Author: kathrynwboughton@gmail.com

Norfolk has a new business, the Icebox Café, located at 10 Station Place.

The café has been open just three weeks, but was almost two years in the making, according to owners Peter and Marinell0 Crippen. The Crippens, who moved to Norfolk in 2018, had a similar business, Rex, in New York City that they operated for 10 years before selling it in 2023. 

When they moved here, they started looking for a new place to open a café and in 2022 Marinell heard about a newly available site in downtown Norfolk. That started an unexpectedly long odyssey toward opening as two contractors disappeared and a third installed the ventilation system but then closed that division of its business. 

The work was finally done in September, but then Crippens learned that the ventilation system’s design required them to install a fire alarm system throughout the entire building, which also houses offices.

“Well, it finally happened and we’re happy to be here,” Marinell said.

The little café features breakfast sandwiches and burritos, biscuit sliders, cereal and hot and cold beverages. Baked goods, including bread, are all made by Peter, and the café serves as a delivery point for Mrs. Crippen’s Bourbon and Molasses Fruitcake, crafted by his 90-year-old mother.

Peter says the café “is a lot of work, but the difference is, it’s a 10-minute commute.” He adds their 14-year-old son is becoming fully versed in dishwashing.

The café is open from 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., six days a week (closed Tuesday). In January, hours will be extended to 2:00 p.m. to allow them to offer a very simple lunch menu.

—Newsletter Editor

At its Tuesday meeting, the Planning & Zoning Commission accepted an application from the Manor House Inn for a site-plan modification. A public hearing was scheduled for January 14, 2025, at Botelle School, and the plans are available for viewing at Town Hall.

Edited 12/14/24
Editor’s note: The original article contained several errors, such as overstating the size of the intended additions (which add up to 2,500 square feet, not 10,000). We regret the errors and will correct them in a future article.

—Webmaster

The Board of Finance has approved going to a town meeting to approve moving $100,000 out of the town’s capital reserve funds to help pay for new boilers at Botelle Elementary School.

First Selectman Matt Riiska told the finance members that despite advertising for and soliciting bids, he received only one, from Perotti Plumbing in Canaan. The firm services the existing boilers for the town.

“With that said, they provided us with a quote of $166,000 last year and the exact same quote this year,” Riiska said.

He said the town’s non-lapsing fund (a fund that does not become absorbed back into the town surplus) has only $66,792 in it. “I think we need to get this ordered right away,” he said. “I’ve been told numerous times this needs to be done.” 

Early in the 2022-23 school year, school had to be closed for a day because both ancient boilers went down at once.

Member Myron Kwast grumbled that the price tag was nearly $3,000 for each of Botelle’s 59 students, but the measure passed with only one abstention. 

In other business, Riiska reported that a town meeting approved the refinance of the River Place Bridge project, but that the state Department of Transportation has not given him documentation confirming that it will cover the excess expense occasioned by a nearly two-year shut down of the project. 

There are three bills from contractors that NBT Bank does not want to pay during the conversion to the new loan, but the town has not received reimbursement for this project from the state since April. “I can’t pay the contractors until I get this straightened out,” Riiska said.

It was also reported that the Farmers Market is now defunct and that the Farmers Market Committee members want to put the approximately $6,500 remaining in its account toward cultivating the gardens at Botelle School.

Sconyers and other board members were not persuaded. Even though the money in the committee’s coffers did not come from the town’s budget, the committee works under the town’s auspices. Sconyers said he needs “more structure” to the request before considering it.

—Newsletter Editor

A success story unfolded at the Norfolk Transfer Station last Friday, December 4, when town and state officials, as well as industry representatives, gathered to cut a bright red ribbon, officially dedicating the 13-acre solar array that encircles the town facility.

The multi-year project began when First Selectman Matt Riiska established the Norfolk Energy Advisory Committee in 2018. Lodestar of Avon won the competitive bid for the project, and it was approved at town meeting in 2022. The project was later sold to New Jersey Resources Clean Energy Ventures and was constructed by CTEC Solar, a Bloomfield-based company.

The town receives $42,000 a year for leasing the land, a sum that will increase annually by 1.5 percent.

