Category Archives: Old Lyme

Horseneck Creek Dispute Resurfaces After Harbor Management Make Late Changes to Draft Ordinance

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The view from Horseneck Creek Landing. File photo.

Old Lyme Selectmen to Meet at 11am to Continue Discussion, Intent was to Send Ordinance to May 19 Town Meeting for Approval

OLD LYME–A jurisdictional dispute over management of the Horseneck Creek Landing has resurfaced in the form of “last-minute” language inserted into a draft Harbor Management Commission Ordinance, according to Selectman Jim Lampos. 

Selectmen at Monday’s Old Lyme Board of Selectmen meeting decided to reconvene on Wednesday, May 7, at 11 a.m. to discuss the draft ordinance, which is one of several updates to the local law book that selectmen hope to send to voters at the May 19 Town Budget Meeting.  

Lampos on Monday objected to new language approved by the Harbor Management Commission last week, after he said the original draft produced by Harbor Master Matthew Lynch had been vetted by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) and the town attorney. 

The new provisions are meant to codify the Harbor Management Commission’s authority over town-owned waterfront parcels including Horseneck Creek Landing. 

Lampos said the language was added to the draft a day before the Harbor Management Commission held a special meeting last Wednesday to vote on the Ordinance change. 

“And Harbor Master Lynch confirmed that these did not come from DEEP or from him, but were last minute additions,” he said. 

Harbor Management Commission Co-Chair Teri Lewis in a Tuesday phone call said there were two separate parts to the ordinance update. One was the harbor master’s effort to create rules and an enforcement mechanism to control swimmers and jet skiers better at Sound View Beach, and the other was a commission effort to name all the town landings within the commission’s oversight.

Horseneck Creek Landing at 36-1 Buttonball Road was the subject of a dispute between the Open Space Commission and Harbor Management Commission several years back. The controversy revolved around how much access the public should have to the water on the environmentally delicate property, as well as who was responsible for it. The issue seemed to be resolved in 2023 by the now disbanded 36-1 Buttonball Road Committee and the Board of Selectmen through an agreement for the two entities to work together to manage the property. 

The Harbor Management Commission is currently working to install a dock there. 

But Lampos argued most of the provisions regarding the town landings aren’t about mooring or regulating boating activity. 

“They have to do solely with controlling the waterfront parcels associated with upland parking facilities and other supporting features,” he said. 

The language would give Harbor Management authority over mowing, parking areas, removal and control of vegetation, and “other improvements deemed necessary by the commission.” 

The draft ordinance states that town-owned parcels subject to Harbor Management Commission oversight “shall include, but are not limited to” several specified properties in addition to Horseneck Creek Landing: the town dock at Ferry Road, the Ferry Road Landing at the Lieutenant River, the landing for Back River at Town Landing Road, Old Bridge Landing at the Lieutenant River and Pilgrims Landing on Neck Road.  

Included in the list is “any other property that the Town may acquire through purchase or donation that is specifically for use as a water access point” to tidal waters.

Lewis said Tantummaheag Landing was not on the list because its ownership is in dispute.

She emphasized the language is a way to place the inventory of town landings in writing officially.

“We’re just naming Horseneck Creek as one of our access creeks,” she said. “We are still sharing and will always still share Horseneck Creek. We have no plans on taking over Horseneck Creek.”

She said the commission has been working to publicize the collection of town landings. Members are working on fliers to give out at the Midsummer Festival and maps to mail to residents to make sure people are aware the landings are available to the public.

“Because nobody knows,” she said.

She acknowledged the language related to the landings and their oversight needs approval from the DEEP and the Town Attorney, which she hoped could be completed next week. She was unaware that selectmen said they needed to vote on the ordinance by this Wednesday to ensure notice of the Town Meeting could be placed into the newspaper in time.

Open Space Commission Chairman Gregory Futoma in a Monday afternoon email to First Selectwoman Martha Shoemaker described the three-acre Horseneck Creek property as “an outlier” compared to the rest of the town landings specified in the ordinance proposal.

He said the other properties are “uniformly smaller and without pristine coastal forest or extensive marshland.”

Lampos told selectmen the jurisdictional issue was too big to address in time to send the Harbor Management Commission-approved draft ordinance to the town meeting later this month. He called for selectmen to instead approve the initial draft approved by town counsel without the additional provisions. 

