MONDAY MORNING UPDATE

PUERTO RICANS COMING

Con­necti­cut is pre­par­ing for an in­flux of Puerto Rican evacuees com­ing to live here from the hurricane-rav­aged is­land, which faces a long re­build­ing process. Gov. Dannel Mal­loy has said that he eas­ily sees the state’s Puerto Ri­can pop­u­la­tion ex­pand­ing, pos­si­bly dou­bling in the com­ing weeks and months. Many areas of the is­land are still with­out power. Mal­loy says state agen­cies and lo­cal non­prof­its are working so that proper re­sources are in place to help any new ar­rivals.

PRESTON VOTE TOMORROW

Preston voters will go to the polls Tuesday to vote whether to approve or reject $3.84 million in proposed capital spending items at a referendum. Voting will take place at Town Hall between noon and 8 p.m. Residents have been told capital spending would be almost evenly spread between town and education projects.

GET GLIMPSE OF UNCAS LEAP

The Un­cas Leap Steer­ing Com­mit­tee will pre­sent­ an over­view of a draft plan to cre­ate the Un­cas Leap Her­itage Park in Norwich.  The 6:30 public meeting tomorrow night in Slater Au­di­to­rium at Nor­wich Free Academy allows res­i­dents to provide input about the park. The plans were put to­gether from nu­mer­ous com­ments and small-group work ses­sions. The pro­posed mas­ter plan in­cor­po­rates key pop­u­lar el­e­ments sought by res­i­dents, while re­ject­ing other pro­pos­als that ei­ther were deemed too costly or in­com­pat­i­ble with the scenic, rus­tic set­ting. The park would be located on prop­erty owned by the city on Yan­tic Street on the north bank of the Yantic River.

SUNDAY SERVICES INTERUPTED

Police arrested a Voluntown man Sunday after they say he walked through the front doors of the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses on Route 184, in North Stonington, around 11:30 a.m. carrying wire cutters, interrupted a service and attempted to cut the wires on the sound system. Several members of the church stopped him and called police. Witnesses say Paul Johnson was intoxicated, “belligerent, threatening and caused alarm to the members in attendance.” Johnson was charged with first-degree criminal trespass, breach of peace and threatening. No injuries were reported. Johnson was taken to the William W. Backus Hospital in Norwich.

STONINGTON HIGH RE-ACCREDITED

Ston­ing­ton High school has been approved for re-acreditation. The New Eng­land As­so­ci­a­tion of Schools and Col­leges is­sued a 105-page re­port that com­mends the school for the things it is do­ing well while rec­om­mend­ing im­prove­ments in other ar­eas. The de­ci­sion follows an 18-month process that in­volved an ex­ten­sive self-study and a four-day visit to the school in March by a 16-mem­ber NEASC team that sat in on classes, ex­am­ined stu­dent work, met with school board mem­bers and in­ter­viewed teach­ers, ad­min­is­tra­tors, stu­dents and res­i­dents. The re-ac­cred­i­ta­tion process takes place ev­ery 10 years.