Lack of information about police overtime request riles Sound View resident
Aug. 24—OLD LYME — Taxpayers last week voted down a request for $42,000 in extra overtime pay for increased police presence at Soundview Beach during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Taxpayers voted 9-5 to reject a proposal to spend the money on police and ranger overtime expenses incurred as part of the town's COVID-19 response in the 2020-21 fiscal year.
First Selectman Tim Griswold on Monday said the Board of Selectmen will likely convene this week to set another town meeting, which will occur in September.
Kathleen Tracy, a Sound View Beach resident who in 2018 filed a pending lawsuit against the Miami Beach Association, said Monday that the Aug. 16 town meeting was "unorganized" from start to finish.
She said the issue of police overtime wasn't given the same level of explanation as the other items on the agenda, which included $163,000 for a new scale house at the transfer station, $52,000 in broad COVID-relief funding set for full federal reimbursement, and $40,000 for the town's response to Tropical Storm Isaias expected to be reimbursed at 75%.
Emergency Management Director Dave Roberge told attendees the police overtime amount included $19,774 in ranger support from July to September of last year, according to meeting minutes. No other numbers were specified.
"What is the deal with this money?" she asked.
Griswold this week said Resident State Trooper Matt Weber, who came to town in February 2020, immediately identified the amount typically budgeted for overtime as insufficient.
The budgeted amount in the 2020-21 budget was $43,482; it increased to $80,220 in the current budget.
The 2020-21 budget year, which ended June 30, includes half of last summer, when COVID-19 precautions were in full effect. It also includes the first half of this summer, when many pandemic restrictions had been pulled back but local officials were still trying to control beach capacity.
Griswold said some of the overtime expenses related to ensuring there were not too many people on the beach, and that the ones who were there were sufficiently spread out.
Tracy put it this way: "They want fewer people in that beach. It's always been their goal."
The Old Lyme police and ranger tent positioned at the end of Hartford Avenue was instituted last summer to restrict the number of access points so police and rangers could count people, according to Griswold. This year, he said "that kind of thing was pretty much over in terms of monitoring the quantity of people" but the tent remained up as the main access point.
Asked if it will remain going forward, he said that will depend on the results of Tracy's lawsuit against Miami Beach.
Miami Beach is adjacent to Sound View Beach and has been considered public since the 1880s, when developer Henry Hilliard deeded what was then referred to as Long Island Avenue to the "unorganized general public." Its status is the subject of the ongoing litigation, as the Miami Beach Association and Tracy disagree about whether or not the association has the right to erect a fence and charge a "clean beach fee." A 2020 state superior court ruling that came down in Tracy's favor was appealed by the beach association.
Griswold said if the appeal affirms the fence must come down and no fee can be charged, then "the problem doesn't go away in terms of people coming to the beach, so there'll have to be some monitoring."
Weber has described the Sound View parking lot as the location of illegal activities including fights, public drunkenness, public sex, littering and setting portable restrooms on fire — and that's just in the town's public parking lot.
Tracy, who is running for Zoning Board of Appeals alternate, said "it's like a police state" at the beach and along Hartford Avenue.
Selectwoman Mary Jo Nosal, the lone Democrat on the Board of Selectmen, described the failure of the overtime question at the town meeting as "unusual." She said common practice is to provide documentation to justify the appropriation, which is what she said she recommended at the selectmen's meeting when they voted to set the town meeting.
"It did not have to happen that way," she said about the vote. "With adequate information I believe the appropriation would have passed, like the other three."
Nosal also criticized the lack of voter verification at the town meeting and said there were no copies of the town meeting agenda available for voters.
Both Tracy and Nosal emphasized there was very little information about the town meeting publicized ahead of time except for a state-mandated public notice in the newspaper.
They said the meeting moderator asked for a show of hands after a voice vote was inconclusive, resulting in the question's failure by a vote of 9-5.
"I'm glad we were there to put a wrench in the works, so to speak," she said. "But I fear that will be for naught."
Griswold said the overtime money has already been paid out, but must be reconciled for bookkeeping purposes. To do that the town needs voter approval to make the additional appropriation.
