[0:38] Hello, everybody. Carl Furtuna from the Town of Old Sabreck. I'm the first

[0:42] electman there, and I am here to give you a community update from the beautiful

[0:47] Valley Shore Community TV studios. First things first, the town unveiled a new

[0:53] municipal brand. Please check out the West, the website, and the press release to see

[0:59] that. It is a beautiful piece of work that a lot of effort went into. We had focus

[1:05] group, we had a committee that worked on it, we had a professional creative group work on it,

[1:12] and the new town seal is going to be slowly rolled out on letterhead, on police vehicles,

[1:20] on all our information. So please look for the new municipal brand, we're going to be using that

[1:26] to sell swag. So get your merch from our local merchants, not yet, but it's coming. So that's

[1:32] exciting news, just some local stuff going on that you might be interested in, tours

[1:38] of the General William Hart House, the Historical Society, building in its museum are available

[1:46] every Saturday and Sunday from one to three. It is truly spectacular. They have a lot of

[1:52] really interesting stuff in there, and of course they have an archive building right next

[1:57] So, if you ever want to do a deep dive into your house or your history, you can do that there.

[2:04] The Coocus nest, the iconic Mexican restaurant in the town of Old Seabrook is celebrating 50 years on Sunday, August 9th.

[2:14] This is a very significant milestone, obviously, for the Coocus nest and Heather over at the Coocus nest.

[2:21] So, please join the Fiesta.

[2:23] The Chamber of Commerce's annual sidewalk sale is August 14 to 16 on Main Street, which

[2:32] of course looks super beautiful because it's been all redone this year.

[2:36] The Summer Concert Series continues on Wednesday evenings on the town green through August

[2:43] 19th.

[2:43] So, we are recording this in early August, so the Summer Concert Series do come to an end soon,

[2:49] but until August 19th, you can get onto the town green.

[2:51] There are also two Friday evening concerts at Harvey's Beach on August 14 and August 21.

[2:59] So be sure to go to those two.

[3:01] Also on August 21, don't miss Zootopia 2 on the town green.

[3:08] One of the summer movie nights sponsored by Park and Rack.

[3:12] Those are great.

[3:13] We wait for it to get nice and dark.

[3:15] We show a movie on the town green.

[3:17] I mean, it is a real throwback to what maybe some of us who are a little bit older used to do when we used to go to drive-throughs.

[3:25] So, a couple of things that are happening from a townwide point of view right now.

[3:32] Obviously, we have not acquired saber point yet, the former dock and dime property, but we anticipate that will happen in September or October.

[3:41] Please look for Mr. Kadama going to the Zoning Commission and ZBA architectural review.

[3:49] All those things in the month of September to get all his approvals.

[3:54] And then once he has all his approvals, we will do the transfer of the former Dock and

[3:59] Dying property and the Vicky Duffy Pavilion.

[4:02] In anticipation of that, the town put out an RFP for architectural landscape firms to

[4:08] come in so that we could immediately hit the ground.

[4:12] So once we have a transfer of the property,

[4:15] we want to be able to hire a landscape architect

[4:18] to create a master plan, a vision

[4:22] for not only the dock and dine property,

[4:24] but the gardener's landing property,

[4:26] the Fort Sabreck monument property,

[4:28] because those properties connect to this.

[4:30] This is going to be a super interesting time

[4:33] and a fun time for the community to get involved

[4:36] in the vision for saber point, something that is going to last beyond all our lifetimes that we are creating now in

[4:44] 2026 and 2027.

[4:47] So really exciting, there is a committee that is going to be hard at work in August and September

[4:53] to select from one of the 12 bids that we received.

[4:58] We received bids from international companies, national companies, local companies,

[5:03] so very, very qualified people.

[5:06] This is a great site and companies are clearly excited to work on it.

[5:12] So that is something that we really look forward to getting started with.

[5:17] The seawall down at Saber Point, which we were able to fix.

[5:22] We did a lot of new rip wrap on the water side and behind the seawall we dug a trench.

