Board of Education Weighs Projects

Ed specs for a new Kelley School, which would be constructed in the wooded area just north of the current building, closer to Hart Street. PETER PROHASKA PHOTO

The Southington Board of Education had a busy agenda for its meeting of March 12, one that included hearing presentations on solar parking canopies, a kindness initiative, and a possible layout for the new Kelley school.

Before doing that, however, the Board had some technical matters to attend to. Superintendent Steve Madancy appealed to the Board to reduce the school year by one day to 180 days, which was approved. This will allow students, especially grade schoolers, to avoid classrooms that become uncomfortable in June in those buildings that lack air-conditioning. School cancellations due to snow and other weather conditions created the need, he said, but removing one day had associated cost savings as well.

The final day of school for non-seniors is now Thursday, June 18.

Madancy also noted that heavy snows this winter caused $60,000 in additional removal costs, as crews had to move high snowbanks that posed a transit hazard.

Citing enrollment numbers, the Board also approved a recommendation from its Finance Committee to raise preschool tuition rates 10% for the next school year. The new rate is more in line with area providers.

Another motion, to approve state-mandated nutrition standards, met with an objection from Board Member Joseph Baczewski. Speaking from his professional experience as a registered nurse, Baczewski said of the district food offerings, “I don’t think it’s nutritious," adding “I think we could be doing a better job of tapping into our local resources.” He suggested a salad bar would be preferable from a health standpoint and perhaps would entice more student spending on school meals. The motion passed 8-1. Approving those standards brings a $54,000 reimbursement from the state

Kindness Matters

 

Linda Reilly and Paula Lopatosky brought cookies for the Board members as part of their mission to bring more kindness to Southington schools. The two are part of a nationwide movement that seeks to install what are known as K.A.T.E. (“Kind Acts Touch Everyone”) benches. These benches, which will be installed at all Southington elementary schools, are meant to promote acts of “intentional kindness.”

“Being intentionally kind means planning how you will be kind to someone and then performing the act of kindness,” Reilly explained. Repeating these acts of intentional kindness are “just like practicing math and learning to write sentences,” and can become life-long positive habits that fit in with the schools’ stated goals.

“Research has shown that kindness can have a significant positive impact on both the giver and the receiver as well as society as a whole,” Reilly said.

The presenters cited the work of Dr. Jeannette Maré, Director of the Science of Kindness Community Collective at the University of Arizona, as well studies from the Mayo Clinic, the University of Sussex, Harvard University, and the work of Dr. Patty O’Grady of the University of Tampa, who focuses on elementary schools.

“Our conclusion based upon this research is that ongoing school-wide intentional kindness activities are needed to foster a positive school climate,” they said.

Solar Canopy Project

Energy consultant Adam Teff, of TitanGen, presented on a proposed solar canopy for Southington High School’s parking lot.

Teff emphasized the time-sensitive nature of the project. The federal government plans to eliminate investment tax credits related to solar on July 5, 2026, he said. In the case of a project like the proposed one, those credits make up 40% of the value of the project. “The industry is not expecting federal tax credits for solar in particular to come back anytime in the next three years,” Neff stated.

Connecticut also has a program called NRES (Non-Residential Renewable Energy Solutions) that subsidizes projects like this one, Neff said. Those funds have been released to allow communities to take advantage of them before federal incentives expire.

Connecticut-based Greenskies energy came back with the lowest bid for the project, which would include a solar canopy at the Police Station as well. Neff estimated a $6.5 million price tag for the two arrays, which would be paid for by Greenskies.

Teff explained that the Town would enter into a “power purchase agreement,” similar to what a homeowner has with a utility, that would spare the town equipment purchase and maintenance costs. The agreement would fix a kilowatt-hour cost for a 20-year period, adding stability and predictability to energy costs.

Teff suggested that such an agreement could save the Town $200,000 per year or almost $5 million over the life of the deal, if the Greenskies proposal was adopted. Currently, the Town saves about $63,000 per year on its energy bill from solar arrays at Hatton and elsewhere, per Teff.

Teff said that he spoke to the plow operators who clean the parking lot in order to determine how much more expensive clearing might be if storms similar to this winter’s occur. The amount, in a “worst-case scenario,” would be about $40,000, he estimated.