“Some of these issues are going to be controversial and create jurisdictional disputes where none currently exist,” Lampos said. 

Open Space Commission 

Futoma in a Monday email to Lampos said his commission was not consulted regarding the proposed revisions that were sent to him by Lampos shortly before the selectmen’s meeting. 

Futoma requested time to share the amended draft ordinance with the commission. 

He said the commission has abided by the sentiments expressed by the former 36-1 Buttonball Road Committee and the Board of Selectmen that the town’s Horseneck Creek Landing property be co-managed.  

“The Commission believes it has brought to the property amenities for visitors that would not otherwise be available. For example, the Commission sought and received a grant to highlight the unique coastal forest and tidal marsh features of the property, worked with experts from UConn and Audubon, and prepared some exceptional educational materials,” he said. 

He said the commission has reached out to the Harbor Management Commission about each new program “out of a spirit of cooperation and to ensure that nothing might jeopardize the Town’s application for a dock and water access.”

Sound View Commission 

Sound View Commission Chairman Frank Pappalardo in a Monday email to the Board of Selectmen said the revised draft is “unacceptable and must not be moved forward.”

He said his commission reviewed the original draft at the end of April. They issued a memo to Lynch and the Harbor Management Commission agreeing to most of the proposed changes that he said would provide needed management and enforcement assistance when it comes to swimmers and jet skiers at Sound View Beach. 

“It was therefore a complete surprise on Friday, May 2 to see a copy of the proposed ordinance containing several entirely new sections…that far exceeds any previous Harbor Management Commission jurisdiction and is a far over-reach from overseeing boating and moorings,” Pappalardo said. 

He said the Harbor Management Commission “cannot just assign themselves jurisdictional control” over areas currently managed through agencies including the Parks and Recreation, Open Space and Sound View commissions.

“I find it disingenuous that these sections of the proposed ordinance were NOT included in the draft sent to the SVC for review and the Chair of the Harbor Management Commission made no statement regarding their existence,” he said. 

Lewis, the Harbor Management Commission co-chair, said the language related to the town landings has nothing to do with the Sound View Commission.

“We have no interest whatsoever in managing Sound View Beach or managing the town parking lot,” she said.

Selectmen on Wednesday at 11 a.m. will also discuss draft ordinances on parking at Sound View Beach and golf cart usage in beach areas. Visit this link to view the agenda for the meeting.

The meeting, which will be held in the Town Hall meeting room, can be accessed via Microsoft Teams here.

Lyme-Old Lyme Schools Announce Quarter 3 Honor Rolls

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Lyme-Old Lyme High School

2024-25 Quarter 3 Honor Roll

HIGH HONORS

Grade 12:  Ella Austin, Gavin Biega, Molly Boardman, Nathaniel Bradley, Mark Burnham, Chase Calderon, Andrew Clougherty, Tabitha Colwell, Gloria Conley, Chloe Datum, Caeli Edmed, Anna Eichholz, Davis Fallon, Grace Ferman, Benedict Frazier, Manu Geronimo, Christopher Gibbons, Elias Goldberg, Nicolas Hatch, Kaela Hoss, Yucheng Hou, Shyla Jones, Thomas Kabel, Simon Karpinski, Ella Kiem, Skylar Kobelia, Peter Kuhn, Elise Leonardo, Andrew Liu, Lana Lopes, Colette Marchant, Tirill Mundal, Abigail O’Brien, Kanon Oharu, Sophie Pennie, Madelin Salazar Cajamarca, Ryan Shapiro, Drea Simler, Andrew Sprankle, Charlotte Tinniswood, Kathleen Walsh, Giovanni Winters, Ava Wood-Muller, Wenyao Zhang, Gabriella Ziegler

Grade 11: Tyler Cann, Julia Clark, Maya Cook, Annabelle Coppola, Colman Curtiss-Reardon, Christopher Dagher, James Dahlke, Sophia D’Angelo, Rose Dimmock, Alexa Donovan, Alexander Glaras, Elizaveta Gregoire, Christopher Kachur, Jayden Livesey, Poveda Lucas, Ian Maeby, Daniela Marin Yanza, Serena Mazzi, Carter McGlinchey, Samuel McKenzie, Ryan Miller, Isabella Presti, Jacob Prokopets, Luca Signora, Andrew Taylor, Madeleine Trepanier, Connor Vautrain, Oliver Wyman, Stella Young

