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.