Stamford Planning Board Special Meeting - March 4, 2024: Government Safety Complex Assessment Capital Budget Approval
STREAMING COPY IN PREPARATION — RECORDING AVAILABLE FROM THE ORIGINAL SOURCE
Stamford Planning Board Special Meeting – March 4, 2024
The Stamford Planning Board held a special meeting on Monday, March 4, 2024, at 8:45 AM via Zoom to address a capital budget item for the Government Safety Complex Assessment (Project #001391). The meeting was called after a procedural error at the board’s February 27 meeting prevented a proper vote on the item. Three board members were present (Chair Teresa Dale, William Levin, Jay Tepper); a fourth member (Michael Totillo) was unable to join. The board unanimously approved a $500,000 request for a needs assessment to explore building a new Public Safety Complex at the city-owned 805 Bedford Street site.
Public Comments & Testimony
- The Stamford Neighborhood Coalition submitted a letter opposing the study, stating they did not see a reason for the study. Vice Chair Jay Tepper noted the irony of opposing something without understanding it, emphasizing that the study would provide necessary information.
Discussion Items
- Chair Teresa Dale summarized the item: the Simmons administration is requesting a needs assessment to evaluate the potential for a centralized public safety complex at 805 Bedford Street. Associate Planner Lindsay Cohen clarified that this assessment continues an ongoing project; a prior needs assessment had already been conducted, and this deep dive into the opportunity is a next step. She referred to the February 27 meeting video for more details.
- Board members expressed that the study is essential to determine whether the project should proceed and that any future project would require further board approval.
Key Outcomes
- Motion to approve Capital Budget Project #001391 for $500,000 was made by Bill (William Levin), seconded by Jay Tepper, and carried unanimously by the three voting members.
- The board thanked members and adjourned, noting that the next meeting would be at 12:15 PM at 800 Long Ridge Road.
Meeting Transcript
As long as you have a quorum. Yeah, we have a quorum. We do have three of us. Okay. We will bring the uh meeting to order. Today is Monday, March the 4th, and this is a special meeting. It has been on the uh planning board website, and it has also been filed with the town clerk. This special meeting was called because at last Tuesday night meeting, we brought forward two special uh items from the mayor in regards to the capital budget for uh 2024, 2025. One was for the um EV project uh that the mayor had submitted, and the other was for public safety. Uh when I brought forward um Michael Tatilla says he's trying to get in. Uh when I brought it forward, I asked for the board to allow me to walk on the two projects. But when doing so, I only gave the uh CP for the um first project that was going to be reviewed, which was as I said, the government center EV infrastructure. I did think that I had brought over the public safety complex and asking for both projects to be brought forward, but as I read in only the one CP number, the uh public safety was not able to be truly voted on. So this is why we are having the uh special meeting. Uh so uh in attendance right now we have Lindsay Cohen, who is our associate planner. I'm Teresa Dale, the chair. We have William Levin, who is our associate member, but he is um he was voting as a regular member uh on Tuesday evening because two of our members were not present, and Jay Tepper is our vice chair and he is on this meeting. Michael Totillo was trying to get in, but he has not been able to. Uh, but we do have a quorum, so I will bring forward the uh first item. And uh just for the record, if anyone did want to uh listen in on our meeting this morning, we did have the webinar uh zoom. We had it from PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, and Android, also from mobile phones and regular telephones. So I will bring forward the item in question. And as I said, it has been on the website. So this is the project now on to itself. It does not need to be walked on. This is for the government safety complex assessment, project number 001391. The total request is 500,000. The Simmons uh administration is requesting a needs assessment to conduct uh and to assess the uh potential for building a new public safety complex at 805 Bedford Street. Uh, the site is city-owned and is currently vacant, and they would like to explore the possibility of bringing multiple public functions. So this is basically a study. Uh Mr. DeRubis was at our Tuesday meeting and explained to all of us the need for um for this complex and trying to get all of our public safety complexes together over the weekend. We did receive a letter from hang on one moment. Let me pull it up so I can put it in properly. We did receive one later, a letter from the Stanford neighborhood coalition saying that they wanted this denied because they did not see a region for the study. But as Mr. DeRubis explained, this study will uh allow us all to know whether or not we need um this facility. Uh so with that being said, did anyone have any questions before I bring this to a vote? Lindsay, do I need to mention? I see your hand up. Did you want to say something? Yes, um, I was just listening back to the video, and um this is part of an ongoing project. So they've done a needs assessment has been done. Um, and this was identified, and this is just continuing on kind of deep diving into this opportunity here. So it's part of an ongoing project. And if if folks want to hear more about it, um, I would ask them to refer back to the video of the planning board meeting for February 27, I believe it was, um, starting at about the 16 minute mark. Mr. DeRubis is speaking about this project and the work that's gone into it. Okay. Any other Jay, I see your hand up.
openpublica.com