Community News

A roomful of residents quickly passed four items at last Monday town meeting, with only a handful of votes being cast against making Haystack Woods Road a public thoroughfare maintained by the town.

The road, which connects Haystack Woods to Old Colony Road, has been constructed to town specifications, graded and paved, according to First Selectman Henry Tirrell.

Also approved at the meeting was the allocation of $270,000 for the immediate purchase of a new plow truck for the town’s fleet. Tirrell said Thursday that he has entered into a verbal contract with a supplier for an International cab and chassis. That should be ready in July, when it will be sent to be fitted with the truck bed and body. “We hope it will be complete by November,” said Tirrell.

Connected to that same item on the call was $130,000 for the initial deposit in a fund that will build toward the purchase of a new $1.1 million pumper truck for the fire department. Future allocations will be made in subsequent years. Once ordered, it can take up to two years to have a truck built and delivered.

Tirrell said the town has a Capital Reserve Account that can be used for emergency expenses, but that he would like to make that fund more comprehensive to plan for such large-ticket items as trucks.

Residents also approved entry into the Northwest Hills Council of Government’s new Northwest Regional Resource Authority (NRRA), which would collect municipal solid waste from about a dozen Northwest Corner communities. Other towns in the region have the NRRA on the agendas for annual town budget meetings.

The COG is pushing for a transfer of the Torrington waste collection site to NRRA to stabilize services in the region after the closure of a major burn plant in Hartford.

According to Tirrell, a house bill allowing the transfer has been reported out of the Government Oversight Committee and now faces action in the legislature.

A new farmers market is set to open May 20 on the border of Norfolk. Dubbed Northwest Farm to Fork, it will be held from May through October on the third Wednesday of each month, 5:00 to 8:00 p.m., May to October at Norbrook Farm Brewery, 204 Stillman Hill Road, in Colebrook.

Devin Grosso has joined with former Norfolk Farmers Market board members Lisa Auclair and April Carter to form a new nonprofit that will run the market.

“I have only lived here about a year,” said Grosso, “and when I came to town, I was so excited to find a farmers market—and then I learned it was shutting down. I knew I was new to town, but I wondered if there was a way to bring it back. Then I met Lisa through the Botelle Garden Committee, and she put me in touch with all the vendors.”

The women are excited about the new location. Norbrook Brewery is a popular gathering place that also sells food and has animals to pet, live music and outdoor sports facilities. They anticipate the brewery’s clientele, and local foodies, will ensure the success of the endeavor.

“They have a pavilion, so we don’t have to worry about weather,” Grosso observed.

For the first year, the market will focus on food. “We’ll have microgreens, mushrooms, eggs, sourdough bread—our goal is to be a one-stop-shop for groceries. Everything will be local, fresh and homegrown,” Grosso said, adding that flowers and plants will also be available.

The board members are also reaching out to neighboring states for additional vendors to expand variety. Area residents can follow the market on its website, or Facebook page.

The long wait is almost over. The town crew is expected to do final landscaping around the popular Big Green Slide at Botelle School next week, once again opening the 60-foot slide to area children.

After long negotiations with the supplier, Creative Recreation, the slide has been restored and is ready for use at no cost to the town.

The slide has a tortured past. The original was vandalized by teenagers in 2019. The teens came to the playground, failed to gain entrance to the slide itself because of its gated entrance, and opted instead to jump up and down on top of the green plastic segments. Attempts were made to repair it, but it was soon discovered that the wooden supports were rotted and needed to be replaced as well.

Replacement became a controversial topic in town, with some residents objecting to the $80,000 price tag. Money was eventually taken from ARPA funding and private donations, but it was not until 2023 that the slide was replaced and opened up to young children. 

Then catastrophe struck again. Almost immediately, the replacement failed due to cracked flanges and improper footings, rendering it unsafe. It lay abandoned as efforts were made to get Creative Recreation to make an adjustment.

“Public Works tried to get all the landscaping finished before winter set in but obviously the weather did not cooperate,” reported First Selectman Henry Tirrell. “It’s been a long time coming.”

Norfolk Artists and Friends (NAF) has a new leader, sculptor Jon Riedeman, and he wants “shake things up” to instill new energy in an organization he believes “is in a rut.”

NAF is a membership organization made up of professional artists living and working in the 

Norfolk area. Its members produce a wide variety of visual arts including painting, sculpture, photography, jewelry and decorative arts. 

For the past 19 years, NAF has put on a summer show in the Art Barn on the Battell Stoeckel estate. Riedeman believes that the format has started to stagnate—”same show, same artists, same space, same format.”

