WINSTED — The Board of Selectmen approved a method for the town to potentially fund its minimum budget requirement (MBR) shortfall during its regular meeting on Monday, Sept. 19.The motion was originally made by Selectman Ken Fracasso during a special meeting of the selectmen on Aug. 22.Fracasso’s motion is to direct the town’s finance manager to place all discretionary and unrestricted grants and revenues received from or through the state’s Department of Education into the town’s unencumbered fund balance for future use as the selectmen may authorize.Fracasso’s motion added that: “For the avoidance of doubt, discretionary and unrestricted grants and revenues include but are not limited to excess cost grants and related revenues, transportation grants and related revenues, health and welfare grants and related revenues and school construction reimbursements and related revenues.”The motion passed by a vote of 4-3, with Selectmen Fracasso, Glenn Albanesius, Karen Beadle and Lisa Smith voting for it.Mayor Candy Perez and Selectmen Michael Renzullo and George Closson voted against the motion.“When the [money] goes into the general fund, how does it come out to pay the costs that have been incurred?” Perez said. “If all the revenue for, let’s say, transportation, goes into the fund balance, how does it come back out to pay for the buses that are transporting the kids right now?”“When they submit a bill for payment,” Fracasso told Perez.“But when they submit a bill for payment it [is not] under their appropriations, so they don’t have it because it’s not appropriated anywhere,” Perez said. “How will it come out of our fund balance?”“According to [Department of Education chief financial officer Brian Mahoney], it is our prerogative and our discretion to dispense those funds,” Fracasso said. “[Finance Director Henry Centrella] said this is the best way that it can be done.”Perez said that, despite Fracasso’s explanation, that she still had issues with the motion.“What we are doing right now by transferring all of these grants into the fund balance is creating a revenue line item that has no expenditure line item within the town’s budget,” Perez said. “If you wanted to have grant money to come into the general fund, then in the school budget in March or April you have to put corresponding lines in there.”“They have no school budget,” Fracasso said.“I’m just saying that if you put money into the fund balance right now, there is no line item to move it out,” Perez said.Beadle said that the procedure has been approved by the selectmen in the past and that the money would be allocated to the school district.Fracasso, who has been a very outspoken critic of the Board of Education during this year’s MBR battle, did not relent in his criticism at Monday’s meeting.“If they could handle their money over there in a proper way we wouldn’t need to approve this,” Fracasso said. “Unfortunately, that is not the case. They don’t have any idea how much money that they have spent and we don’t have any idea of how much money they are spending. What has been happening in the past few years is [Centrella] has been taking the back of the check, endorsing it and giving it to the Board of Education, then we have no clue where it has gone.”Closson told the board that he did not feel that Fracasso’s motion was “the right way” to fund the MBR.Renzullo wanted to wait to hear from both Centrella and Town Attorney Kevin Nelligan before the board voted on the motion.“The way the motion reads, we’re talking about all kinds of grants, whether it’s limited to roads and bridges or anything else,” Renzullo said. “I would like to hear from [Centrella and Nelligan] to know it this is legal. I’m not willing to get grants taken back because we were not doing the right thing. I am not comfortable doing anything like this.”After the vote on Fracasso’s motion, the selectmen voted unanimously to direct Town Manager Dale Martin to research and develop plans to make up the MBR shortfall.
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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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