Community News

Four-term First Selectman Matt Riiska will not seek another term in office this November. “I’m definitely not going to run again,” Riiska said this week. “This is my eighth year, but it seems longer.”

Riiska has seen the town through challenging times in his last term, starting with the catastrophic gas spill that occurred only days after his last election and continuing through blizzards, flash floods, major road projects and planning for a new firehouse. 

The Democratic and Republican town committees have yet to caucus—that comes in July—but the changing political landscape is coming into focus. Democrat Henry Tirrell, now completing his first term on the board, has announced his candidacy for the top spot. He will be joined by Leo Colwell, a former selectman who has previously served several terms, as his running mate.

“Leo is the reason I got involved with the Democratic Town Committee and ran for the Board of Selectmen,” said Tirrell. “I am running out of a sense of duty—a real love and caring for a town that has given me a lot.”

Tirrell grew up in Norfolk, attended Botelle Elementary School and Northwestern Regional School District #7. He is currently employed as a brewer at Big Elm Brewery in Sheffield, Mass.

He and his wife, Robin, own a North Street home next door to his parents, Charles and Beatrice Tirrell, and grandmother, former selectman Ayreslea Denny. There they are happily raising their children, Charlie and Josie, in a multi-generational enclave.

Current Republican Selectman Sandy Evans has announced that she will also run for another term on the board. She said she was approached by the Republican Town Committee to run for first selectman but will not because she does not feel she can win in heavily Democratic Norfolk.

She said she had not yet heard of a challenger for Tirrell. “I think Henry will do a good job,” she said. “He is young, well-spoken and well-written—he can make the job what he wants it to be.”

Tirrell, who said he is “trying to soak up as much as I can” during the final months of Riiska’s tenure, comes to the selectmen’s office at least twice a week to confer about the state of the town’s affairs. “I’m not going to leave Henry, Leo and Sandy in the lurch,” promised Riiska. “I will be available to help if they need me.”

As of Monday, June 23, the temporary bridge over Hall Meadow Brook on Smith Road has opened, making emergency access to families on Smith and the south end of Old Goshen road several minutes faster. Once the lengthy process of getting state approval was complete, contractors, aided by the town crew, worked long hours to finish the job.

The Firehouse Committee has held two informational sessions with contractors interested in bidding on the new facility planned for Shepard Road, according to First Selectman Matt Riiska. Bids for the project, estimated to cost $9.3 million, will be opened July 2, at 2:00 p.m. at Town Hall.

“There will be a lot of bids,” Riiska said, explaining that subcontractors will bid on different components of the construction such as plumbing, electrical work, cement and the like. “The construction management company we hired, Newfield Construction, will open all the bids and [assess] them for us,” Riiska said. 

He said the committee hopes site work can begin in August.

Kevin Case of Barkhamsted will take over the superintendent’s office at Botelle School on July 1, where he replaces retiring Superintendent Mary Beth Iacobelli.

It is the fulfillment of a long-time goal for Case, who said he “always had my eye” on the superintendent position at Botelle.

“I like small schools. I feel that you can really get to know the students, their families and the faculty—and I love the multi-age class groupings in Norfolk,” he said. “I feel like I am coming full circle.”

An education veteran of nearly 40 years, he has always worked in small school districts, starting his career at age 29 in Warren and retiring as superintendent of the Canton School District 37 years later. In his hometown, he was on the Region #7 Board of Education, was a member of the Shared Services Committee and was chairman of the Barkhamsted school board.

He was superintendent in Canton for 17 years before retiring. “I was fortunate to be able to stay in one community for so long, but my heart was telling to step aside for a new leader with different ideas,” he said. “I felt I had taken it to a level of excellence and needed to find a new challenge.”

He sat “at home for three months doing nothing and couldn’t stand it” before becoming interim superintendent in Plainville when Steven LePage left to become superintendent at Region #7. “I am thrilled to have Steve so close by again,” he said.

Since 2023, Case has also served as the executive coach for the Association of School Superintendents’ Science of Reading curriculum and as interim head at the Masters School in Simsbury.

While in Canton, he opposed regionalization of that school district, but says each situation is unique. “In Canton, we had close to 1,700 students,” he related, “and I didn’t want to regionalize with other school districts. But we did have two examples of sharing services. We had one food service director for three towns, and we combined the finance offices for the town and the Board of Education, which was very efficient and required fewer employees.”

Case does not want to be perceived as anti-regionalization, however. “This year we have close to 60 students at Botelle,” he said. “If that declines, we will have to do something about that. I am open to hearing what everyone has to say.”

So much time has elapsed since he filed for a permit to construct the North Brook Trail that the topography has changed, Rails to Trails Committee Chairman Robert Gilchrist informed members last week.

The trail, which would follow portions of the abandoned CNE railroad bed to connect Canaan, Norfolk center and Winchester, traverses wetlands and has several beaver dams that create pools of standing water. A 150-foot-boardwalk, constructed of pressure-treated lumber, was planned to span the pools.

Gilchrist told the members that the permitted area for the multiple-use, handicap-accessible trail may have to be extended to 275 feet in length and the trail may have to be raised by another six inches.