Riiska addressed those that gathered on a frigid, blustery day, saying he was happy to have worked with all involved. He thanked the various participants for their roles, noting that the town’s consultant, Kirt Mayland “was invaluable to this project’s success.” 

The five-megawatt solar project consists of 9,300 solar panels and can generate enough power to meet the annual electrical needs of 870 homes while drastically reducing emissions. 

—Newsletter Editor

Construction bids for Norfolk’s new fire house could be let by late February. At a meeting Thursday night Silver Petrucelli architect David Stein said construction design is 60 to 70 percent ready and could be complete by January 20. The construction management firm would then need another month to prepare to go out to bid.

The fire house committee has been working to reduce the cost of a building that was originally estimated to cost $9.3 million dollars. Fire Chief Brian Hutchins  said earlier Thursday that significant cuts have been made, but the committee pressed for specifics about cheaper alternatives. 

According to Stein, alternatives such as a standing-seam metal roof as opposed to asphalt shingles would save significant amounts of money, but reducing the size of the “fairly compact” building would probably not help. It is going to be largely a choice of materials,” he said. 

Stein said 2024 has been “a rollercoaster” in terms of pricing, with costs inflated by 20 to 30 percent early in the year. Prices have stabilized now, however, and “the sooner we have numbers, the sooner you will know where you stand.”

Brian Grant of Newfield Construction, the management firm, agreed, saying the sooner the bid packages can go out, the better for the town. “Typically, we get two or three bids for every package,” he said. “The bidding market will tell us what it will actually be. It’s a dance right now, but it’s a simple enough project. I don’t think we will have to reduce it.”

—Newsletter Editor

To date, First Selectman Matt Riiska has no clearance to replace the Smith Road bridge with a temporary span, but he continues to meet with state officials to discuss the permanent replacement of two bridges in South Norfolk washed out in July 2023.

“I still need to fill out more forms,” he told his board Wednesday night. “Every day it is looking up something else and filling out another form.”

Residents of South Norfolk, who have petitioned for the temporary span to allow easier access to Route 272, were hopeful that progress was being made this week when a group of state Department of Transportation workers was seen near the washouts, but Riiska said they were discussing the permanent replacements.

An online public information meeting about the Old Goshen Road bridge will be held by the DOT on January 21. A similar meeting on Smith Road was held in August.

As for the temporary structure, Riiska was equivocal. He said construction—once he gets approval from DEEP and the Army Corps of Engineers—depends on winter weather and the will of townspeople. He does not have the authority to expend more than $100,000 on his own.

“I’ve talked to the Board of Finance,” he said. “If it says we can take the funds out of capital reserve, we would need a town meeting to approve it. I’m not the decision maker on it.”

—Newsletter Editor

Norfolk selectmen are considering a date in January for a public meeting to discuss the merger of Botelle Elementary School and Colebrook School. Colebrook held such a meeting on November 14, but many Norfolk residents, including some Board of Education members, did not know about it. 

The November meeting was called by Colebrook First Selectman Brad Bremer and the boards of selectmen from both communities were invited. Norfolk First Selectman Matt Riiska reported at this Wednesday’s meeting of his board that about 25 people, most of them parents of Colebrook children, attended. Only three Norfolk residents were there. 

“I was surprised to see all those people there and that they were able to speak,” said Norfolk selectman Sandy Evans. “I thought it was just going to be the selectmen.”

She said such a meeting is needed in Norfolk to promote open discussion. 

“With the parents, it’s all a personal thing,” she continued, “but there is a lot to consider—the facilities, the administration, the board. I couldn’t tell what anyone wanted, except they didn’t want to come to Norfolk.”

Riiska stressed that at present there is no consolidation committee. “Going forward, there would have to be an actual committee, similar to what we had in 2012,” he said. “But it needs more discussion before that.” 

The issue of consolidation or merger has been discussed and rejected for decades, even as enrollment figures have dropped precipitously in both towns. Colebrook currently has 64 elementary students and Norfolk has 59. 

—Newsletter Editor

After residents declined to even discuss a regulation requiring property owners to clear their sidewalks after a snowstorm, the town will continue to service the village center and add the newly constructed Maple Avenue walkway.

