Smiling faces were everywhere during the Lymes’ Senior Center’s ‘soft opening’ last Monday.
All photos courtesy of Town of Old Lyme.
OLD LYME—On Monday, May 5, more than 150 people turned out for a celebratory pizza party at the Lyme’s Senior Center in honor of its “soft opening.”
The Center on Town Woods Rd. has finally emerged from a major renovation and expansion project. Those who attended were able to explore the now much improved facility while also viewing the new design and improvements for themselves.
Lymes’ Senior Center was packed for Monday’s ‘soft opening.’
Director Stephanie Gould and Assistant Director Caitlin Perkins were on hand to welcome back the seniors, who have been pursuing Center activities at various venues in town during the construction period. WIth the reopening of the Center, all the activities are now relocated back at the Center
Five Old Lyme Town Hall staff—First Selectwoman Martha Shoemaker, Vicki Urbowicz, Courtney Joy, Michele Hayes, and Katie Balocca—attended the celebration to assist with the festivities.
From left to right, Old Lyme Town Hall staff Michele Hayes, Katie Balocca, Courtney Joy, Vicki Urbowicz, and First Selectwoman Martha Shoemaker join Lymes’ Senior Center Director Stephanie Gould (second from left) at the celebration.
Shoemaker told LymeLine by phone on Friday, “It was an absolutely wonderful event. There were so many happy, smiling faces.” She added, “People were just so glad to see each other again.”
An official Grand Opening of the Senior Center is planned for Saturday, May 31.
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.
Don’t believe everything you read or see in the media.
Sage advice on any topic, but especially when it comes to coverage of transportation. A couple of recent stories illustrate my point.
Improved Cell Service on Metro-North
The Governor and Connecticut Department of Transportation (CDOT) Commissioner held a media event recently in Stamford to promote the fact that AT&T has improved its cell coverage along the New Haven line. That telco spent $6 million installing 30 high-powered macro towers and small cell nodes, some of them on CDOT land, in a public-private partnership. Many are specifically aimed at dead-spots in service on the trains.
This is good news…if you are an AT&T subscriber. If you use Verizon or T-Mobile and find an area with no cell coverage on your commute, this won’t help you. The AT&T enhancements are for its customers only.
There is no word from the other companies on how they might be filling holes in their service. But… it’s a start.
However if you read the media coverage, you’d think every commuter’s cellphone coverage had been improved! “Cellphone service to get upgrade on Metro-North rail line,” proclaimed the Hearst papers. “Wireless service upgrades coming to New Haven line for CT commuters,” said WSHU public radio.
Improved cell coverage is a crucial issue for commuters looking to be more productive during train-time. But attention-grabbing headlines such as these may lead to a perception of better service. The more you’re told “cell service is getting better” the more you’ll think it is. Or so they hope.
But… don’t believe the hype.
Faster Than Acela?
In April another media event, this time at Grand Central, celebrated faster train service from New Haven: three early morning (5 – 7 am) super-express trains, one of them cutting ten minutes off its old running time, making that single train “faster than Acela”.
Great news… if you’re a pre-dawn-commuter from New Haven. Again, kudos to Metro-North for much needed signal and infrastructure improvements. But has the average commute to Grand Central really improved? Not really. The exception is not the rule.
With limited stops these super-express trains still average only 52 mph. Regular express trains get about 46 mph and locals run just 38 mph. Remember: the M-8 cars on Metro-North are capable of 80 mph.
The “faster than Acela” claim is technically true…for one Metro-North train. Keep in mind that New Haven to Grand Central is 73 miles but to Penn Station (on Amtrak) is 75 miles. But not wanting to always sound like a grouch, I say good for Metro-North.
What worries me is the media coverage which over generalizes and lacks the caveats I’ve cited. Telling commuters repeatedly that their trains are running faster, when they are not, may be persuasive but it is not accurate.
So, take media coverage of transportation with a grain of salt. The headlines don’t always tell the full story. And don’t believe the hype.
Editor’s Notes: i) This article has been updated to reflect a correction sent by the author regarding AT&T’s investment in new cell towers, which he had incorrectly stated as $60 million, rather than $6 million. ii) Jim Cameron is the founder of the Commuter Action Group and advocates for Connecticut rail riders. He writes a weekly column called ‘Talking Transportation,’ which is published by a number of publications in the state. iii)”Talking Transportation” recently won first place in the general column/commentary category in the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists Excellence in Journalism Contest.
On Saturday, May 3, Lyme Grange hosts a ‘Chick Chat’ Seminar for poultry lovers from 1 to 3 p.m.
LYME—On Saturday, May 3, the Lyme Grange will host an expert-led seminar and question-and-answer session on raising backyard chickens.
Poultry expert Sarah McEachern of Poulin Grain, a producer of animal-nutrition products, will lead the session from 1 to 3 p.m. at The Grange headquarters, 2 Sterling City Rd.
Grange Secretary Nancy Beebe in a press release said that the seminar is a response to area residents who have asked for expert guidance when it comes to raising small flocks of chickens on their property.
The free program is sponsored by the Lyme Grange, Shagbark Lumber & Farm Supplies, and the Hamburg Fair Association. Topics include poultry raising, housing, health concerns, nutritional care and predator considerations.
Oh, I wish there were a million more of his books. Instead, this far, there are only four in this series and one in the new series.
More to come, but who can wait when they are this good?
Osman is not only a maestro of the mystery but a comedy man. His characters are spot on cleverly written and usually hilariously so.
Osman is a writer, who doesn’t assume the reader needs a long drivel of an explanation, so his brevity is flattering. We feel in on the joke when he describes someone.
The Thursday Murder Club is the first of this series and I’d never heard of it when I previewed the upcoming film.
I immediately ran out for the book and was even more delighted. Each subsequent book was better but I begin here.
Four residents of Coopers Chase retirement community have formed a club. They each bring experience and a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ to the table when it comes to solving murders. This they do with alarming and hilarious alacrity, much to the consternation of the local constabulary.
Osman’s gift is hiding the clues so well that you have no idea what’s coming. In the land of predictability you are blindsided every few chapters and it’s marvelous.
At first there is a murder at Coopers Chase. A builder and his henchmen are so busy swindling and bribing, they don’t realize they are being watched.
The Thursday Murder Club is going to get to the bottom of all this. Who is doing this killing? This bribing? Are they going to lose their homes? Oh no they are not!
If anyone thinks these four seemingly sweet, innocent, elderly people are what they seem, then they are in for quite the surprise.
Watching these four — Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, Ron and their supporting cast — become friends is so heart-warming.
As cloying as it sounds, it’s such a good time to find a series of books that you can curl up with and just be happy in a world away from the world.
Jennifer Petty Hilger
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.