At the end of the 20-year agreement, the equipment could be taken back at the contractor’s expense, or terms could be renewed, Teff explained.

Several members expressed doubts about the actual savings the district would see and the safety of young drivers in the canopied parking lot. The short timeline for approval and the aesthetics of the arrays were also causes of concern. The Town Council had previously approved the agreement, but the Board of Education eventually voted 6 to 3 against a motion to approve.

Ed Specs for Kelley School

Jim Hoagland, an architect with SLAM, presented to the Board on educational specifications for the new Kelley school if the proposed rebuild is approved by referendum.

These “ed specs” help determine the physical layout of new schools, including traffic flow and site restrictions, and take into consideration requirements such as classroom and other instructional spaces. The SLAM team examined factors such as existing topography, where neighbors are situated, what zoning requirements may apply, and whether wetlands were present in order to develop a preliminary site plan. Hoagland described adding amenities such as sports fields within the town-owned parcel. The design is shown in the photo at the top of this article.

“We think there’s plenty of room, plenty of space, on the (Kelley Elementary) site,” Hoagland said of the test fit. “We think this could work quite nicely.”

Board Member Colleen Clark pointed out that these plans are conceptual until the spending for architectural renderings and final designs is approved by voters.

The ed specs for both school sites were approved unanimously and enthusiastically.

Southington's Fire Department: The Case For More Staff

PHOTO COURTESY SOUTHINGTON FIRE DEPARTMENT

The Town Manager’s budget proposal for next year includes a request for three new career firefighters. At the February 26 meeting of the Board of Finance, newly appointed Fire Department Chief Scott Lee explained what the Department does for the town in prepared remarks that began as follows:

“Last year, we responded to 2539 calls for service, 935 building inspections, 188 building plan reviews, and 48 community risk reduction home safety inspections. What does the fire department do for the town? At first glance, that question seems pretty simple. You put fires out. But the reality is far broader. We are an all-hazards public safety agency responding to both emergency and non-emergency incidents across the community. In many cases, we are the agency called when a person has a problem they cannot safely solve on their own. Our services are wide ranging and proactive, not just reactive.”

“We don't just respond to emergencies, we work to prevent them through our fire marshal's office. We provide building plan reviews, code enforcement, fire safety inspections, and occupancy compliance oversight. These proactive efforts reduce fire loss, protect businesses, and safeguard residents long before an emergency occurs.”

To get a better sense of why the Department requested three new lines to perform its duties, the Outsider interviewed Fire Department Battalion Chief Christian Mastrianni on February 24. The transcript of the interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

When it comes to Southington Fire Department staffing, what are the basic pieces you have to work with?

There are four fire stations in town. We staff one engine that we call Squad 5 on River Street with three career firefighters, an officer plus two. We staff that around the clock, 24/7.

The River Street station, near Plainville. PHILIP THIBODEAU PHOTOS

At headquarters on Main Street we staff a ladder truck 24/7 with an officer and two firefighters. A big issue is that that truck is allowed to drop from three to two if someone is off – if someone is taking a sick day, for example, then that person doesn’t get replaced.

We also have a battalion chief at fire headquarters, 24 hours a day.

Station 3 on Clark Street is only staffed Monday through Friday during the days, with an officer and two firefighters. It’s a 42-hour workweek: 7 to 3, three days a week, and 7 to 4, two days a week.

The Clark Street Station.

We are a combination department, which means we have career and volunteer firefighters.

When are volunteers called out?

Fire Headquarters on Main Street has Company 1, which is volunteer. Station 2 in the Plantsville section of West Main is all-volunteer. There are 27 volunteers between the two companies. They have a captain and two lieutenants.

Station 2 in Plantsville.

Not every call warrants additional manpower. Sometimes we just send one truck, a truck with career firefighters. But on the bigger calls, the more complex calls, the volunteers get called in to assemble a crew. Sometimes on a longer call, we call the volunteers in to cover the town while the career crews are tied up.

The decision about who gets called is all predetermined by our system, which is based on statistics for calls.

Someone might say, you’ve got at least 20 volunteers out there, that ought to be enough staffing. Why is there is a staffing shortage?

