THURSDAY MORNING UPDATE

RECOUNT SCHEDULED

A vote recount has been scheduled for 10:00 a.m. Nov. 15th for two school board candidates separated by nine votes in Tuesday’s election. The vote count shows Green Party candidate Mirna Martinez was victorious over Republican candidate Kathy Skrabacz. New London election officials said the recount will take place in the City Council Chambers of City Hall. The recount protocol is dictated by state statute and will involve setting up ballot tabulators and running each of the more than 3,100 ballots cast during the election through the machines.

MAN STABBED

New Lon­don Po­lice say a man was stabbed in the stom­ach around 11:45 Wed­nes­day morn­ing on Moun­tain Av­enue and transported to Lawrence + Me­mo­rial Hospi­tal. Po­lice are ac­tively in­ves­ti­gat­ing a dis­tur­bance in­volv­ing the vic­tim and an­other man.  That appears to have led to the stab­bing. The vic­tim underwent surgery, but his condition and name have not been released. Any­one with in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the in­ci­dent should call city de­tec­tives at (860) 447-1481.

ARMSTRONG INCOMPETENT

James Arm­strong, the man charged in the fa­tal shoot­ing of Ralph Se­bas­tian Sid­berry, his tribal cousin in North Stonington, is be­ing trans­ferred to the Whit­ing Foren­sic Divi­sion fol­low­ing a Su­pe­rior Court judge’s rul­ing Wed­nes­day that he is not com­pe­tent to stand trial. Armstrong will be treated for 60 days at the state hos­pi­tal and re-eval­u­ated to de­ter­mine whether he is able to un­der­stand the le­gal pro­ceed­ings against him and as­sist in his own de­fense. He will re­turn to court on Jan. 8th.

ANOTHER TAX BILL COMING

Norwich City Comptroller Josh Poth­ier pro­vided the City Coun­cil with a three-page anal­y­sis of the state bud­get’s im­pact on the city. Pothier says the re­cently ap­proved state bud­get will bring $1.3 mil­lion less in rev­enue to the city this year than previously ex­pected and will mean a sec­ond round of mo­tor ve­hi­cle tax bills.  School fund­ing was left in­tact.

BRIDGE WORK RAISES CONCERNS

Pre­lim­i­nary plans to re­place a bridge over Lit­tle Brook on Route 85 in Salem has caused a stir among a pas­sion­ate crowd at­tending a Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion pub­lic in­for­ma­tion meet­ing Wed­nes­day night. Route 85 would be closed just south of Witch Meadow Road and Rat­tlesnake Ledge Road for two weeks in the sum­mer of 2020 to re­place the bridge. The cur­rent struc­ture has cracks and other de­te­ri­o­ra­tion. The DOT rec­om­mends replacement with the en­tire project taking about five months at a cost of $1.7 mil­lion, with 80 per­cent com­ing from fed­eral funds and 20 per­cent from state funds.