WINSTED — State Sen. Andrew Roraback (R-30) told selectmen last week that they may be making a grave mistake by underfunding the town’s school system.Roraback had been invited to attend a special Board of Selectmen’s meeting at Town Hall on Wednesday, May 11, to discuss issues surrounding Winsted’s proposed 2011-12 school district budget. State Rep. John Rigby (R-63) was also invited but could not attend.The proposed $30.7 million budget, which is going to referendum on Saturday, May 28, includes $18.6 million for the school district.The proposed amount is below the town’s most recent minimum budget requirement (MBR) of $20,049,466, an amount estimated by the state in late April.If the budget is passed, members of the school board say, the school district will have a funding shortfall of $1,361,094 below the MBR. “The philosophical grounding behind the MBR is that when the state is a partner of funding education, there are strings attached to it,” Roraback said. “The philosophical opinion is that when we provide you with some of those funds, we don’t want you [the town] to reduce the amount of money you spend on our nickel.”Roraback told the selectmen that he understands why the town wants the MBR to be reduced.“But the MBR says it doesn’t matter how [the town] is able to save or whether you are able find ways to save that it doesn’t impact instruction, you still have to spend the same amount of money this year that you did last year,” he said.Roraback said that, as of May 11, the state has not passed MBR legislation for fiscal 2011-12.However, he added the state passing MBR legislation is inevitable.“If the state capitol burns down and if the Legislature does not go back to work this year, starting on July 1 there will not be an MBR,” Roraback said. “But the last time I checked, the fire sprinklers were working and the [capitol building] is made out of granite. So, a fire will not happen anytime soon.”Roraback told the selectmen that he asked other representatives in the General Assembly if there were any circumstances where a town was given relief from an MBR.“They all said no,” Roraback said. “Then I asked if they were given relief if a town closes a school. The people in the know said it is likely that a Legislature would recognize a school closing if it has a material impact on a district’s financial picture.”At a meeting on April 29, the Board of Education voted against closing one of the three school building’s in the district for the upcoming school year.Roraback added that if a town has a special situation with the MBR that calls for attention, more than likely the state’s commissioner of education would investigate it, and not the state’s General Assembly.“The thinking in the Legislature is that we are not equipped to undertake the evaluation necessary to come to a thoughtful conclusion to what changes to an MBR should be permitted,” Roraback said. “We [the representatives] will do whatever the Board of Selectmen asks us to do. If they are not united, then it will be hard for us. The first question [other representatives] will ask is if the Board of Selectmen are united. If the answer is no, then it makes a steep hill even steeper.”After Roraback spoke, Selectman Ken Fracasso, who supports the proposed budget, handed out to his fellow selectmen a report titled “Amending Winchester’s MBR Is Fair, Reasonable and Has Nothing To Do With Politics.”While he presented the report to the selectmen, he did not give copies to the audience. Fracasso did read through portions of the report to the audience.“The previous MBR reflected a school system that had 20 percent more students than we will have in 2011-12,” Fracasso said. “At some point in time we have to draw a line. Do we keep the MBR at $20 million when we have less students? We have experienced a dramatic decline in enrollment for the past three years. At what point do we keep funding at a level this high when student enrollment is declining?”In his report, Fracasso states that the district’s student enrollment will go down from 955 this school year to 669 during the 2011-12 school year.A reason cited for the declining enrollment is due to the seventh and eighth grades’ move to the town’s semi-private school The Gilbert School.“Our school buildings have the capacity for 2,436 students,” Fracasso said. “Through this [move], we should have closed at least one of the school buildings. We have three times the capacity that we need to teach the students that are left over.”Fracasso said that the $18,600,000 in the proposed budget for the school district is “right on target.”“Any future MBR should reflect the long-term changes we have made in town,” he said. “The MBR should not penalize us for recent changes made in this town through the efficiencies we have tried to expedite. The state is looking at a $3 billion deficit and I think they would embrace some of the things we have done in this town in order to save money. In no way do I think that this is detrimental to the education of these students. I think the real problem is on the Board of Education side, but that’s a topic for another day.”Following Fracasso’s report, Selectman Glenn Albanesius, who also supports the proposed budget, complained about criticism residents made earlier in the meeting.