WINSTED — Though no cuts were made to the town’s proposed 2012-2013 budget Monday night, Oct. 1, this year’s fourth town budget meeting saw considerable controversy. In the end, 65 residents approved sending the budget to voters to decide at an Oct. 27 referendum.The proposed budget — the fourth created by the Board of Selectmen this year — contains a zero tax increase, after three previous budgets were defeated, starting in May.The latest proposed budget for fiscal 2012-2013 is $30,932,241, an increase of $199,718 from last year. The increase in spending is offset by $199,718 in new revenue, hence the zero tax increase, officials noted.If passed by voters at a referendum on Saturday, Oct. 27, the town’s mill rate will stay the same as last year, with the tax rate at 25.43 mills.Arguments begin meetingThe drama for the night started right before the town meeting as the Board of Selectmen held its regular meeting.The board was reviewing minutes from a special meeting held Monday, Sept. 24, when Selectman Kenneth Fracasso said Town Clerk Sheila Sedlack did not list in the minutes that the board approved a budget.According to a copy of the minutes obtained by The Winsted Journal, while motions that were made to alter the budget are listed, the minutes do not list a final budget number or a motion to approve a proposed budget.“Nowhere does it say that we voted to send the budget to a referendum,” Fracasso said. “There are only votes for amendments and a motion to move the question on the budget. Nowhere in the minutes is a listing of budget numbers. It is my belief that we cannot hold a town meeting tonight because we haven’t adjourned it properly. In all the years that I’ve been here, when we decide on a budget we made a motion that we adjourn a town meeting and a budget at a specified amount.”While Mayor Maryann Welcome asked Fracasso if he wanted to amend the minutes to reflect the vote at the regular meeting, Fracasso said no and insisted that a town meeting could not be held. “I believe that it is an illegal meeting,” Fracasso said.Selectman Candy Perez disagreed with Fracasso.“I think there have been times that we’ve adjourned with only the motions made to adjust the budget in the minutes,” Perez said. “The budget was adopted at the meeting as per the town manager’s recommendations. The dollar amount was stated on the recommendations.”Fracasso then questioned Sedlack’s ability to keep meeting minutes.“Is it at Sheila’s discretion to determine what’s important to put in the meeting minutes and what is not?” Fracasso said. “I don’t see anything in the minutes that say that we voted on a budget with a dollar amount. I think we should play the meeting tape back for Town Attorney Kevin Nelligan and ask him what we should do.”“I did not pick and choose what to put in the meeting minutes,” Sedlack said. “Candy put a motion on the floor. Once it’s a motion I can’t cut things out of it. What is listed in the minutes is the complete motion according to the CD of the meeting.”Welcome then called a recess in order to discuss the situation with Nelligan.Nelligan, who arrived right before the town meeting was scheduled to start, said that despite what was listed in the meeting minutes, the town meeting could still go ahead.“I’m looking at the minutes and they appear to be sufficient enough to go forward,” Nelligan said. “There was a motion, the amendments were all set forth in the minutes. I haven’t listened to the meeting, but based on the minutes I believe that the meeting can go forward.”Despite Nelligan’s legal opinion, Fracasso still disagreed and insisted that he listen to a recording of the meeting.“These minutes are sufficient enough to move forward, that’s my opinion,” Nelligan said. “You should move forward to the town meeting.”Subsequently, the selectmen approved the minutes for the Sept. 24 meeting by a vote of 5 to 2, with Republican Selectmen Fracasso and Glenn Albanesius voting against approving them.Meeting goes forwardDuring the town meeting itself, Fracasso continued his efforts to try to halt the meeting as he called a point of order to moderator Judith Dixon right before Board of Education Chairman Susan Hoffnagle was to give a presentation on the school district’s budget.“The town charter, in section 107, states that a budget will be up for the public to review 14 days before the town meeting,” Fracasso said. “Up until this morning, budget documents were not available to the public. Several residents have told me that they stopped at Town Hall last week and they were all told that no budget documents would be available until after tonight’s meeting.”Fracasso said that the town meeting should be adjourned for a week in order for residents to review the budget.Dixon said she would not entertain Fracasso’s point of order until Hoffnagle spoke.Dixon revisited Fracasso’s point of order after Hoffnagle spoke and Sedlack proposed a date for a budget referendum.Winchester Tax Association member David LaPointe repeated Fracasso’s point of order and said it was in line with the charter.LaPointe asked for an opinion on Fracasso’s point of order from attorney Nelligan.