BERGERON PASSERO TO MEET
Connecticut College President Katherine Bergeron said she’ll be meeting with New London Mayor Michael Passero fairly soon to begin negotiations over an agreement made in 2007 for the college to pay the city $100,000 over the course of ten years. Passero said the city is looking at a wider strategy to ask nonprofits to voluntarily pay more for the city services they consume, without being taxed, as state revenues to municipalities are drying up.
GALBRAITH DENIES KNOWING ABOUT DERBY TRIP
Three Groton Utilities officials who participated in a controversial retreat to the Kentucky Derby in May 2016 said they told then Mayor Marian Galbraith about the upcoming trip during a meeting on Nov. 9, 2015 and that she encouraged them to go. But Galbraith on Tuesday told the Groton Board of Ethics that’s not true. She said she first heard about the trip in October 2016, when her assistant showed her a newspaper article. During an ethics board meeting on Tuesday the three officials and Galbraith said they discussed mending hard feelings at the cooperative related to Bozrah Light & Power being added to the cooperative. But they differed in their memories of what else was said.
HARVEY HELP (Notice correction in Young Marines event)
Events have been planned here in southeastern Connecticut in the coming days to benefit the 2.3 million flood victims in the city of Houston. Today, Waterford firefighters are collecting water for the victims of Hurricane Harvey at the Jordan Fire House at 89 Rope Ferry Road until 10 o’clock this morning. On Saturday, the folks of Whaling City MMA will be packing an 18-wheeler full of water and nonperishable food items at the New London Athletics Center, on Broad St., from 8 until noon. And SUNDAY, the Three Rivers Young Marines will set up in front of the Norwich Police Headquarters at 70 Thames St. to collect money for the Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund. Organizers are asking that people who wish to help out bring only money, not goods. The effort will last from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
OD VICS REMEMBERED
“A Time to Remember … a Time to Act.” was held in New London yesterday by the regional Opioid Action Team, in conjunction with International Overdose Awareness Day and featured experts dealing in just about every aspect of the opioid crisis. A major goal of the action team is to reduce the stigma surrounding substance use in part by increasing visibility. Southeastern Connecticut is projected to see 86 fatal overdoses this year. If the deaths continue at the same pace, 38 of those overdoses, or 44 percent, will have taken place in Norwich alone.
FAMILY ESCAPES FIRE
Pawcatuck firefighters were called to put out a house fire around 7 o’clock Thursday night at 94 Stillman Ave. Police say the homeowner was returning from walking his dog when he discovered the fire. The couple and their children all escaped without injuries. Dogs in the home were rescued but their cats were unaccounted for. Cause of the fire is under investigation.
OVERGROWN LAWN NOT BLIGHT
NEW LONDON, Conn. (AP) – A natural-lawn advocate is fighting a citation for blight in her front yard at her Connecticut home. Maggie Redfern, of New London, is challenging local ordinances in a case that has rallied like-minded conservationists. She sees her yard as a rebuke to the chemical-soaked, manicured lawns of suburban America. Redfern argued for a change to the rules at a city hearing this week.
Until now, the issue was academic for Redfern, an assistant director at the Connecticut College arboretum. Redfern organizes an annual conference on what’s called the Smaller American Lawns Today movement.
The campaign was launched in the 1990s by a college botany professor, and aims to return yards to more natural landscapes.
