Tag Archives: Halls Road

Op-Ed: Can Old Lyme Government Make Better, Faster Decisions? Thinking Outside The Box

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Editor’s Note: This op-ed was submitted by George Frampton Jr. of Old Lyme.

The unusual partisan political divisiveness that crept into the elections in Old Lyme last week seems to have been laden, at least in part, with charges on both sides (and some public concern) about how Town government operates. 

These charges include complaints that local officials don’t move important issues forward diligently, that decisions sometimes take place ‘behind closed doors’, that the public is not provided with enough of the factual information key to those decisions, and finally, that officials omit how that information is being evaluated and processed to reach final decisions. 

Any such local disaffection can hardly be a matter of partisan ideology, however, since Republican, Democratic and unaffiliated voters in Old Lyme all favor strikingly similar goals and policies for the Town. What is more clearly responsible are the limitations imposed by the structure of the government itself.

As a resident who visited family here for decades and moved here permanently five years ago, and started off in a dispute with Town government, I have had an opportunity to observe intensively how Old Lyme government actually works (or rather, doesn’t work).  I have seen, in particular, how it has addressed two major issues facing the community over the past decade — beach sewers, and the development/zoning of Hall’s Road.

As it turns out, local government in Connecticut often doesn’t work well because state public meeting laws and traditions dating to colonial times make it extremely difficult for the main body of the community’s elected decision-makers — the Board of Selectmen (BOS) — even to communicate with one another about difficult policy decisions except at publicly noticed formal board meetings. 

In turn, the BOS struggles to communicate with the slew of semi-independent ‘commissions’ that also have an important and decentralized (even balkanized) role in final decisions. This situation creates a dynamic in which it is even harder for government officials easily to share their analysis or have robust discussions with the public. These antiquated legal restrictions seriously impede voters’ ability to review and evaluate how public officials are marshaling and analyzing the information necessary to make sound choices. 

There are some potential fixes for these built-in handicaps. But they don’t lie in partisan politics. Rather, they require leadership and innovation to institute workarounds that could at least marginally improve the decision-making process, facilitate internal and external communication, and foster a greater sense of transparency in Town government.

For major issues facing the Town, two workarounds involve centralizing leadership and making sure boards with authority work together. To accomplish both goals as they relate to major Town projects, a single ‘project director’ should be engaged — hired part-time or full-time — to manage and oversee the Town’s work under the supervision of the First Selectperson (who generally does not have the time or bandwidth to develop deep understanding or manage the necessary coordination to move such issues forward). The project manager would be working, however, on behalf of and reporting to the full Board of Selectmen and, when appropriate, to the public. 

This is an idea that has been put forward before, most articulately in an article by Howard Margules published in olwenonline.com/ last year. Given the rhetoric of the last election, now is clearly the right time to embrace it. 

For example, the future of Hall’s Road clearly requires a complete Town reset and is an important enough long-term issue — key to the Town’s personality and economy for many future decades — to justify hiring and empowering a project director. 

Then, rather than tasking the Zoning, Planning and Economic Development commissions with working together on the challenge (a necessary but virtually impossible task), the project director could engage flexibly and in alignment with each, and as the connecting link between all of these committees and the BOS —take the lead in engaging and reporting the outcome of these discussions to the public.

The first job of the Hall’s Road project manager should be simply to sketch out roughly three or four different preferred ‘visions’ for what the north side of Halls Road should look like, then conduct a quick Town survey and a workshop or two to identify the most attractive alternatives, or possibly the top two approaches. This is initially a planning issue and an economic development issue more than a zoning issue. 

The project manager would then be able to steer collaboration between all three commissions and the BOS in the upcoming overall Town-wide zoning review to design a template that maximizes the incentives for any owner-developers to implement the Town’s vision for the north side of Hall’s Road and consider more creative alternatives that might be available to ensure that the Town’s vision is realized.

Should the beach community sewer issue also require a reset, a project manager would be essential in considering the bewildering slew of bodies that have some jurisdiction over ultimate decision-making. These include several independent water/sewer bodies for the Town and beaches, the state Department of Environment (DEEP), the finance commission, the BOS, and others. 

To explore a whole new set of options is certainly going to require much more involvement with DEEP and probably other state agencies, new pollution studies and serious exploration of the new technology that has come available in the past ten years. 

A new project director would be essential to work with the relevant local boards and authorities as well as the State of Connecticut, to develop new alternatives and ensure both decision-makers and the public receive transparent information necessary to make final decisions. 

There are other more detailed ways to adjust and even revise current procedures for how Town boards bodies operate to increase public engagement, efficiency and public transparency that are well within the bounds of existing state open meeting laws. Now is the time for an administration that has just retained its mandate but needs to continue to merit public support to assess and adopt such steps. 

