- Peter Prohaska
- Jan 19
Life in elected office isn’t always glamorous, even when sitting up on the dais as a Town Council member. The January 12 meeting of the Southington Town Council was a good reminder that elected officials sometimes have to think about things like human waste in order to fulfill their duties to the town.
Following the recommendations of the Sewer Subcommittee chaired by Tony Morrison, the Council unanimously approved several projects aimed at ensuring the ongoing capabilities of the Town to manage and process solid waste. One approval was for $136,000 to construct a new protective wall for a generator at the sewer plant that has been damaged by drivers from a nearby McDonald’s drive-in – damages only partially covered by the drivers’ insurance.
A second approval was for gunite repair at the water treatment plant, in the amount of $79,640. A third will cover Microsoft server upgrades for managing the plant at a cost of $49,500. Sewer service maps will also be revised and communicated to the state.
Councillor Kristen Guida, a newly-appointed member of the Subcommittee, touched off a lengthy discussion about the sewer bill payment system and unpaid bills. She said that she was concerned to learn that members of Town staff were not yet adequately trained on the billing software, and that between $250,000 and $2 million in overdue sewer bills had not been collected.
Morrison chimed in to point out that “you can’t turn off sewers” in the way you can with unpaid water bills. Although the Town has the users’ addresses, reaching them to collect payment still poses a challenge. While the Town has the ability to put a lien on delinquent properties and generally charges 12% interest on overdue accounts, the desire is not to drive people out of their homes. He also commented that receivables are treated as positive in accounting, so the lack of payments doesn’t pose a immediate fiscal issue.
Town Manager Alex Ricciardone added further perspective on the problem, which he characterized as a longstanding one. He said that because of a state law that extinguishes liens after 15 years, some delinquent users had simply refused to pay their share. Back in his time as Town Attorney, he found that about a dozen Southington residents had bills over ten years overdue and the Town did attempt to contact those individuals to collect, with mixed success.
He also said that the town’s new Collector of Revenue was still learning to work with the MUNIS billing software, and would address the situation of past-due receivables as she got more familiar with the platform. He noted that the MUNIS system can be “a bear,” and that the company behind it is often rather sluggish when answering requests for training help.
During the public comment session of the meeting, one resident came to the podium to discuss another issue related to waste disposal. She said that sections of the Linear trail she walked were often covered in pet waste, especially from Plantsville Center to West Street. “You can’t walk 20 feet,” she said, “without having to walk around dog poop, and it’s disgusting.” Council member Mike DelSanto later spelled out a message to pet owners: “pick up after your dogs.”
Questions of Self-Insurance and Board Appointments
Towards the end of a long meeting, the complex and politically-charged business of appointments to boards and commissions again led to some partisan sniping.
Democratic Minority Leader Chris Palmieri and Republican Council Chair Paul Chaplinsky disagreed over the Town Manager’s appointment of members to the Housing Authority. Palmieri maintained that there would not be sufficient minority-party representation after the new appointments, since there would be no Democrats on the board; Chaplinsky argued that one of the appointments, who is unaffiliated, would qualify as a minority-party member, per the requirements of the Town charter. Chaplinsky also noted that because of the membership criteria, it was not easy to find qualified and willing volunteers for the position.
Palmieri further expressed concern about a recommendation from the Board of Finance that would see a $2.9 million increase in self-insurance costs. (Self-insurance is a pot of money the Town sets aside to cover potential payouts from lawsuits or other liabilities.) He suggested that the Town Council’s dissolution of its Self-Insurance Committee had played a role in that hike. “This is concerning that already we’re having that (increase),” he said.
In reply, Chaplinsky asked how, in Palmieri's view, the reassignment of self-insurance oversight from Council to Finance could have contributed to the hike. Morrison, who had been the driving force behind the switch, reiterated his frustration at getting a quorum for Self-Insurance Committee meeting in recent years. But he also suggested that the increase was a good reason to keep examining self-insurance matters.
Democratic Board of Finance member Katie Wade then came to the podium to say that Finance had essentially convened a Self-Insurance Committee during its meeting. She encouraged Town Council members to join future meetings and weigh in with concerns.
“The instinct to keep an eye on self-insurance is a good one because it’s complicated,” Wade said.
The motions to approve the Board of Finance recommendations passed 6-3 along partisan lines.
Other News Items
In computer-related news, the town's rebuilt website, https://www.southingtonct.gov, is now fully live. Ricciardone mentioned that the upgrade not only improves the user experience, it will also keep the Town in compliance with a state mandate that all towns use a .gov address to enhance security.
A series of tax abatements was approved by the Council, involving BMS Aerospace, Namtec Industries and Lazy Lane Industrial Associates, per the recommendation of the Southington Enterprise & Economic Development Committee. According to the Town Manager, these abatements will help incentivize improvements and investments in the community.
The Ordinance Committee will be considering new laws relating to ebikes, the chalking of public spaces, and reimbursement for Fire Department services on local highways at its January 22 meeting.
Finally, the meeting began with a presentation from Sober Southington’s Shane Shackelford, who was recently profiled in the Outsider.
