Board of Selectmen Meeting January 13, 2025

Board of Selectmen Meeting January 13, 2025

On January 8, 2025 there was a Freedom of Information session at the library where the Information Officer stated the requirements for convening a meeting into Executive Session.

At the Board of Selectmen meeting, December 9, 2024 First Selectman Wendy Mackstutis stated that the Board of Selectmen will be going into executive session. The entire board voted and they entered Executive Session.

First Selectman Wendy Mackstutis violated the Freedom of Information Act with the omission of the names of the people and others entering Executive Session and the reason for entering Executive Session.

First Selectman Wendy Mackstutis was elected as First Selectman in 2021 and is serving presently.

During her tenure, she chaired the Board of Selectmen meetings with many Executive Sessions on the Agenda.

However, at the December 9, 2024 Board of Selectmen meeting she noted that the board was going into Executive Session without stating the persons invited into the session and the reason for the session, a violation of the Freedom of Information Act.

All members of the Board of Selectmen where sleeping at the switch by not questioning the violation but voted to go into Executive Session.

The town wants to purchase, 2 Farms Village Rd for $626,000 with 4,752 sq. ft. of space.

According to the tax department 4 Farms Village Rd. pays $14,817.95 for Real Estate taxes and additional Property taxes.

An office building, 245 Hopmeadow Street was recently sold for $575,000 with 10,748 sq. ft. of space.

The purchase and use of the building appears to be a “field of dreams,” that is costly and only as a use for containment of Special Education students out of the schools into a separate building.

The “spend to save” theory is a fallacy.

There have been many projects that have been purchased with the people’s taxes that have gone bankrupt.

It appears that the Board of Education created the numbers for the development of the project by working the numbers to justify the purchase.

With this acquisition, the taxpayers are being asked to pay for a theory developed by the Board of Education with unlimited future costs.

This burden of increased taxation is not a project for cost containment but an open checkbook funded by the taxpayers.

Town Manager Marc Nelson and Superintendent Matt Curtis submitted these findings.

“The backdrop against which our work is progressing, is a drop in our total Grand List (valuation of taxable property) of more than $1.6 Million, mainly resulting from State mandated changes to valuation methods for motor vehicles. Exasperating this reality is the fact that last year’s budget cycle faced only 0.06% Grand List growth, requiring a MIL rate increase of 4.67%. Our top priority in the current budget cycle is to mitigate MIL rate impact for our taxpayers.”

The taxpayers should not be expected subsidize a failed project with unknown longevity costs.

Town Managers and Superintendents of Schools should not keep asking the taxpayers for more money on speculation of projects instead of using their personal capital to lobby the State to remove all unfunded mandates.

Mental health remediation is a serious issue and should be a number one priority.

All hospitals should be expanded with professionals that can service all mental health issues with out-patient patients through long-term care.

The Special Education services in the schools are developed for containment, not long-term care.

The teachers and other services cannot adequately provide a safe environment for the students or themselves.

Throwing money at a failed system will only require the taxpayers to fund Special Education at the expense of the health and safety of the community.

The only way to fix the system of funding Mental Health is for the taxpayers to revolt against the government and vote “NO” on all submitted budgets.

The first step of containment of taxes is to vote “NO” on the purchase of 2 Farms Village Road submitted by Town Manger Marc Nelson and Superintendent Matt Curtis.

Recently the Old Saybrook Police Department had a consultant review the management of the Police Department and address the reason for Officers leaving the department due to a toxicwork environment.

The Simsbury Police Department recently contracted with CERTUS to review the Police Department and give recommendations to Chief Boulter

Has Chief Boulter implemented any of these recommendations?

There were underlying issues with the Police Officers voting “NO CONFIDENCE” in Chief Boulter in the past due to a toxic work environment.