Wallingford Center parking and the Main Street Investment Fund (MSIF)

As published via http://www.ct.gov/opm/cwp/view.asp?a=2990&q=505894

This is the grant that Wallingford is going to be applying for with respect to the private parking lot rehabilitation and the funds for that work.

Connecticut Main Street Center (CMSC), in collaboration with the Office of Policy and Management OPM, held a series of workshops around the State in July and August 2012 to provide information on this program, including who may apply and project eligibility requirements. The PowerPoint presentation from the workshops and sample Town Commercial Center Plans can be found using this link.

Authorizing Statutes

PA 11-1, AN ACT PROMOTING ECONOMIC GROWTH AND JOB CREATION IN THE STATE, Sections 78 and 79, (herein after “the Act”)

Program Overview

This act provides grants in the amount not to exceed five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000) to municipalities with populations of not more than thirty thousand (30,000) or municipalities eligible for the small town economic assistance program (STEAP) pursuant to section 4-66g of the general statutes for eligible projects as defined.

The grant shall be used for improvements to property owned by the municipality, except the municipality may use a portion of the proceeds of the grant to provide a one-time reimbursement to owners of commercial private property for eligible expenditures that directly support and enhance an eligible project. The maximum allowable reimbursement for such eligible expenditures to the owner shall be $50,000 provided at the following rates:

(1) expenditures equal to or less than $50,000 shall be reimbursed at a rate of 50%, and

(2) any additional expenditures greater than $50,000 but less than or equal to $150,000 shall be reimbursed at a rate of 25%.

Supporting Documents:

MSIF Program Factsheet (pdf)

MSIF Program Application and Instructions (.doc)

Contact Information

Dimple Desai
Community Development Director
Office of Policy and Management
Intergovernmental Policy Division
450 Capitol Avenue, MS#54ORG
Hartford , CT 06106-1379
Phone - (860) 418-6412
Fax – (860) 418-6486
Email - dimple.desai@ct.gov  

MY TAKE on Simpson lot owners have ‘skin in the game’

This morning in the Record Journal there was a story titled Simpson lot owners have ‘skin in the game’ and I have it cross posted over on my other blog.

Councilor Craig Fishbein made the following point - "the town should ask for $50,000 from each property owner and $100,000 from Holy Trinity School for the retaining wall determined to be on the school’s property."

I agree and that you could "sell" to the majority of the people that voted against the deal at referendum.

At the same time - if the original deal wasn't correctly honored by the town as Mary Pimentel states (and I can certainly see her argument) I would go further to say "split the difference" - $25,000 from each property owner and cut the contribution from Holy Trinity School to the same - $25,000; $125,000.00 in total from the five (net - after any reimbursements); I would support that.

I don't like the way this was bum-rushed to the Council; I understand the timing situation but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth especially when you consider the will of the people at the last referendum which overturned the similar deal.

If we could go forward with either of these two offers to the property owners (and again - I would favor a softer deal to the town because of the years of not honoring the original maintenance agreements) then I say let's do it this week and then see where it goes from there.

This is supposed to be give and take but all I am seeing is push and shove; let's stop the posturing on all sides (the Council as well as myself personally is guilty of it) and move downtown forward.

And the number of parking spaces in Wallingford Center for PUBLIC parking is…

So before I get to the meat and potatoes of my post I want to remind everyone that I have the agenda posted for the regular Wallingford Town Council Meeting over on Wallingford Patch for Tuesday’s Council meeting on September 11, 2012.

Of special note regarding that I want to make sure to call out the following point; the Simpson Court / Private Downtown Parking Lot issue returns to this upcoming Town Council meeting.

You might not know it from this agenda item but the issue of Wallingford paying for the private parking lot at the rear of the businesses at Simpson Court uptown is going to be discussed.

8. Discussion regarding:

Report from the Town Attorney on the Simpson Parking Lot Wall
Possible options for the Town to pursue

The “Possible options for the Town to pursue” regarding the “Report from the Town Attorney on the Simpson Parking Lot Wall” is to apply for a state grant in the amount of $500,000.00 to “improve the Simpson parking area.”

The above link provides you with some additional details and along with my thoughts on that.