We could have 100 or 200 volunteers in this town. The problem isn’t the numbers, the problem is that they don’t all show up. Life gets in the way and we are all busy. As a volunteer you typically work a full-time job, you have a family, or, for the younger members, they’re going to college, or going for EMT certification. There’s always something occupying their time. Calls come in at random. If you are sitting in class and a structure fire comes in, you usually can’t leave your class. The days of having a full-time job and having an employer who allows you to leave work are gone now.

They also have to show up fast enough to assemble a crew, get on the fire truck and go to the scene. While the career staff, we’re already in the building, we’re ready to go.

Has the staffing been going down or has the number of calls gone up?

As towns and cities continue to grow, more houses and commercial properties are being built and expanding. Businesses are constantly opening. That means call volume is always going to go up. Our staffing hasn’t changed much in the 13 years I’ve been here.

During the day, on a weekday, we have ten firefighters on shift. But if one person is off, they aren’t replaced, and we go from ten to nine. Nights and weekends, when the South End station is closed, we only have seven on shift. And if one of them is off, we only have six.

We received the SAFER [Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response] grant in 2021 which allowed us to staff South End Station on a partial basis in 2022, Monday through Friday day shifts. But at night and on weekends that fire station doesn’t have anyone in it anymore.

The town applied for a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant to help with staffing, but didn’t get it, is that correct?

We applied for the grant, we didn’t get the grant. The intent there was eventually to bring South End to 24-7 coverage.

So we’re more vulnerable at nights and on weekends?

We’re vulnerable all the time, because the call volume is always increasing. We’ve been seeing an increase in multiple calls happening at once. And even when fully staffed, we are still below what the NFPA [National Fire Protection Association] regulation 1710 recommends.

If you have a fire at a two-story single family home, NFA 1710 recommends there be 15 to 17 firefighters for the initial alarm, and that the initial engine should arrive within four minutes.

In our town, if there’s a fire in the south end, the first arriving fire engine could be from fire headquarters on North Main Street or one from River Street on the Plainville town line. It’s going to take more than four minutes to get there. And if it’s the ladder truck, they’re only showing up with two people, where the standard suggests minimum staffing of four. So we’re behind the ball right out of the gate.

We have a protocol that brings in mutual aid from neighboring towns to help at the scene and it works pretty well. But we’re calling it a lot because we just don’t have the numbers without it.

There was a fire on Savage Street on February 18. How many firefighters were on the scene?

The staffing that day were all available when the call came in. So all 10 responded to the fire. Only one volunteer engine with only two crew members eventually came. So the shift commander, based on the updates, started the working fire protocol prior to arrival. Right away, that’s calling the Bristol and Meriden fire departments to come right to the scene. And with that it brings Cheshire, Plainville, and New Britain into the town to cover the town. But to answer your question, with ten on shift, when responding to the fire, we were below the recommended 15 to 17.

When neighboring fire departments cover the town, do they actually move staff and equipment here?

Each one will send an engine into town. Plainville responds to Station 5, and Cheshire sends an engine to Clark Street. New Britain will send a engine, a ladder, and a shift commander to headquarters. That day the shift commander asked New Britain to come to the scene for additional manpower.

The big problem would be if you had two structure fires in town at the same time, right?

If there are two structure fires, our mutual aid card allows us to cover that, but it takes more time, more reflex time.

One of the nice things about this area is that we also get a Hartford County coordinator, who would be responsible for getting more resources – but again, from further away, and that all takes time.

What difference would adding three career firefighters make?

We didn’t get that SAFER grant to hire three firefighters. We currently have one shift with eight on shift. The intent with those three additional firefighters was to bring the other three shifts up to eight. That would ensure the ladder truck at fire headquarters always had three firefighters. At minimum both Squad 5 and Truck 1 would have three firefighters. We would never have a truck responding with just two. A second issue is that at some point, we would like to get staffing for Station 3 to make it 24-7.

That way you would cut response time and bring more firefighters in?

