Community News

Summer is special in Norfolk with a plethora of activities to choose from. Perhaps the events with the greatest hometown feel are the ever-popular Friday Nights on the Green, which resume June 7 and continue through August 30. All programs start at 6:00 p.m. and run until 8 o’clock.

The series kicks off with pizza and games sponsored by the Botelle PTO and the Norfolk Hub. Music that night will be by Lucy Morningstar. The following week the much-anticipated Pet Parade will be held, sponsored by the Norfolk Library. Blossom, a sweet-tempered bulldog who attended the Memorial Day parade Monday in her Tea Party t-shirt, told me she was very much looking forward to seeing all her friends there.

On June 21, there will be a Woodland Celebration hosted by Great Mountain Forest and the Conservation Commission with music by Aimee Van Dyne, followed on June 28 by Blooming Flowers presented by the Norfolk Community Association. Music will be by Mad River Music.

July 5 will bring a Community BBQ, hosted by the Norfolk Hub with music by Kettle Creek. The Norfolk Land Trust will bring Skyhunters in Flight to the green July 12 and another community barbecue hosted by the Hub will close out the month on July 26. This time, Andy Styles will provide the music.

August 2, Weekend in Norfolk returns and there will be an audience-inclusive drum circle on the green. Keep your appetite whetted for August 9 when Aton Forest will treat townsfolk to pizza and ice cream. The following Friday, National Iron Bank and the Lions Club plan to further satisfy gustatory desires with a third community barbecue. With Labor Day on the horizon, the programs close August 30 with an ice cream social sponsored by the Lions Club Ambulance service.

All programs are free. In case of rain, music will be performed at the Norfolk Hub.

—Newsletter Editor

It’s been a long journey, but on Saturday at 5:00 p.m. the Church of Christ Congregational will hold a town-wide celebration to mark the completed restoration of its 211-year-old steeple. 

Attendees will be invited to view the steeple, which underwent extensive restoration, and then to raise a glass and enjoy some cake at a reception inside Battell Chapel.

The sun is expected to smile on the event but in case of inclement weather it will be moved entirely inside the chapel.

“We’re so excited the steeple is back,” said Pastor Erick Olsen. “Everyone is over the moon. It’s the culmination of so much work, so much support, so much generosity, so many well wishes. It’s just an absolute joy!”

He added that during Saturday’s program, which will include comments by local dignitaries and members of the Steeple Committee, a commemorative plaque will be unveiled. People will also hear the steeple’s bells chime “for the first time in a long time.”

Designed in 1813 by master builder David Hoadley, the church—which was constructed on the same site as an earlier one built in 1760—includes an elegant steeple that rises from a square clock tower in two octagonal stages capped by balustrades and a tall spire. It bravely endured 206 years of exposure in a town dubbed the “Icebox of Connecticut” before restoration began.

By then, deterioration was so severe it was feared that a 45-mile-per-hour wind could send it toppling to the ground. Faced with this fact, the steeple was gently detached and lowered into a specially designed cradle beside the church just days before Christmas 2020. Last January, with the structural damage repaired, it was triumphantly hoisted back atop the sanctuary, where the final work was done under a protective shroud of plastic.

With a successful capital campaign behind it, the church even had enough money to repair the belfry clock and chimes, which play a melody written for them by Robbins Battell, a grandson of the Norfolk’s first pastor, Ammi Ruhamah Robbins.

—Newsletter Editor

First Selectman Matt Riiska was dotting I’s and crossing T’s this week as he put the finishing touches on some major projects.

He reported that the final paperwork has been completed on refinancing a $4 million loan taken out last year to pay for Maple Avenue’s reconstruction and replacement of Botelle School’s roof. The original loan was taken out at 5.87 percent interest and the refinance is costing only 3.46 percent. Riiska estimates the lower rate will save the town more than $1 million over the course of the 24-year loan.  

He said the reconstruction of Maple Avenue is moving rapidly to its conclusion after being delayed all last summer by cleanup efforts following the massive gas spill in November 2022. He anticipates final paving of the road will happen during the first week of June.

“There are a few things to touch up,” he said, “and the paperwork will go on for a while documenting which part of the work is connected to the gas spill.”

Testing and monitoring for any residual gas from the spill continues but last winter the Torrington Area Health District cleared the seven houses effected by the spill for occupancy. Most of those families have now returned to their homes, although one building remains unrented, and one is in foreclosure. 