If Old Lyme voters want more effective Town government, the best route is not to complain and blame those in either political party, who devote substantial parts of their lives to public service in this effort, but to support innovative ways to enable them to do their jobs better.

Op-Ed: Tuesday, November 4th & the HROD

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Editor’s Note: F.B. (Rick) Drake of Old Lyme submitted this op-ed to us. He is a career architect with national and international design experience in the creation of small towns.

Some candidates in the coming election are taking credit for the defeat of the HROD [Halls Road Overlay District], an easy claim to stake. After all, the most controversial debates and the final vote on the proposal took place during the current Administration’s tenure in Town Hall. Whatever was wrong with the Overlay must by association at least, if not by direct action, have been their fault, right?  Maybe, but the subject’s worth at least a slightly closer look.

The Halls Road Improvement Committee (HRIC) was created in 2015 and labored for 10 years through changing memberships and five different town administrations, three Democratic and two Republican, to produce the proposal that was defeated earlier this year.  Each of those administrations no doubt influenced the committee, but none made it law. The ultimate authority to accept or deny the proposal resided with the Zoning Commission.  That’s certainly how events unfolded in 2024 and ’25.  The HRIC was allowed to complete its work without undue interference from the current administration. Ditto the Zoning Commission, which was allowed to consider and vote on the proposal also without interference. In fact, contrary to the claims of some, the current administration acted appropriately in January not by voting to approve the Overlay per se but by voting to approve its submittal to the Zoning Commission for its consideration and conclusion. Absent that vote, the decade long process would still be ongoing and a structured opportunity to stop, reassess and reconfigure it would have been postponed yet again. Forwarding the Overlay to the Zoning Commission for a vote was the opposite of controlling the process. It was allowing that process to operate as it was meant to.  

That said, the importance of an administration’s influence can’t be entirely discounted, and  there are good examples that reinforce that point.  

  • While the current administration refrained, as it should have, from directing the HRIC’s work, it used its influence in a positive way to arrange meetings between HRIC leadership and some of its most vocal critics. This author knows this to be true because he participated in some of those meetings as a critic. But even then, at the end of the day, the administration allowed the system to function and the HRIC to incorporate – or to set aside – its critics’ concerns as it, the HRIC, not the Selectmen, was charged to do.
  • An earlier administration’s influence, however, actually had a more direct and profound effect. One analysis of the HROD attributes many of its shortcomings to the hiring of a lead consultant put forward by that earlier administration, a consultant that was arguably unqualified to do the work. Whether the earlier administration failed to grasp the technical challenges of the HROD and/or the lack of qualifications of the consultant it put forward or not, a case could reasonably be made today that the shortcomings of the HROD were ultimately more the result of that consultant’s hiring than of many of the decisions rendered by the HRIC’s lay members, themselves.

Credit for defeat of the HROD, however, is, itself, worth a closer look. Without a town-wide vote, the party affiliations of the HROD’s opponents are unknown. Claims of credit for its defeat, therefore, or inferences to that effect by any group other than “the Citizens of Old Lyme” are unfounded and, more to the point, misleading. Opposition to the HROD, or support for that matter, crossed party lines. This author is just one of many who criticized the Overlay on technical grounds, not political (Drake letter to the ZC 2/18/25).  Furthermore, an examination of the vote taken by the Zoning Commission reinforces the fact that the Overlay faced multilateral opposition. Of the four negative votes cast, two were in fact Democrat or Democrat endorsed and two were Republican. Any single group’s claims of unilateral credit for defeating the measure, therefore, or inferences of same are at best unsubstantiated if not disingenuous during an election cycle.

In time, the community may come to realize that the greatest shortcoming of the HROD experience was not the number of its housing units or the length of its buildings but rather the unwarranted politicization of the effort, an unfortunate outcome for which neither the HRIC nor the current administration is responsible. The Administration shepherded the HROD to a majority vote decision by the Zoning Commission after HRIC members had contributed incalculable numbers of hours of time and myriad personal sacrifices in an effort to improve our town. Critics might agree that some of those efforts were imperfect, but claiming they were politically motivated requires proof not innuendo. The town and the committee members in particular deserve better.  

F. B. Drake

Editor’s Note: This op-ed was updated with a revised headline.

Letter to the Editor: Reader Questions Kelsey’s Position on Halls Road ‘Political Football’

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To the Editor:

Because the Republican Party has made the HROD an issue this election season, I thought to correct a recent letter that seemed ill informed or deceptive. I offered the below to CT Examiner last week, but they have not responded. Notably, David Kelsey is listed as the principal funder of the CT Examiner on its website (1).