[5:30] pretty much as deep as we could go and fill it with concrete. So that seawall is

[5:35] now fortified and ready to last the next hopefully at least 50 years and that

[5:41] work was actually completed under budget on schedule and we still have some

[5:48] monies left over from that that we're going to have to talk to the Connecticut

[5:52] Port Authority about because they gave us a grant to do 50% of that work. So that

[5:58] That is really exciting that we were able to get that done.

[6:01] And then of course, we're going to put a sidewalk on top of that sea wall.

[6:06] That's why we had to fix it.

[6:07] And that is money we received.

[6:09] We're going to build a sidewalk that goes from the Dock and Dine property through Gardiner's Landing.

[6:15] And then it connects to Fort Sabre's Monument Park.

[6:17] A lot of those funds came from a state grant for $366,000.

[6:24] The town had to match that at 20%.

[6:27] So that was about a $90,000 match.

[6:30] So we're going to get working on that probably in 2027.

[6:34] So a lot going on at the point, we had a very successful referendum in March to acquire that property.

[6:41] What we don't want to do is lose our momentum.

[6:44] We are going to be ready to fire on all cylinders this fall and

[6:48] into 2027 to start creating the vision that the voters voted on in March of 26.

[6:56] So, a couple other projects that you've seen wrap up on Main Street, our crosswalk project is mostly complete.

[7:03] There's still some punch list items that have to be complete.

[7:06] But we've gotten great reviews on the new crosswalks with the rapidly repeating flashing beacons.

[7:12] It's a lot safer than it used to be. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it is a lot safer.

[7:19] And then the crosswalks, we've gotten a lot of good compliments.

[7:23] I'm the coloring of the crosswalks.

[7:26] They really do look good.

[7:29] Main Street also was repaved.

[7:31] The parking stalls were paved.

[7:34] So Main Street just looks as good as it can look.

[7:38] And just so many compliments from people out of town and

[7:42] in town just coming up to me and mentioning it.

[7:45] So I love that.

[7:45] and I hope our residents are enjoying that.

[7:48] The Route 1 project, the sidewalks to Westbrook,

[7:52] are pretty much done.

[7:53] Again, there's a few punch list items,

[7:56] but that project went really well.

[7:58] And when I drive down Route 1

[8:00] and see people walking on them, that's awesome.

[8:03] So they are already getting a lot of use.

[8:06] The Fairy Road Soccer field, which is a U12 Soccer field,

[8:10] construction on that, that's about a million dollar job.

[8:14] construction on that starts very soon, it might even start the week of August 10th or 17th,

[8:20] and that is about a four week job and we are going to have a new soccer field down at Ferry Road.

[8:26] And that was paid for mostly by a state grant, 75% of 900,000 was paid for by a state grant,

[8:34] the remainder was town funds. And one more very exciting thing, the library, we are out to bid for an

[8:41] architect for our library renovation. We anticipate selecting an architect probably in September

[8:48] or October. They then can begin to work on their construction drawings. This is about a five million

[8:55] dollar project. Two million came from the state. Two million came from private donations. Actually

[9:02] more than two million came from private donations. And about a million dollars is coming from town

[9:08] funds. So about 20% of the $5 million renovation is local dollars. So that is also a big home run,

[9:16] but I anticipate we will start seeing construction on that in the summer or fall of 2027.

[9:24] After bids are released, I hope in the spring or summer of 2027. So as always, there's a lot going on.

[9:33] And I hope everybody enjoyed our Celebrate Saberick on June 28th and the drone show that followed.

[9:39] I can tell you right now that was probably our best Celebrate Saberick ever.

[9:44] I think we had more people and the drone show was a massive hit.

[9:48] So much so that I've had calls from neighboring towns saying, hey, who operated your drones?

[9:54] We want to hire that company and we want to do the same thing next year.

[9:58] So obviously, Saberick leading the way, but a great party.

[10:01] I hope everybody enjoyed it, Carl Fortuna signing off. I'll see you next time.

Old Saybrook First Selectman Carl Fortuna Update - August 5 2026

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