A series of workshops will be held from May through September at Great Mountain Forest (GMF). The series features several curriculum modules of GMF’s Woodland Academy and will be held at the Yale Forestry Camp in Great Mountain Forest. 

The first workshop, a full-day session on strategies and funding opportunities, is slated for May 22. GMF will host “Game of Logging I and II” sessions June 12 and 13, during which chainsaw skills will be taught. And on August 8, Star Childs of GMF and Dave Beers of the DEEP will teach land navigation and mapping skills. 

A three-day intensive course is scheduled for August 1, 15 and September 12, beginning with tree and shrub identification and moving on to creation of wildlife habitats. The workshops conclude with an exploration of management resources such as technical assistance programs, cost-share opportunities and tools of the trade. Each workshop combines classroom learning with field experience.

Visit the GMF Woodland Academy website page for more information and to apply for a spot.

—Kathryn Boughton

On April 17, Tarpon Towers and Cellco Partnership (d/b/a Verizon Wireless) officially filed an application with the Connecticut Siting Council to construct a telecommunications facility at 78 Goshen East Street. The siting council has until September 14 to decide the issue.

The tower, which would serve a portion of south Norfolk and Goshen that has no current cell service, would be located on a secluded parcel of land. Two weeks ago, a balloon float was conducted to determine the visibility of the proposed 186-foot-tall tower in the surrounding study area.

The tower, according to the application, will be located in the western portion of the 41-acre parcel and has few residences nearby. The closest house is 680 feet away and the surrounding terrain is hilly and densely forested.

Areas of potential concern included the northern end of Goshen East Street, which abuts the property, and is a locally designated scenic road. Route 272, which runs through the eastern half of the study area, is a state-designated scenic highway. The Amos Baldwin house, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is about a half mile southeast of the proposed site and there are several municipal, state and private open-space parcels located throughout the study area. 

The company used both computer modeling and the balloon test to assess the visual impact of the tower throughout the study area. The data was manipulated to indicate “visible cells” where the tower might be glimpsed at an average eye height (5 feet from the ground). The report cautions, however, that computer analysis cannot predict all variables such as vegetation, structures and the variability of topography. 

The report concluded that visibility will be restricted to a few locations along an approximately half-mile section of Estey Road, to an open field on the northeast and to North Pond on the south. Visibility on Estey Road will be primarily seasonal, and the site will not be visible from any other roads in the study area.

There will be no visual impact on the Amos Baldwin House or on the open space properties or trails. 

The siting council will hold a public hearing where they application will be reviewed and discussed. Residents can formally request party or intervenor status from the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) and submit evidence, present witnesses and question other participants in the proceeding. Residents can also choose to make a limited appearance at the hearing, which allows them to provide input without becoming a formal party or intervenor.

A request for intervenor status must be made at least five days before a public hearing. For more information and an intervenor form, click here.

While residents can participate in the process and provide input, the CSC ultimately makes the decision on whether to grant the certificate for the tower.

—Kathryn Boughton

An informational meeting about why Norfolk needs a new firehouse and how much it might cost prompted only two questions Thursday night, one about whether the proposed plan will meet future needs, and the second about whether solar panels were included in the plan.

The new structure would provide adequate space for training, storage and parking of the today’s much-larger fire engines, according to First Assistant Fire Chief Matt Ludwig. And the solar panels cut from the plant to save costs.

Ludwig said the current firehouse, which originally housed three fire trucks, was “perfect” 54 years ago but that, with seven trucks measuring up to 33 feet in length, the building is now inadequate.

He painted a picture of quarters so cramped that the doors of trucks parked side by side, cannot be opened simultaneously. Modern building codes require at least three feet of open space around fire trucks. Trucks have to be pulled out of the firehouse when meetings and training sessions are held.

“Firefighting has changed drastically over the last 50 years,” he said. “Because we are held to such high standards, we are continually training, about 20 hours a month.”

The current building has numerous building code violations and does not have a ventilation system to mitigate exposure to toxic fumes such as diesel exhaust. 

Ludwig said the design for the new firehouse addresses the current and future needs of the community even though the building committee “trimmed the unnecessary fluff.”

Barry Roseman, a member of the building committee with extensive experience in developing financing for nonprofit projects, said construction costs have escalated from 6 to 7 percent annually in four-plus years since Covid. “We have had to navigate the tension between cost, design and function,” he said. 

He described efforts to reduce the cost of the proposed firehouse. Preliminary estimates came in at $9.5 million. After deep cutting, the estimate was reduced to $8,263,000. Soft costs and a contingency fund pushed the cost back up to $9,263,000.

Funding will come from a $2.5 million grant from the state; $3,000,000 in private donations; $500,000 in town funds, and bond financing of $3,263,000. A federal grant of $1.25 million was caught up in the Washington budget cuts, but the town will reapply next year. 

Roseman said the town should not delay construction to a later time because it could lose the state grant and costs continue to rise. 

The issue will go to a town vote on May 12. Ludwig urged everyone to support the fire department.

—Newsletter Editor

The Norfolk Historical Society is preparing for its 2025 season with the launch of a new website and announcement of its summer exhibition. 

“We’ve added a few new features like ‘Architecture’ to the website,” said Director Barry Webber. “We’re planning to expand on that, especially about the 18th-century houses, for the 250th anniversary of the country in 2026.”

“I’m starting public access to the portal for the collections database,” Webber said. “The database lists documents that people can come research.”

The new site allows visitors to explore a number of sections, including one focused on the town’s rich Colonial past. A downloadable walking tour includes descriptions of historic buildings and the families that once occupied them. There are other sections on the town’s early history, historic personages, historic maps from 1853 to 1902 and genealogy. “The maps are new, and users can zoom in on them and see where their house was in 1853,” Webber said.

Also included is a section summarizing the deeply researched exhibitions created each summer and displayed at the historical society’s headquarters on the village green. This year’s exhibition, “A New Birth of Freedom: Norfolk in the War of the Rebellion,” looks at Norfolk’s participation in the Civil War and the attitudes toward slavery in the community. The exhibit will be on view weekends, 1:00 to 4:00 p.m., June 7 through October 12. 

—Newsletter Editor

Crews were putting the finishing touches on River Place bridge this week, getting ready to pave the little street on Monday. That will put paid to a project that began in the summer of 2022 and stalled in November of that year when it was discovered that one headwall was not sitting on a firm foundation.

Construction did not begin again until last year after the bridge was redesigned. “They will pave on Monday and then it’s cleanup and landscaping,” said First Selectman Matt Riiska. The foreman on the work site predicted that finishing touches will take a month after the road is again completely open to traffic.

One of the workmen commented on the gracious quality of a neighborhood that has been inconvenienced for three years. “They have been so patient with us when we had our equipment in the way and one lady up the street even brought us cookies,” he said.

A few hundred feet away, on Route 44, crews continue to move forward on the massive project to reconstruct a century-old rubble retaining wall. The multi-year project still has two years to go before it will be complete. 

Riiska said that the DOT plans a public meeting in May at Town Hall to describe the progress of the project. Details about the meeting will be announced soon.

Finally, engineers from Cardinal Engineering are still working with DEEP to get approval of plans for a temporary bridge to replace the one washed out on Smith Road in summer 2023. 

—Newsletter Editor