“A comment was made to us that we don’t have children in the school system,” Albanesius said. “I had three kids who went through the district and they all worked hard and met the challenges. This is an economic decision. Nothing more, nothing less. If you choose of your own volition to say that we are being mean to children and we don’t care, I think you are extremely off base.”Albanesius cited the town’s financial state as one of the reasons he supports the proposed budget.“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. This is crunch time for you and me and everyone sitting here. We didn’t make these decisions because we’re angry at the Board of Education. That gets floated around and it makes me angrier than you have any idea.”Selectman Lisa Smith said she supported what Albanesius and Fracasso said.“We need an MBR that reflects the changes that we have made,” Smith said. “In this district we have to look for efficiencies that other districts have been implementing. I know Region 7 passed their budget for $18.2 million for the same amount of students we have.”Mayor Candy Perez, who previously voted against the proposed budget, blamed unfunded federal and state mandates for increased costs to the school district.“It seems that every year that we have more No Child Left Behind expenses,” Perez said. “Now we are dealing with Race to the Top legislation that has come to the state. Training has started [for the programs] and it has cost a lot of time and personnel time. Even though our enrollment has dropped, a lot of people do not see what has happened internally. If I went to my father and I told him that we spent $3,000 for a speaker to help with bullying, his generation would say to me that we are crazy.”Selectman Karen Beadle agreed with Perez that unfunded mandates are a budgetary problem.“The in-school suspension program has cost a lot of time and additional costs for teachers,” Beadle said. “To place the burden on towns to come up with the MBR and to steer where the funding will go by mandate is wrong. You are taking the power away from the school district and town [with the MBR] and force us to fund it and that’s also wrong. Maybe the MBR would be okay if we didn’t have to deal with other mandates.”
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Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.
“I was a library kid. I walked to the library after school,” she said.
For Sher, the library is as much about the people as it about the books.
“Part of the job I love so much is that running the library is such a community,” she said.
She treasures the relationships she has built, whether recommending books, celebrating accomplishments or helping patrons through difficult times.
“I am thankful that our community is so supportive of the library, unlike what is happening in some other places where librarians are villainized,” Sher said.
Sher takes pride in the Hunt Library’s reputation for being “open and welcoming to everyone. People come in and see things and get pulled into things they weren’t expecting. Our library is seen as a positive force.”
Sher came to Falls Village after being awarded a fellowship at Adamah Farm, then a program of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. She worked at pickling, in the greenhouse and later in the development office. She also worked as a nanny.
At the same time, “I was in the library all the time,” she recalled. “I’m a voracious reader. The library is where I met a lot of my first friends in Falls Village.”
She became assistant librarian at Hunt and worked in that position for almost a decade before becoming the executive director four years ago.
Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.L. Tomaino
Sher met her husband, Adam, while working at Adamah. They had their wedding there in 2012. He now emcees many events which she co-organizes with the Falls Village Recreation Commission.
Sher and her family live near the library.
“It’s an easy commute,” she said with a smile. “My kids run back and forth. I can go home to walk the dog if I need to.”
“My kids have grown up here.” Her oldest son, Eli, “loves volunteering. He helps with Augustfest and often helps set up chairs for ArtWall gatherings.” Her younger son, Noah, is often at events and was eager to taste cookies at last year’s holiday cookie swap.
When she is not at the library, Sher likes to hike with her family. Bella, their Portuguese water dog, often accompanies them.
Sher enjoys seeking out people to offer events at the library.
“I do a lot of different community programming. It is one of my favorite parts of the job.”
Augustfest, featuring food, music and an auction, is the library’s biggest fundraiser.
“This summer we had a record 152 attendees, which was pretty incredible.”
Yonah Sadeh, a filmmaker from Falls Village, inaugurated the VideoWall this year, Sher explained.
“I’ve known Yonah since he was two. It’s wonderful to work with him as an adult.”
The VideoWall complements the library’s ArtWall, which showcases a new artist each month. Sher praised the ArtWall committee for its work and highlighted December’s popular “12x12 Show,” featuring works by local artists, each measuring 12 by 12 inches and priced at $150.