With the recap done – on to this post

I decided to talk a walk Sunday morning with my oldest son and count all the public parking spaces available in Wallingford Center.

By definition, a public parking space is one that is made available for the general public to park their car at will (within the limits posted by any signage) on a first come, first served basis.

I will outline what I counted and where as well as what I left out that I could have otherwise justifiably counted as part of the parking scheme for Wallingford Center.

So first – what did I leave out?

I left out the entire Wooding-Caplan site; even though we are presently rebuilding the area and may be using it for the next five to ten years, there has been no effort to fully commit the area permanently for parking. So due to that I skipped all the planned spaces there – all 100 spaces

I also left out the first block of every street off of Center between Route 5 and Main. It would be very easy to justify that area of parking as being available (as it is) but for the sake of discussion I left those spaces out too. I also left out any available spaces on Prince Street and Church Street.

I also did not count the BUSINESS spaces at the rear of Archie Moore’s because if there is any public parking back I didn’t see the signage so I erred on the side of caution and left it out.

The highlighted map below details the specific areas that I left out of my count.

All those yellow highlighted areas I left it out of the count – approximately 200 additional spaces for a total of 300 when combined with what I did not count at Wooding-Caplan (that area is shown below).

Also, beyond the 300 mentioned above I did not count the spaces we currently have use of by way of the year to year agreement on the private property behind the business at Simpson Court (as shown below)

What I did count

The 43 spaces at the Credit Union on South Main (shown below).

The 173 spaces at Town Hall and along South Main

The 69 spaces in Simpson Court and along North Main to Church Street

The north side of the lot, which has public parking space designation, between North Whittlesey and North Orchard which totaled 30 spaces.

The small lot behind that, across the street from the synagogue, which has 15 spaces.

The north sides of the Back of America lot and the lot across Meadow Street (only the areas designated as Public Parking by signage) – total spaces 83.

I also counted all the spaces available on Hall Avenue down to North Cherry and all the spaces at the rear of the Train Station that are available to the public as Public Parking – 108 in all.

The last major area of mention is Center Street itself from Route 5 North to Fair Street which encompasses 107 spaces.

So what’s the bottom line?

When you add all of these areas of available parking together you have a grand total of 628 spaces for the public to park their cars.

And there is even more space if you include the omitted first block areas of the side streets directly off of Center Street.

In the 27 years of driving my car into Wallingford Center for any reason whatsoever on any random day I have never had to walk more than one block to get to the destination of my choosing and that is because there is plenty of parking if you know where to look and are willing to walk about a block’s distance when necessary.

POLL RESULTS - How much should the town be responsible for regarding Wallingford Center Parking?

Sixty votes in total. This is the sentiment of just those 60 respondents for whatever it is worth.

The majority of the respondents in this poll felt that if Wallingford is going to make any type of investment it should be as close to equal as the property owners

Obviously this is not a full representation of the wishes of the voters.

The referendum, just six days after the municipal election, drew 6,888 voters, with 2,768 in favor of the lease and 4,120 against.

There is no way to say just what the nearly 6,900 voters would want unless you could poll them all.

I do expect this issue to come up again so with that I will be trying to solicit the input of the voters and I will be reaching out to try to do that.

For those that would be willing to proactively reach out to me I can be reached at Jason@Zandri.net or by phone at 860 614 6069

WALLINGFORD NOTICE OF REFERENDUM

http://town.wallingford.ct.us/images/customer-files//RefPollPlaces111411.pdf

OFFICIAL BALLOT Referendum WALLINGFORD, Connecticut November 14, 2011

http://town.wallingford.ct.us/images/customer-files//RefBallot111411.pdf

Wallingford votes today on 30-year lease agreements

As published in the Record Journal, Monday November 14, 2011

By Robert Cyr
Record-Journal staff
rcyr@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2224

WALLINGFORD — As voters head to the polls today to decide whether or not to support the town’s 30-year lease agreements for a municipal parking area behind Simpson Court, groups that back either side of the issue will make their final push to sway residents to cast their ballots in favor of their viewpoint.

The Town Council in August approved the lease agreements, which say the town will supply up to $500,000 in upgrades and maintenance to the parking area owned by four building owners in exchange for municipal use of the lot. A successful petition drive forced today’s referendum.

