Torrington City Council
2/2/26; 6:30 PM
Present: Mayor Molly Spino and City Councilors David Oliver, Paul Cavagnero, Anne Ruwet, Armand Maniccia, Rachel Hannon Harrel and Chris Beyus.
Torrington City Council welcomed a new Public Works Director at its Feb. 2 meeting. Former Public Works Director Ray Drew, who has been at the helm of the city’s department since 2019, first as an interim director, announced his retirement in 2025, but stuck around to help his successor learn the ropes of the job.
The new appointment comes as new Mayor Spino takes the reins of Torrington’s operations. Spino was elected mayor last November.
At the meeting, Spino announced Jamie Sykora, who was previously the Facilities Manager overseeing the city’s Household Hazardous Waste Collection program at the facility on Main Street, will take over for Drew. Spino noted that the city went through an interview process and landed on Sykora due to his experience.
“I am incredibly excited to have him in this position. What he has accomplished just as Facilities Director is huge,” Spino said of Sykora. “Many of you know that when he came in for Facilities Director that there was really nothing to that department. He’s really done a tremendous job over the past five years, building it into what it is. So I know that he’s motivated, and he’s going to do a great job as our new Public Works Director.”
Sykora was present at the meeting, and expressed gratitude about the appointment. “Thank you for having faith in me. I absolutely love Torrington,” he noted.
Sykora said that Public Works has been an incredibly well-run department. That sentiment was echoed earlier in the meeting by Oliver and Ruwet. “I just want to thank everybody who’s driving a plow truck and using a shovel,” Oliver said. “I think that the city has done a great job with our roads during the storm.”
One of the tasks Sykora may need to address is updating the city’s Plan of Conservation and Development. City Planner Jeremy Leifert said at the meeting the last time the city updated its plan was in 2009. The city is meant to update that plan every 10 years, according to state law. But due to the submission of Torrington’s affordable housing plan in 2023, which updated parts of the 2009 Plan of Conservation and Development, the state has given Torrington an extension, Leifert said.
“A lot of the data in the current plan is basically unworkable and unusable at this point,” Leifert said. A hurdle for that plan’s update has been finding funding to update the plan’s findings.
“It’s about $120,000 to cover the bundle of work to get this fully done and fully updated,” Leifert said. The city has around $33,000 total in capital reserves and special project funds to start the updates to the plan. Leifert said that he will have to work with Sykora to maximize state aid for road improvements and cover the costs of updates to the plan.
“We’re hoping, obviously, to come in under, under that number,” Leifert noted. Updates to the plan could take nine months to a year, he added.
