1 00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:42,520 Hello, everybody. Carl Furtuna from the Town of Old Sabreck. I'm the first 2 00:00:42,520 --> 00:00:47,620 electman there, and I am here to give you a community update from the beautiful 3 00:00:47,620 --> 00:00:53,400 Valley Shore Community TV studios. First things first, the town unveiled a new 4 00:00:53,400 --> 00:00:59,080 municipal brand. Please check out the West, the website, and the press release to see 5 00:00:59,080 --> 00:01:05,380 that. It is a beautiful piece of work that a lot of effort went into. We had focus 6 00:01:05,380 --> 00:01:12,100 group, we had a committee that worked on it, we had a professional creative group work on it, 7 00:01:12,720 --> 00:01:19,880 and the new town seal is going to be slowly rolled out on letterhead, on police vehicles, 8 00:01:20,300 --> 00:01:26,520 on all our information. So please look for the new municipal brand, we're going to be using that 9 00:01:26,520 --> 00:01:32,420 to sell swag. So get your merch from our local merchants, not yet, but it's coming. So that's 10 00:01:32,420 --> 00:01:38,560 exciting news, just some local stuff going on that you might be interested in, tours 11 00:01:38,560 --> 00:01:46,140 of the General William Hart House, the Historical Society, building in its museum are available 12 00:01:46,140 --> 00:01:52,040 every Saturday and Sunday from one to three. It is truly spectacular. They have a lot of 13 00:01:52,040 --> 00:01:57,280 really interesting stuff in there, and of course they have an archive building right next 14 00:01:57,280 --> 00:02:02,880 So, if you ever want to do a deep dive into your house or your history, you can do that there. 15 00:02:04,060 --> 00:02:14,760 The Coocus nest, the iconic Mexican restaurant in the town of Old Seabrook is celebrating 50 years on Sunday, August 9th. 16 00:02:14,760 --> 00:02:21,700 This is a very significant milestone, obviously, for the Coocus nest and Heather over at the Coocus nest. 17 00:02:21,940 --> 00:02:23,380 So, please join the Fiesta. 18 00:02:23,380 --> 00:02:32,080 The Chamber of Commerce's annual sidewalk sale is August 14 to 16 on Main Street, which 19 00:02:32,080 --> 00:02:35,480 of course looks super beautiful because it's been all redone this year. 20 00:02:36,520 --> 00:02:42,600 The Summer Concert Series continues on Wednesday evenings on the town green through August 21 00:02:43,140 --> 00:02:43,680 19th. 22 00:02:43,820 --> 00:02:48,960 So, we are recording this in early August, so the Summer Concert Series do come to an end soon, 23 00:02:49,160 --> 00:02:51,960 but until August 19th, you can get onto the town green. 24 00:02:51,960 --> 00:02:59,280 There are also two Friday evening concerts at Harvey's Beach on August 14 and August 21. 25 00:02:59,840 --> 00:03:01,140 So be sure to go to those two. 26 00:03:01,800 --> 00:03:08,220 Also on August 21, don't miss Zootopia 2 on the town green. 27 00:03:08,440 --> 00:03:12,080 One of the summer movie nights sponsored by Park and Rack. 28 00:03:12,200 --> 00:03:12,920 Those are great. 29 00:03:13,360 --> 00:03:15,240 We wait for it to get nice and dark. 30 00:03:15,380 --> 00:03:17,340 We show a movie on the town green. 31 00:03:17,340 --> 00:03:25,080 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. 32 00:03:25,500 --> 00:03:31,700 So, a couple of things that are happening from a townwide point of view right now. 33 00:03:32,480 --> 00:03:41,100 Obviously, we have not acquired saber point yet, the former dock and dime property, but we anticipate that will happen in September or October. 34 00:03:41,100 --> 00:03:49,320 Please look for Mr. Kadama going to the Zoning Commission and ZBA architectural review. 35 00:03:49,560 --> 00:03:54,720 All those things in the month of September to get all his approvals. 36 00:03:54,860 --> 00:03:59,420 And then once he has all his approvals, we will do the transfer of the former Dock and 37 00:03:59,420 --> 00:04:01,600 Dying property and the Vicky Duffy Pavilion. 