The Simpson Court parking deal has been a hot-button issue since the council’s action, and signs from two political action committees far outnumbered campaign signs for candidates in last week’s municipal elections.

Republican Councilor Craig Fishbein, one of two councilors who voted against the lease, said he would be handing out leaflets to en­courage people to vote “yes,” which would repeal the lease agreements.

“I’ll be out there telling people what they need to know about this — there seems to be a lot of confusion,” he said.

Christopher Diorio, vice chairman of the Republican Town Committee and head of the political action committee Support Our Downtown, said more than 400 signs have gone up at homes and businesses and a staff of a half-dozen volunteers would spend the last days calling up registered voters. Support Our Downtown is in favor of the 30-year lease and improvements to the parking area. A final effort will be made today to hand out flyers at post offices and grocery stores, in addition to ads in local newspapers, Diorio said Friday.

“It’s certainly been a challenge because people are very confused, and they want to know why it’s not on Election Day, and they’re confused about the yes and no situation,” he said. “It’s less of a challenge than a process.”

A “No” vote keeps the leases in place.

Council members voted to hold the referendum on a separate day after the Republican Registrar of Voters Chester Miller told them it would be a strain on the voting system due to the limited number of ballot machines and minimum space needed.

Wallingford Parking Lot Referendum November 14, 2011 VOTING LOCATIONS

VOTING LOCATIONS listed incorrectly in the Sunday Edition of the Record Journal

The polling locations as listed in the Sunday edition of the paper were incorrectly listed.

The proper locations can be found via http://wallingfordpolitico.blogspot.com/2011/11/wallingford-parking-lot-referendum.html and / or http://www.500kparkingdeal.com/html/voting_locations.html

The PAC for the “NO” vote is leveraging the Mayor.

Just got a robo call recorded by the Mayor regarding the NO vote on the Parking Referendum for Monday; must be [THIS] close for the PAC to have to leverage the Mayor on this.

If this is such as great deal for the town and the property owners then the benefits AND the cost burden should be shared and NOT 100% input from the town's budgeted monies for the fiscal year.

Whatever happened to that fiscal conservativeness of the Mayor and the Republicans (who are the majority of the "NO" supporters)? I guess as long as the conservativeness is on the "little guy" only it works.

I support the YES vote but I encourage everyone to get the facts on their own and get out and vote.

Don't forget to vote! https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wallingford-Parking-Lot-Referendum-November-14-2011/107225926053398

Vote YES!
NOVEMBER 14, 2011
$$$ STOP PRIVATE PARKING DEAL $$$

http://www.500kparkingdeal.com/

FACEBOOK - Wallingford Parking Lot Referendum - November 14, 2011

Question: Why should Wallingford spend upwards of $500,000.00 to improve private property at your expense? Answer: IT SHOULDN'T! On November 14th, Vote "YES" to Repeal the one-sided deal!

It’s your town – get informed, get involved and VOTE on November 14th

For more information see the Wallingford Parking Lot Referendum Facebook page or go to the 500K Private Parking Deal site.

The Simpson Court Referendum - The difference between misinformation and outright lying

Let’s first define “public parking”.

Public parking means using the lots to park your car where you do not patronize any of the adjoining businesses. You park your car in the lot and walk away from all the businesses in the area. You park and leave your car and carpool with someone else to go somewhere. That is public parking.

Parking in the lots and then going into one of the businesses – that is customer parking.

When you go to Target and park in the lot to go into the business you are leveraging customer parking. If you leave your car in the Target parking lot and go with someone into their car elsewhere you are leveraging that parking lot as if it were public parking and you could be towed in theory if they were enforcing that.

We are not discussing customer parking; that is not at issue. For these property owners to lease their spaces for people to establish businesses there they must provide some minimum level of owner, leaser, and / or customer parking.

Now onto the heart of the matter – public parking.

“135 Free PARKING SPACES”

Let’s all forget about the $500,000.00 the town is talking about investing into these private owners’ properties over the next 30 years for a moment.

On a year to year basis for DECADES the Town of Wallingford has been putting tax dollars into these properties and other private lots downtown on behalf of the tax payers in exchange for public parking use. 

