FRANKLIN For Franklin resident Jocelyn Constant, the town doesn’t need to have an affordable housing plan, and that anyone who is working can make rent in the town.
“Personally, I think people need to start living within their means, and not look for handouts,” Constant said.
Like other municipalities throughout the state, Franklin is currently working on an Affordable Housing Plan, which is a state requirement. In Franklin, residents are being surveyed on the matter. Carly Holzschuh, Franklin town planner and a planner for the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments, said it was first posted to the town’s website back in December, but the survey has gotten more attention after the town sent a postcard flyer last week.
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Waterford Last Sunday, Crystal Mall s interior was almost as quiet and sparsely populated as its parking lot. Macy’s recently had announced it would be closing its mall location, and placards denoting 25%, 40%, 50%, sometimes 60% off dotted the store and the clearance sale wasn t scheduled to start until the next day.
Families, couples, solo shoppers and the customary groups of high schoolers meandered around the mall in search of deals or, as some said, in an attempt to prevent boredom.
Many stores in the mall have adopted limited hours since the COVID-19 pandemic began, if not closed entirely, leaving the future of the mall in question.
New London The federal government has approved the city’s application to expand its Foreign Trade Zone to all of New London County.
The expansion is viewed by local officials as a way to stimulate economic growth by providing companies with savings on customs duties and other fees. The local Foreign Trade Zone, barely used through the past few decades, is currently reserved to 138 acres surrounding State Pier along with a magnet site in Groton.
Foreign Trade Zones are considered outside the U.S. Customs territory and allow companies importing goods to defer, or in some cases eliminate, customs duties on foreign products coming into the zone for storage, assembly, manufacturing or processing. The zones are the U.S. versions of international free trade zones.
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Reasoning that a state so small did not need to spend taxpayer dollars on a layer of government between municipalities and the state, Connecticut virtually did away with any vestige of county government when it changed the status of sheriffs to judicial marshals in 2000. The court system remains organized along county lines, but not much else.
Under the new proposal, which originated with Connecticut s OPM, the state s nine planning regions would serve as the equivalent of counties for purposes of collecting, tabulating and disseminating Census data. While the proposal applies only to the Census, it continues to elevate the effectiveness of the nine councils of government, which each represent a geographic planning region. And it could mean more federal dollars for specific areas.
Looking back on her years with the Thames River Heritage Park Foundation, Marian Galbraith said she’s most proud of the collaboration among different entities to accomplish a shared vision.
Representatives of historical institutions, local municipalities and organizations, the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments, state parks and agencies, and the Navy worked with a mindset, not of “it can’t be done,” but “how do we get it done?”
Today, the nonprofit organization has run a seasonal water taxi service between New London and Groton for five years and links together historic sites along the Thames River into a heritage park.