Goshen Storage Facility Building Subcommittee Hits “Pause”

The Subcommittee of the Board of Selectmen, commonly referred to as the Building Committee, met for their second official meeting on Friday, November 17th. New members of the committee were appointed including Andrew Savage, founder of the company Savage Construction, and Board of Finance member Robert Valentine. Public Works Supervisor Garret Harlow now serves the committee as an advisor alongside the selectmen. Allen Kinsella was excused from the meeting while Patrick Lucas joined via Zoom.

The meeting began with Drew Roehl motioning to approve the last meeting’s minutes. Olson, Savage, and Valentine abstained since they were either not at the first meeting or took up new roles since then. The motion carried.

The decision to block public comment at this meeting by Chairman Seth Breakell was reversed following widespread opposition expressed during the Board of Selectmen meeting earlier this week. Before public comment began, Breakell announced that the committee’ work will be paused until further notice, “We’re putting a pause on the building committee as it stands right now. At the charge of the selectmen, we’re going to be tasked or somebody’s going to be tasked with doing more of an assessment of the needs of both public works and the fire company whether it’s at the fire company property, the public works property, or the property that’s across the street that we've been talking about here… Just like all of you that just saw that rendering for the first time a couple of weeks ago, so did we as the Building Committee. That was our first foray into this. So we’re basically pausing this whole process right now to go back and have the selectmen put together an exploratory committee if you will, whatever you guys want to call it, to better assess the needs and the location for these facilities.”

No further meetings of the Building Committee will be held until needs assessments are complete.

Town resident Michael Leonard then began Public Comment asking, “Is there something in writing that’s going to show what the town is doing to… know what they really need and what they really want... Is it going to be in black and white so everybody can see it fairly or is it going to be like a hush and we’re going to figure it out in our departments… It needs to be open so that everybody knows exactly what is going on, not just having one quote on a building, not just having one design.” Breakell responded telling Leonard should address these concerns to the selectmen since this decision will be under their purview. “Everything's going to be transparent,” replied First Selectman Carusillo.

Recreation Commission member Sarah Leonard reported that she found discrepancies with the proposed facility’s STEAP grant application. “One of which being that the money wasn’t secure upon the time of the application of the STEAP grant,” Leonard explained. “... I read that all of the funding other than the seed funding for the STEAP project must be secure at the time of the application. So this wasn’t done and per conversations that I read and were documented from meeting minutes from the Board of Finance on October 25th, 2023…I’m worried about the disorganization of the project in general…” According to an early October Board of Selectmen meeting, Goshen received a Small Town Economic Assistance Program (STEAP) grant of $500,000 to help fund the construction of the storage facility. Leonard offered her services to assist in reading grants and help the town get the proper funding for the facility.

Valentine reiterated that since the project is being sent back to the selectmen for needs assessments, all concerns should be addressed at the selectmen’s weekly meetings. Marissa Wright, owner of the local organic produce Wright Farm, was glad to hear that a needs assessment is being conducted for the storage facility. However, she informed the committee that she organized a petition to have the storage facility remain on the property of the fire house. The petition received 100 signatures so far. “They would like to see that firehouse proposal stay at the firehouse and give them what they need at the firehouse location… and then to really look at what is left for public works and what we can do for them and get them what they need as well, but to really separate those two proposals,” said Wright.

Joe Padone, the Fire company’s most senior member, commented that years ago the Fire Co. had equipment stored in two different locations and it didn’t work out then. “I… think it’s gonna’ be a big mess”, he said.

Carusillo and Selectman Dexter Kinsella briefly discussed if the property at 190 Sharon Turnpike had to be specifically used for the storage facility and determined that they can’t legally repurpose the site without another town meeting. Carusillo mentioned he may ask the state if they could repurpose the STEAP grant they received at other locations. Olson addressed these discussions, referring back to the Town Purchase meeting in May, saying, “I remember Mark Harris was up in front of everybody specifically stating that the only thing we were there for that evening was to decide whether to purchase this property or not and that was it. That would lead me to believe that the call did not include specifically a building.” Valentine recommended the selectmen go back and review the purchase to clarify what can be done with the property as of right now. Janette Hooper looked up the minutes of the Town Purchase meeting and clarified that the vote was to purchase the 13.84 acres for no more than $200,000 and nothing more.

Following Public Comment, Breakell motioned to adjourn the meeting. This was unanimously approved.