This has been mainly in the form of man hours from public works; plowing and sanding in the winter and other work throughout the year.

These actions and efforts have resulted in the expenditures of tax dollars.

That means these parking spaces have not been “FREE”.

With the decision as it currently rests from the vote of the Town Council, we are planning to enter into a 30 year lease with these private property owners where Wallingford will STILL be expending monies for regular maintenance and upkeep.

In addition to that, Wallingford will be investing, solely, up to $500,000.00 into period lighting, lot resurfacing, line repainting, other structural and integrity repairs without a single dime coming from any one of the four property owners.

How is this “135 Free PARKING SPACES”?

It is coming at the cost of tax dollars expended annually and other monies in lieu of taxes for capital expenditures.  

How is this “135 Free PARKING SPACES”?

How is it that the main drivers of this and the Support Our Downtown movement are (primarily) our conservative leaders in town? The ones that will generally claim that they are fiscally responsible with our tax dollars. Where we cannot raise taxes to spend on this and that in this economy. They are the same ones that say that everyone is struggling and where the elderly who have gone without cost of living adjustments over the past couple of years cannot bare the burden of any higher taxes.

Where are all those fiscal conservatives these days?

That’s right – many of them are out there telling you to vote no and support the council’s decision to spend your tax dollars on this benefit. A benefit that the property owners will enjoy as equally as Downtown Wallingford will.

Without those property owners investing a single dime to the effort.

So you see folks the “FREE” in “135 Free PARKING SPACES” is just that for those four property owners in that all of this benefit they are getting for free.

Think about that before you go out to vote on election day Tuesday November 8th for who will represent you over the next two years

You will also need to think about whether the council decision should stand at referendum on Monday November 13th.

If you support the town investing the tax dollars in this manner then you will vote NO to maintain the Council’s decision to move forward.

If you are against this expenditure, where Wallingford foots the entire bill and the property owners spend nothing then you would need to vote YES to repeal the Council’s decision.

It’s your town – get informed and get involved.

MY TAKE - Letter to the editor - A few facts

Current Town Councilor Rosemary Rascati sent a letter to the editor of the Record Journal and it was published on Saturday October 8. The full letter is available on my Wallingford Politico blog.

Political letters to the editor after Labor Day are supposed to be limited to 100 words or less. By the paper’s own admission, an error was made allowing Rosemary’s piece to run at the 300 word standard limit.

I wrote a full reply to this submission that the paper will not publish; they admit the error and take full responsibility but they are going to continue to re-enforce the standard of 100 words or less for political letters and letters from candidates.

While I think an equal response is fair and warranted given the fact that an error was made on one side of the argument, I understand the paper’s position on trying to maintain the original intent of the directive of limiting political letters to 100 words or less.

I am going to work on my 100 word response but in the meantime my full response to this is posted below and an expanded version will be online at The Post-Chronicle as they allow for 500 word submission.

 

There have been numerous letters to the editor regarding the Simpson Court public parking situation downtown.

Over 3,000 people lent their signatures to the petition to force the referendum.

In order to make the referendum binding, yes or no, 20 percent of the registered voters need to vote. That would be 5,000 plus registered voters.

While it may be a minority it is not small; in the last local election only 37 percent of the registered voters showed up to vote.

Recently one writer to the paper indicated that the petitioners and subsequently the voters “forced a referendum on the Wooding/Caplan property” and, “Now they advocate that Wooding/Caplan be used for parking. Isn’t this a bit short-sighted since we may need it for a new police station? Or perhaps they will then suggest that the Town buy another lot.”
The voters “stopped” only the proposed plan at the time; the Council could have revisited and come up with another option that the public might have liked better but they chose instead to take no action.

If we are talking about “short-sighted since we may need it for a new police station” – the Council voted to sell it – if the referendum failed where would we be? The Council’s decision would have been done and Wallingford would be buying another lot.

Other comments were “In its present condition, should someone fall and be hurt (behind Simpson Court), the Town of Wallingford could be held liable” – this can also be applied to the Wooding-Caplan property where the town is the sole owner.

Get the facts; make up your own mind and then vote.