“Attendance at the exhibitions has been either flat or declining,” he said, “and the energy has not been as strong as it was in the past.” He wants to create more excitement about it this year by changing the format to invite 15 artists from the New Marlborough area to exhibit in a joint show called “Norfolk vs. New Marlborough.”

In addition to hosting the annual show, he further wants to expand the scope of NAF’s activities to setting up workshops, presenting guest speakers, creating pop-up shows, sponsoring trips to museums and galleries, and the like.

To build momentum Riedeman wants to undertake a vigorous and expanded promotional campaign advertising the organization’s new endeavors. At the Economic Development Commission’s Thursday night meeting, he asked for a grant, arguing that it would directly assist 30 Norfolk residents with their art careers while increasing the visibility of Norfolk’s strong artist community.

EDC members were enthusiastic about Riedeman’s plans to invigorate NAF and expand its activities. He was encouraged to develop a budget and come back to the May meeting.

“I love the idea of the helping you promote art,” said member Libby Borden. “It’s a huge identity for the town. It’s part of our heritage.”

Next Monday’s town meeting, planned for 7:00 p.m. at Botelle School has taken on new urgency as state legislators weigh the future of Torrington’s waste facility. 

Item 4 on the agenda is to discuss whether Norfolk will designate the Northwest Regional Recovery Authority (NRRA) as the town’s resource recovery authority. [please keep the strong “has taken on new urgency” as the lead and then say why.]

First Selectman Henry Tirrell has said that designating the NRRA as the town’s waste management authority will strengthen the NRRA’s position with the state legislature as it debates the future of the Torrington site.

The NRRA is the Northwest Hills Council of Government’s response to the solid waste crisis in Connecticut created by the dissolution of the Materials Innovation and Recycling Authority (MIRA) in Hartford. COG has sought control of Torrington recycling site for use as a central collection hub for Northwest Corner towns since 2022, when MIRA—which served 72 Connecticut municipalities—was closed.

Last year, lawmakers scuttled the attempt of USA Waste, a private hauler, to purchase the Torrington facility, passing legislation that required it to remain in the public domain. But area town officials were stunned in March to learn that the Department of Administrative Services, which has operated the plant for the last year, plans to shutter it on June 30. 

It is expected that USA Waste would renew its offer to buy the facility and the NRRA does not have the staff or the budget to compete with the company’s $3.25 million offer. 

In response, a bipartisan group of area legislators has raised a land conveyance bill that would transfer ownership of the facility to the NRRA at no cost other administrative expenses. A hearing on the bill was held Wednesday in Hartford with much comment supporting the land conveyance. 

If successful, the bill would require the NRRA to operate the transfer station in perpetuity, as a public facility for handling municipal waste. The facility processes 25,000 tons per year of waste, recyclables and bulky items, and has a capacity to expand that to 60,000 tons.

Starting next week, the selectmen’s office will be closed on Fridays. Office hours will be extended until 6:00 p.m. on Thursdays. Until now, it has been the only municipal office open on Fridays. 

“No one ever comes in on a Friday,” explained Administrative Assistant Barbara Gomez.

The Town Hall, located at 19 Maple Ave., is generally open Monday through Thursday, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., for the town clerk and selectmen. Other departments have limited hours. 

The building official is there Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, 10:00 a.m. to noon; registrar of voters, Mondays, 3:00 to 5:00 p.m.; social services, Monday through Wednesday, noon to 4:30 p.m.; the zoning enforcement officer, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:00 a.m. to 4 p.m. (as the ZEO office may have closures, it is recommended to verify availability), and the treasurer by appointment.

Call 860-542-5679 for specific office hours or visit norfolkct.org and select from the list of town offices on the Town Hall menu. 

The Northwest Conservation District, which serves Norfolk and 33 other towns in Northwest Connecticut, will again hold its annual Earth Day Plant Sale on Friday, April 24, through Sunday, April 26, at the Goshen Fairgrounds, 116 Old Middle Street.

Pre-order sales close April 15, but many more plants will be available all three days of the sale, including perennials, shrubs and trees.

The Board of Finance wrestled with the impact of an aging fleet of Public Works trucks on town finances when it met Tuesday night.

First Selectman Henry Tirrell presented a 2026-2027 budget that, without adjustments, represents a 10.48 percent ($492,442) increase in general government and capital plan spending. Local education costs would rise by an additional $113,685 (4.47 percent) while Northwestern Regional School District #7’s increase for Norfolk is $78,853 or 3.99 percent. 