Ironically, East River Energy, the firm whose truck overturned, spewing 8,200 gallons of gas over the landscape, was the successful low bidder this year for the consortium through which Norfolk receives its heating oil. “They’re still in business,” Riiska said. “Their driver screwed up and that’s why they pay high insurance premiums. But they treat us right and we’re getting an excellent price of $2.95 a gallon for our oil.”

—Newsletter Editor

The annual Norfolk Memorial Day Parade will be held Monday at 9 a.m., starting from the Norfolk Town Hall. The parade route goes from Town Hall to the village green, around the green and continues down Route 44 to Memorial Green. 

At Memorial Green there will be a reading of the names of deceased veterans.

Following the parade and ceremony, the Norfolk Volunteer Fire Department will host an open house with free donuts and coffee.

At noon, the 45th annual Memorial Day 5-Mile Road Race, sponsored by the fire department, will begin on Westside Road and finish on the village green. Online registration can be made here through Saturday. There is no same-day registration.

Frankie’s Food Truck will be stationed on the village green.

—Newsletter Editor

There is a new threat to Connecticut forests as beech leaf disease spreads rapidly and Great Mountain Forest is playing a role in fighting it.

Plant pathologist Robert Marra, lead investigator with the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven, is using a plot in GMF as one of 11 stations in Connecticut to monitor the progression of the newly diagnosed disease, which was first identified in Ohio in 2012.

The Great Mountain Forest plot is one of two in Litchfield County. Trees there are measured annually to see how they have changed and what can be determined about regeneration. 

Dr. Marra appeared at the Norfolk Library last Sunday in a program sponsored by the Norfolk Conservation Commission. “By 2022, we realized we had big, big problem,” he said. “We were seeing a beech leaf disease Hell-scape and knew we are dealing with a disease that is not going away soon.”

Beech leaf disease causes mortality in saplings as well as mature beech trees, which Marra described as a foundational species in some forests. 

It has now been determined that an invasive nematode (a microscopic round worm) is responsible for the disease, which is spread when the nematode population burgeons in late summer and fall. The leaves fall into puddles and the nematodes exit through the leave’s stomata into the water, where they can be carried to other trees by insects, birds or mammals. 

Finding a cure is a long way off, but trees can be treated with phosphite products. Researchers have had encouraging results by drenching the soil around beech saplings with the products twice a year. Phosphites are inexpensive, do not need a certified applicator and do not harm other creatures.

Marra said phosphites reduce tree mortality, sustaining a large enough population for genetic diversity once a cure is found.

—Newsletter Editor

The Norfolk Land Trust is applying for a second renewal of its national accreditation, a hard-to-obtain badge of honor bestowed on land trusts that demonstrate that they protect the public interest with sound and sustainable land transactions and stewardship, operate ethically and are accountable to donors and the public.

Accreditation is a mark of excellence and helps to provide credibility to donors and grantors. The Norfolk Land Trust was originally accredited in 2013 when only six of the then 104 land trusts in the state had achieved the distinction

Public comments may be submitted through September 20 and must relate to how the Norfolk Land Trust complies with national quality standards (see full list here.) To submit a comment click here or email the Land Trust Accreditation Commission. 

The Norfolk Land Trust, created in 1982, protects more than 4,000 acres of open space through conservation easements and owned preserves and maintains more than 20 miles of trails, all of which are open to the public. 

—Newsletter Editor

Representatives of the state Department of Transportation traveled to Norfolk Thursday to answer the public’s questions about a major reconstruction of Route 44 just west of the village center. 

The project, which is expected to consume five construction seasons, will widen the road and its shoulders, improve drainage and reconfigure the steep hillside above.

The project has been under consideration by the DOT ever since a 2010 washout of part of the wall shut off the main traffic artery for a full day. Several years ago, a precast block wall was installed in front of the historic stone wall to prevent further rockslides. The old wall has a noticeable three-foot bulge caused by more than a century of water movement and repeated freeze/thaw cycles.

According to DOT project engineer Amy Hare, Section 1 of the redesign stretches for 1,034 feet. Route 44 in that section is narrow and curvy, with shoulders that vary in width from three to four feet with no snow shelf. The new design provides for traffic lanes of 12 feet and shoulders of five feet, with an additional six-foot buffer zone between the shoulder and the front face of the new retaining wall.

Above this section of road lies Center Cemetery, one of the most historic burial grounds in Norfolk. The DOT’s plan calls for its protection, with no heavy equipment operating within its borders except on paved surfaces or heavy construction mats. Stones will be protected by fencing. Construction activity will stop during funerals.