On October 14, CT Examiner published Emerson Colwell’s “Finance Candidate’s Backing of Halls Road Overlay Shows Lack of Judgement.” Colwell argued Board of Finance member Thompson supported the Halls Road Overlay District (HROD), and should be replaced by candidates Matthew Olson and David Kelsey.

A few facts:

  • Kelsey was a member of the Halls Road Improvement Committee (HRIC) from 2020-2023 (2). This was the key period in which the HROD plan as currently known was formed.
  • Kelsey on June 9, 2022 was THE member who motioned to forward the draft HROD to the Zoning Commission (3). This was to be the first time the Zoning Commission rejected the HROD.
  • HRIC minutes show Kelsey was an active HRIC participant and supported the plan.
  • Kelsey, a former Wall Street investment banker focused on real estate, is co-founder of an investment company headquartered in Old Lyme that owns and operates apartment complexes and other commercial properties across the United States (4).
  • Kelsey owns one property on Halls Road (5). I believe per the news at the time he claimed to buy it for altruistic purposes for the town. Kelsey’s company occupies another property in what could become the HROD. The property’s ownership is unclear per the Old Lyme GIS.  With HROD approval, it is reasonable to believe both properties would increase in value.

I do not personally know any of the candidates Mr. Colwell mentions. I do thank the three as well as our other volunteers of all or no parties upon our behalf. Mr. Kelsey has volunteered his time to the town over the years as have the others. I only wish to correct the errors.

But, if one were to take a paranoid mindset (and I do not), then … if there is anyone living in town that has the background, acumen, financial incentive, and access to massive sources of capital from across the country to build up Halls Road to the hilt, it is Republican Candidate David Kelsey and the team of Wall Street real estate investment professionals he leads.

The HROD was the result of many years of time generously volunteered by our neighbors. They did their best.  It was an open discussion with meetings, minutes, public outreach with surveys and open houses at Town Hall which many of us participated in. Greg Stroud the owner of the CT Examiner published some criticisms on legal issues, which the HRIC took to heart and made important changes. It was a non-partisan and bi-partisan effort to do something to improve things, as every generation should attempt to do for their community. Hopefully, some of its research assists the Zoning Commission in this new third round of examination of Halls Road.

What I would like to see next from the local press is an open discussion among the Republican candidates; perhaps Kelsey and a major HROD detractor. What does Kelsey think about the way things have gone down this year with his creation; it becoming a political football?  Does Kelsey and his firm have a secret plan for Halls Road?

Beware of those who peddle in unsupported accusations, drama, division, and/or deception.  Character matters.

Sincerely,

Kevin Clougherty,
Old Lyme.

Sources:

  1. https://ctexaminer.com/about/
  2. https://onboard.oldlyme-ct.gov/board/4213
  3. https://www.oldlyme-ct.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_06092022-1686
  4. https://hamiltonptinv.com/team/
  5. https://oldlymect.mapgeo.io/datasets/properties?abuttersDistance=100&latlng=41.322986%2C-72.338979&previewId=21-54-1&zoom=20

TOP STORY: Failed Halls Road Overlay Makes Way for Election Day in Old Lyme

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OLD LYME–When Democratic First Selectman candidate Martha Shoemaker beat Republican challenger John Mesham by 123 votes two years ago, plans to transform Halls Road into a livable, pedestrian-friendly village center were still being hashed out in committee meetings and consultants reports.

Now, following the defeat earlier this year of a Zoning Commission application for the Halls Road Overlay District (HROD) that would have allowed developers to build apartments in the commercial zone, the issue has become a flashpoint in the rematch between Shoemaker and Republican challenger John Mesham. 

The “Overlay? No Way!” crowd was evident over the winter in signs across town and at a Zoning Commission public hearing that filled the high school auditorium to maximum capacity. A vast majority of the 550 attendees came out in opposition. 

According to Mesham, it never should have gotten to that point. 

“If I was on the Board of Selectmen, I would definitely not have ever voted to present that project to Planning and Zoning,” he said last week in an interview at the Republican headquarters on Halls Road. 

Mesham, who spent 29 years in law enforcement before retiring from the Connecticut State Police in 2020, said experience as an executive officer in the Bridgeport and Montville barracks has prepared him to run a public agency like the Town Hall. His current term on the Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Commission has taught him about the regulatory process. 

Shoemaker is a retired 35-year teacher, 12-year union president, and two-term member of the Region 18 Board of Education. She was selectwoman from 2021-23 before being elected first selectwoman.