Grade 10: Ceciley Buckley, Morgan Buerger, Brooke Burgess, Anna Bussmann, Lillian Calabrese, Aidan Carpentino, Isaac Chartier, Samson Edmed, Lauren Fulara, Angeline Gencarella, Gavin Goulis, Tessa Grethel, Owen Holth, Josephine Kiem, Olivia Lovendale, Autumn Newbury, Grace Osborne, Ainsley Rinoski, Cameron Russell, Owen Shapiro, Carli Teixeira, Magdalena Tooker, Kaylyn Vernon, Caterina Wilson

Grade 9: Lillian Acosta, Lauren Belval, Scarlett Blatter, Vivian Boller, Lana Brunza, Trevor Camarra, Gabrielle Clark, Nathaniel Condon, Katharine Ferman, Jonah Filardi, Cortland Forbes, Avery Goiangos, Frederick Goss, Gavin Gray, Sawyer Graybill, Kinsley Grenier, Maia Guisti, Colleen Harrington, Morgan Harris, Sophia Huang, Henrik Hummervoll, Fiona Judge, Jillian Kleefeld, Kaedyn Koproski, Alice Li, Graham Macadam, Benjamin Mattox, Menzi Mbele, David McAdams, Charles McEwen, William McKeever, Addyson Morosky, Grace Morrissette, Marielle Munster, Mattea Parnoff, Remi Patz, Nicholas Porto, Jonah Scheckwitz, Avery Spooner, Hailey Suisman, Charlotte Thuma, Ella Ziolkovski

HONORS

Grade 12: Hannah Bonilla, Andrea DeBernardo, Zoe Eastman-Grossel, Hoshena Gemme, Abigail Greene, Hannah Johnston, Gage Kaulfuss, Olivia Kelly, Evan LeQuire, Nola Slubowski, Josephine Small, Erika Teixeira, Nicholas Turtoro

Grade 11: Charlotte Antonino, Max Bartlett, Zoe Brunza, Trevor Buydos, Makayla Calderon, Caden Camarra, Braden Dawson, Michael DeFiore, Benjamin Goulding, Oliver Hatchel, Anne-Marie Hinckley, Thomas Kelly, Maya LeQuire, Emily Looney, Sebastian Lopez-Bravo, Madeline Murphy, Sybil Neary, Ryan Olsen, Ryan Ortoleva, Quenten Patz, Tanner Snurkowski, Addison Spooner, Carson St. Louis, Sydney St. Pierre, Meredith Thompson, Margaret Thuma, Carl Zapatka, Katherine Zhang

Grade 10: Addison Arndt, Phineas Barrett, Zachary Belval, William Burgess, Johanna Coker, Amirah D’Lizarraga, Brady Donovan, Elliot Dunn-Sims, Edward Fiske, Harrison Goulis, Marley Iaia, Callahan Lacourciere, Patrick Lynch, Matilda Miller, Michael Millerick, John Morosky, Cara Paonessa, Vincenzo Pietrowicz, Arthur Riccio, Alexandria Sanford, Allegra Schaedler, Kevork Shegirian

Grade 9: Naomi Cameron, John Comstock, Alistair Grenier, Reese Holland, Henry Kyle, Treyton LaConti, Holden Leonardo, Sadie Lukasiewski, Rowan McCormick, Clarissa Mock, Theodore Neary, Ava Novak, Gwenevere Osborne, Mila Pacelli, Logan Patana, Caiden Pelletier, Marguerite Sevigny, Audrey Sheehan, Delilah Tooker, Renee Viera, Ashlynn Ward, Charles Zapatka

Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School

2024-25 Quarter 3 Honor Roll

HIGH HONORS

Grade 8: Josie Arndt, Anna Block, Emily Bonatti, Cassidy Buckley, Ewan Cabell, Trent Cameron, Emily Campbell, Finnegan Choisnet, Reagan Christopher, Eliana Cicchiello, Emerson Coker, Miles Coppola, Nadia Daily, Maya Desai, Parker Fedorich, Jackson Fiske, Samantha Fulara, Ava Fuller, Olivia Gerardo, Victoria Glaras, Cayden Graybill, Kylie Grethel, Olivia Griffith, Cole Haslam, Charles Holth, Quinn Hoss, Mary Kane, Griffin Karpinski, Collin Langley, Zoey Langley, Curran Livesey, Ellison Lodge, Isabel Martel, Grant Maxwell, Harland McKenna, Maxwell Mooney, Oliver Newbury, Thomas O’Connor, Kanato Oharu, Giovanni Orlando, Jack Ouellette, Jack Parker, Benson Reis, Tristan Reyes, Lillian Reynolds, Beatrix Rubino, Addison Sapia, Juliette Small, Mia Stokes, Natalie Suisman, Cooper Thomas, Olive Vautrain, Benson Wang, Reagan Weinstein, Samuel Zelek, Lily Zerkowski

Grade 7: Jack Antonino, Annalisa Archbald, Miella Bard, Sawyer Barreto, Cole Barris, Jackson Basham, Zakary Benedetto, Conor Buckeridge, Thomas Calabrese, Rowan Cantner, Mason Catalano, Jackson Chapps, Ainsley Conroy, Oliver Constantine, Daniel Crisp, Ella Davis, Amy Diaz, Daphne Eisensmith, Kate Ewers, Camryn Fedorich, Estelle Filardi, Beckett Goss, Delana Green-Oldfield, Julia Haslam, Sean Hunter, Rowan Kilfoil, Eva Levonick, Yago Lobo, Jamie Maloney, Mary McAdams, Ariana McEwen, Finn McLaughlin, Henry Miller, Broderick Morris, Maya Munster, Maura Murphy, Avery Olson, Gunnar Palmer, Juul Parrott, Quin Parrott, Quinn Quarto, Caliana Rand, Emily Randak, Charlotte Reynolds, Olivia Rozanski-Rose, Linden Sarnoski, Ari Shegirian, Maya Smith, Weston Taylor, John Young, Kingsley Zheng

Grade 6: David Acosta, Mylo Awwa, Cecelia Bradley, Brody Burr, Finn Cabell, Luz Cajamarca, Finn Celic, Liang Chang, Maizie Curtiss-Reardon, Croix Demars, Catherine Fisher, Maxwell Garvin, Natalie Gibbons, Gabriella Gonzalez, Gerald Holland, Joseph Jewett, Callie Kelo, Aiden Lapinski, Parker Lee, Colton Lodge, Benjamin Lott, Siena Maguire, Linnea McLachlan, Emma Morales, Nico Orlando, Alexander Reid, Jack Reiter, Brandon Reyes, Connor Rice, Taylor Rooney, Magnolia Sahl, Kate Scheckwitz, Colton Schroder, Madison Seckla, Leif Sullivan, Audrey Thuma, Tobias Tooker, Carina Vakili, Henry Whalen

HONORS

Grade 8: Samuel Dunn-Sims, Colin Farrell, Parker Forbes, Jared Fulara, John Osborne, Charlotte Sanford, Adrianna Squarciafico

Grade 7: Liam Carpentino, Hunter Emma, Aibhlinn Hall, Thomas Hayes, August Jungkeit, Tristan Montanaro, Ryann Montesanto, Isla Morrissette, Roman Schlachter, Reed Snurkowski, Lucius Stebbins-Wallen, Grace Strekel, Molly Supersano, Kolbein Vigen, Jack Walter, Liam Ward

Grade 6: Dylan Boisseau, Ella Boudo, Ryan Campbell, Andrew Chonka, Connor Christopher, Ryan Dawson, Lucia D’Onofrio, Walter Glenn, Niall Hallahan, Ofelia Karsten, Roosevelt Lowry, Aidan Mulligan, Loretta Newbury, Gabriella Norris, EmmaLeigh Reed, Michael Soriano, Piper Spiegel

Lyme-Old Lyme Schools’ Board Sends Unchanged Budget Proposal to Tuesday Referendum

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The Region 18 Board of Education on Monday declined to take upwards of $700,000 from the district’s ‘Rainy Day Fund’ to mitigate the impact to taxpayers of a $39.7 million budget proposal.