It’s like everything: the more hands you have, the more efficient the job goes. Everything we do in the fire service we typically do in pairs. That means on the fire truck I have a group of two that can go do firefighting tasks. I can either leave the driver at the apparatus to operate it, whether pump the water, or fly the ladder, or, if he is not needed, he joins the crew to make up three.

Like with a sports team, you need so many players on the court or the field, and when you take players away you are losing your ability to play efficiently and win. That’s how it goes for us. The difference is, we’re talking life and death.

With a lot of other town entities, if they don’t have enough people on hand to, say, plow the snow, they can do it tomorrow, when everybody is in. Whereas we need people today, when the tones drop. I can’t tell a person, ‘we’ll come tomorrow.’ It’s a matter of getting people to the scene now.

It’s about the efficiency of accomplishing the task at hand, and with that comes the safety of the firefighters and the public that they’re helping. That’s where the importance of staffing comes in. People in trucks make the difference.

Southington Gas Price Survey: An Update

PHILIP THIBODEAU PHOTO

The price of gas at local stations has risen sharply in the past two weeks as a result of the US war with Iran. To help local residents deal with the hike, we decided to update the gas price survey we conducted this past December and draw up a list of all the posted gas prices at local stations in order from least to most expensive.

Our list below gives the lowest price for regular gas advertised at each station as of Sunday, March 15. As most gas-buyers are aware, stations usually tack on an additional fee of 8-10 cents per gallon for payments made with a debit or a credit card, and premium grades and diesel fuel typically run higher, anywhere from 10 cents to $1.00 more per gallon.

Gas at name-brand stations like Mobil, BP, Shell, or Sunoco tends to be more expensive, while independent stations tend to have cheaper gas. The two most expensive stations in Southington are Mobil ($4.299) and Sunoco ($4.279) on West Street, which are located across from each other just north of the I-84 exit. The two least expensive are BJ’s ($3.229) – although their fuel is only for sale to members – and the Cumberland Farms on West Street ($3.379).

About half of the stations we surveyed had prices that fell in the $3.50 to $4.00 per gallon range. The average for regular gas across all stations, $3.669, is slightly above the state average, which was $3.645 per gallon as of March 15. The national average that same day was $3.718 per gallon.

Southington Gas Price Survey (unleaded, lowest listed price, March 15, 2026)

Under $3.50

$3.229         BJ’s (members only), 75 Spring Street

$3.379         Cumberland Farms, 1978 West St (near W Queen St)

$3.439         Fleet Petroleum, 1615 Meriden-Waterbury (near Clark St)

$3.459         Gas & Go, 474 Queen St (near I-84 exit)

$3.459         Citgo, 960 Meriden-Waterbury (near South End Rd)

$3.499         Gulf, 1123 Meriden-Waterbury (west of Drive-In)

$3.499         Metro Gas, 662 West St (near Jude Lane)

$3.499         Cumberland Farms, 909 Queen St (near W Queen St)

$3.499         7-11, 500 Queen St (near I-84 exit)

$3.50 to $4.00

$3.539         Gasman, 570 Main St (near Bristol St)

$3.559         Gulf, 802 West St (near I-84 exit)

$3.569         Citgo, 202 Main St (near Eden Ave)

$3.569         Sunoco, 398 Main St (near Old Turnpike)

$3.579         Palumbo’s 66, 828 Meriden-Waterbury (near South End Rd)

$3.599         Shell, 212 Main St (near Eden Ave)

$3.599         BP, Truck Stop, 1875 Meriden-Waterbury (near I-84)

$3.619         Sunoco, 181 Queen St (near Lazy Lane)

$3.659         Shell/Henny Penny, 273 Meriden-Waterbury (near Meriden Ave)

$3.739         Exxon, 682 Queen St (near I-84 exit)

$3.799         Shell, 655 Queen St (near I-84 exit)

$3.799         Mobil, 301 Queen St (south of Loper St)

$3.899         Mobil, 1896 Meriden-Waterbury (near I-84 exit)

$3.999         Shell, 2110 Meriden-Waterbury (near I-84 exit)

$3.999         Shell/Go Happy, 11 Marion Avenue (near I-84 exit)

More than $4.00

$4.279         Sunoco, 957 West St (near I-84 exit)

$4.299         Mobil, 956 West St (near I-84 Exit)