Gilchrist has drafted revised plans that, with the committee’s support, will be proactively resubmitted to the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP).

It has been more than a year since the town submitted its proposal to DEEP and multiple inquiries have been made about why it was taking so long. Gilchrist said he had finally heard from the director of land management, who promised to coordinate the process and get back to him. 

Gilchrist said he would like to put all elements of the project out to bid at the same time to determine total cost.

Great Mountain Forest (GMF) will launch a new series of hands-on outdoor science programs in the fall for students enrolled in kindergarten through grade 12 in Northwest Corner schools. 

They are designed to provide environmental education for students who might not otherwise experience forest-based learning.

Using Great Mountain Forest as a living classroom, the field-based programs include such offerings such as “Sap to Syrup: The Sweet Science of Maple Magic” and “Wildlife Explorers: Discovering Adaptations and Biodiversity in GMF.” Three additional modules will soon be available to local schools in the Northwest Corner.

“Our goal is to foster a meaningful connection between students and the natural world, empowering them to become informed environmental stewards,” said Mike Zarfos, executive director of GMF.

The programs are aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards and are funded by a grant from the Northwest Connecticut Community Foundation’s Carlton D. Fyler and Jenny R. Fyler Fund.

The Planning and Zoning Commission received an application from Edward Hinman, 39 Schoolhouse Road, Tuesday night seeking a special permit to operate a container tree nursery in a rural residential zone. The nursery would occupy only a small portion of his 65.5-acre tract.

The P&Z scheduled the application for a public hearing on Tuesday, July 8.

According to Zoning Enforcement Officer Stacey Sefcik, Hinman, a licensed arborist who operates Tamarack Tree Company, already harvests trees from other locations and uses some pre-existing barns on his property to cure the wood he cuts. 

“He wants to expand into small container trees but doesn’t anticipate any other structures,” Sefcik said.

The commission was concerned that the property might be included on the Natural Diversity Database map, which indicates where there are species of concern. It appears that much of Schoolhouse Road is included on the map, but Sefcik noted that the generalized designation does not indicate precisely where a species might exist or what species is of concern. 

Hinman said he would seek more information before the July 8 meeting.

Eleven Northwest Hills Council of Governments towns, including Norfolk, are trying to get money to buy a new municipal solid waste (MSW) distribution center.

At this week’s Board of Finance meeting, Matt Riiska briefly outlined the efforts being made by NWCHCOG to solve the looming problem of solid municipal waste disposal. The town currently contracts with the MIRA Dissolution Authority to take its MSW and recyclables. The town ships about 700 tons of MSW, including 170 tons of recyclables, at a cost of $136 a ton, for a total of about $95,000 a year.

The state has decommissioned the MIRA burn plant, and solid waste is shipped to the Midwest. MIRA has $55 million to $60 million designated for cleaning up its site and Riiska said the towns are trying to get some of that money to buy a new distribution center in Torrington.

Alternatively, the town could contract with another vendor to collect the materials, including continuing with its current hauler, USA Waste & Recycling. Riiska said the cost to contract with a hauler would initially be somewhat lower but would slowly creep up over two years to be “almost a wash.”

“The towns want to find another option,” he said. “At the end of five years, the cost for MSW would go up to $142 a ton, and an additional $75 a ton for recyclables, for a total of $120,000 annually. So, you can see it is a serious thing to look at. All the towns are in the same boat and trying to figure it out.”

The town has again applied for Congressional discretionary funds to offset some of the expense of constructing a new $9.3 million firehouse.

First Selectman Matt Riiska told the Board of Finance Tuesday that $750,000 in previously approved Senate discretionary spending funds were axed during the continuing budget resolution process. A similar fate awaited a $500,000 grant he sought from the House of Representative’s discretionary funds.

He has since reapplied and been assured by Senator Richard Blumenthal and Congresswoman Jahanna Hayes that the requests have been forwarded to their respective appropriations committees. “Cross your fingers,” he told the finance members.

He said the Firehouse Committee is in the bidding process and it is hoped that the bids will be lower than previously estimated because contractors are looking for work in the current economy.

Warmer winters are making it easier for invasive plants to thrive in Connecticut, even in notoriously cooler environments such as Norfolk’s. The Connecticut Invasive Plants Council has identified more than 90 invasive species in the state, carried here by carelessness in the plants we choose for our landscapes, by birds and even by the wind. 

Norfolk’s Conservation Commission is trying to eradicate these opportunistic invaders, who out-compete native plants and reduce biodiversity. It has taken aim at a variety of invasive species, issuing “Wanted” posters with pictures and descriptions, urging residents to eliminate them where they are found. On their list are plants such as barberry, burning bush and Norway maples, all sometimes sold by nurseries, as well as other baddies such as honeysuckle, Japanese knotweed, goutweed, oriental bittersweet and more.

Commission members will promote their message again June 27th during Friday Night on the Green when they will distribute plants to persons who have removed invasive plants from their land. 

Conservation Commission member Nash Pradhan says the commission has done this for more than a decade to encourage residents to eradicate invasives.

Unlike Colonial days, when settlers had to present the rattlesnake’s tail to earn their bounty, it is not necessary for property owners to bring the invasive plant with them to claim their reward.