Tirrell explained that the majority of the increase results from the need for new plow trucks for the Public Works Department. The fleet is old, with the newest truck being nine years old. A four-man subcommittee assigned to assess the fleet said that two trucks need to be replaced immediately.

They reported that the trucks purchased in 2007 and 2009 are so old they are taxing the maintenance account, which is over budget this year. Sometimes, they say, parts must be made to repair them.

If the town were to use available funds to purchase one truck immediately it could be delivered before snow flies in the fall. They advocated for including a second truck in the 2026-2027 budget. If ordered in July, it would be available next April. Each truck would cost about $270,000.

The finance committee discussed funding options at length. Funds available immediately, or expected in the near future, include a “robust” positive fund balance (no specific figure cited); about $600,000 remaining from closing out the town’s pension plan, and an anticipated reimbursement of more than $500,000 expended to clean up the 2022 gas spill. The town also has more than a million dollars in its capital reserve account.

Finance Board Chairman Michael Sconyers said the town “has all this money sitting around” and favored using part of it to keep 2026-2027 taxation down. The finance board explored different spending options and, upon the recommendation of the public works subcommittee, settled on asking residents to authorize the immediate expenditure of $270,000 to buy one plow truck. The issue will be taken to the April 6 town meeting.

Authorization would also be sought to set aside $130,000 toward the purchase of a $1.1 million fire truck. 

A second plow truck would be included in the 2026-2027 budget, as would be another $130,000 allocation for the firetruck.

Tirrell will refine the budget numbers and bring them back to a special Board of Finance meeting at a time to be determined.

A town meeting is being planned for Monday, April 6, at 7:00 p.m. at Botelle School to act on a proposal that the town join the newly organized Northwest Resource Recovery Authority (NRRA) and other issues.

NRRA is the Northwest Hills Council of Government’s response to the solid waste crisis in Connecticut created by the dissolution of MIRA (the Materials Innovation and Recycling Authority). MIRA formerly received municipal solid waste from 72 municipalities at its Hartford waste-to-energy burn plant. The plant was closed in 2022, resulting in shipments by rail of millions of tons of solid waste annually to depositories in the Midwest.

The Northwest Hills COG has sought control of the existing Torrington transfer station for use as a central collection hub for Northwest Corner towns that still had contracts with MIRA. The MIRA Dissolution Authority entered into a non-binding agreement with the council in February 2025 to allow it to take control of the facility at the end of June that year. But on May 14, 2025, the dissolution authority accepted a $3.25 million offer from a large private firm, USA Waste & Recycling, to buy the transfer station.

That sale was derailed in June when the state legislature mandated that the Torrington transfer station’s permit be kept in public hands. The facility processes 25,000 tons per year of waste, recyclables and bulky items, and has a capacity to expand that to 60,000 tons. 

As of December 2025, only two towns, Torrington and Goshen, were official members of NRRA. Several NWCOG towns—including Salisbury, Cornwall, Falls Village, Sharon, Canaan and Norfolk—have expressed interest in joining and will take the issue to voters this spring. The goal, according to First Selectman Henry Tirrell, is to demonstrate to the state that there is local support for public control of the facility.

Other items on the agenda include whether to accept Haystack Woods Road, which leads to the new affordable housing complex, as a town road, and funding for construction of a new bridge on Mountain Road. The town will be reimbursed 100 percent for the bridge by the state and federal governments but must pay bills as the work progresses.

3/21/26
Meeting date corrected to April 6, 2026.

Work is resuming on construction projects mothballed during the months-long deep freeze that enveloped the Northwest Corner this winter, and another will get started soon.

Last Monday saw crews return to the state DOT’s massive project on Route 44 west of the village. Even though this week’s day-time temperatures only struggled up into the 30s, crews resumed work applying panels of stone veneer over the corrugated steel retaining wall. 

The $37 million project, which began in April 2024, was originally expected to take five years, but the construction phase was shortened by two years and is now expected to be complete this September. 

The project, which involves replacing old masonry walls to prevent washouts, stabilize the slopes above the highway and to improve drainage, is funded by 80 percent funded by the federal government, with the state providing 20 percent of the cost.

In addition, First Selectman Henry Tirrell reported that construction of the new fire house will resume this coming Monday, with construction of the building expected to be complete in November or December. The old fire house will be demolished after the fire department moves into its new quarters, with landscaping taking place in spring 2027.

Finally, the state DOT’s construction of a new bridge on Mountain Road between the town ball fields and Westside Road will begin in April. Detour signs will direct traffic to Westside Road from its intersection with Route 44 near Immaculate Conception Church and from Route 272.