Unionville Historic Commission Sets Five Priorities for 2026, Welcomes New Liaison Bill Beckert
Nine months after The Farmington Mercury reported the Unionville Historic District and Properties Commission was "facing a commissioner exodus", two alternate seats remain vacant. The Commission has filled exactly one seat since: Christine joined as a newly appointed member at its December 4, 2025 meeting. The Town Council, by its newly-introduced liaison's own description, is "working diligently" to fix the rest.
That liaison is Town Council member Bill Beckert, the District 2 Democrat sworn in November 2025. Thursday's meeting — the Commission's first official session of 2026, more than five months after its last meeting on December 4, 2025 — was Beckert's first turn in the liaison chair. Chair Lisa Johnson welcomed him. Beckert then said the part most local boards have been hearing all spring out loud:
"I know that the council is looking for, you know, there's a lot of empty appointments, not just here, but quite a few town boards. And we're working diligently to come up with filling all those spots. So I will make sure that I bring this to our town chair's attention at our meeting on Tuesday night, that we are looking to make sure our membership is filled out."
Two alternate seats. One Commission. One year of recruitment effort. The Council's next regular meeting is Tuesday.
Five Priorities for 2026-27
After the Beckert introduction, Johnson asked the Commission what its priorities for the upcoming year should be. Five surfaced over the next half-hour. Three are continuations of work the Commission has been doing for years. Two are new.
Recruit new property owners — and the Vibberts at 126 Main Street are first
The Commission is currently at "43 properties, somewhere in that range," Johnson said. The protocol for adding one is unchanged from previous expansion rounds: the Commission keeps a running list of properties of interest, drafts a letter and information package, holds an educational session in spring or fall (online or in person), and then makes personal contact through whatever connections individual commissioners have.
That last step is what converts interest into application. "Most of us have connections in some way with the people we're communicating with," Johnson said. "And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't."
The first active candidate is John and Dana Vibbert, who live at 126 Main Street in Unionville and who have told Johnson they are interested in adding their house to the district. Johnson plans to meet with them, deliver the proper forms, and report back at the June meeting. The house has not been included in the 1980s-era historic resource surveys the town and library maintain — meaning the application will require Johnson and a co-researcher to start at the town clerk's land records and build the property history from the ground up. Christine and Secretary Barbara Marsh — described by Johnson as "our kind of historian in-house" — agreed during the meeting to do that work together at the new town clerk's office in the old high school building.
Educational sessions for the public — paused for "a couple of years"
The Commission has historically held public education sessions in the spring or fall — online or in person — to explain to property owners "what the district is all about, what it is and what it isn't," Johnson said. "We haven't done one in a couple of years." Restarting the cadence is now on the priority list.
Training for commissioners — the state stopped doing it
This is the priority with the most exasperation behind it. Connecticut's state historic preservation agency used to run trainings for local district commissioners "a couple times a year," Johnson recalled. "They were excellent. Excellent. And they don't do them anymore." The state's preservation nonprofit will occasionally run something, "but it's as if you have to wait until they've scheduled it on their calendar."
Johnson's proposed remedy was as plain as the problem.
"It may be we just need to — I hate to say it — pound on the historic commission, state historic commission, to just say, we need training. And it could be us and Farmington and the surrounding towns, if you want."
The Farmington Historic District Commission, the Commission's parallel body covering Farmington Village, has been holding regular meetings throughout the same period. A coordinated request from the two Farmington commissions plus the surrounding towns is the obvious next step.
Onboarding for new members — "brain drain from your experts"
Christine, in her second meeting, raised the priority that turned out to be the meeting's most concrete near-term proposal.
"Maybe we can share some, you know, ongoing history of the commission itself so that new members can have a little bit of a retention of that. … Almost like an orientation or, you know, brain drain from your experts."
There is no formal procedure for incorporating new commissioners onto the Unionville HDC. Johnson agreed the Commission has "fallen away" from doing it informally, too. Christine's proposal — build the onboarding back into the standing meetings, a little at a time — is the kind of low-cost, high-retention institutional housekeeping that's hard to argue with.
A fall walking tour — Penny Park and Unionville's worship houses
Barbara Marsh raised the idea of putting together another walking tour. The Commission has run them periodically, often on a Sunday afternoon with three or four commissioners taking shifts as guides. The tentative scope for fall 2026: Penny Park's residential architecture plus Unionville's worship houses — St. Mary's, the original Episcopal Church across the street, the Cobblestone Church on School Street, and the Congregational Church Johnson has previously researched for a separate project. The Unionville Museum, with its mailing list and publicity reach, would be the partner. The tour would be timed to coincide with Memorial United Methodist Church's 100th-anniversary service at the Cobblestone Church on November 22, 2026 — for which Vice Chair Matt Ross is preparing the National Register of Historic Places application, with the state plaque already approved.
What Next Meeting Looks Like
The June 2026 meeting (specific date not announced on the record) will pick up several threads from Thursday. Johnson plans to report back on the Vibbert recruitment at 126 Main Street. Assistant Town Planner Garrett Daigle plans to send the new owners of the Asa Hawley House at 796 Plainville Avenue — recently purchased and currently in an exterior paint cycle — a copy of the district guidelines and the building's history report, since the title transfer alone doesn't trigger a town notification that the buyer has bought into a historic district. Barbara Marsh and Christine plan to start the Vibbert property research at the town clerk's office. Matt Ross will continue work on the Cobblestone Church National Register application.
Johnson also plans to call Jerusha Neely, the Farmington Room librarian whose collaboration with the Commission produced the oral histories project last year, about a possible expansion of that program in coordination with the Padea project — Farmington Public Schools' 8th-grade history program, in operation for at least 40 years.
Three Farmington High School students from a Government and Law class observed Thursday's meeting as part of a class assignment to take notes and reflect. They had no questions when Johnson asked. They reported that the meeting "all made sense." That is one of the more flattering reviews a Commission of historians can hope to receive.
The meeting adjourned at roughly 7:50 p.m.
Next month.
The Farmington Mercury's government coverage is brought to you by Farmington Storage — the only storage facility in Connecticut with Museum air. Whatever you keep there is held under conditions the Smithsonian uses for its archival collections. Whether your minutes from a 1978 historic district meeting, your grandmother's church bulletins, or the genealogy file you've been meaning to organize since 2009 deserve that level of care is between you and the historical record. 155 Scott Swamp Road, Farmington. 860.777.4001. farmingtonstorage.com.
— Jack Beckett has covered the Unionville Historic District and Properties Commission long enough to know that the difference between an alternate seat being open for nine months and being open for a year is the difference between a recruitment problem and a crisis. He is on his second cup of coffee. The meeting was on time. ☕
The Farmington Mercury covers what other outlets don't have time for — the historic district commission with two empty alternate seats, the 100-year-old church on School Street, the eighth-grader who will eventually interview a 90-year-old neighbor about a house that hasn't been surveyed since the early 1980s. We are slow on purpose. We are accurate on purpose. By the time you read this, the dust has settled, the names are spelled right, and Lisa Johnson has sent the Vibberts a one-page form. Find us at farmingtonmercury.com. #LastToFirst 📰