The first item on the agenda, technically, was approving the March 3rd meeting minutes.
Mary caught a spelling error in the name of the master gardener the committee had been corresponding with. Garrett Daigle, the assistant town planner who serves as staff liaison, acknowledged that he had read her email twice before transcribing the name. Mary allowed that she may have spelled it wrong herself. The name was corrected. The vote to approve was unanimous — with a procedural note from Chair Patricia "Patti" Boye-Williams that Jennifer Wynn could vote yes even though she'd missed the March meeting, provided she had read the minutes and found them accurate. She had. She did.
With that settled, the April 7 meeting of Farmington's Green Efforts Committee moved to its actual business: cleanup logistics, two public education events at the library, school composting stations arriving the next morning, and a solar developer who wants to come present in May.
Boye-Williams — an environmental attorney with deep familiarity with Connecticut's solar incentive programs and the state Siting Council — had already sketched the developer's likely ask before anyone had said it out loud. "I assume they are just coming to us to present to say, 'This is what we're doing. Please don't object. And will you write us a letter of support?'"
The developer is targeting May 5. The committee has a few things to get through first.
Cleanup Day Is April 25
The annual town-wide cleanup runs April 25, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., with four collection stations. Station assignments: Brie Quinby and Jayapriya "Priya" Krishnaswamy at the Farmington Firehouse on Main Street; Stacey Petruzella at Irving A Robbins Middle School; Boye-Williams and Mary at the Tunxis Hose firehouse in Unionville; and Jennifer Wynn at Tunxis Mead Athletic Fields.
Wynn was glad to take a full role. "I don't have a broken knee this year," she said, "so I can be a little bit more involved."
Prizes are lined up: gift cards from Naples Pizza, Working Fire (Fork and Fire), and the Wooden Tap, plus mini golf from a contact who told Wynn to reach out once the winners are known and he'd take care of it. There are at least two leftover Naples gift cards from prior years floating around among committee members. Daigle's summary: "Lots of pizza."
Tubs stocked with grabbers, bags, tablecloths, and hand sanitizer — Daigle has half-gallon sizes left from the town's COVID-era office supplies — will be delivered to stations the night before. New canopy tents were ordered through WB Mason and were still in transit as of the meeting. The highway department collects the tubs on Sunday; Daigle picks them up at the highway barn Monday morning.
Flyers are going out. Committee members divided distribution: Naples, the Wooden Tap, Liquid Nirvana, the Highland Park Market, Farmington Public Library, and the free library in Unionville. Mary volunteered for Unionville businesses — "I live right down back straight from there" — citing George's specifically. Daigle is handling schools via the Friday folder.
One potential flyer spot fell through. The Indian restaurant committee members had hoped to post at has been through two ownership transitions: the original Bollywood Dreams closed, the same space became Aura, and one of the original partners is now operating an Indian grocery called Anpurna while in talks about building a larger banquet hall elsewhere. Priya Krishnaswamy, who had tried to make contact, relayed the update. The committee agreed they had enough placement and moved on.
Daigle will cover a morning station shift, then leave. He has a baby shower in Totland in the afternoon — "it's an hour drive." No one debated this.
Library Events in April and May
April 21: Composting at the Farmington Public Library
A Master Gardener from Southbury is presenting on home composting at the Farmington Public Library, 6:30 p.m. Eight community members had already registered as of April 7; Quinby signed up herself and her husband Evan that day, making ten. Registration is open through the library's website.
Mary will introduce the speaker. She also plans to mention a fact that, she admitted, she only learned through the Master Gardener program herself: the Hartford County UConn Extension Office — administrative home of the state's Master Gardener program — is located in Farmington, in the Exchange building near the Baker's complex. "I've lived here for decades and I didn't know that," she said. Neither did anyone else in the room.
Mark, a committee member, designed presentation slides in Canva: an opening Green Efforts slide, a waste reduction overview, and a closing slide advertising upcoming events — cleanup day (April 25), bulky waste week (April 20–24), hazardous waste drop-off (April 25), and the May recycling session. He also, in the course of designing, added two leaves to the committee's logo. Boye-Williams was unbothered. "No one here was on the committee when we decided on the logo," she said. The logo was designed by a friend of a prior committee member who offered multiple options. The leaves — green and blue, representing land and river — stay.
