Residents Vote to Approve Four Items at Special Town Meeting

A sparse, approving audience of town residents was on hand for the special town meeting held at the North Haven Memorial Library yesterday evening, with all four measures on the ballot being approved unanimously.

David and Ginger Delancey attended to support the approval of the Moriarty Hall Energy Conservation improvements program that supports the Lancraft Fife and Drum Corps. The program allows the corps to accept donations from corporations to support their charitable works, and the businesses get tax credits for their donations.

The corps, who have met in the same building on Clark Avenue since 1962, has 38 local members, and was founded in New Haven in 1888. The funds the group collects in association with the improvements program “helps us continue with our maintenance of the building,” David Delancey said.

The corps applies every year to renew the program, which is supported by North Haven in accordance with the Connecticut Neighborhood Assistance Act.

First Selectman Michael Freda lauded the corps for raising $7,500 last year and called the program a “win-win all the way around.”

The town authorized the program at a Board of Selectman meeting, setting up the town meeting vote.

Next up on the agenda was a resolution to support a financing grant application for 222 McDermott Road, a 95,000 square foot industrial building on 10.5 acres between I-91 and Middletown Avenue that has been dormant since 1995.

The grant will provide $500,000 to the town to assist Haven West LLC, which is redeveloping the property. Freda said the money will be paid back over a 15 year period from tax proceeds paid by the new tenants of the building. The town will generate $57,000 per year in taxes on the building which will increase in value from $495,000 to $2.3 million.

“We can get the building up and running, which will produce jobs and aesthetically improve the area,” Freda said.

He said companies are interested is locating there.

The fourth item on the town meeting agenda was to authorize the continuation of town resources that pays the South Central Regional Emergency Communications System (CMED) to provide emergency communication assistance.

CMED routes 911 calls to the fire department, ambulance services, and hospitals, and plays “a critical part in 911 emergency services,” Freda said.

Last year it routed 3,814 local calls. The town renegotiated with CMED to reduce the cost of the service to $48,000 from $52,000.

Two members of the local fire department spoke in favor of the resolution before it passed unanimously.