Category Archives: Towns

Op-Ed: It’s ‘Time to Show Who We Are, as Residents of a Diverse, Welcoming State,’ so ‘Light Up the Night for IRIS’ … and for CT

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Editor’s Note: This op-ed was submitted by the Rev. Steven R. Jungkeit, Ph.D., who serves as Senior Minister at the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme. All are welcome to attend the vigil tomorrow evening. The First Congregational Church of Old Lyme is located at 2 Ferry Rd., Old Lyme, CT 06371.

In the congregation I serve (The First Congregational Church of Old Lyme), I’ve been sharing since the November election that we are in a position similar to that of the biblical character Miriam in the second chapter of Exodus.  Faced with a terrible catastrophe (a threat against all Hebrew male children, including her baby brother, soon to be named Moses), Miriam “watches from a distance” as a small basket carrying her brother bobs up and down along the Nile River.  Since November, we too have been forced to watch and to wait in the bulrushes with Miriam, as if from a distance, using the time to gain perspective and to gather our wits as the current of history swirls around us.  In the Exodus story, Miriam watched and waited for the opportune moment to act, and when it arrived, she seized it.

People of faith and conscience will need to be continually vigilant in this new political environment.  We’ll need to seize opportune moments whenever we can to stand with the most vulnerable around us.  

Now is the first of those moments.  Now is the time to emerge from the bulrushes, as Miriam eventually did.

In these early days of the new administration, federal funding for a host of worthy agencies has been suspended, eliminated, and then, (maybe?) partially reinstated.  Few who depend upon that funding believe that the threat has gone away.  Meanwhile, livelihoods and support services throughout the country hang in the balance.

Among the many worthy agencies affected across Connecticut, IRIS (Integrated Refugee and Immigration Services) in New Haven has experienced tremendous whiplash.  Depending on which order is being considered, and when, it appears that IRIS stands to lose millions of dollars in funding, preventing them not only from helping to resettle refugees, but also hindering their ability to assist people in need all across the state.  Losing that funding would place thousands of people in jeopardy.

The First Congregational Church of Old Lyme, together with two other churches in town (St. Ann’s and Christ the King) as well as many other residents of no particular faith, have partnered with IRIS for the past decade, ever since the beginning of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015.  Indeed, our community was the first in the state to reach out to IRIS during that crisis, though many others soon did the same.  Before long, a Syrian family arrived in Old Lyme and has remained here ever since, just the way Syrians arrived in communities all across Connecticut.  Since that time, we have helped resettle five additional families in our area from many different parts of the world, a pattern that has unfolded all up and down the Connecticut Shoreline, and throughout the entirety of the state.

IRIS is one of the crown jewels of Connecticut, helping to make us the welcoming, hospitable, and culturally rich state that we are.  Our communities have been improved by welcoming refugees, and supporting immigrants, which IRIS has facilitated.

If this is an opening salvo from a hostile new administration, then the time is right for Connecticut residents who continue to believe in the sanctity of hospitality to come together, and to push back the night.  

With that in mind, the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme invites friends and supporters of IRIS to join us for a candlelight vigil on Wednesday evening, February 5th, at 6:00 PM.  We’ll sing, we’ll offer words of prayer, and we’ll light up the night.  But we also have a goal: to raise $100,000 as a gesture of goodwill and support for IRIS.  That won’t be enough.  But if similar events took place around the state, it would go a long way.

IRIS has given our communities so much.  They have offered support and protection to so many, and they have enriched our lives for the relationships they helped to create.  It’s time to give a little back.

But more to the point, it’s now time, like Miriam, to emerge from the bulrushes, and to push back against the Pharaohs that continue to afflict the vulnerable.

It’s time to show who we are as residents of a diverse and welcoming state, one that we can all be proud to live in.   

Letter to the Editor: Halls Rd. Overlay District is Good for Old Lyme, False Information Harms the Town

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To the Editor:

There’s been a lot of wild talk about Halls Road and the plan to make it a neighborhood in our town center rather than a highway services plaza. The people behind this raft of lies and exaggerations fear change, and preach that by doing nothing, we can prevent change. They are dead wrong. 