38 00:04:02,220 --> 00:04:08,960 In anticipation of that, the town put out an RFP for architectural landscape firms to 39 00:04:08,960 --> 00:04:12,160 come in so that we could immediately hit the ground. 40 00:04:12,340 --> 00:04:15,500 So once we have a transfer of the property, 41 00:04:15,900 --> 00:04:18,940 we want to be able to hire a landscape architect 42 00:04:18,940 --> 00:04:21,860 to create a master plan, a vision 43 00:04:22,260 --> 00:04:24,220 for not only the dock and dine property, 44 00:04:24,640 --> 00:04:26,100 but the gardener's landing property, 45 00:04:26,300 --> 00:04:27,920 the Fort Sabreck monument property, 46 00:04:28,160 --> 00:04:30,280 because those properties connect to this. 47 00:04:30,700 --> 00:04:33,360 This is going to be a super interesting time 48 00:04:33,780 --> 00:04:36,860 and a fun time for the community to get involved 49 00:04:36,860 --> 00:04:44,820 in the vision for saber point, something that is going to last beyond all our lifetimes that we are creating now in 50 00:04:44,820 --> 00:04:47,740 2026 and 2027. 51 00:04:47,920 --> 00:04:53,440 So really exciting, there is a committee that is going to be hard at work in August and September 52 00:04:53,440 --> 00:04:58,060 to select from one of the 12 bids that we received. 53 00:04:58,140 --> 00:05:03,680 We received bids from international companies, national companies, local companies, 54 00:05:03,680 --> 00:05:06,280 so very, very qualified people. 55 00:05:06,920 --> 00:05:12,000 This is a great site and companies are clearly excited to work on it. 56 00:05:12,160 --> 00:05:16,600 So that is something that we really look forward to getting started with. 57 00:05:17,220 --> 00:05:21,940 The seawall down at Saber Point, which we were able to fix. 58 00:05:22,360 --> 00:05:30,220 We did a lot of new rip wrap on the water side and behind the seawall we dug a trench. 59 00:05:30,740 --> 00:05:35,120 pretty much as deep as we could go and fill it with concrete. So that seawall is 60 00:05:35,120 --> 00:05:41,520 now fortified and ready to last the next hopefully at least 50 years and that 61 00:05:41,520 --> 00:05:48,460 work was actually completed under budget on schedule and we still have some 62 00:05:48,460 --> 00:05:52,620 monies left over from that that we're going to have to talk to the Connecticut 63 00:05:52,620 --> 00:05:58,080 Port Authority about because they gave us a grant to do 50% of that work. So that 64 00:05:58,080 --> 00:06:01,420 That is really exciting that we were able to get that done. 65 00:06:01,980 --> 00:06:06,120 And then of course, we're going to put a sidewalk on top of that sea wall. 66 00:06:06,240 --> 00:06:07,440 That's why we had to fix it. 67 00:06:07,980 --> 00:06:09,760 And that is money we received. 68 00:06:09,760 --> 00:06:14,500 We're going to build a sidewalk that goes from the Dock and Dine property through Gardiner's Landing. 69 00:06:15,040 --> 00:06:17,240 And then it connects to Fort Sabre's Monument Park. 70 00:06:17,820 --> 00:06:24,000 A lot of those funds came from a state grant for $366,000. 71 00:06:24,320 --> 00:06:27,120 The town had to match that at 20%. 72 00:06:27,120 --> 00:06:29,380 So that was about a $90,000 match. 73 00:06:30,080 --> 00:06:33,400 So we're going to get working on that probably in 2027. 74 00:06:34,560 --> 00:06:41,160 So a lot going on at the point, we had a very successful referendum in March to acquire that property. 75 00:06:41,640 --> 00:06:44,040 What we don't want to do is lose our momentum. 76 00:06:44,460 --> 00:06:48,500 We are going to be ready to fire on all cylinders this fall and 77 00:06:48,500 --> 00:06:55,440 into 2027 to start creating the vision that the voters voted on in March of 26. 78 00:06:56,040 --> 00:07:02,600 So, a couple other projects that you've seen wrap up on Main Street, our crosswalk project is mostly complete. 79 00:07:03,160 --> 00:07:06,640 There's still some punch list items that have to be complete. 