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Marcia Chambers | Apr 19, 2018 9:11 am
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(L-R):Chris Hynes, Rob Sember, Dawn Perrotti.
After deliberating in executive session, the Board of Education (BOE) voted to appoint Dawn Perrotti to fill the vacancy left by the death of longtime member Judith Hotz in January.
In going into the executive session earlier this month, Krause said, “The board is committed to selecting a candidate that has a strong record of supporting all children and to working collaboratively with others to serve the community in the important endeavor of educating Branford’s children. We recognize each candidate brings their experience, expertise and willingness to the interview process.”
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Marcia Chambers | Apr 18, 2018 9:48 am
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Team members (1st row L-R) Coach Jim Cole, Captain Keeley Lepre, Captain Lauren Elmasry and manager Libby Keyes; (2nd row L-R) Maggie Martin, Jessica King, Gianni Benni, Samantha Velardi, Sara Girardi, and Sarah Berdon; (top row L-R) Kaylee Lamb, Hannah Bloomquist, Alayna Boileau, Shae Lepre, Amanda Gage, and Ellie Bartlett.
The Branford girls’ tennis team started off the season winning three of their first four matches. They lost the first match to Sheehan by only one game (3 – 4) and then went on defeat Shelton (5 – 2), Law (6 – 1), and avenged their loss to Sheehan, 4 – 3, in their rematch.
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Co-captain Lauren Elmasry put on her warm up suit for her cool weather match.
Last Thursday, on a cool and blustery afternoon, the young Hornets knew they were going up against a conference power. The Guilford Indians came to town riding a five-game winning streak and winning all their matches by lopsided scores ranging from 7 – 0 to 5 – 2. They actually won 38 of the 42 matches played.
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Marcia Chambers | Apr 18, 2018 8:26 am
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Connecticut’s top election official says the biggest repercussion from Russian hacking is the distrust it has created in the public’s perception of the election system.
“Educating the public is critically needed right now, about what’s going on with the voting system,” said Secretary of State Denise Merrill (pictured above). She was the keynote speaker during a forum Saturday sponsored by both the League of Women Voters of the East Shore, and Connecticut Shoreline Indivisible. The event was televised by Branford’s BCTV.
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Marcia Chambers | Apr 17, 2018 7:58 am
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A public hearing will continue Thursday regarding a proposal to build two retail stores on a vacant 14-acre lot next to Clancy’s Funeral Home on North Main Street. Town Planner Harry Smith (pictured) said one issue concerns cutting into steep rock formations.
The hearing before the Planning and Zoning (P&Z) Commission began April 5, and was continued so additional information can be provided, including reports about the proposed rock slopes.
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Marcia Chambers | Apr 16, 2018 8:57 am
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“Lunch Ladies” Protest
The Board of Education is terminating its contract with Chartwell Food Service at the end of the school year and the 22 “lunch ladies” employed by Chartwell may be out of jobs. They will have to reapply for new jobs at various public schools under a different contractor.
They made their concerns known at last week’s meeting of the Board of Education’s Personnel and Finance Committee meeting, standing with signs as Renee DeAngeles, a 26-year Chartwell employee and Branford resident, addressed the committee.
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Marcia Chambers | Apr 14, 2018 8:56 am
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With Permission
For Blackstone Library leaders, Friday was one of those great days. In the morning, Library Director Karen Jensen and Blackstone Board Chair Andy McKirdy were on hand in Hartford with State Rep. Lonnie Reed (pictured) when the State Bond Commission formally approved a $1 million library construction grant.
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Karen Jensen and Stephanie Farber, Chair, Branford Community Foundation, hold check.
In the afternoon, they were back at the Blackstone to announce that individual donations to the library’s capital campaign reached the amount needed to qualify for the Branford Community Foundation’s (BCF) match of $100,000. The $100,000 grant, to be distributed over four years, is the largest single contribution to an organization in the history of the BCF.
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Marcia Chambers | Apr 13, 2018 10:05 am
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A wrongful death lawsuit against one of the state’s top private investigators and his firm charges they failed to inform the investigator’s minor son, his friend Ethan M. Song and Ethan’s parents that an “unsecured and/or improperly secured gun” with a bullet hidden inside was kept inside his rented Guilford home.
According to a 16-page civil complaint made public in New Haven Superior Court yesterday, Ethan Song,15, and the investigator’s son, “gained access to the loaded gun on the premises,” an act that led to Ethan’s fatal shooting inside the home on Jan. 31. The complaint is silent on who was holding the gun at the time of the shooting.