OLD LYME–The Region 18 Board of Education on Monday evening unanimously sent the proposed $39.7 million 2025-26 budget to referendum unchanged despite calls from several residents to take money out of its reserve funds to reduce the impact on taxpayers going forward. 

The referendum will be held Tuesday from noon to 8 p.m. Old Lyme residents and qualified taxpayers will vote at the Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School Gym, 53 Lyme Street. The vote in Lyme will be held at the Lyme Town Hall, 480 Hamburg Road.

Of the proposed budget’s $2.7 million or 7.39% increase, $1.8 million is attributable to debt payments on the extensive renovation project affecting all the district’s schools except Lyme-Old Lyme High School. 

Old Lyme resident Andy Russell, a member of the Old Lyme Board of Finance and the District Building Committee, who said he was speaking for himself, asked the board to use $700,000 of its $3.1 million undesignated fund – colloquially referred to as the ‘Rainy Day Fund’ – to offset the anticipated increase in the district’s special education spending. 

State law beginning in 2023 empowered each regional school board to create a reserve fund for “educational expenditures.” The law previously specified reserve funds could only be used for one-time capital expenses. 

Special education is up $726,721, or 58.67%, in the proposed budget. Superintendent of Schools Ian Neviaser has attributed the increase to the number of students, who need to be placed in programs outside the district to meet their needs. There are four students requiring outplacements in the coming year compared to the single student identified when the current budget was approved. 

Russell said the school board could dip into its undesignated fund balance for the next several years until the debt payments stop increasing. 

He said the district typically ends each year with a healthy surplus. 

“I’m reminded that you’ll probably end up – because the school district is very well run – with another $700,000 put back in that budget following this year,” he said. 

David Kelsey, another Old Lyme Board of Finance member, who also said he was speaking for himself, said the school board needs to be more “healthily skeptical” of the enrollment projections from the New England School Development Council (NESDEC) that helped justify the need for the renovation project. 

He said the NESDEC forecast overestimated the number of students in the district.

“Going forward, we have a high school that’s going to need to be renovated as well, and I do not think that we need to rely upon projections that are not commensurate with an obvious skepticism that’s required,” Kelsey said. 

District Building Committee Chairwoman Susan Fogliano before Monday’s vote to send the budget proposal to referendum laid out the school board’s case for not dipping into the ‘Rainy Day Fund.’ 

She said the school board over the past two years used reserve funds to reduce the overall amount of money that would have to be borrowed for the project, which resulted in the proposed 2025-26 budget coming in lower than the 10% increase originally anticipated. 

She also cited grant funding and advantageous interest rates that helped bring down costs. Neviaser said the district will be spending about $17 million less than the $57.5 million price tag approved by voters at referendum in 2022. 

Neviaser said the district’s bond rating – which district business manager Holly McCalla said has stood at an AA2 rating from Moody’s since 2017 – is influenced by the size of the district’s undesignated fund balance. 

“Keep in mind too, we will be bonding again this summer, so they will be looking at what’s in our undesignated fund, and that does impact our rating,” he said. “We’ve confirmed that with our bonding agent, so that’s another consideration.”

Fogliano pointed out the school board has earmarked $1 million of the undesignated fund balance to be used if necessary for security upgrades to the school vestibules. 

She said the district hopes to cover the expense out of the total project budget. 

“We hope, but we can make no promises,” she said. 

She cited the potential impact of tariffs enacted under the administration of President Donald Trump. 

“A great number of our materials have already been purchased, but it’s possible we may see overruns that we don’t anticipate based on future purchases that we can’t control,” she said. 

Fogliano and Neviaser said state law allows the district to put an amount not exceeding 2% of the prior fiscal year’s education budget into its reserve fund. But they said the school board is willing to put less than that into the fund in the coming year – if it makes financial sense at the time based on district needs – so that it can return more of the surplus to Lyme and Old Lyme. 

“I just wanted to have that out on the table so everyone understands that we are thinking about this concept, and that we are doing as well as I think anyone could expect under the present circumstances,” Fogliano said.

Labrador Retriever Viera Brings Comfort Both Across State, At Home in Old Lyme

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Old Lyme Resident State Trooper Matt Weber’s new partner, Viera, was trained through the state police Comfort K9 program.

