From the Desk of the First Selectman

Don Lowe First Selectman Column 03/31/25

The Town budget – Town and Sherman School – is up for viewing on the Sherman town website. We will hold the Town Budget Meeting on Saturday, April 19 at 10am in Charter Hall to offer the public an opportunity to make comments and ask questions. We will also be sending out a mailer with budget highlights later this week. Both budgets combined make a 1.87% increase for voters to weigh in on at the budget referendum to be held Saturday, May 3 from 8am to 8pm at Charter Hall. 

Regarding the Town Budget Meeting, along with an examination of the Town and School budgets, we will have at least five other items on that agenda. Three of them are emergency expenses that we need to seek approval for. One includes a broken mixing valve in the Charter Hall boiler room and the other two are for Sherman School, repairs needed in order to move forward with the renovation plans. They include improvements to the alarm system and a repair of the fire suppression tank. The other two items to be voted on at the April 19 Town Meeting are SVFD ordinances: one that deals with tax abatements for retired firefighters and the other an attempt to strengthen our open burn ordinance. 

While I’m on the subject, I must once again commend our SVFD for its continued steadfast work on behalf of our safety and well-being. Last week, most of the members, along with crews from five other towns, battled a house fire after midnight in the Squantz Pond area of Sherman. They successfully contained the fire, and thankfully, there were no injuries. Along with large scale fire events, there are numerous calls of all types that SVFD members go out on, many of them in the middle of the night. I commend Chief Chris Fuchs and all of the men and women who make up the SVFD membership for their service to Sherman. Thank you!

Another Town Meeting will be held on Tuesday, May 20 at 7pm in Charter Hall for an item that I have never presided over before: we are discontinuing a road – Orange Pepper Road. This little bucolic byway, which goes north for .6 of a mile off the very western end of Chapel Hill Road had only one house on it. Sadly, that resident (a close friend of mine) died. In the aftermath, the Deer Pond Farm, owned and managed by the Audubon Society who borders this home, purchased the home and property. After some deliberations, Deer Pond decided to raze the home and turn all of the property back to natural space contiguous with its own property. 

Since there are no longer any homes on this road, and since there will never be a another house on the road as all of the abutting land is in open space with Deer Pond and also with the Northwest Connecticut Land Conservancy (NCLC) the Town wishes to stop maintaining it. There is a third landowner who abuts about 200 feet of Orange Pepper, but there is no driveway and no opportunity for further development. Consequently, the Town would like to discontinue having the expense of snow plowing, resurfacing, and repairing a roadway that serves no residents. The road will then be owned by the three abutting landowners in the boundaries of where their property abuts the road. The meeting on Tuesday, May 20 will be a discussion and then a vote, and the Town will be looking for a majority of affirmative voters. This is the last necessary step to discontinuing this roadway.        

The water level is rising on Candlewood Lake from the winter drawdown and the State DEEP is starting to stock the ponds and streams. Yes, it’s fishing time again! Yet, Henry Thoreau’s famous quote gives one a long moment of pause. He said, “Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it’s not fish they are after.” Hmmm…. I need to consider what that means…  I’ll do it while I’m fishing.