“I myself just received this budget today,” LaPointe said. “Why are we here tonight if we just received the budget this morning? How can we pass a budget onto the people for a vote if people could not look at it before tonight’s meeting?”Dixon then held up the meeting to consult with Nelligan.After two minutes, she came back and said Nelligan’s opinion is that the proposed budget did not have to be available for viewing until the town meeting was held.Fracasso then made a motion to postpone the remainder of the town meeting for a week.The motion was defeated by residents by a vote of 44 to 21.While none of the members of the Board of Selectmen gave a presentation on the budget, Hoffnagle used her presentation time not to speak about numbers, but to urge residents to approve the budget.“It is time for a budget to be passed,” Hoffnagle said. “The Board of Education line item is at the state mandated level. If there is a motion tonight to cut the budget that will be an illegal cut and it will be subject to fines of twice the budget shortfall.”Residents did not make any motions to cut the budget at the meeting.The next step for the proposed budget is a budget referendum for Saturday, Oct. 27, to be held at Pearson Middle School from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
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One systemic consequence of slavery is the loss and obscuring of the histories of those who were enslaved. Records were often not kept about where Africans had been stolen from or who they were related to. Families were torn apart, leaving nothing but the faintest traces of the past. The delineation point, where genealogists can no longer trace histories back, is refered to this as the “document wall.”
Today, 250 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence and more than 160 years since the Emancipation Proclamation, there is a growing effort to restore some of the history stripped from enslaved people and their descendants. Among the leaders of these efforts is Mills, president of the Alex Breanne Corporation, a nonprofit organization that works to identify previously anonymous Black Americans from history and connect them with their living relatives.
The work began with Mills’ sister, who started digging into their family’s past in the 1990’s and introduced him to this emerging world of genealogy. Through that process, the Mills family discovered their great-great-grandfather, Ned Mills, who had been enslaved in Texas. His last name came from his final enslaver and remains the family surname. Through their research, they found that the document wall directly affected their ancestor, who learned of his liberation on June 19, 1865, now commemorated as Juneteenth.
“For the first time,” Mills writes on his website, “American slavery wasn’t something that had happened to anonymous people in a history book. It had happened to my family.”
The discovery gave Mills a familial pride he had been missing for years. That pride fueled his desire to help others find their own history. In 2023, Mills received his certificate in genealogical research from Boston University. He has used his expertise to help descendants of enslaved people uncover histories they never dreamed of learning.
To do this, he uses a process called “reverse genealogy,” identifying a person from the past and working forward to discover their descendants. Along the way, Mills has found some remarkable people who fought for freedom on American soil, some of whom were never freed.
Pay Bill for Robin Starr’s service in the Continental Army.Courtesy the Alex Breanne Corporation
At the Cornwall Historical Society event, Mills will present the stories of four Connecticut families: Job Lathrop of Norwich, the son of Pirmus Armes, about whom Mills has published a book; Prince Mortimer of Middletown, also the subject of a book by Mills;, the three sons of London Wallace of Simsbury; and Robert “Robin” Starr of Danbury, who later lived in Cornwall and Sharon.
A few years ago, Cornwall Consolidated School social studies teacher Will Vincent reached out to Mills for research guidance on a local history project his students were undertaking. Together, they learned about Naomi Freeman of Cornwall. After purchasing an acre of land on Great Hollow Road in 1828, Naomi Freeman became the first Black female landowner in Cornwall.
The students petitioned the town to rename a road after the historic Cornwall resident In April 2025, Great Hollow Road was officially renamed Naomi Freeman Historic Road. U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes joined Mills and the Cornwall Consildated School students for a presentation of their research.
Since then, Mills has guided the students in their quest to learn more about Starr’s story. Starr was a Revolutionary War soldier who joined the Continental Army to earn enough money to buy his own freedom, receiving the Badge of Merit in the process. The stories of his descendents’ services are equally worthy of their own books.
