Parks, Greenway Referendums will not be on Nov Ballot
The town will miss the Sept. 2 deadline for ballot submission to the state.
The Greenway and Parks referendums will not be on the November ballot according to Town Clerk Joan Locke, as the town will not be able to meet the state's September 2 deadline for setting the questions for the ballot.
Because November 2 is a state election, the questions have to be set and submitted to the Secretary of State well before the vote. The town had originally planned to resubmit the failed parks renovations — to Kids' Kingdom, Cadigan Park and Town Beach — to the public in November along with a referendum on the Still River Greenway project, a two-mile bike path and walking trail.
"The clock ran out on us much faster than we thought," First Selectman Bill Davidson said, though "in a sense it's a blessing," he added, since it will give the planners and engineers more time to work on the projects. Davidson now plans to submit both projects to the voters in January.
The parks projects were originally combined into a single vote in April, next to a $10 million repaving project for the town's roads. The roads referendum passed, however the parks package failed by 178 votes (1,384 to 1,206).
The January referendum will have three questions, asking residents to approve the Greenway, rebuilding of Kids' Kingdom playground and improvements to Cadigan Park and Town Beach, which the town plans to keep together as a single project, as they are "one facility separated by a road," as Davidson put it, with shared water, septic and parking.
"I'm a big believer of things happen for a reason," Parks and Recreation Director Dennis DiPinto said. The added time should remove "any inkling that this is being rushed or that public input is not being heard," he said, and the town plans to use the time to get comments from the public on all the projects. "I don't consider missing the September 2 deadline a negative at all."
The reworked proposal will be significantly less expensive, ideally less than $5 million for all three projects combined (taking into account the $750,000 state grant for Town Beach), according to DiPinto. The first parks referendum, which did not include the Greenway project, was $5.3 million, however "the additional $750,000 will help to reduce the cost in addition to a cost reduction in design," he said.
The multi-purpose building proposed for Town Beach, which was to act as changing rooms, a lifeguard station and event hall, is being down-scaled, "probably in the neighborhood of half the cost" of that proposed in April, DiPinto said.
"The concept is good," Davidson said, but the cost for the original design was prohibitive. DiPinto's projection is not exact, but rather a target number Davidson gave the planners to "reduce the scope and cost of the projects."
"I still want to have everything well in hand by mid-September," DiPinto said, with proposals ready for public review within the next two weeks. The delay won't affect state or federal funding for the projects, DiPinto assured, and will give the town more time to garner public input, rather than rushing through a town meeting to get them on the ballot. "This gives us the opportunity to have a couple of months now to do this right," he said.
Funding for the January referendum will probably come out of contingency, according to Davidson, as the four referendums allotted in the Registrars' budget for the year have already been scheduled.
In This article
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Brookfield Municipal Center
100 Pocono Rd, Brookfield, CT -
Town Park Beach
500 Candlewood Lake Rd, Brookfield, CT -
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Brookfield Municipal Center - Parks & Recreation
100 Pocono Rd, Brookfield, CT
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Cadigan Park
500 Candlewood Lake Rd, Brookfield, CT
