Government/Town

Officer Osowiecki Retires but Keeps Teaching

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Officer Peter Osowiecki has retired from the Suffield police force, but he has not retired from duty—not at all. On the contrary, his career has morphed into a new phase. Now he has the time and energy to pursue his greatest passion, which is the training of police dogs for the K-Nine Corps, something he has been doing here in Suffield, and also on a larger scale, since 2005. At the moment he has three highly trained dogs that serve the Suffield police but live at Osowiecki’s home. Officer Osowiecki is certified by the North American Police Work Dog Association as a master trainer, one qualified to teach others this important skill.

Government/Town

Highway Garage Plan Chosen

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At their meeting on February 13, the Suffield Board of Selectmen took a significant step in their effort to move the Highway Garage operation away from Ffyler Place. They voted to enter negotiations with one of the three proposals for a new highway garage that have been studied in recent months. All three proposals were discussed at the meeting, and new presentations about two of them were heard. In prior years, the Town had considered a proposal to buy the existing Moosehead Logging headquarters building on Austin Street, adapted for use as the highway garage. This plan was first considered in 2015 and was approved by the Selectmen and the Board of Finance in 2016, but did not go forward.

Suffield 350th Anniversary Committee

Last Chance to Tell Your Story!

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One of the projects for Suffield’s 350th anniversary celebration is to republish Robert Alcorn’s  The Biography of a Town – Suffield, Conecticut 1670-1970, published in 1970 along with a Volume 2, which would be a compilation of Suffield stories from the last 50 years that brings us from the late 1960s, where Alcorn’s book left off, through the past 50 years to 2020. Our tentative idea is to call it 50 Stories for 50 Years. We are looking for residents (or former residents) who have a story to tell. The stories might be about growing up in Suffield, about the farming community, about your church, your committees, your non-profit group, education, real estate, development in town, etc. and how these stories have evolved over the past 50 years from the 1960s to now.

Suffield 350th Anniversary Committee

Trivia Quest!

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Get ready for our semiseptcentennial anniversary in 2020 by helping to create a board game celebrating our 350-year history! The illustration above is from a game created for Scranton, but “Trivia Quest Suffield & West Suffield” will be modeled on our community, featuring prominent buildings, public lands, and community organizations framed by the Connecticut River and the Congamond Lakes. The board consists of yellow, blue, orange, red, green and purple spaces. Each color has a corresponding dollar value. Questions are progressively more challenging based on the monetary value, with yellow being the easiest and purple the most challenging.

Government/Town

Suffield Town Hall Renovation Plans Continue

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It’s been a long, hard-working endeavor to find a workable plan for the needed Town Hall improvements, but First Selectman Melissa Mack is leading the effort to proceed with the only plan she now feels is appropriate to pursue. A Request for Proposals (RFP) based on this plan was being carefully edited at press time and was expected to be published by the end of February. The present chapter in Town Hall history passed a key point on October 8, 2015. By then, appraisals of the precarious condition of aging Town Hall infrastructure, along with space needs studies, had coalesced into a plan for renovations and improvements to the building, including a state-required expansion of the Town Clerk’s records vault. On October 8, 2015 at Suffield Middle School 2,247 voters — an extraordinary turnout — voted, by 65 percent, to approve a proposed bonded appropriation of $5.13 million for the Town Hall project. Since then, a number of concepts for the Town Hall have been studied, some of which, involving significant expansion of the old building and two concepts for entirely new buildings, cost as much as double the approved amount.

Government/Town

Sidewalks

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Owners or occupants of any premises where there is a public sidewalk MUST remove snow and ice from the sidewalk within 12 hours from the end of the storm. Fines may be issued for violation of the ordinance.

Government/Town

It’s Really a Bazaar

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The final winter market brought many vendors and visitors to the high school’s Agriscience Center on February 9, and as usual the affair was more of a bazaar than a farm market. Only two farms were selling vegetables: Suffield’s Simpaug and Enfield’s Easy Pickin’s. Cupola Hollow Farm was there, but their booth, with a wide variety of delicious preserves, candy, syrup, etc., didn’t include the fresh greenhouse vegetables, apples, eggs, and well-stored root vegetables offered by Simpaug and Easy Pickin’s. The bazaar aspect of the market is the gathering of part-time vendors offering diverse items like knit and woven work, jewelry, clothing accessories, coffee mugs, wrap-chaps, woodcraft, naturally-flavored twigs for rabbits to chew on, and other interesting doo-dads. Julie Simmons also brought a rabbit to do some chewing and entertain the children.