WINSTED — Townspeople held a remarkably short and simple annual budget town meeting on Monday, May 7, at The Gilbert School.While the more than 150 residents in attendance had a chance to suggest cuts to the proposed budget, they instead decided to leave it as-is.The total approved budget of $32,388,777, represents a 2.14 mill increase.If approved, taxes would increase from 25.43 mills to 27.57 mills.The proposed budget is an approximately $1.65 million increase over last year’s approved town budget of $30,732,523.A good majority of the meeting was taken up by speeches from local town officials from both the Board of Selectmen and Board of Education, including Mayor Maryann Welcome.“Albert Einstein once said that we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we’ve used while creating them,” Welcome said. “People have said you can’t continue to try to solve the problem using the same tactics and expect to get a different solution. It doesn’t happen. We’ve tried the zero percent increase budget, we did not see businesses flock into town and we did not see parents flock into town with students for the schools. It didn’t work. So this year we are proposing an increase. Did everybody get what they wanted? No. Is it a baby step? Yes. At least we tried to give something to areas that needed the increase.”Welcome said that if the town does not invest in itself, no one should expect outside businesses to come into town.“Why would any business come into a town where the roads are not taken care of and the educational system is regarded as highly as it should be?” Welcome said. “It doesn’t happen that way. We need to keep our young families here, we need to attract young families to our town, we need to attract business.”Welcome then spoke about how the proposed budget would fund an economic development and marketing employee for the town.“We are saying we are going to bring someone in whose sole purpose will be to try to get businesses into town and help offset the cost of the residential tax rate,” Welcome said.BOE budgetThe Board of Education’s proposed budget is $20,056,029, which is $561,711 less than what Superintendent Thomas Danehy’s requested in his budget.However, it is approximately $97,880 over the state’s Minimum Budget Requirement (MBR) for the school district of $19,958,149.At the budget meeting, Danehy asked for residents to support the proposed budget.“This budget does much for our district, it represents a firm step in the right direction to invest in our community and to serve students well,” Danehy said. “It reminds the community that you get what you give. After so many years of underfunding, this budget rights a shift that has been prevalent for too long.”Danehy said that the proposed budget forces the Board of Education to act creatively to meet new learning goals.He said the primary goals that the proposed budget would fund are to add technology classes, provide an academic intervention support program and reduce class sizes in kindergarten and first grade.“All three goals are excellent investments into the future of our town,” Danehy said. “I expect people to look at this budget as an investment into yourselves instead of an economic inconvenience.”Comments from residentsOnly two residents who are not elected officials spoke at the meeting.Judith Boyle spoke about her family’s background in the school system as she asked residents for support of the budget.“I had three sons that went through the school system and now I have grandchildren in the school system as well,” Boyle said. “For several years, many people in our town felt that the right thing to do is to stave off tax increases. As a result, we have neglected our schools. Our schools are horribly run-down with teachers having to make do with limited supplies unless they use their own personal funds. Curriculum and teaching tools are horribly outdated.”The only resident who spoke against the town budget was former mayor John Gauger.Gauger told the audience that the proposed budget would shift the tax burden to property owners along Highland Lake and Winchester Center, and also force homeowners around town to abandon their homes.“In my neighborhood, property values compared to the appraised property values of 2007 are down by 45 percent,” Gauger said. “When you look at property sales at the lake, they are down by approximately 6 percent. The people at the lake and Winchester Center will see a 30 to 50 percent increase in their tax bills.”Gauger said that the tax bills for property owners in the downtown area would probably remain the same, but added that owners would probably abandon their houses.“They are going to have tax bills from $2,500 to $3,500,” Gauger said. “If you have a property with a tax percentage value of more than 1.25 percent, people walk away from it. Approximately three years ago we had a charter revision that said that we should consolidate the financial structure of the town. Has that been done? No. Have we consolidated the school systems in town? No. People stand up here and say that we want more money. But do we use the money wisely? The answer is no.”By the time the meeting was over, residents unanimously voted to hold the budget referendum on Saturday, June 2.
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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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