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Marcia Chambers | Apr 12, 2018 8:17 am
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We’re still waiting for spring. The teaser at the end of this week will morph back into the chilliness that we’ve come to expect. But there are signs: Earth Day is coming up and there are events that call attention to the need to protect our resources. Speaking of protecting, LWV and Connecticut Shoreline Indivisible will hold a forum Saturday on protecting our right to vote. (Are you registered?) Read on – there’s more! Got a cool event? Email sebahner@snet.net by Wednesday noon.
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Marcia Chambers | Apr 11, 2018 8:52 am
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A $112M town-school budget approved by the Board of Finance (pictured) formally heads to the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) tonight with a tiny mill rate increase, following the pattern of a number of shoreline communities this year.
The RTM will examine the RTM budget as it seeks to find additional ways to decrease it. The formal process begins at the RTM meeting tonight at Fire Headquarters at 8 p.m. But the RTM “cannot increase it,” Joseph Mooney, chair of the BOF, said late last month when the BOF unanimously adopted it. Under state law, the BOF consists of three Democrats and three Republicans. At this point, the mill rate would increase a smidgen from 28.47 mills to 28.67 mills over the previous rate. But it might go lower.
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Marcia Chambers | Apr 10, 2018 9:13 am
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A Superior Court judge dismissed one appeal, and a settlement is pending in another appeal for a property owner who filed simultaneous requests to build either a single-family home or affordable housing on a half-acre coastal lot that was deemed “unbuildable.”
Arsalan Altaf through his Pawson Point LLC, filed the appeals last year after Branford’s Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) and Planning and Zoning (P&Z) Commission denied his building requests.
The soul of the late great jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus hovered in Yale Law School’s auditorium Sunday. So did that of the late Stan Wheeler, watching over from an enlarged photo projected on a screen, as two generations of musicians kept their spirits alive.
The occasion was the 11th annual Stan Wheeler Memorial Jazz Concert. The concert has taken place every year since Wheeler, a Yale law professor who sidelined as a trumpeter and nurturer of musical dreams, died in 2007.
The concert not only kept Wheeler’s memory and commitment to the music alive. It also served as a convincing brief for the continued vitality and future
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Marcia Chambers | Apr 6, 2018 10:00 am
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With Permission
Christine Hunter Cohen
Christine Hunter Cohen, a Madison business owner and an education advocate from Guilford, wants to be the next 12th District Democratic senator, replacing Ted Kennedy Jr., who announced earlier this year he would not seek re-election.
Cohen, the owner of Cohen’s Bagel Company in Madison, lives in Guilford with her husband and three young children and serves on the Guilford Board of Education. In an interview, she said her experience as a small business owner and her commitment to public education are the driving forces in her decision to run for the senate seat.
“The state budget cuts have had immense impact,” she said in an interview. “And Connecticut needs to grow small businesses. We need to a take holistic approach to Connecticut, by looking at the whole set of issues rather than focusing on single issues. We need to look at transportation and we need to protect our environment. Let’s look at the whole picture and not departmentalize it. Let’s take a holistic approach.”
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Marcia Chambers | Apr 5, 2018 8:30 am
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Spring is in the air – musically. Walsh kids have been preparing for their spring musical, “The Little Mermaid.” And on Sunday, jazz aficionados and friends of Stan Wheeler will flock to the Levinson Auditorium at Yale Law School for an afternoon of great jazz. Looking ahead, there are various art- and film-related events, along with opportunities to help you navigate these complicated times. Got a cool event? Email sebahner@snet.net.
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Marcia Chambers | Apr 4, 2018 9:31 am
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Sally E. Bahner Photo
UPDATE — The Public Building Commission (pictured) last week unanimously approved $68,471,807 as the Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) for the Walsh Intermediate School renovation and expansion project. The next and final step takes place before the Board of Selectmen.
The difference between the GMP and the $88.2 million total cost of the renovation – approximately $20 million – is for “soft costs” such as furnishings, architects’ fees, legal fees, and owner’s representative (Colliers) fees. The state is providing $30 million toward the project, which is expected to get underway in June.
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Marcia Chambers | Apr 3, 2018 8:04 am
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U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D‑CT) told the junior class at Branford High yesterday that while some might say North Korea is the biggest threat to our country, he believes the biggest threat “we have is to the rule of law, to our civil rights. I think we are in greater danger than at any point in my lifetime of losing critical rights and liberties.”
Bill O’Brien Photo
Blumenthal was responding to a question from one of 200-plus students who turned out for a Town Hall meeting in the BHS auditorium. The Town Hall meeting, which Blumenthal helped to arrange, took about an hour. Afterwards he answered numerous questions from students individually. Some were concerned about safety at their school, which they said had improved. The event was live-streamed so that teachers and students in classes elsewhere in the building could watch it.
