At its meeting on April 21, the Windsor Town Council proceeded with the second of three meetings regarding the assessments of the town’s lighting and landscape districts. The districts help support the cost of maintaining parks, streetlights, street landscaping and the Windsor Senior Center. An increase in the assessment cost based on the cost of living index is being proposed and will be discussed at a public hearing on Jun 16.
The agenda for the April 21 meeting of the town council was already short, with only two items, but at the beginning of the meeting Town Manager Ken MacNab announced that one of the items — a public hearing on fire district fees — had been requested by the fire district to be continued to an as-yet-undetermined future date. The council granted their request.
Public comment wasn’t overly lengthy but was largely filed with continued condemnation of Mayor Dominic Foppoli and requests for him to resign. However, there was an additional item brought up during public comment. Betsy Mallace requested a future agenda item on campaign finance reform in town elections, a sentiment later echoed by Salmon who asked for it to be done in the future agenda items section of the meeting.
Windsor has two 1972 Landscaping and Lighting Assessment Act Districts. The first and original district, referred to as LLAD-1, has six different zones that help support the maintenance costs for parks, streetlights, street landscaping and the Windsor Senior Center. In 2008, a second district was formed, LLAD-2, to recover the full town cost for maintaining streetlights and street landscaping within newly developed areas, and to collect a supplemental park assessment. There are currently 16 zones in this district.
The engineer’s report for LLAD-1 proposes the assessments for Zones 1 through Zone 6 stay the same as assessed last fiscal year, though according to the agenda, the Zone 6 maximum assessment has the ability to increase by the cost of living index annually.
LLAD-2 currently consists of 16 zones. One new development is proposed for annexation into an existing zone. All zones in this district support the LLAD-1, Zone 1-Parks by paying the supplemental park component. In addition, the zones pay for street lighting and/or street landscaping improvements installed within their developments that need to be maintained by the town.
The preliminary engineer’s report includes increasing the maximum assessment by the cost of living index; however, it will be up to the council at a future meeting to determine whether to apply this or not. In past years the council has elected to not impose the maximum assessment in Zone 6 by the cost of living index. This does not increase the assessment this year, but it will allow an increase in the future if it is necessary. There are no new subdivisions or parcels proposed for annexation.
Because this isn’t the final meeting on these assessments, the council was only asked to review the proposed assessments for LLAD-1 and LLAD-2 and either preliminarily approve the assessments or provide staff with any desired changes. They were also asked to authorize dates for the public information meeting and public protest hearings.
They elected to make no changes to the assessments and approved them, along with future meetings.
The informal public information meeting for LLAD-2, hosted by Town staff, is proposed for May 10 at 5 p.m. A public protest hearing for LLAD-1 and LLAD-2 will take place at the town council meeting of June 16. Upon its conclusion, and the opening of the ballot, the council may adopt a resolution confirming the annexations and assessments.
The estimated deficit in LLAD-1 to be covered by the General Fund is $1,523,597. This is an increase of approximately 4% from last year. The LLAD-2 general benefit contribution of $18,245 is required during this fiscal year.
