Selectmen to discuss POCD

SALISBURY — There will be a special meeting of the Board of Selectmen Thursday, Oct. 24, 1 p.m. (hybrid) for the selectmen to discuss the Planning and Zoning Commission’s draft of the Plan of Conservation and Development.

The selectmen picked that date and time during the regular monthly selectmen’s meeting Monday, Oct. 9.

First Selectman Curtis Rand noted that as of Oct. 9 the selectmen had a first draft of the POCD. He said the board can accept or reject the entire thing, or sections of it.

“But we can’t do anything until we get the final draft.”

Rand said there will be a town meeting “soon” to handle several outstanding matters, including the town’s donation of a parcel of land on Undermountain Road and Grove Street to the Salisbury Housing Trust, combined with an easement giving control of the westernmost section of the parcel back to the town for open space.

The town meeting will also include funding for two new sidewalk tractors, additional remediation at the old transfer station site, and hydrilla-related funding for Twin Lakes.

The town meeting will include amending an existing ordinance to accurately reflect the cost of hooking up to town water and sewer. A separate matter of an encroachment on town property on Housatonic River Road might be on the town meeting agenda.

In the meantime, Rand said to the public: “Stop putting things in the town right-of-way — trees, stone walls, fences.”

Rand reported that the site plan for the old railroad station on Ethan Allen Street is finished. The selectmen agreed to refer the site plan to P&Z.

Latest News

Juneteenth and Mumbet’s legacy
Sheffield resident, singer Wanda Houston will play Mumbet in "1781" on June 19 at 7 p.m. at The Center on Main, Falls Village.
Jeffery Serratt

In August of 1781, after spending thirty years as an enslaved woman in the household of Colonel John Ashley in Sheffield, Massachusetts, Elizabeth Freeman, also known as Mumbet, was the first enslaved person to sue for her freedom in court. At the time of her trial there were 5,000 enslaved people in the state. MumBet’s legal victory set a precedent for the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts in 1790, the first in the nation. She took the name Elizabeth Freeman.

Local playwrights Lonnie Carter and Linda Rossi will tell her story in a staged reading of “1781” to celebrate Juneteenth, ay 7 p.m. at The Center on Main in Falls Village, Connecticut.Singer Wanda Houston will play MumBet, joined by actors Chantell McCulloch, Tarik Shah, Kim Canning, Sherie Berk, Howard Platt, Gloria Parker and Ruby Cameron Miller. Musical composer Donald Sosin added, “MumBet is an American hero whose story deserves to be known much more widely.”

Keep ReadingShow less
A sweet collaboration with students in Torrington

The new mural painted by students at Saint John Paul The Great Academy in Torrington, Connecticut.

Photo by Kristy Barto, owner of The Nutmeg Fudge Company

Thanks to a unique collaboration between The Nutmeg Fudge Company, local artist Gerald Incandela, and Saint John Paul The Great Academy in Torrington, Connecticut a mural — designed and painted entirely by students — now graces the interior of the fudge company.

The Nutmeg Fudge Company owner Kristy Barto was looking to brighten her party space with a mural that celebrated both old and new Torrington. She worked with school board member Susan Cook and Incandela to reach out to the Academy’s art teacher, Rachael Martinelli.

Keep ReadingShow less
In the company of artists

Curator Henry Klimowicz, left, with artists Brigitta Varadi and Amy Podmore at The Re Institute

Aida Laleian

For anyone who wants a deeper glimpse into how art comes about, an on-site artist talk is a rich experience worth the trip.On Saturday, June 14, Henry Klimowicz’s cavernous Re Institute — a vast, converted 1960’s barn north of Millerton — hosted Amy Podmore and Brigitta Varadi, who elucidated their process to a small but engaged crowd amid the installation of sculptures and two remarkable videos.

Though they were all there at different times, a common thread among Klimowicz, Podmore and Varadi is their experience of New Hampshire’s famed MacDowell Colony. The silence, the safety of being able to walk in the woods at night, and the camaraderie of other working artists are precious goads to hardworking creativity. For his part, for fifteen years, Klimowicz has promoted community among thousands of participating artists, in the hope that the pairs or groups he shows together will always be linked. “To be an artist,” he stressed, “is to be among other artists.”

Keep ReadingShow less