80 00:07:06,720 --> 00:07:11,780 But we've gotten great reviews on the new crosswalks with the rapidly repeating flashing beacons. 81 00:07:12,240 --> 00:07:17,000 It's a lot safer than it used to be. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it is a lot safer. 82 00:07:19,720 --> 00:07:23,580 And then the crosswalks, we've gotten a lot of good compliments. 83 00:07:23,860 --> 00:07:25,920 I'm the coloring of the crosswalks. 84 00:07:26,120 --> 00:07:28,620 They really do look good. 85 00:07:29,880 --> 00:07:31,420 Main Street also was repaved. 86 00:07:31,600 --> 00:07:34,080 The parking stalls were paved. 87 00:07:34,440 --> 00:07:38,380 So Main Street just looks as good as it can look. 88 00:07:38,600 --> 00:07:42,140 And just so many compliments from people out of town and 89 00:07:42,140 --> 00:07:45,060 in town just coming up to me and mentioning it. 90 00:07:45,120 --> 00:07:45,880 So I love that. 91 00:07:45,880 --> 00:07:48,640 and I hope our residents are enjoying that. 92 00:07:48,780 --> 00:07:51,760 The Route 1 project, the sidewalks to Westbrook, 93 00:07:52,040 --> 00:07:53,420 are pretty much done. 94 00:07:53,860 --> 00:07:55,900 Again, there's a few punch list items, 95 00:07:56,220 --> 00:07:58,360 but that project went really well. 96 00:07:58,680 --> 00:08:00,640 And when I drive down Route 1 97 00:08:00,640 --> 00:08:02,800 and see people walking on them, that's awesome. 98 00:08:03,860 --> 00:08:05,880 So they are already getting a lot of use. 99 00:08:06,580 --> 00:08:10,500 The Fairy Road Soccer field, which is a U12 Soccer field, 100 00:08:10,820 --> 00:08:14,120 construction on that, that's about a million dollar job. 101 00:08:14,120 --> 00:08:20,740 construction on that starts very soon, it might even start the week of August 10th or 17th, 102 00:08:20,780 --> 00:08:25,620 and that is about a four week job and we are going to have a new soccer field down at Ferry Road. 103 00:08:26,720 --> 00:08:33,860 And that was paid for mostly by a state grant, 75% of 900,000 was paid for by a state grant, 104 00:08:34,020 --> 00:08:41,580 the remainder was town funds. And one more very exciting thing, the library, we are out to bid for an 105 00:08:41,580 --> 00:08:48,320 architect for our library renovation. We anticipate selecting an architect probably in September 106 00:08:48,320 --> 00:08:55,340 or October. They then can begin to work on their construction drawings. This is about a five million 107 00:08:55,340 --> 00:09:02,180 dollar project. Two million came from the state. Two million came from private donations. Actually 108 00:09:02,180 --> 00:09:08,000 more than two million came from private donations. And about a million dollars is coming from town 109 00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:15,900 funds. So about 20% of the $5 million renovation is local dollars. So that is also a big home run, 110 00:09:16,360 --> 00:09:24,180 but I anticipate we will start seeing construction on that in the summer or fall of 2027. 111 00:09:24,880 --> 00:09:33,420 After bids are released, I hope in the spring or summer of 2027. So as always, there's a lot going on. 112 00:09:33,420 --> 00:09:39,680 And I hope everybody enjoyed our Celebrate Saberick on June 28th and the drone show that followed. 113 00:09:39,760 --> 00:09:43,960 I can tell you right now that was probably our best Celebrate Saberick ever. 114 00:09:44,120 --> 00:09:48,600 I think we had more people and the drone show was a massive hit. 115 00:09:48,800 --> 00:09:54,960 So much so that I've had calls from neighboring towns saying, hey, who operated your drones? 116 00:09:54,960 --> 00:09:58,280 We want to hire that company and we want to do the same thing next year. 117 00:09:58,820 --> 00:10:01,900 So obviously, Saberick leading the way, but a great party. 118 00:10:01,900 --> 00:10:05,860 I hope everybody enjoyed it, Carl Fortuna signing off. I'll see you next time.