There was a vote planned for Tuesday night.
The notice posted on the Town's website said as much. The Town Manager's letter to abutting owners said as much. The certified mail that finally reached the affected farms in early April said as much. Section 169-32 of the Farmington Town Code lays out the process — map prepared, owners notified, public hearing held, project presented to the Town Council "for consideration" — and on April 28 the council was supposed to do the considering.
It did. For about ninety minutes. And then it didn't vote.
What it did instead was ask Russ Arnold, the town's Director of Public Works and Town Engineer, to redesign the project — south side from the eastern terminus through Wakefield Lane, then crossing to the north side from Wakefield to Wisteria — and bring it back. That redesign, Town Manager Kathleen Blonski explained on the floor, will require a new STEAP grant approval, new certified-letter notifications, and a fresh public hearing. The council's target for an actual vote is now June.
For an evening that began with a presentation that named the alignment, the dollar figure, the timeline, and the maintenance ordinance — every working piece — the redesign motion was a structural reset.
What Was On the Table
Blonski and Arnold opened with the pitch. The Meadow Road Sidewalk Project is a five-foot concrete walkway in the town's right-of-way, running along the south side of Meadow Road from Wisteria Lane to New Britain Avenue. Total estimated cost: $1,034,832, funded $500,000 from a 2023 STEAP grant and $534,832 from the town's capital budget. ADA-compliant ramps at every crosswalk. About 165 homes connect through Wisteria, Portage Crossing, Wakefield, Judson, Summersby, Windham, Carriage, Rocky Ridge, White Circle, and Trotters Glen. Westwoods Upper Elementary on one end, the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail on the other.
The town would not assess abutting property owners for the cost. That was the financial concession. What the abutting owners would be responsible for was snow removal, ongoing maintenance, and slip-and-fall liability under Section 169-32 — the same ordinance the town's Ad Hoc Sidewalk Committee has been reviewing.
That ordinance, more than the alignment itself, is what the room kept coming back to.
What the Sixteen Speakers Wanted
Public comment ran roughly nine speakers in favor of the project to six who opposed the south-side alignment, plus one outright no. The numerical split was less interesting than where the lines actually fell.
In favor: Katie Zadrasny at 378 Meadow, Denise LaPreniere at 382, Kyle Haythorn at 282, Fred Tampasas on Carriage Drive, Nicole Jezodowicz at 386, Owen on Junior Road near the Bristol border, Catherine Zelko on Lantern Court, and Andres Scalte from behind the high school. The repeated theme was the speed of cars, the bike-to-Westwoods routing problem, and the east-west connectivity gap. "My kids have had to quickly move or jump off into the bushes to avoid them," Zelko told the council remotely.
Opposed to the south-side alignment but in favor of the project on the other side of the road: Barbara Kasha at 335 Meadow Road and her husband Ken Kasha at the same address, Albert Petrouskas at 355, Allison Krell speaking for the Krell family farms, Paul Krell at 365 reading on behalf of his brother and sister-in-law on a five-week vacation in Europe. Jen Woods, who runs Hind Farm at 303 Meadow Road, supported the project but raised concerns about hundreds of perennial flower-farm plants in the right-of-way and the winter maintenance she'd be expected to do herself.
Ben Rodick on Maple Avenue extension was the lone outright no. Richard Kazika spent his three minutes on the maintenance ordinance, not the alignment.
The opposition's argument was structural. "By choosing the south side," Allison Krell told the council, "the town protected the larger group from the maintenance burden, the snow removal obligation, and the legal risk. And placed those burdens on a small number of south side abutters."
The Maintenance Question Inside the Sidewalk Question
It was Council Member Nadine Canto, joining remotely from a business trip, who pulled the maintenance ordinance into the open. Could the town consider revising §169-32 for this stretch — taking on some of the snow-removal burden the abutting owners would otherwise carry?
Blonski's answer was the structural one. "It's pretty uncommon for municipalities to maintain sidewalks of people," she told the council, "but that is something obviously we could look at and review. But it would be a significant shift in philosophy and not really common to what municipalities do."
Council Member Patti Boye-Williams completed the thought: "And would the town face liability? Yes. So if the town takes over responsibility for clearing it, then the town becomes liable."
That exchange — the structural reason municipal sidewalk maintenance is rare in Connecticut — is what the rest of the discussion came back to. The Mercury has covered this debate before.
The Motion That Pulled the Vote
The motion came from Council Member Dave Wlodkowski.
"I would be in favor of seeing you Russ go and take a look at the Judson Lane kind of recommendation in going west," he said, "and seeing if we can't divide this up a little bit." Wlodkowski framed the project as an east-west connectivity gap the town had to close eventually, with or without the redesign. "We're going to build a connection," he said.
Council Member Bill Beckert — a 33-year liability attorney by trade — agreed. "This sidewalk is going to happen," he said. "I'm very much open to the concept of the conversation of whether or not it belongs on the north side versus the south side." Council Member Bruce Polsky and Boye-Williams both signed on. Council Member Keith Vibert, who has served on the (general) Ad Hoc Sidewalk Committee, noted that under the existing ordinance, residents would carry the maintenance burden no matter where the sidewalk went.
Arnold, who said he had walked the road "more than I care to," agreed to bring back a south-side-then-north-side schematic plan in two weeks. The redesign moves the crosswalk presently planned at Portage Crossing to Wakefield Lane, dispenses with the crosswalk at Wisteria entirely, and reduces the number of south-side abutters from a small group to a smaller one.
What Comes After June
The redesigned plan goes to the May Town Council meeting as an agenda item — not a public hearing. If the council blesses it, certified-letter notifications go out and a new public hearing is scheduled. The vote, Blonski said, would land at the June meeting.
In the meantime, the project's existing STEAP approval has to be re-cleared by the state. "Should the plan change and go I'm going to go 50 on the north 50 on the south," Arnold told the council, "we'll have to go back and get approval at STEAP."
The 7:05 p.m. public hearing that was supposed to be the project's last big procedural milestone before construction is now its second-to-last. The next one is in June.
This coverage is brought to you by Farmington Storage at 155 Scott Swamp Road — the only storage facility in Connecticut with Museum air. Sidewalks, when they get built, last about as long as a building. Stored objects, with the right climate, can outlast both. Farmington Storage operates at the latter standard. 860.777.4001 | farmingtonstorage.com 📦
— Jack Beckett has been covering Farmington's sidewalk debates long enough to know they get sequels. The next one is in June. He is on his third coffee. ☕
The Farmington Mercury covers the town nobody else is covering — the zoning meeting that ran until 10 p.m., the police log that is technically public record but that you'd never find unless someone typed it up, the board of education vote that determines what your kids learn about next year. We publish slowly, deliberately, and without apology. Our motto is "Always last to breaking news" and we stand behind it: by the time you read this, the dust has settled, the facts are checked, and Jack Beckett has had at least two cups of coffee. Find us at farmingtonmercury.com and tell your neighbors. #WeAreFarmington 📰