OLD LYME–One of the latest graduates of the Connecticut State Police Comfort K9 program is a Labrador Retriever named Viera who, in four short months, has been there for traumatized children, shell-shocked First Responders, and her own partner, when they most needed a helping paw.

Viera had spent most of her life in training for the New York-based Guiding Eyes for the Blind program when the two-year-old was reassigned to Old Lyme Resident State Trooper Matthew Weber in November.

Weber said she wasn’t cut out for life as a Seeing Eye dog. 

“I think she has a little bit too much energy for that,” he said from the Old Lyme Police Department earlier this week as Viera padded around with a huge stuffed cow in her mouth. “That’s why we wanted her.” 

Resident State Trooper Matt Weber and Comfort K9 Viera.

Viera and Trey, another Labrador retriever and Guiding Eyes dropout, who works alongside Trooper Stephanie Cortes, comprised the most recent Comfort K9 class. A month of obedience training from the state’s K9 instructors honed the dogs’ ability to remain calm, companionable and compliant in a wide range of situations. 

“Viera is just a rock steady dog in all sorts of environments, around different types of people,” Weber said. 

Her role as a therapy animal has had her snuggling up to young victims of violence during forensic interviews. She’s gravitated toward the tears of otherwise stoic First Responders gathered to debrief after difficult calls. 

She laid by the side of Weber’s wife, Donna Bennett, at Smilow Cancer Center in New Haven. 

“Viera also met with numerous other patients, and did the same cheering up the nurses and doctors,” Weber said. 

Bennett died earlier this year. 

The couple shared a love of dogs, including the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers bred by Bennett. Now it’s Viera and five Tollers, who live at home with Weber in Old Lyme. 

He said he can’t imagine a life without dogs. 

“They’re your best buddies, your confidants,” he said. “You can go and unwind and relax with them. If you’ve had a stressful day at work, you forget about everything for a while.”

It’s gratifying to be able to share her with the wider community, according to the state trooper. 

He described a recent meeting Viera attended during which Emergency Services personnel discussed their response to a quadruple-fatal car crash in Newington. 

“Nobody wants to talk and open up, and then when Viera or the other dogs start playing, it kind of brings a smile to people’s faces, and it loosens the room up a little bit, and then they can talk,” he said. “So that’s pretty rewarding, knowing the power that she has.”

Weber said his work across the state is done in addition to his regular duties as the Old Lyme Resident State Trooper. 

Weber describes comfort dog Viera as a “big goofball.”

Besides responding to critical incidents, assisting crime victims and providing support to first responders and their families, state police comfort dogs are charged with helping to improve the relationship between law enforcement and the community.

Old Lyme Police Department Corporal Dominic Solari said Viera breaks down barriers in a landscape where distrust of law enforcement is rampant. 

“Even if you have a personal relationship with somebody that you may have dealt with on positive terms as a police officer, a lot of times there’s still that little bit of a wall there,” he said. “And she helps to break down the wall.”

A lot of that work is done in schools, according to Weber and Solari. 

“Viera can sit there in the middle of the room with 15 kids crawling all over her,” Solari said. “You don’t have to worry about the dog snapping or anybody getting upset over the dog’s actions.” 

Weber said traditional police K9s used for jobs like search and tracking are separate from their comfort cousins.

Weber explained he had been a member of the State Police K9 unit for nine years when his German Shepherd, Tazz, died at the age of 10 in late 2023. Weber had retired his four-legged partner just two weeks earlier. 

He said Viera is a different breed from the highly-skilled working dog, who’d been by his side for so long. 

“You always have to be cognizant when you have a Shepherd of what they’re capable of, and even though they’re highly trained, you still have to make sure you don’t put them in a situation where they could fail,” he said. “With Viera, all she knows how to do is lick and get pets.”

Weber and Viera start out every morning in a rotation of the Lyme-Old Lyme School District’s five buildings. She attracts attention from the youngest students to the oldest, he said. 

Mile Creek School Principal Kelly Enoch in a phone interview this week said elementary students and teachers alike enjoy meeting Viera in the front vestibule as students stream in from cars and buses at the start of the day. 

The six-year principal said students are more likely to approach a police officer if there’s a dog nearby. And as they’re petting the dog, they’re more likely to start asking questions. 

