Having served as your First Selectman for 18 years, as member of the Board of Finance for 15 years and currently as a member of the Board of Assessment Appeals for 12 years, I am proud to whole heartedly endorse John Mesham to be our next First Selectman and Jude Read to continue as our Selectwoman. Both John and Jude are extremely well qualified to lead our Town.
John has been deeply involved in our community for decades as a State Police Officer, a Boy Scout Leader, a member of the Inland Wetlands Commission and a Deputy Registrar of Voters. He and his wife Nancy have resided in Old Lyme for 31 years and their three children have graduated from our outstanding Lyme/Old Lyme schools. John is a proven leader and manager and he is a person of impeccable integrity. John has been a key leader in supporting the Town’s right to access our Tantummaheag Landing, a leader in the fight to stop the HROD debacle, and played a vital role in bringing Town commissions together to oversee the Horseneck Creek Open Space parcel. John has significant supervisory and management experience of multiple state police barracks and personnel. His responsibilities included day-to-day management and oversight of over 100 people. This included scheduling, performance reviews, facilities management, vehicle assignments and upkeep, and a multitude of reporting requirements. John was also a local police union president with collective bargaining and negotiating experience. John knows how to manage people and is dedicated to supporting the needs and wishes of the majority of Old Lyme’s citizens. These skills and attributes make John the ideal First Selectman choice for Old Lyme in November.
Jude has resided in Old Lyme for 43 years, along with her husband, Sloan Danenhower, and both of their children graduated from our Lyme/Old Lyme schools. Jude has owned several small business and she is currently a business management consultant. She is deeply involved in Old Lyme, both politically and with local non-profits. She currently serves as one of the three members of the Old Lyme Board of Selectmen. She also served on the Board of Finance and the Lyme/Old Lyme Board of Education. She is a member and past Treasurer of the MacCurdy Salisbury Educational Foundation and has been a Board member of the Old Lyme Historical Society. She has been affiliated with the Girl Scouts and the Lymes’ Senior Center Meals on Wheels program.
John and Jude are willing and able to serve as our First Selectman and Selectwoman and they have excellent credentials to do so.
Please join me in voting for John Mesham as our First Selectman and Jude Read as our Selectwoman in the upcoming municipal election and please encourage your family and friends to do the same.
Sincerely,
Timothy Griswold, Old Lyme.
Editor’s Note: The author is a candidate for the Old Lyme Board of Assessment Appeals in the upcoming election.
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.”
