By Rit Carter and David Fortier
That residents of the Jerome Avenue Bridge area of the city will have to contend with detours as the result of repairs to the bridge come April was clear from the discussion at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
“I think these needs as much advance notice as possible,” said council member Cheryl Thibeault, in reporting on the bridge repairs.
“It is a lengthy, big project, and it will carry through to November. This will require those in that area and that live around it and use this route to have a lengthy detour.”
The council met at regularly scheduled time, despite an early morning snowstorm that dropped as much as 10-inches on the city.
Other items covered in the meeting included updates on the new animal control facility, code enforcement numbers, a brief notice about the possibility of a new police station, Covanta noise reduction efforts and ARPA funding.
“We narrowed down a field of architects to interview the finalists which we will be doing on the 28th and hopefully choose the vendor or architect of choice so we can move along with the design of the facility,” Thibeault said about plans for the new animal control facility.
Council member Susan Tyler, liaison to Code Enforcement, highlighted a new reporting structure that would reflect the scope of the type of work being done by in a coordinated approach that includes team members from Bristol’s Building, Public Health, Fire and Police departments.
“What we don’t tend to know is how much work is being done on a day-to-day basis with code enforcement,” she said.
Tyler reported that during January the building department received 38 new complaints, issued 29 violation letters, conducted 115 follow up visits, issued eight citation tickets, completed 74 visits and resolved 14 code enforcement cases.
“This is just a glimpse of the reports that we’re going to be giving to everyone in the future,” Tyler said.
Mayor Jeffrey Caggiano added a reminder that enforcement complaints can be submitted online from the city website. The form is available from the Building Dept. webpage.
Council member Erick Rosengren reported that the Public Works board is looking into a building a new police station. The minutes of the last board meeting included a motion to pursue new construction over renovation of the existing building at an estimated cost of $57 million.
Council member Sebastian Panioto reported that Covanta has been working to correct noise issues with a third-party consultant and Bristol Burlington Public Health officials.
“Covanta has identified some equipment and operational issues that they’ve agreed to correct to help mitigate the issue,” he said.
Regarding ARPA funding, the mayor said 3 percent of Bristol’s projects have been completed, 20 percent are between 50- and 75-percent completed.
“Unfortunately,” he added, “we had to terminate 12 percent of those projects because they either couldn’t do the match funding of their project.”
Overall, the stated, the city is ahead of neighboring cities and towns, having reimbursed nearly $6 million.
Meeting just before the city council, the Joint Board, comprised of the Board of Finance and the City Council, finalized funding for several major projects and heard projections for tax revenue from the city’s assessor.
The Northeast Middle School project received final approval of $102,375,000. The final cost includes an additional $13,306,035 that includes adjustments form the original estimate of $89 million.
Funding for Firehouse 3 in Forestville was approved for $8,770,000 that included an adjustment of $1.72 million that restored a third bay that had been cut from the original design based on $600 a square-foot projection prior to the pandemic rather than the final $900 square-foot costs, post-pandemic.
Regarding projections for this year’s tax revenues, Comptroller Diane Waldron reported that there is not much additional revenue, with projected increases of $425,000 in new revenue, much less than in 2022 when the grand list generated $2.9 million and in 2023, $6.2 million.
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