Vote for your representation on Tuesday November 8^th and then vote your option on the parking matter on Monday November 14^th

It’s your town – get informed, get involved and vote.

MY TAKE - Citizens Against Private Parking Deal in Wallingford

There is a new website at http://www.500kparkingdeal.com/ set up by the organizers of the petition drive.

On the site they have a lot of pertinent information, they cross post to the Wallingford Referendum Facts blog (which may or may not be their blog – I am not sure of the identity of the actual owners) and they have PDFs for the four lease proposals.

(I was going to post these myself but now that they are here I will simply cross reference. I will still put up the original lease since it appears to not be online there).

They also have a page there as to how you can help if that is something you wish to do.

I am in favor of overturning the decision of the Council on this and I will be voting “YES” on Monday November 14, 2011.

Bottom line and whatever your thoughts – it’s your town, get informed, get involved and VOTE at the local election on Tuesday November 8, 2011 and at the referendum on Monday November 14, 2011.

For or against the Council’s decision and the parking deal – make sure your voice is heard.

Wallingford Referendum Facts

As provided on the Wallingford Referendum Facts blog, which “has been created so as to give the residents of the Town of Wallingford a fair and unbiased account of the facts behind the referendum taking place on November 14, 2011. Whatever your position, please take the time to vote on that day.”

This is NOT my own blog; as you may know I have four (two concerning Wallingford directly, one personal blog and a technology blog).

Bottom line – these are some great facts that will allow you to review the information and make up your mind between now and the November 14th referendum vote.

Over the next week I will be posting online all the leases, prior and proposed, so that people might get informed and make up their own mind.

Having said that as well, I am fully on the side to repeal the Council’s decision, but whatever your thoughts I agree with the blog creators:

”Whatever your position, please take the time to vote on that day” (November 14, 2011).

REMINDER–WALLINGFORD TOWN COUNCIL MEETING TONIGHT

Just a quick reminder that there is a town council meeting this evening.

I have the agenda posted in an earlier blog post.

There are a couple of important agenda items with respect to the downtown parking situation and the referendum:

10. Discussion and Possible Action on the Repeal of the Town Council’s resolution of August 9, 2011, approving Lease Agreements of the parking lots at 2-26 North Main Street, 36-40 North Main Street, 60 North Main Street and 48-50 North Main Street - Councilor Nick Economopoulos

11. Discussion and Possible Action on setting a date for a referendum vote on the repeal of the Town Council’s resolution of August 9, 2011, approving Lease Agreements of the parking lots at 2-26 North Main Street, 36-40 North Main Street, 60 North Main Street and 48-50 North Main Street – Councilor Nick Economopoulos

 

Barbara Thompson, Wallingford Town Clerk, has certified that there are enough signatures for force the referendum if the council doesn’t repeal their decision.

The letter went out to Town Council Chairman Parisi yesterday and can be found via this link.

AGENDA - WALLINGFORD TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING / Item 11 to deal with parking issue

I have the agenda for the next Town Council Meeting over on my Wallingford Politico blog and it should be posted over on the town website as well.

Of special interest with respect to recent news:

11. Discussion and Possible Action on setting a date for a referendum vote on the repeal of the Town Council’s resolution of August 9, 2011, approving Lease Agreements of the parking lots at 2-26 North Main Street, 36-40 North Main Street, 60 North Main Street and 48-50 North Main Street – Councilor Nick Economopoulos

Getting the details on the Simpson Court deal

I am working on getting the details on the Simpson Court deal and I will put them online as soon as I can get them.

As with most things in town, I think I am going to have to request the paper documents and pay for them because I believe they are not readily available on line but be that as it may we need to have this information and the details out there.

There was a story in Wednesday’s Record Journal (August 31, 2011) regarding one of the owners and his decision to pull out of the year to year deal if the referendum is successful and the vote decision is to reject the deal that the Town Council has cut here.

That is Mr. McGuire’s prerogative – it is his property. If I were him and had this better deal in front of me (the one being proposed) I might not (at first) be all that excited about going back to something less. It’ll be up to him to decide if he wants to enforce and restrict his parking to the renters and customers in his building as well to fully maintain and upkeep his own lot, a lot of which right now the town does instead of him under the current deal.