The overlay proposal drafted by the Halls Road Improvements Committee (HRIC) was submitted to the Zoning Commission late last year by Shoemaker after a 2-1 vote of the selectmen. Shoemaker and fellow Democrat Jim Lampos were in support; Republican Jude Read cast the lone nay vote. 

Lampos and Read are both running for reelection as selectmen. 

Part of the Process

Shoemaker at the Town Hall last week said she followed statutory guidelines and local precedent for submitting the proposal to the Zoning Commission. 

The first proposal in 2021 was submitted, and then pulled, by then-First Selectman Tim Griswold after critics described it as an overreach, and a revised 2023 version that first floated the overlay zone was later rejected by the Zoning Commission. Members cited concerns about its effectiveness and the lack of water and sewer infrastructure.

The commission is empowered to approve, deny or modify applications. Shoemaker said she put the proposal in their hands so they could do their job. 

“And I know that the zoning board would have moved and pulled things out of it, or tweaked it to something that they could have been more comfortable with, because they weren’t going to put Old Lyme in jeopardy,” Shoemaker said. 

Asked if she would have done anything differently in retrospect, the first selectwoman said she said she would not have delayed the continuation of the public hearing for as long as she did. 

The hearing, which began in January, was initially continued to the end of February. But the meeting was postponed to April at the request of Shoemaker and the HRIC, who informed residents the move was prompted by “strong interest” in the topic that required a larger venue and more time for the commission to review communications from residents. 

“I think there were a group of people who sort of defined it as something that it wasn’t, and placed fear into the minds of some of the people in this town,” she said. 

Critics said the plan had the potential to create more than 1,000 apartments on 40 acres if it went through. Proponents argued topography and regulatory realities would effectively limit development to under 400 apartments at the most. 

Shoemaker said she should have educated the public more about the project instead of letting misinformation spread. 

“I think the most important thing is providing the facts,” she said. 

Mesham during his interview disputed the idea that forwarding the project to the Zoning Commission was largely a procedural issue bound by statute and the other applications that have come before it. 

“So, you know, you can say it’s part of the process, but really, part of the process is the Board of Selectmen reading the room and saying ‘we’re not gonna move ahead with this,’” he said. 

Sidewalk Consensus

He said his first order of business if elected will be to call for a “shovel-ready” plan for sidewalks, lighting and “probably some greenery” to improve Halls Road.

“I think people move to Old Lyme because they like Old Lyme,” he said. “And we don’t need to drastically change Old Lyme.” 

Sidewalks, too, are at the top of Shoemaker’s priority list for a second term. In May, she signed off on a grant application to the Connecticut Department of Transportation (DOT) for $800,000 to install sidewalks on the north half of Halls Road. 

“I think there’s total consensus on sidewalks,” she said. 

Less clear is the future of a pedestrian bridge – sometimes referred to as the bow bridge – proposed by the HRIC, according to Shoemaker. 

“It’s something that’s nice to have, but is it a need or a want? And we have to weigh that out,” she said. 

The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection this year transferred ownership of the state’s property on the east bank of the Lieutenant River to Old Lyme, as long as the town puts a fishing pier and parking spaces there. The land swap is a necessary component of designs for the walking bridge and trail system funded with $135,000 in federal American Rescue Plan money and a $28,500 state grant. 

“If we want the walking bridge, we have to do the fishing pier,” she said. “So do we want the fishing pier? What do we do to the environment if we start to build a fishing pier? There’s a lot of questions that still need to be answered.”

Mesham reiterated it’s time to get back to basics on Halls Road. 

He said what started as a call for greenery, signage, and lighting “spun out of control” with efforts to attract developers and add large-scale improvements like the bridge. 

“It clearly got too big for what people want, so I think we need to get back to the original intent of the Halls Road Improvement Committee,” he said. 

TOP STORY: Old Lyme Selectwoman’s Call to Disband Halls Road Improvement Committee Rejected by Shoemaker, Lampos

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Old Lyme First Selectwoman Martha Shoemaker, center, with Selectman Jim Lampos, left, and Selectwoman Jude Read, right.

OLD LYME–Selectwoman Jude Read is calling for the dissolution of the Halls Road Improvements Committee (HRIC) as the Old Lyme Board of Selectmen continues to back away from big picture changes to the road that have evolved over the past decade. 

On the selectmen’s table now is a scaled-back plan that includes new sidewalks, but no other substantial upgrades like the bow bridge and trail system envisioned by the HRIC. First Selectwoman Martha Shoemaker in May signed off on a grant application to the Connecticut Department of Transportation (DOT) for $800,000 to install sidewalks on the north half of Halls Road. 

