Selectmen’s Newsletter

                                                                 July 2007

The Board of Selectmen has decided to revive its past practice of  periodically publishing a newsletter for town wide distribution. We have a number of matters of interest to pass along as we head in to the summer season.

The first is our proposed schedule for road maintenance projects. Barring any more sudden increases in the price of petroleum based products, the budget calls for paving overlay work on Sterling Hill Road and both the north and south sections of Tinker Lane. We will also be paving Honey Hill Lane and have chip sealing or other maintenance work planed for Honey Hill, Tantumorantum, Ely’s Ferry and Clark Roads, as well as Baker Lane and the Rogers Lake street network on the Blood Street side of the lake.              

Some of this work may have already begun before our letter is released. Please bear with us and forgive any inconvenience you may experience while we get these tasks completed. .

Next, we would like to remind everyone that the Town adopted an elderly tax freeze ordinance at the annual budget meeting in May. Some of its key features include requirements that an applicant be 65 years old or totally disabled, have a principal residence in Lyme for five years and have incomes of less that $47,500 or $40,000 for married couples and single individuals respectively. We anticipate having applications available at the Town Hall at the beginning of September. Hopefully, the program will enable some long-time residents who cannot keep pace with continually rising property taxes to remain in Lyme.

As a Lyme resident, you may have recently received a mailing from the MacCurdy Salisbury Education Foundation. The organization provides grants to college students in both the towns of Lyme and Old Lyme. The problem is that a significant disparity exists between the size of the endowment funds. The one for Old Lyme students stands at over six million dollars. The so called Brevillier/Bruestle fund for Lyme students is just five hundred thousand dollars. There is a line item in the Lyme budget this year which is intended as a challenge grant to both build awareness and begin to correct the imbalance. The Town will donate one dollar for every two dollars raised by the Foundation up to a limit of five thousand dollars and Reynolds Garage and Marine will match up to another one thousand dollars. We hope to seek Board of Finance approval to do this again next fiscal year but can only do so if the match is fully subscribed. Pledge envelopes will be available at the Town Hall and other locations around town. Please make sure to check the Lyme box when sending your tax deductible contribution. Obviously, the Town can only do so much, but the hope is that with a modest application of public money the Foundation can jump start its effort to attract a legacy donor or donors to build parity between the two endowment funds.

We are currently at the beginning of another hurricane season and the weather gurus are once again predicting that Southern New England’s odds of experiencing a storm of some magnitude are better than average. There are some things individual home owners can do to prepare for such natural disasters should our luck finally run out. Emergency Management Director Lee Watkins is procuring a number of informational pamphlets which might prove helpful that will be available at the Town Hall as the season progresses.

On a cheerier note, as many of you know Lyme has a burgeoning trail system throughout town due in large measure to successful, on going efforts to acquire strategic parcels of open space. Our Open Space Coordinator and recent, past president of the Lyme Land Conservation Trust Linda Bireley has been working with a dedicated group of volunteers to produce a comprehensive booklet of all the trails in town. It will be available by the end of summer at no charge and we’ll make it easy for you to get a copy.

Our “things to do” list includes plans for a Special Town Meeting at the beginning of October to deal with multiple farm tax abatement ordinances as well as a long over due ordinance establishing fines for wetlands violations. We also continue to try to get our town web page back to a point where the information is at least current. We are searching for a volunteer with design skills to work with Rich Prowell and Andre Yeomans to make it more pleasing to the eye as well. If you have an interest, please contact the selectmen’s office.

In closing, a plea to please observe posted speed limits. We’re having problems again on Cove and Old Hamburg Roads. As in the past, we welcome questions, comments and gentle criticisms.

Have a safe and pleasant summer.