Doing nothing will allow Halls Road to become truck stops: the best investment opportunity under current zoning. In the last several years, nearly all of the investor interest in Halls Road has been for new gas stations: three proposals, narrowly fended off. There will be more, and we cannot fend them off forever under the current commercial-only C-30s zoning. 

The best thing we can do is to provide optional zoning that will allow Halls Road to become something better and something that serves multiple, significant needs of the town. 

The Halls Road Overlay District (HROD) proposal does that, providing better returns for investors than they get from gas stations and convenience stores. It also allows the creation of a mixed-use neighborhood with smaller-scale housing and retail that faces Halls Road, not buried back behind empty parking lots. A walkable, mixed-use neighborhood with real neighbors is the best encouragement to businesses that serve the town, not the highway. We need these different types of housing, not just for older folks down-sizing, but also for new families moving in. Our emergency services are all-volunteer. We need younger people to keep them staffed. Smaller-scale housing is crucial to serving their needs.  

Of course, those who hate and fear all change are spreading wild exaggerations and outright lies about HROD. Everything you read in their posts is nonsense. Because they’re not really interested in the truth, they feel free to make things up with crackpot logic and nightmare fantasies. It’s easier than reading the actual HROD document (available online) and doing the hard work to go through the regulations in detail to understand what the real limits on development are. 

If you do the math (and I have done it) the various limitations and requirements (e.g. parking) in the HROD proposal mean that, in 20 or 30 years, there may be as many as 400 apartments or condos in all of Halls Road, along with a shopping street that runs for perhaps a third of its length. The density of dwelling units per acre at full development is within the range already long-established in Old Lyme zoning for multi-family residential anywhere in town. The hysterical numbers and idiotic cartoons are all fantasy. 

Note that my numbers are based only on the HROD regulations, and do not consider all the other constraints on development, such as septic and environmental, which must certainly be considered in any new construction. 

People who came to Old Lyme from towns that were grossly over-developed are particularly prone to think that allowing any development will be the thin end of the wedge. I remind them that we in Old Lyme are firmly against suburban sprawl. That’s why we suggested putting the much-needed smaller-scale housing in a place that is already covered with paving, and where it can help keep our local businesses profitable. Doing so spares the last bits of open space. If you forbid it at Halls Road, you may be sure you’ll find it built out in the countryside, where it will do less good and more harm. 

HROD is good for Old Lyme, and the folks telling lies to terrify their neighbors are harming the town.

Sincerely,

Mark Terwilliger,
Old Lyme.

Death Announced of Frank ‘Ted’ Hamilton, III, Former ‘Pillar of Community’ in Old Lyme

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OLD LYME—Frank Watrous Hamilton, III (“Ted”) was born in Franklin, New Jersey in 1948 …

Ted graduated from Blair Academy and the University of Pennsylvania before starting a career on Wall Street. Over an almost 50 year career, Ted was well known for his industriousness, perseverance and ingenuity.

Ted was an accomplished executive, including as a Senior Managing Director at Promontory Interfinancial Network at the time of its sale. He was a former pillar of his communities in both New York City and Old Lyme, CT, where he served as President of the Board of Trustees of the Florence Griswold Museum …

The last several years of his life were made difficult after a serious stroke …

In January, Ted passed away in Vero Beach, FL after a short illness …

He is survived by his sons Frank and Grant Hamilton, daughter-in-law, Diana Hamilton, granddaughters Edie and Grace Hamilton, sisters Stephanie Moore and Amy Rice and his beloved nieces and nephews …

Editor’s Note: Visit this link to read the full obituary published Jan. 31, 2025 on ‘Legacy.com.’

Literature in the Lymes: ‘The Crazies: The Cattleman, the Wind Prospector, and a War Out West’ by Amy Gamerman

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Jennifer Petty Hilger

Even if it wasn’t the name of the mountain range in which the story takes place, it would be a great name for the people in this book. It’s a good story and thanks to a good storyteller, it makes a great book. That’s not, as we know, always the case so we’re lucky the right person sunk her  teeth into this.