People are going to take the slant of blaming the petitioners for the downfall of this deal if it goes that way just as some did regarding the Wooding-Caplan property.

Let’s be clear, the petitioners stopped nothing; the results of their work allowed the referendum to happen – the voters said no to the deal on the table at the time.

The Town Council could have re-visited one of the other three plans or come up with something new. Instead they’ve taken no action over four plus years.

The blame there is not on the voters or the petitioners.

There are a lot of details in the Simpson Court deal that every tax paying resident should review on their own. That is why I am trying to get that copy and post it online.

I am against the deal as it is presented currently as I don’t believe it is the best deal that Wallingford could make. We could and should do better. There are other options available as far as overall parking is concerned and if an agreement with the tenants at Simpson Court is still desired it can be re-done so that the town gets a little better deal and it could still be fair and somewhat lucrative for the property owners too.

I am not against them getting a little benefit for their sacrifice but the town benefit should be at least equal and presently it is not.

Having said that, I encourage you to get the details and make up your own mind.

Stay tuned.

Simpson Court and Downtown Parking – the ongoing struggle for the truth

Without a doubt, the current earmark of $500,000.00 to expend on private property and the petition drive to stop it is going to be a polarizing issue as we enter into the local elections.

We have a lot of heavy hitting on the support side of the project and the Council decision to move forward with this. (Councilors Fishbein and Economopoulos voted against it).

There is strength in the opposition as well as the petition efforts pick up steam.

Steve Knight, a former Town Councilor and co-writer of the Record Journal’s FROM WALLINGFORD column came out in support of the council’s decision (please see FROM WALLINGFORD - Vision and sophistication)

The Record Journal ran a story this morning titled “Small says Wallingford isn't on hook for $500,000” 

I’d like to review a few things that Steve wrote, and mind you, those are his opinions and like mine are going to differ. As an op-ed piece you don’t need to be objective – the whole point is to offer an opinion.

So I’ll start with:

“First of all, who benefits from the improvements? Opponents would have us believe that only the four property owners do. Nonsense. We all do, because a viable town center benefits each and every one of us, whether it’s in the property values of our homes or the quality of life we all wish to have. And that viability only exists because people want to come downtown. And they will only drive downtown if they know to a certainty that safe, convenient parking is available for their car. No parking? No people. No people? No successful downtown.”

I have said this before and I’ll say it again, there is plenty of parking downtown other than this one lot that is available for public use. The way that this gets outlined it makes it sound like there is no parking at all if we give up or lose the rights to use this lot as public parking that the entire downtown collapses.

I would like to see the study of how many cars use this lot on a daily basis as public parking in that they are not patronizing one of the businesses there.

The thing is, you won’t see it because there hasn’t been one. It is all done on estimation and assumption that there are users in this fashion and there probably are. I would argue they are a very small minority and at such a low use level that it can be equally argued that the spaces available at Town Hall and on the Wooding-Caplan property would suffice.

Next is:

“Secondly, let’s look at this investment. Yes, the Town of Wallingford is spending taxpayer money improving a piece of private property. But we are leasing this property. The owners are giving up control of the property. For thirty years”

I agree with Steve on the first part – we would be spending taxpayer money improving a piece of private property, something I don’t support out of the box.

We would be leasing the property but to say the owners are giving up control is more than a stretch. They are still able to pretty much do anything they currently are allowed to do but about the only things they will not be able to do is back out of the agreement on short notice as this would be a 30-year agreement and not a short term one. The other thing that they are effectively giving up is the ability to say “this is parking for my business only and all others will be towed.”

Now I am not sure what Steve was referring to with his next statement of “Frankly, I think it took a real leap of faith on the part of the four owners to make this deal. Without the parking behind their buildings, their property is worth zilch. It is a credit to them, and to the town government, that there is enough trust between the parties to enter into such a sweeping and lengthy arrangement” – Is he suggesting that the town could potentially take the property by eminent domain? I wouldn’t support that either and it is completely unnecessary as we have Wooding-Caplan and all the parking we should need if we would just fix that lot. I haven’t had the chance to speak with him so I am not entirely sure of his point here.

