FARMINGTON — Richard Raguski owns the big white house at 185 Main Street. The state is going to build a sidewalk across the front of it and pay for all of it. Keeping more than 500 feet of it clear will be his job.
He told the Town Council on Tuesday, Nov. 10, that he would have to hire somebody to do it. "We don't think it's necessary, to be honest with you," he said.
The council accepted the sidewalk anyway, with one member opposed. The state pays to build it. Under the town ordinance, the owners along it pay to keep it: snow removal, repairs and liability.
Much of the council's debate was about the state's replacement of the culvert under Main Street at Tunxis Street, and the closing of Route 10 that comes with it.
Who shovels, and who answers for a fall
Tom Ceravolo, who said he lives on one of the abutting properties, said he had no problem giving up land for the culvert. His worry was the steep drop beside the new walk, and who answers if someone goes over it. "If the town of Farmington said, hey, look, we'll clear the sidewalk. There won't be any liability. I'm okay with it," he said. He also asked who needs it, since the sidewalk on the west side already runs to Route 4.
Raguski said most people walk on the west side, and that crossing in front of the apartments in afternoon traffic means "you take your life in your hands." He suggested stopping the sidewalk at his second driveway.
Peter Havens, who lives at 165 Main Street, called it "a solution looking for a problem." He pointed to a burned-out house next door whose walk, he said, has not been shoveled in four years.
An owner at 10 Main Gate, calling in by Zoom, said he was generally in favor of more sidewalks but did not understand what he would be on the hook for.
Each owner answers only for the frontage of their own property, the council was told. The owner with 500 feet clears 500 feet.
Closing a gap left in 2021
The new walk runs from the Main Gate driveway south to the Birch Hill Apartments, with a new crosswalk there to the Highland Park Market plaza. The town has asked for a rapid flashing beacon at the crossing.
It fills a gap the town left in about 2021, when it rebuilt the east-side sidewalk from Route 4 to Main Gate. Public Works Director Russ Arnold said the old culvert was not long enough to carry a sidewalk over it, and filling the slope would have cost more than the project could support. The state's new, wider culvert solves that.
Town Manager Kathleen Blonski recommended that the town not charge the abutting owners for construction. Her written note to the council says the work touches four parcels owned by two property owners.
The plan is about 60 percent designed. Arnold said a rail will go along the back of the walk if the final grading calls for one.
Council member Keith Vibert, who has worked on the town's sidewalk committee, said he had heard the neighbors. "There's nothing I want to do less than put something on someone's property and say you must have this and now you must take care of it," he said. He argued for it as planning for the village, so the town is not left with a gap. Council member Patti Boye-Williams, attending remotely, said the state paying for it is "really a significant financial benefit to us."
Two weeks closed, or a year and a half of lane work
The culvert is going in whether the town wants a sidewalk or not, Council member Bill Beckert noted. The sidewalk is the only piece the town gets a say in. Arnold called it an amenity the state will cut if the town says no.
Council member Bruce Polsky turned the talk to the road. He recalled from an earlier briefing that the work would close Route 10 to north-south traffic, and asked whether that was still planned for next August. It was, he was told. He asked whether the post office and the businesses in Post Office Square had been told. Not yet, he was told, but they will be.
Arnold said the state plans a two-week full shutdown to set the new culvert, the plan he laid out in September. Keeping the road open, he said, would now stretch the job to about a year and a half of phased work and lane closures, including a winter in one lane. In September he had put that option at seven or eight months.
Council member Dave Wlodkowski asked the town to press the state for a second price on keeping traffic moving. "I think we owe it to the people that are going to be impacted," he said. Blonski said the state has lately been "very much not that interested in what the municipality wants to do," but that the town could ask. She offered to pause the sidewalk, go back to the state with the town's legislators and hold another hearing later. Arnold said bringing in legislators right away would not help, and asked to take the concern to the Department of Transportation himself first. The council went ahead.
Also Tuesday
- The council passed four resolutions the state requires for school construction grants, one each for ventilation upgrades at West District, East Farms, Union and Noah Wallace. Together they total $14,339,152, the same figure as the school ventilation bond that went to referendum in April. A schools facilities staff member said the district plans to apply between Dec. 1 and Dec. 10, and that the state's share this year is between 31 and 32 percent.
- Farmington Libraries asked the council to fund $1.2 million in next year's capital plan for a new roof at the main library and heating and cooling work at both libraries. Board chair Dana Pescatello said the main library on the Monteith campus was built in 1983. The library's director said the buildings need about $2.5 million over five years, and that the library's association has committed $400,000.
- The town manager's office said 1,275 town surveys had been completed as of Tuesday, with 10 days to go.
This coverage is supported by Farmington Storage, 155 Scott Swamp Road, the only storage facility in Connecticut with Museum air. Nobody has to shovel the inside of a storage unit. 860.777.4001 📦
Jack Beckett has covered enough Farmington sidewalk hearings to know the free ones generate the most mail. He is on his second coffee and has measured nothing. ☕
The Farmington Mercury covers Farmington from the records up: the sidewalk hearing, the culvert under it, the two weeks Route 10 is to be closed and the 500 feet someone will have to clear. Our motto is "Always last to breaking news," and we get there with the tape in hand. Find us at farmingtonmercury.com and tell a neighbor. #WeAreFarmington 📰