Investigative prowess doesn’t always transfer from article to book but it does inThe Crazies. Amy Gamerman’s real-life talents as a reporter and writer for the Wall Street Journal helped her gather this information and transform it into a modern, western saga about trying to control the uncontrollable forces of nature with power and money. 

It serves us well as she weaves the stories, the real life sagas, of the past and present dramas of the people involved in one of the largest, craziest lawsuits in recent days. Oil tycoons, cattle farmers, ancient pioneers, regular struggling laymen, Hollywood celebrities, poachers … who isn’t involved? Everyone’s case holds some weight. 

If it’s my land, why the hell can’t I do what I want with it?  Rick Jarrett wants to harvest the ‘million dollar wind’ that blows through Big Timber,  Montana with 500 ft. turbines on his small parcel of land. “The wind that blew alike on the rich and poor had the power to make Rick Jarrett a wealthy man.”

His tycoon neighbors don’t want to look at these eyesore turbines. The hell with the townies and their right to make money off of their own land. 

Just because you have 80 bazillion dollars and don’t want to be staring at something ugly, why do you get to say no to it?  “I like people … I just don’t want to be around them,” said Russell Gordy, the owner of 155,000 acres of land he spent $96 million amassing. 

Many Hollywood celebrities, who have made Big Timber—the nearby town—their hideaway home, feel similarly. Much is at stake for the big-monied hermits, who have no interest in the locals and their poverty.

Additionally The Crazies are held sacred by The Crow, whose ancestors are, perhaps, the original indigenous people in North America. The first burial ground dating back between 12,707 and 12,556 years was found on a cliff west of The Crazies’ Walsall Peak. The remains of a child found with a stunning array of tools and objects were found in 1968. The DNA links the boy to a human, who lived 40,000 years ago near Beijing. He is the most ancient American ever discovered. The Crazies aren’t ill-named.

Nothing about this lawsuit and its participants is cut-and-dried and that’s what makes it a good story.

There is nothing new about the basic human desire for control—and money is rarely outvoted.

About the author: Jen Petty Hilger grew up in New York and London, England, but finds herself happily quiet living by the water in Old Lyme. She and her husband have six children between them and a myriad of rescued animals.

Letter to the Editor: Halls Road Improvements Committee’s Proposals are ‘Extreme’, Zoning Should Keep Intensity, Scale of Plans ‘in Keeping with Rest of Town’

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To the Editor:

The question of development on Halls Road is likely to come to a head at the continued public hearing scheduled for Thursday February 27th, 2025 at 6:30 at the Old Lyme Middle School.

The proposed guidelines for that development have been the subject of intense debate.

What began as the Halls Road Improvements committee more than 12 years ago has morphed into a proposed overlay District which allows up to 40 dwellings/acre – a quantum leap from installing sidewalks, lighting, greenery, and signage.

The Halls Road Committee has gone from uncontroversial to extreme, but now the public is catching on.

At the same time, the town of Old Lyme is paying lawyers $125,000 over 2 years to review and help rewrite the town’s entire set of Zoning rules …except Halls Road.

Why had the most contentious and crucial section of those rules, Halls Road, been excluded from consideration as part of this larger professional process, and one that will be guided by impartial questionnaires provided to all towns people?

As an alternate on the Zoning Commission, I have recused myself from voting on Halls Road, so that I can speak like any other townsperson.

The public has been told that the town’s Board of Selectmen are in favor of this redevelopment.  That is not the whole truth.  My wife Jude Read, a selectperson in Old Lyme, voted against the proposal long ago feeling it was too ambitious and far reaching and had lost sight of the original point of the Halls Road Improvements Committee: to make improvements.

The Halls Road Improvements Committee, by their own admission, have told the Zoning Commission that developers will be reluctant to invest if the town refuses to allow parking garages, and 60,000 sq’ buildings directly on Halls Road.

But why should we allow our town to be exploited by developers?

Many who have signed the petition against this effort at redevelopment are agreeable to responsible development.

The prudent response is for members of the Zoning Commission to include these ideas in the larger rewrite and revisions – at an intensity and scale in keeping with the rest of the town.

Sincerely,

Sloan Danenhower
Old Lyme, CT