion leads to rock strike
On the afternoon of July 2, Harriet Strumolo, 37, of Norfolk was driving west on Grantville Road in Norfolk when an animal jumped in front of her Hyundai Ioniq 5, causing her to swerve and hit a large rock. She was uninjured, but her vehicle was towed. She was ultimately issued a written warning for failure to maintain lane.
Driver flees after swerving to avoid deer
At around 8:30 p.m. on July 2, German Popba, 29, of Wassaic, was approaching the intersection with Sharon Valley Road from Route 361 in Sharon when a deer jumped into the roadway ahead of her Chevrolet Equinox. Popba swerved and lost control of the vehicle, ultimately striking the wire rope guardrail on the southbound shoulder. Popba left the scene on foot, and was issued a misdemeanor summons for evading responsibility and failure to drive on right.
The Lakeville Journal will publish the outcome of police charges. Send mail to P.O. Box 1688, Lakeville, CT 06039, Attn: Police Blotter, or send to editor@lakevillejournal.com.
Keep ReadingShow less
Sharon home prices continue to climb as seller’s market persists
Christine Bates
Jul 08, 2026
Located within the former Buckley Great Elm Estate, 2 Great Elm, sold last month for $2.95 million. The 4,449-square-foot home on 3.74 acres features four bedrooms, four-and-a-half bathrooms and a sweeping front lawn.
Christine Bates
SHARON – The median sale price for single-family homes in Sharon reached its highest level in nearly two years during the 12-month period ending June 30.
The rolling 12-month median sale price rose to $788,000, the highest since August 2024, when the town’s all-time high median of $880,000 was recorded.
The $788,000 median price represents a 32% increase from the $597,500 median recorded for the 12 months ending June 30, 2025, and a 6% increase from $746,000 for the comparable period ending June 30, 2024.
Sales remained stable on a rolling 12-month basis. A total of 42 single-family homes sold during the 12 months ending June 30, matching the previous year’s total. There were 44 sales during the comparable period ending June 30, 2024.
As of July 1, inventory had increased to 19 residential listings — 18 single-family homes and one condominium — three more than a month earlier. Despite the increase, Sharon remains a seller’s market, particularly at the lower end. Twelve of the homes on the market were listed for more than $1 million, while only five were priced below the town’s rolling median sale price of $788,000.
Land inventory also increased, with 13 parcels listed on the multiple listing service as of July 1, ranging in price from $139,000 to $2.495 million. Four of the parcels were smaller than 10 acres.
The rental market remained active despite the start of summer. Six furnished homes were available for summer rentals, with asking prices ranging from $6,000 per month to $20,000 for the season, while seven furnished homes were listed for the academic year.
Sharon June Transfers
19 South Ellsworth Road – 3 bedroom/3.5 bath home on .6 acres transferred by Jennifer Naylor and Kathryn Frucher on June 1, 2026, to John and Alexandra Belle for $1,694,600
76 Fairchild Road – 3 bedroom/3 bath home built in 1973 on four acres transferred by Estate of Ruby Peterson on June 2, 2026, to Keith Parent and Eric Ketchum for $775,000
86 Upper Main Street – Property transferred by Estate of Philip Larkin on June 15, 2026, to Roxanne and Brenden Lee for $64,285
5 Great Elm Drive, Unit #3 – 3 bedroom/3.5 bath condo transferred by Cozy Abode LLC on June 16, 2026, to 5 Great Elm LLC for $750,000
30 Knibloe Hill Road – 3 bedroom/2.5 bath antique house transferred by Michael Taylor and Tara Stiles on June 17 to Christopher Mayotte and Brian Alba for $1,850,000
2 Great Elm Drive – 4 bedroom/4.5 bath home on 3.74 acres transferred by Carole Bailey to William and Cherie Gillette Sigward for $2,925,000
21 South Ellsworth Road – 3 bedroom/2 bath antique home built in 1784 on 1.48 acres transferred by John and Alexandra Bell and Alexandra Nishon on June 29, 2026 to Michael Maloney and Kathryn Cosgrove for $1,050,000
Town of Sharon real estate transfers recorded between June 1, 2026, and June 30, 2026, provided by Sharon Town Clerk. Transfers without consideration are not included. Current market listings from Smart MLS and market statistics from InfoSparks. Note that recorded transfers may lag sales by a number of days. Compiled by Christine Bates, Real Estate Salesperson with William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty, Licensed in CT and NY.
Keep ReadingShow less
Ridgway chosen to lead regional council, strives for partnership, not division
Alec Linden
Jul 08, 2026
LITCHFIELD – Cornwall First Selectman Gordon Ridgway was elected last month as chair of the Northwest Hills Council of Governments, the regional organization that coordinates planning, secures grants and fosters collaboration among 21 northwest Connecticut municipalities.
Ridgway said one of his first priorities will be bringing the region’s leaders closer together after months of internal division over the organization’s budget process.
The COG’s Executive Committee, which helps guide the organization’s work, met July 2 for the first time since members were elected. The committee now includes Sharon First Selectman Casey Flanagan alongside Ridgway, giving Region One greater representation in the organization’s leadership.
The state is split into nine different COGs, which function as regional planning agencies. The Northwest Hills branch covers Northwest Connecticut, and brings together local officials and municipal leaders to “discuss issues of inter-municipal concern, promote regional cooperation, and direct various regional initiatives to enhance government planning, efficiency, and service delivery.”
During the meeting, Ridgway, who has been first selectman in Cornwall for 35 years, proposed reviving a roundtable discussion every meeting to “knit the organization together a little bit.” He said the move could improve the group’s discord in recent months, which has mostly revolved around the organization’s budget process. The roundtable used to be a feature of the monthly meetings but “it was phased out because people kept talking too much,” Ridgway said.
The new iteration will cap each official at one minute, just enough to relay a story or report that may help another town with a similar situation or establish a dialogue about an important issue in the region.
During Thursday’s meeting, Flanagan was enthusiastic that the roundtable could address the recent contention. “I’m seeing some division within our group that I don’t really care for,” he said, adding, “We’re all in the CEO seat… if we can’t support each other, that’s a problem.”
Roxbury’s First Selectman Patrick Roy, the Executive Committee’s treasurer, said that even after five years in the role, “there are days I’m drinking through a firehose.” He said he sees value in establishing connections between town leaders to deal with difficult issues.
“This is about doing the best thing for our people,” he said, “and not having to reinvent the wheel.”
Ridgway said the bottom line to his approach in leading the monthly meetings will be simple: “I’ll be making sure that people’s voices are heard without wasting people’s time. It’s not a place to grandstand.”
Keep ReadingShow less
Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.
loading
