The town meeting about leasing land to Ability Beyond for a group home on Prospect Ridge is going to be rescheduled, to keep in line with a tangle of statutory requirements concerning meeting and hearing notices.
The new plan is to reschedule the town meeting for Wednesday, June 10, at 7:30 p.m. in town hall, First Selectman Rudy Marconi said.
The town meeting was originally set for Wednesday, May 27, but that will be canceled.
The Board of Selectmen are planning to have a special meeting at 9 in the morning Monday, May 25, Memorial Day, to make the scheduling changes.
The agenda for Memorial Day’s 9 a.m. meeting is only two items:
1. Cancel May 27 Special Town Meeting for Ability Beyond proposed lease Halpin Lane…”
2. “Set public hearing and Special Town Meeting dates for Ability Beyond proposed lease at Halpin Lane.”
The selectmen had previously agreed to cancel the Board of Selectmen’s meeting that was scheduled for May 27, after the town meeting that is now being moved.
The mix-up is procedural, and is unrelated to the specifics of the lease, or the concerns that some neighbors had about developing the land on the corner of Prospect Ridge Road and Halpin Lane, according to First Selectman Rudy Marconi.
It has to do with state statues concerning the disposal of town property.
“There’s a statute that requires two notices for a public hearing,” Marconi said… “I thought it was just for the sale of land, but it was also even if you lease the land.
“The statute requires that one notice must be between 10 and 15 days prior to the hearing.
“And the second notice cannot be any less than two days prior to the hearing.
“So, we need to re-notice everything, and that’s what caused us to push it off to June 10, so we can properly notice, according to Connecticut Statutes, the public hearing,” Marconi said.
“We’re fine with our charter,” he added.
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