The town will decide the appearance of the new retaining walls, which will be decorative cement with a stone appearance.

The first phase of the project is already underway. Water, sewer and power lines are being relocated and traffic on the heavily used road is being regulated by flaggers. Hare said that when reconstruction begins, probably next year, one-lane traffic will be controlled during the April-to-Thanksgiving construction season by portable traffic lights. Emergency vehicles will be equipped with signals that will trip the lights to let them move through virtually unimpeded.

It is expected that there will be two-way traffic during the winter months.

The DOT will attempt to divert commercial traffic onto a 45-minute detour that will take it from Canaan to Goshen, over to Torrington and back up Route 272 to Route 44. Hare agreed that the detour “is not good” and said the state cannot make truckers use it.

Old Colony Road will not be used as a detour and, indeed, will be closed during the later stages of the project. 

Extensive soil analysis has been done and it is not anticipated that blasting will be needed, Hare said. “Aquarion Water Company has been encountering rock, but they have been excavating it,” she observed. 

Originally estimated at $24,000,000, project cost has now risen to $37,000,000. Eighty percent of that will be funded by the federal government and 20 percent by the state. It will not cost the town anything except five years of stops and starts.

— Newsletter Editor

Registration is open for the 45th annual Norfolk Volunteer Fire Department’s Memorial Day Road Race, set for May 27 at noon. The scenic 5-mile race starts on Westside Road and finishes at the village green. 

Also known as the William F. Kelley Memorial Road Race, it was named for a 19-year veteran of the NVFD who died in 1996 at the age of 42. The race is the sole fundraiser for the fire department’s scholarship program.

The race predates the fire department’s management of it, however. In the 1970s, a group of Norfolk runners always ran together, going to various regional races. In 1978 they were inspired to create their own race in Norfolk and decided that Memorial Day would be a good day to hold it. 

The event attracted 56 runners the first year and grew rapidly to include hundreds of athletes. It was run informally for more than a decade before being turned over to the fire department as a fundraiser.

There are eight age divisions ranging from Junior (12 and younger) to Exalted (older than 70). A walkers’ division will start at 11:30 a.m. and will not be timed. A total of 58 awards will be presented during the closing ceremonies on the green. 

Registration is $35 until May 23 and increases to $50 from May 24 through May 26. There is no registration on the day of the race. To register online, click here.

Donations are needed to support the scholarship and can be made online or by mailing a check to Norfolk Volunteer Fire Department, Attn: Scholarships, 20 Shepard Rd., Norfolk CT 06058.  

—Newsletter Editor

In a brief Monday evening town meeting, voters quietly passed six items, including the Board of Finance’s proposed $9.1 million budget for fiscal year 2024-25. Following the meeting, the Board of Finance convened and set the mill rate at 28.4, an increase of .71 mills, or 2.5 percent. 

The budget was passed with one dissenting vote.

Board of Finance chairman Michael Sconyers moderated the meeting. He said the reason for the budgetincrease is a $230,000 rise in the Botelle School budget, of which $181,000 is for educating a special needs student. At the same time, the town’s assessment at Regional School #7 increased $342,000 because Norfolk is sending more students to the school next year.

The general government portion of the budget was reduced $52,500.

Kim Crone, who currently represents Norfolk on the Region 7 Board of Education, was unanimously elected for another four years.

Housekeeping issues—such as setting the town’s fund balance at no less than 15 percent of the budget, approving expenditures to maintain plantings in town, authorizing the selectmen to apply for and expend state and federal funds, and authorizing the selectmen and the town treasurer to issue notes in anticipation of the receipt of taxes—all passed unanimously. 

—Newsletter Editor

The Yale Norfolk School of Art gets underway this Saturday on the Battell-Stoeckel Estate in the center of Norfolk and continues through June 29 with 25 students participating in the undergraduate program.

As always, there will be community outreach, both through a series of lectures centered around this year’s theme of “Making Light” and through Community Drawing, two-hour live model drawing sessions that are open to the public. The drawing sessions are held in the Art Barn on the estate Tuesday evenings at 7:00 p.m. and Saturday mornings at 10:00 a.m., starting May 25.

The Thursday Night Lecture Series begins May 23. All lectures take place in the Art Barn with a wine reception to follow.

Yale also will seek to engage with Norfolk residents through its Community Art Project. Open Studios and the Community Art Project reception are scheduled for June 23 from 1:00-6:00 p.m.

—Newsletter Editor