“We just feel really strongly that we want the children to see police officers as friends and people that help them,” she said. “They’re not people to be afraid of.”

The district also feels strongly about therapy dogs, with at least one certified pup working alongside a teacher or school psychologist in each building. Mile Creek’s therapy dog, a Goldendoodle named Isla, is entrusted to Enoch. She said she brings her to school two or three times per week. 

Donated stuffed animals and a dog-sized couch help make life comfortable at the Old Lyme Police Department.

At the secondary level, Weber has found that students’ affection for dogs remains evident. 

“The high school kids that otherwise wouldn’t talk to you, they come over and pet your dog,” he said.

Weber and Solari said the department is looking to rejuvenate its dormant Cop Club as another way to break down those barriers between police officers and the community. 

The program had been popular with high school students before it was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Solari. 

A collaborative project between the Old Lyme Police and the Lymes’ Youth Service Bureau, it began in 2011 with the goal of bringing together cops and kids through a series of monthly planned activities. The group mixes students, who’ve had difficult upbringings, with more privileged members of the student body. 

Weber said that when Cop Club starts up again, Viera will be there. 

“Anywhere I go, she goes,” he said. 

Op-Ed: Dip Into Region 18 ‘Rainy Day Fund’ to Dampen Debt Impact

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Mary Powell St. Louis

Town residents have received their postcard reminder about the 2025-2026 district budget meeting and referendum vote from Regional 18 school district both scheduled for May 5 and May 6 respectively.   

By means of background information on the school budgeting process, it is important to understand some of the Connecticut school laws defined by the general statutes. According to the Connecticut General Statutes Section 10-262(j) on minimum budget requirements, a school budget may not be less than the budget from the prior fiscal year except for limited circumstances defined in the statute. 

Additionally, section 10-51(d)(1) was amended in 2024, such that a regional school district can create a “reserve fund for educational purposes” rather than the prior designation of such fund for only “capital and nonrecurring expenditures.” The statute had also been amended in 2021 to change the amount regional school districts are allowed to appropriate from the current fiscal year’s budget from 1% to 2%.   

Key takeaway: Outside of exceptional circumstances, a school budget can never go down and there has been expansion for a regional school district like Lyme/Old Lyme in terms of how a budget surplus can be used.  

The Region 18 school district has long taken the opportunity to fund their “undesignated fund,” or reserve fund, for at least the last 10 years (per the annual October Board of Education meeting minutes on the district website). For the last four years since the change in the statute to support 2% funding of the reserve fund, Region 18 has appropriated approximately $700,000 annually to the reserve. The current reserve fund balance stands at $3.1 million. Although the Board of Education has not formally approved any of the current earmarked projects in the reserve, they are formulated in the five-year facilities plan for the district. There is no reason to doubt that at the October 2025 Board of Education meeting, the board will again vote to fund the reserve based on past experience and determination of a budget balance (unaudited at the time of the decision) in a similar range of $700,000.   

You may ask why these details matter. The 2025-2026 school district budget up for referendum stands at a 7.39% increase over the previous year’s budget and over half of the increase represents debt service (bonds) predominantly related to the $57.5 million PK-8 building project.  Debt service obligation (principal and interest) for the district is estimated to increase annually for the next five years then start to drop dramatically.

Rather than increasing the budget as proposed to cover the current year debt service requirement, I recommend the board consider the use of a portion of the reserve funds to dampen the impact of debt service on the budget in the next five years.  

Why not use all the reserve? Well, we don’t want to do that as it could adversely impact the credit rating of the district for future debt service.  Further, the forecasted campus improvement projects could not be funded for the foreseeable future.    

My suggestion is to use a portion of the reserve, equivalent to the maximum allowable 2% of budget holdback. Instead of increasing the budget by 7.39% to $39,650,803, the requested budget could be about $38.5 million, or a 5.5% increase.  Presuming the recent historical trend of budget surplus continues, this strategy would limit the growth of the budget until the debt service started to decline in five years, at which time the contribution to the reserve fund could be resumed.   

I hope that the residents of Lyme and Old Lyme consider contacting the Board of Education members about the above issues and that the board takes this into consideration at the district budget meeting on Monday May 5.  

Editor’s Note: The author, Mary Powell-St. Louis, was a member of the Region 18 Board of Education for eight years.