Josh Morgan, DOT Communications Director, said in a Tuesday email that he expects the award announcements to go out in the next several weeks. 

During their Monday evening regular meeting, the selectmen considered creating a new committee to guide the process if a grant is awarded. But Read emphasized the existing Halls Road committee should be disbanded before forming a new one. 

“The other thing I think would be helpful – these are my thoughts – is, if and when we start a new committee, we’re careful about the charge, what the goal is, (and) how many people are on that committee.” 

Read also suggested requiring a unanimous vote when appointing members to a new committee. She is the lone Republican on the board with Shoemaker and Selectman Jim Lampos, both Democrats. 

Lampos and Shoemaker declined to disband the committee right now because they need more information on the status of projects that were pending when selectmen voted to put the group on a hiatus in April.

The HRIC has been controversial since it started in 2015 under Democratic then-First Selectwoman Bonnie Reemsnyder with a charge to consider a master plan for the commercial span. The result – honed over the course of dozens of public meetings, information sessions, and workshops – evoked images of village-like storefronts and apartments, a pedestrian bridge, more greenspace and sidewalks. 

Reemsnyder successor Tim Griswold, a Republican, a few years later called the vision too grandiose. He said at the time that he preferred to focus on building sidewalks one segment at a time before considering such broad plans. 

But opposition came to a head earlier this year when more than 550 people filled the Lyme-Old Lyme High School auditorium for a public hearing on changes to the town’s zoning regulations that the committee hoped would turn their vision into reality. 

The proposal to create an overlay district in the commercial zone would have allowed as many as 40 housing units per acre to be built above, or behind, ground-floor businesses. 

The plan was rejected by the Zoning Commission, HRIC Chairwoman Edie Twining subsequently resigned, and the board of selectmen put the committee on hiatus while attempting to manage the fallout. 

Crossing That Bridge

Before making any decisions on whether to disband the HRIC, Shoemaker and Lampos on Monday said they wanted to get a better understanding of how much has been spent on Halls Road projects to date and which contracts remain outstanding. 

At the behest of the HRIC, selectmen in 2023 hired AI Engineers of Middletown to come up with plans for a pedestrian bridge over the Lieutenant River and a trail system between Lyme Street and Halls Road. The company’s work was funded with $135,000 in federal American Rescue Plan money and a $28,500 grant through the Connecticut Recreational Trails program.

Old Lyme Finance Director Anita Mancini said the committee spent $13,500 of the trails grant so far. 

The committee in an FAQ document said AI Engineers was tasked with taking charge of conceptual designs, formal designs, permitting and the construction bid process. No funding for construction has been secured. 

The decision to accept or reject the designs would be up to the public, according to the committee. Old Lyme’s form of government calls for the public to vote on major decisions at town meetings, with options to send the biggest issues to referendum. 

Shoemaker said the town could be responsible for returning $13,500 to the state if the town doesn’t complete the design project. 

Read argued it might be prudent in some cases “to take a loss.”

“Is it better to lose $13,500 or spend another $15,000, have it designed, and not be sure if the town’s going to approve it or not?” she said. 

Shoemaker and Lampos reiterated they need a better idea of the financial picture first. 

They said it’s been difficult to pinpoint how much has been spent, and in which line items, in a decade of budgets overseen by multiple administrations. 

Lampos credited the current selectmen with making the budget process and town procedures more transparent. 

“I think there’s a lot of clarity, but there’s just so much that we can answer for what happened before us,” Lampos said. 

LymeLine in April requested documents related to the amount expended so far on HRIC projects. Shoemaker on Monday said the information will be available next week. 

Lampos, who wrote the grant with Shoemaker’s executive assistant Katie Balocca, emphasized there is nothing in the grant to cover the HRIC’s bow bridge proposal. 

“It is currently on hiatus. We’re not addressing it,” he said. 

Building the bow bridge would require the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to transfer ownership of its property on the east bank of the Lieutenant River to Old Lyme, which the agency has agreed to do as long as the town agrees to put a fishing pier, a dock for portable boats and parking spaces there. 

Lampos acknowledged the idea, like other elements of the HRIC plan, is controversial. That’s why the grant application focuses solely on sidewalks. 

“Almost everybody was saying, ‘forget the overlay,’ half the people were saying, ‘forget the bridge,’ and just about everyone was saying, ‘but we want the sidewalks,’” he recounted. 

Read wondered if a new committee should be limited to overseeing only what’s in the grant or if they should be empowered to look at other improvements and funding sources. 

“We have requests for sidewalks, lighting, signage, beautification,” she said. 

Lampos put it this way: “If we don’t get the grant, I think we cross that bridge at that time.”