Sher added that some of the artists who exhibit at the ArtWall offer workshops to students at Kellogg School, next door to the library. In September, artist Danielle Mailer worked with the children. Vincent Inconiglios taught a class last November.
Being next to the school, said Sher, is a great advantage.
“Kids are coming after school, to see friends, work on projects, find a great book. Kids that love the library end up using the library as grownups.”
This past year, in partnership with Adamah, the library and school created a garden, with excess produce made available at The Center on Main.
This year is Sher’s second year participating in the Troutbeck Symposium in Amenia with James King, director of the library at Salisbury School. The Troutbeck Symposium is “a gathering of a year of student historical inquiry across the region” in which students “uncover stories that have been overlooked, forgotten, or never recorded.”
Last year, Sher and King began a project with a group of students researching Irish immigrants in Falls Village, exploring ancestry and creating small magazines about their findings.
They continued this year, visiting St. Patrick’s Catholic Cemetery on Dublin Road, cleaning seven gravestones and even righting one with the help of stonemason and gravestone restoration expert Karl Munson. Paul Kozeazny, a representative of the Catholic archdiocese, helped secure access to the site.
A film documenting their activities will be shown at the symposium in spring 2027.
A full schedule of programs and events, ranging from tech help to ceramic mug-making, can be found on the library’s website.
Despite spending her days surrounded by books, and a busy schedule of programming, Sher still loves to settle in with a book at home.
For more information on library programs and events, visit huntlibrary.org
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Touré was born in northern Mali in 1981. His father, the renowned guitarist Ali Farka Touré, came from a family of soldiers and wanted his son to join the army. The younger Touré studied drums and the calabash and practiced guitar in secret. He earned his father’s blessing to pursue music shortly before Ali died in 2006, and they played two tracks together on Vieux’s debut album.
Touré is known for his deft, polyrhythmic playing, and his songs grow out of riffs that repeat and layer to hypnotic effect. He draws on rock, blues, Latin music and various African traditions. This distinctive blend builds on his father’s work adapting the sonic traditions of Mali’s arid north to the guitar.
Vieux’s album “Mon Pays” (“My Country,” 2013) honored Mali’s culture after Tuareg separatists and extremist groups seized the north in 2012. “Samba” (2017) was recorded before about 50 listeners in Woodstock, New York. In 2022 came “Les Racines” (“The Roots”), a return to his father’s desert blues, and “Ali,” on which he and the trio Khruangbin reworked eight of the elder Touré’s songs.
Touré leads the Ali Farka Touré Foundation, which focuses on cultural and educational work in Mali. Around the anniversary of Ali’s death, it holds a festival in Bamako, Mali’s capital. Bamako has been under blockade for much of the past year, besieged by JNIM, an al-Qaeda affiliate. Against this backdrop, Touré continues to carry the music of Mali to audiences abroad.
At the Nov. 5 concert, Touré’s desert blues will share the bill with Gnawa, the music LanGus plays, which developed in Morocco among West Africans who were brought north across the desert as enslaved people. Gnawa is religious music traditionally performed at all-night healing ceremonies called lila, intended to carry participants into trance.
Samir LanGusProvided
LanGus was born and raised outside Agadir, Morocco, and began learning Gnawa from its masters at age 8. He plays the sintir, a three-stringed bass lute made of wood and camel skin. The player strikes a low string with the thumb to create a deep, resonant pulse. Iron castanets clatter over the sintir’s bass line, and vocalists trade call-and-response refrains.
LanGus infuses the tradition with jazz and improvisation. In New York, he founded the ensemble Innov Gnawa. His first solo album, “Gnawa Love,” came out in February.
Touré and LanGus’s Nov. 5 concert is one of the last public events at Race Brook Lodge, which is for sale and ended full-service operations at the end of 2025. The lodge’s final scheduled event, on Nov. 6, is an evening of Rumi’s poetry with translator and vocalist Haleh Liza Gafori, cellist Isabel Castellvi and ceremonial bard James Bird.
For tickets, visit rblodge.com.
James FitzGerald is a student at Yale Law School, where he focuses on ecological restoration and international environmental cooperation. He splits his time between Lakeville and New Haven.
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