Someone else commented somewhere and I forget if it was a letter to the editor or someone I spoke with but they inferred that if we are leasing that property and it is in disrepair and if that someone was injured the town could be sued and if found liable, we might be on the hook for medical bills, pain and suffering and all that.

Could be the town and the property owners both in a situation like that.

So what do you think happens when someone sustains the same injury on the Wooding-Caplan parcel? We own that outright and it is in equal or worse disrepair right now. That’s right, the town, and only the town gets sued. The point here is we are at risk of being sued in both places and that is always a matter of risk but if we have this money I argue that we use it to repair our own property that is being used currently in the same manner (public parking).

Steve’s next point was:

“Okay, so the Town of Wallingford spends money on the parking lot. It directly benefits every single merchant downtown, and it indirectly benefits every single property owner in town because the downtown remains vibrant. You don’t need to be a professional urban planner to see the bright line connecting this investment with the benefits to the entire community. It’s obvious.”

So I am not sure how this is a direct benefit to every single merchant downtown; if people won’t park at town hall and walk one block to eat or go shopping why can anyone assume they’ll park there and walk down the hill? Be that as it may, then I could apply the same argument to the Wooding-Caplan property – if you fix it, a property that we already own – then you are providing a direct benefit to every single merchant downtown two fold; you have fixed a dilapidated public property and added net new parking to downtown.

Tomorrow I will write some additional comments with respect to the story in the Record Journal - “Small says Wallingford isn't on hook for $500,000”

900 sign petition against Simpson Court plans

As posted online at MyRecordJournal.com and as published in the Record Journal, Tuesday August 16, 2011

Robert Cyr
rcyr@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2224

WALLINGFORD - Town Councilor Nicholas Economopoulos was out on a rainy Monday afternoon, talking to voters in front of Stop & Shop on Route 5, but he wasn't campaigning to retain his seat on the council.

Economopoulos was collecting signatures, as were others circulating the petition to force a referendum on a council decision last week that entered the town into a 30-year, $500,000 agreement with four North Main Street businesses to pave and maintain their collective parking lot in return for free municipal use.

The intent is to create a safer, more attractive municipal parking lot that will continue to provide an alternative to the often crowded parking area in front of the Simpson Court businesses. Economopoulos, a Democrat, voted against it, saying the town should not pay to upgrade private property.

Robert Gross, a local man who has run for council, started the petition drive Wednesday and has until Sept. 8 to collect 2,491 signatures, or 10 percent of the town's registered voters. That's the amount needed, by town law, to force the council to reverse its decision within 30 days or go to a town-wide vote on the matter.

Economopoulos was in good spirits and said he's gotten a positive response so far. A small group of people had collected about 900 signatures over the weekend. In his hand were three full pages of official signature pages, with 50 signatures on each page.

"People have been great and they really want to find out what's going on," he said.

Holding more pages at the store's other entrance, local resident Robert Hogan said he was confident the signatures would come and a referendum would take place.

"Everyone I talk to has been unbelievably responsive to what we're doing," he said. "When we tell them what has happened, they are awestruck - they can't believe it."

Petition supporters, who have called it an example of "democracy in action," included 24-year-old Troy Livingston. While he works in New Haven, he was born and lives in town, he said.

"I don't think it's really necessary for the town's money to go to something like a parking lot," he said. "We could be using that money for something more important in town."

Scott McLean, professor of political science at Quinnipiac University, said Wallingford's case of petitioning for referendum has a rich tradition in American history and is an example of a government process that once astounded foreign visitors who were accustomed to turmoil in Europe.

Among visiting dignitaries was 19th century French historian Alexis de Tocqueville, whose book "Democracy in America" is still read today.

"He thought it was remarkable that Americans were so involved in their municipalities," McLean said. "It was very different in Europe at the time, when revolutions were sweeping across Europe, but Americans put their political interests very close to home."

Whenever a community petitions for a referendum to overturn a government decision, they are evoking the spirit of early America, he said.

"Of course the right to petition the government is in the First Amendment and it's a very fundamental idea, a right that goes back to Colonial days," he said. "There's a long tradition of seeing petitions as vital to the health of democracy in America."