All right.

Thank you, everyone.

If we could rise, please.

Thank you.

And Councilwoman Hart, if you can leave us in the pledge, please.

And to the Republic, for which it stands.

One nation under God.

Indivisible liberty and justice for all.

Thank you again, everyone.

Welcome to questions directors.

I know this is somebody somebody took the mallet, so I'm going to have to call order if I have to with a loud shout.

That's it.

Okay.

All right.

If council clerk can read the call of the meeting, please.

The chief of police of the city of Middletown, greetings by authority of the state of Connecticut.

You are hereby commanded to summon and notify Vincent J Lafredo, Jeanette Blackwell, Darnell Ford, Grady Faulkner Jr., Kelly Sweeney, Anthony Mangiafico, Linda Salafia, Anthony Eschennaro Sr., Jonathan Polino, Leslie Spitola, Chine Fulton, Ava M.

Hart, members of the Common Council of the City of Middletown to attend a special meeting of said common council for the purpose of holding the questions to directors workshop on department agenda items for the regular common council meeting.

Said meeting shall be a hybrid meeting to be held in the council chamber of the municipal building in said city and remotely via WebEx at Join a Meeting, event 2333 467 8443 on Monday, April 6, 2026 at 6 o'clock PM.

Here off fail not, but make due service and return to the clerk of said city three hours prior to the time of fixed meeting.

City of Middletown, March 16, 2026, attested by Honorable Eugene Pinocchera Mayor.

City of Middletown, March 31st, 2026.

I hereby certify I have delivered an attested copy of the foregoing order and attached agenda of the Common Council meeting to each and every council member named above via electronic mail attested by Chief of Police Eric M.

Costa.

All right, thank you.

And now I'm going to open up questions to directors.

And I see Councilman Friedel has his light on.

Thank you.

Thank you, Your Honor.

I'd like to call up Merrick Kazakhovsky from PNC.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening.

How are you?

Fine, thank you.

Hope you're doing well.

I'm just uh looking for some clarification.

So this evening on our agenda is an item 7A, land use boards and commissions update for April, uh, which you provided us at all.

So I know that you were regularly sending out to the council uh notices of action taken by planning and zoning.

I get an email.

So is this a this is sort of a summary, or is this new information uh that you're providing this evening?

I was asked to provide that information, so I did so.

Okay, because I guess I in some of the cases or the inform well there are a total of uh I guess I see uh five items that are listed on on this particular report.

And it mentions what's happening not only with P and Z, which you are responsible for, but then it mentions inland wetlands and the like type of thing.

So I know that many of the projects that you deal with go through various committees and commissions.

So at the end of the day, is normally I guess you the P and Z is the last body, it takes in all of the of the uh information provided by the other commissions, and in some cases maybe it has to get P and Z needs approval as well, and in other cases is the matter is closed with because inland wetlands took care of it.

Yeah, so it really depends.

So if there is a application where a variance to the zoning code is required, that variance would have to be reviewed by the zoning board of appeals before going to the planning zoning commission.

If there's a site development where there are inland wetlands on the property or or close to it, and um the impact um if if the proposal impacts land within a hundred feet of the wetlands or the wetlands itself, um the inland wetlands agency would review it prior to going to planning and zoning commission.

If it's a proposal where it does not require planning and zoning approval, then um it kind of ends at whatever commission that it that I had to be at.

And then sometimes there's projects that neither impacts wetlands or requires variance that it will just go to planning and zoning commission.

Okay.

So you bring up that particular one.

There's one here dealing with, of course, a development that uh was approved by the city some time ago dealing with uh spring correctly about on Newfield Street in Inland Wetlands was in was is involved because they're building.

Yeah, so that's that's the uh springside development the 484 unit residential development that's currently under construction on Newfield Street that uh that obtained the original wetlands approval a while back it obtained planning zoning commission approval while back.

It was kind of plans were modified by the and approved by the commission.

Um what was just recently applied for is that the developer is uh mobilizing to begin phase two of the construction.

And the original plan for phase two was to use the uh new driveway that they constructed um to provide access um to uh construction vehicles to the phase two part.

Um what the what the wetlands just approved was instead of using the brand new driveway, they wanted to construct a construction road um kind of adjacent to it near the power lines, which happened to cross a wetland.

So um the wetlands agency granted a temporary wetlands crossing so they can use this new construction road kind of away from the finished work.