In recognition of Mills and the students’ work, First Selectman Gordon Ridgway proclaimed Feb. 8 as Robin Starr Day.
Preregistration is required for the event at the Cornwall Historical Society. To learn more about Mills’ work, visit
alexbreanne.org.
John Mills speaking at Quinnipiac University.Courtesy the Alex Breanne Corporation
Stephanie Saetta runs Charlie Chicken Bones, a sanctuary in Salisbury.
Dogs have been at the center of Saetta’s life since childhood. She remembers going to the library to research different breeds and trying to convince her parents the family needed a dog. She had her heart set on an Irish Wolfhound, but she was more than happy when her mom brought home a West Highland terrier.
After college, she adopted Charlie as a puppy from a rescue on Long Island. He was a hound-shepherd-Rottweiler mix who suffered from intense seizures. Some veterinarians recommended euthanasia, but Saetta wasn’t ready to give up on him.
When Charlie would have an episode, she would sit with him, nose to nose, talking him through it. She learned to look for the moment he began to come around — when he could smell her again and his tail started to wag.
“You only get one or two of these soul connection dogs, so I do this in his honor,” Saetta said. “I like to think that all the dogs that come through are going to have that person that they connect with just the same.”
Through a network of women working to rescue animals in Texas, she learned about the desperate situations facing many dogs.
With limited space, some public pounds euthanize even healthy animals to make room. Limited access to veterinary care leaves sick dogs or unvaccinated puppies especially vulnerable.
Saetta saw that reality firsthand with a puppy named Gus, a Labrador mix she fostered who has since been adopted. Gus and his sisters had been dumped beside a road, where they were living under an abandoned car. People would leave food for them, but no one would take them to the pound.
“Even the people who rescue animals down there were like, ‘sadly, the best place for them to be is on the side of the road,’” she said. “That’s safer. Someone might actually help them that way.”
Saetta knows that there are far more dogs than any one person can save, but she also knows that helping one dog means one fewer on the street.
Stephanie Saetta,with her rescue dog George and Blue (left), a shepherd mix awaiting his forever home.Madi Long
Charlie Chicken Bone Sanctuary operates entirely through foster homes, a model that Saetta believes is best for the dogs and the humans hoping to adopt them.
Rather than moving directly from a difficult environment into a permanent home, the dogs have a chance to settle into a quieter setting. They can learn what it’s like to live with a family, sleep somewhere comfortable and receive affection without fighting for attention. Fostering also allows the rescue to really get to know each dog.
“As fosters, we’re honest,” said Saetta. We’ll tell you everything that’s been bad, everything that’s been good. What their temperament is and how they’ve responded to all the things they’ve experienced.”
A successful adoption is not just about finding a dog a home; it’s about finding the right home where the dog and family can thrive together.
Saetta is looking for more people willing to open their homes to foster dogs. She understands that the thought of growing attached and eventually saying goodbye can feel daunting. But she sees that goodbye a little differently.
Fostering means being part of a dog’s journey, even if only for a short time. It gives dogs a safe place to rest, the chance to trust again and the love they have gone without for much of their lives. And when the time comes for them to leave, it is not really a loss. It is the reward of knowing they are moving on to a forever home.
Blue, Saetta’s current foster, is hoping to find his perfect home.
Blue, a 7 year-old Shepard mix, is waiting for his forever home. Madi Long
Now around 7 years old, Blue spent most of his life wandering the streets of Texas. People sometimes left food out for him, but his mangy, dirty coat kept them from stopping to pet him. Today, he has a chance to experience something different.
Blue is still waiting for his forever home. Saetta believes he would do best as the only dog in a household or alongside another senior dog. He will need someone willing to continue working with him on his training and understand that a dog with his history needs patience.
But what he gives in return is a whole lot of love.
“He’s so enthusiastic, he’s so excited for life, he’s so friendly, and he’s got such a good heart, and he loves to cuddle,” Saetta said. “He’s a good, good, good dog.”
For more information on adopting Blue or how to foster, visit ccbsanctuary.org.
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