The Ad Hoc Committee on Commissions and Alliances met on February 17, 2026 at 2:45 PM, chaired by Councilman Frank Salvatore (3rd Ward), to review the public need for various city commissions and alliances. The committee considered whether to re-establish, consolidate, modify, or terminate each entity based on current function and community benefit. Several commissions presented updates followed by committee votes.
rebrand a little bit in the interest of time we're gonna get started because there is a special city council meeting and this committee has quite a agenda ahead of it my name is Frank Salvatore I am the councilman from the third ward and also the uh chair uh chair of this ad hoc committee um to my right I have uh Diane Lepine member of the committee to my right I have Mike Henry and Mark my right you're right sorry yeah I'm out of it left right I'm always I tell my granddaughter left all right and Mark Corey member of the um of the public Alan Boyce senses regret he is um out of commission and could not make the meeting tonight um around the the room I have ex officio members I have Lugiardano I have Ryan Hawley I have Andrea Gartner I have Ben Chianese and I have Candace Fay in the room and obviously esteemed members of the um commissions and alliances so uh when your alliance comes up you can um you can uh state your name and who you're here with um I would like uh motion to allow the chair to move the agenda around as needed second motion made second all in favor say aye all right okay reason I'm doing that is because I'm gonna take the still river alliance first is there any member of the Still River Alliance here please uh you know state your name uh that's Ruby I'm the chair of the Still River Alliance Commission all right and the Still River Alliance Commission has submitted uh quite a bit of document or some documentation to us and I believe the committee has read through it um and so I'm our whole purpose here is to see if the um commissions and alliances are serving the public need and what we need to determine is to either reestablish them to consolidate them to modify them or terminate them that is our only purpose here I know you all want more money that's a left out of the room all the way to the end of the hall in her office you can start with her but we're not gonna we're not gonna talk about needing more money we want to talk about what your uh you what your commission or alliance does for the public good and if you feel it should be continued so my first question to you uh for the still river alliances I notice it doesn't meet regularly but it seems to me that the entire role that you have for this commission is actually keeping the greenway open effectively that's true yes okay was there any other thoughts for this alliance when it started well the originally it was an ad hoc it was not a city commission um that was built to uh Jack Kazahowski put it together uh it was a regional group um the trail was built and after it was built um a lot of the people who were involved kind of drifted away so it was it they're kind of went in went into kind of maintenance mode um but we're we continually we also had educational programs which were funded by grants from local businesses um unfortunately they've kind of moved away and so we've lost that funding so we haven't been able to do the educational component for a number of years now but the uh maintaining the trail is the biggest uh biggest function making sure that um uh we that we have contract in place which was challenging to keep the trail mowed and open and also to take care of uh trees when they come down uh to find either we do it ourself or we've got some great help from the city in the case of some larger trees um you know to to keep the keep it as safe as possible um but uh we're not asking for more money we were um we got an increase last year and we're we're good with that so no complaints at all there um it's it's really if we had more resources we could do more things but the uh basic function is keep the trail open and we're we've been doing that even though it's just two of us although we have one potential person who wants to join uh I don't know where they are in my queue tailor but they're um there's one person who's submitted a uh letter so much okay great um I'm gonna open it up to the members of the ad hoc the chair how long is the the trail you maintain it's about a mile same course look at that great mice Uh I don't know where they are in the queue, Taylor, but they're um there's one person who's submitted a uh letter. So we can say how much okay, great. Um I'm going to open it up to the members of the ad hoc. The chair. How long is the the trail you maintain? It's about a mile. Same question. Look at that great minus nickel. Do you have another one? No follow up. Okay. Yes. She you had a follow-up. No follow up. No follow-up. Through the chair. Is that all Danbury or is that part Brookfield? All Danbury. Okay, so Brookfield takes care of that that's completely separate. And Brookfield maintains, you know, the town of Brookfield maintains their own trail. They don't have you know a separate commission at all as far as I know, but the the city folks actually do the mowing and all that, whereas we we have to contract it out. Okay. Um, so I saw in your questionnaire that you thought it would make sense to combine with I've been an advocate for combining for a number of years. Umbers of people, not just on this commission, but on uh conservation commission and uh some other commissions. It's dwindling getting people involved. So I think uh combining it would have uh some would not be a bad bad thing. In the case of um the conservation commission and the still river commission, the funding for maintaining the still river is in the conservation commission budget. We don't have our own separate line, and that's because when we were founded, we weren't a commission, we were uh ad hoc. So they put the money in there, and then they made us a commission, but we never they never split the money, so which has been fine because we work hand in hand with conservation commission anyway. So it's but combining it would be I I think smart. Okay, thank you. Good. First of all, thank you for your efforts over the years. It's a great task that uh you take care of. Is the head of the trail behind the Marriott? That's do we have really three entrances, but there's a uh an entrance behind the Marriott, which leads directly to a kayak launch area, but the main trailhead is behind the Kimchuk building. Um that there's a history wall there and picnic tables and all that stuff, and it attracts a lot of people from that industrial park there. And and the city has uh uh access to all those property along the trail, it's owned. They have an easement, yes. There's an easement for for the uh for the trail. I will say that one of the challenges we have is that the trail runs directly behind Lowe's Theater. There's a homeless encampment on Lowe's Theater property directly adjacent to the trail, and because of that, it really deters people from traveling that, and um so we uh that's a challenge for us because I I took a group of volunteers uh a couple years ago, uh high school kids to clean the trail, and they saw one of their classmates living in the homeless camp. And it you know, so we we can't do that anymore. You know, we can't bring groups down there and can't prevent, but uh but I'm sorry, I'm diverting. Oh, sorry question, but that's a challenge, and uh it's not uh problem for us, put it that way. Thank you, Ms. Tower. What's your operating budget per per annual? Oh it's buried in the conservation commission numbers, so as far as cutting.