“We will see how we can maintain the walks through the public works department for now,” First Selectman Matt Riiska said. “That regulation was basically to see which way the wind was blowing.”

The town was sued last year for an accident that occurred when a pedestrian slipped and fell on a walk near the United Church of Christ, even though the walk did not belong to the town. Riiska has been advised by the town’s attorney that an ordinance can be crafted absolving the town of liability and placing the responsibility on property owners. “But we will see how we can maintain the walks through the public works department for now,” he said.

The town already clears sidewalks in Station Place, and along Route 44 and John Curtiss Road after it has finished maintaining its roads. Maple Avenue will have to be sealed every couple of years to protect it. 

Requests have been made to have the walks around the village green cleared, but Riiska fears damaging the granite sidewalks if the town plows them.

An ordinance is already on the books prohibiting homeowners from pushing snow out into roads or clogging sidewalks that the town has cleared.

—Newsletter Editor

Welcome rain has been falling in Connecticut this past week, but the pronounced drought of late summer and fall may have a lingering effect for years. Fruit crops and prized ornamentals may suffer from the historic lack of rain since September. 

Total September and October precipitation measured only 1.85 inches and was the lowest measured in 93 years in Norfolk. Russell Russ, record keeper at the National Weather Service Cooperative Weather Station in Great Mountain Forest, said the second driest September-October period was 76 years ago, when rain measured 2.83 inches. The normal total for both months combined is 9 inches.

Russ reported that through Thanksgiving morning 2.48 inches of precipitation (rain and melted snow) had fallen in November, 2.10 inches below average. All told, precipitation at the weather station was 9.28 inches below average for the last three months.

The average annual precipitation for Norfolk is 53.12 inch. Because the summer brought an excess of rain—7 inches more than usual through August—Russ said the year’s total will probably be only a little below normal.

So, what effect will the topsy-turvy weather have on the region’s plant life? “It usually takes two years or so for major drought to show up in trees,” Russ said. “Fortunately, this dry spell happened during a time when trees are shutting down for the winter, so the recent dry conditions probably won’t be a major concern.” 

Horticulturalist Nash Pradhan of Ginger Creek Nursery was not so sanguine. “It’s been a pretty weird year,” he said. “It started with so much rain that ornamentals were being affected by fungal issues. Plants that were in the wrong place were getting too much water and then someone turned the faucet off.”

Drought interrupts the cycle by which water moves through trees from the roots to the leaves. First finer, hair-like, roots, typically located close to the surface, die back. Eventually larger roots can die back as well. Drought-weakened trees are more susceptible to threats from insects and disease, the effects of which may show up months or even years after the drought. 

Pradhan stopped transplanting anything as the ground dried out, and, although he had not done drip irrigation in years, he reverted to it this fall.

“I don’t know what will happen next spring as a result of the drought,” he said. “A lot of trees were impacted by pests and fungal issues when we had all the rain and then there was no rain for months at a time. Did the trees put all their energy into surviving? Buds were compromised by the drought and just dried out. Marginal trees probably won’t make it.”

—Newsletter Editor

Residents of Connecticut’s Icebox do not want to shovel snow.

The upstairs meeting room in Town Hall filled beyond capacity Wednesday night and townspeople stood on the stairs to protest a proposed regulation that would have required them to clear their walkways of snow and ice within 24 hours of a storm.

The selectmen proposed the regulation after the town was sued last year by a pedestrian who fell on a sidewalk near the Church of Christ Congregational. The town settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

The item never came to a vote, however, as no motion to approve it was proffered.

“If no one makes a motion to approve it, it’s dropped,” said moderator Richard Byrne. “It’s been voted down before. Hearing no motion, we go to the next item on the agenda.”

The crowd broke out in applause. 

The second item—refinancing a loan for River Place bridge—passed handily after a brief discussion. 

The town has a revolving line of credit with NBT (formerly Salisbury Bank) at 2.25 percent. Because of the long delay caused by a two-year project shutdown, NBT wants the town to close it out and take a new one at 4.25 percent. 

After all state reimbursements have been received, town can pay off an estimated $285,000 remaining loan over 10 years, or the Board of Finance can retire it immediately using money it received when it closed its defined benefit plan.

—Newsletter Editor