May 20: Recycling and DEEP at the Library
A CT DEEP presenter is lined up for a recycling-focused event at the Farmington Public Library, 6:30 p.m. Registration is not yet open. Mark offered a benchmark from West Hartford for context: "We had 80 for recycling when we did it for you. Recycling is a hot topic."
School Composting Arrives at Irving Robbins
Sam Kilpatrick, Farmington's Director of School Facilities, reported that composting collection stations were being delivered to Irving A Robbins Middle School the following morning. The school composting initiative has been building since last fall — the committee pushed hard for school participation throughout 2025.
At Union School, students are working toward a temporary composting solution for the remainder of the year while also fundraising for a permanent composting table. "They really want to kind of build on the momentum and start doing some of it this year," Kilpatrick said.
Mark had recently run into a Union student at the Farmington Public Library's maker's fair who had apparently not received the memo that civic enthusiasm should be proportional. "He was like a little tiger," Mark said. "He so wants composting there."
A Solar Developer Eyes the Old Tilcon Quarry
A developer is proposing a ground-mount solar array at the former Tilcon quarry on Route 6, below the communication towers near Reservoir Road. Daigle, who reviewed the parcel via GIS, said the site is approximately 23 acres, with state-owned land and town-owned Deadwood Swamp adjacent. No prime farmland or core forest on the quarry parcel itself.
How the CT Siting Council Works
If the project exceeds one megawatt, it bypasses local zoning entirely and goes to the Connecticut Siting Council. No town zoning review. No town wetlands review. It's handled at the state level, and the municipality's practical leverage is a letter — which the developer almost certainly wants.
Boye-Williams — who has navigated Farmington's environmental land use landscape closely — had already framed the town's position before the developer had even asked. "I assume they are just coming to us to present to say, 'This is what we're doing. Please don't object. And will you write us a letter of support?'" A letter of municipal support tells the Siting Council that Farmington isn't going to push back. Developers also prefer to minimize public comments, which can trigger hearings that delay — though not necessarily stop — the process.
If approved, the town would likely receive property tax revenue from the solar equipment — or a payment in lieu of taxes — the amount of which, Boye-Williams noted, "depends on the size of the project" and could be "fairly substantial."
Connecticut's Solar Incentive Programs
Boye-Williams provided background on Connecticut's two main solar programs. The Non-Residential Renewable Energy Solutions (NRES) program is a competitive auction: developers bid the rate at which they'll sell electricity to the grid; Eversource and UI select lowest-price bids until they hit a capacity cap — 50 megawatts in Eversource territory this year. The final NRES auction year is 2027. The Shared Clean Energy Facility (SCEF) program works differently — it provides bill discounts to income-qualified residents who can't install rooftop solar. "It's effectively trying to give them the benefit of if they had solar on their roof," Boye-Williams said.
Daigle will confirm whether the developer can attend May 5.
What's Coming Next
Boye-Williams wants to dedicate a future agenda to a possible Sustainability Fair — format, scope, invited participants. A potential partnership with the Avon Land Trust was raised. Mark will prepare a written outline of ideas to circulate before May 5.
On invasive species: Boye-Williams is arranging a walk with Peter Pecone, a DEEP biologist, to survey Japanese knotweed on the New Horizons path at Westview Terrace.
On social media: Boye-Williams plans to set up committee access for member Kimberly after the meeting.
No votes were taken. The next meeting is May 5, 2026.
Update, May 7: The May 5 meeting voted unanimously to fund Union Elementary's full $4,500 compost-table request — full coverage here.
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— Jack Beckett attended this meeting from wherever he had his laptop on the evening of April 7. His coffee was fine. The minutes had a spelling error. Someone added two leaves to a logo and nobody lost their mind about it. Farmington: functional. ☕
The Farmington Mercury covers the town nobody else is covering — the composting stations arriving at Irving Robbins, the solar developer doing the math on a quarry, the Union student at the maker's fair who is, by all accounts, a little tiger about this. We publish slowly. We publish accurately. We publish last. Find us at farmingtonmercury.com and tell your neighbors. #WeAreFarmington 📰