All About Cheshire Connecticut Online News Magazine
Town Council Special Meeting 5-27-26
Here is a highly specific, line-item breakdown of the granular details, administrative mechanics, and background context discussed by Town Manager Sean Kimble, Fire Chief Casner, and the council members during the May 27th special meeting.
1. The Voter Registrar Cabinets ($30,000 Appropriation)
The council moved quickly to fund this item because it directly impacts state election law compliance and physical data security ahead of the upcoming voting cycle.
The Compliance Driver: The town is legally obligated under Connecticut State Statute Section 9-23 to maintain hard-copy voter registration cards and files within strict fireproofing standards.
The Budget Discrepancy Explained: During early planning for the Fiscal Year 2027 proposed budget, the town staff put in a preliminary estimate of $12,000 for new cabinets. Once the Registrars (Matt Hall and Sylvia Nichols) sourced real quotes, the actual price came back at just over $28,000.
Why Use Contingency Funds Now? Under Cheshire’s Town Charter, the council is permitted to utilize current-year contingency funds for unbudgeted needs after March 31st.
Typically, the council waits until July or August to use this money to clear up end-of-year departmental deficits.
However, because the state primary takes place in August, waiting for the FY27 budget to kick in on July 1st would leave zero time to order, ship, build out infrastructure, and transfer thousands of paper files.
Approving it now out of the current FY25–26 contingency pool allows for installation across June and July.
The Financial Ripple Effect: The town has a $100,000 current-year contingency account. This $30,000 pull leaves roughly $70,000 for end-of-year budget cleanups. Town Manager Kimble noted they are tracking under-budget departments and feel completely safe making this transfer. The $12,000 originally sitting in the upcoming FY27 budget will now simply lapse cleanly into the town’s fund balance as a built-in surplus.
Physical Logistics (The Weight & OSHA Concerns):
Council members expressed surprise at the shipping details, asking if they truly weigh 600 pounds each.
It was confirmed that they do, purely due to the heavy fireproofing material. Because they are being placed on the first floor of Town Hall, Public Works must construct a custom raised platform to support them.
This platform serves two critical purposes: it protects the paper cards from low-level building floods, and it resolves a current OSHA ergonomics issue where town staff were constantly straining to access broken, un-fused bottom drawers sitting directly on the floor.
2. School Roof Projects ($4.16 Million Total)
cash for projects that are already approved.
The Financial Umbrella: These three roof projects are sub-components of a massive, ongoing $55 million Energy Performance Contract (EPC) 2.0 initiative that the town council had already fully authorized. No new municipal debt or funding was created at this meeting.
The DAS Grant Requirement: To actually receive the state school construction cost-sharing reimbursements, the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) requires local town councils to pass highly specific, standardized language verbatim.
The Building Committee Pivot: To bypass the logistical nightmare of assembling an independent, standalone building committee for minor roof work, these resolutions legally appoint the Cheshire Board of Education (BOE) to serve as the structural building committee for these three specific jobs. This bypasses the town's standard Public Building Commission, which is standard practice in Cheshire for minor school envelope maintenance. The BOE met the previous Thursday to pass identical matching resolutions.
Scope Variances: Chairman Talbot pointed out the massive variance in funding across the schools to clarify the scope of work:
Cheshire High ($365,000): Only covering a highly localized, partial section of the high school roof.
Highland Elementary ($1,150,000): A moderate-to-large section replacement.
Doolittle Elementary ($2,650,000): This high dollar figure covers an extensive, complete overhaul of the building’s entire roof footprint.
3. Fire Department SCBA Grant Application ($1M FEMA / $100K Match)
The fire department is racing against a regulatory clock to replace their life-saving breathing apparatuses without blowing up the local capital budget.
The Regulatory Deadline: The fire department’s current fleet of Self-Contained Breathing Apparatuses (SCBAs) is 15 years old. Under National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) safety standards, these units completely lose their certified serviceability during the 2027–2028 window. If a firefighter is injured while using expired gear, the town faces massive legal liability.
The Capital Budget Strategy: The complete replacement project is currently budgeted at $1.5 million in Year 2 of Cheshire’s capital budget. The department is applying for the federal Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG), managed by FEMA/DHS, which caps individual municipal rewards at $1 million. If Cheshire wins, they will supply a 10% match ($100,000), meaning the town will only have to pull an additional $400,000 from local capital funds to fully cover the $1.5 million project.
The Failed Southington Merger: Chief Casner and Finance Director Andrew Jascott met with officials from the neighboring town of Southington to attempt a regional, joint grant application, which would open up a higher $2 million federal funding ceiling. Southington needed $2 million on their own, and Cheshire needed $1.5 million. However, the combined populations of Cheshire and Southington were not high enough to cross FEMA's strict demographic threshold to qualify for the $2 million regional tier. Thus, Cheshire withdrew and applied as a single municipality.
Managing Expectations: The federal AFG pool sits at $382 million nationwide. Officials noted that FEMA historically prioritizes highly dense urban areas and severely underfunded, low-income rural communities. Because Cheshire is an affluent suburb, demonstrating "financial need" is incredibly difficult. Awards begin rolling out around June 22nd via congressional notifications.
Efficiency via Fleet Reduction: The town is replacing 82 old units with only 72 new ones. When asked if 72 units could safely do the work of 82, Chief Casner explained that the department is actively downsizing its active apparatus fleet by one emergency vehicle. Decommissioning that single vehicle eliminates the need to buy and maintain 6 standalone SCBA units, allowing the department to run leaner and cut down long-term testing and maintenance overhead.
4. Emergency Alert Vendor Swap (Everbridge Migration)
middle-of-the-night public relations nightmare.
The Decline of Code Red: Cheshire had relied on Code Red since 2008. However, the platform went through multiple corporate acquisitions and parent company handovers. During these transitions, database conversions failed repeatedly, leaving Cheshire's directory riddled with duplicate numbers, ghost accounts, and severe system latency.
The Final Straw Outages:
November Outage: Code Red suffered a massive structural system crash and failed to notify or alert any of its municipal client bases during an active operational window. Following this, they forced clients onto a platform called Crisis 24, which is optimized for corporate human resources and internal employee notifications rather than localized public safety sector alerts.
The 1:00 AM Incident: Months prior to this meeting, Emergency Management Director Jack Casner attempted to schedule a standard, non-emergency community informational alert for 1:00 PM. He was actively on the line with a Code Red corporate technician who was reviewing the dashboard. Despite the manual review, the system defaulted to Pacific Time or malfunctioned, and the automated system woke up town residents by blasting the non-emergency call to their phones at 1:00 AM. Code Red’s subsequent technical investigation failed to give town management clear answers.
The Financial and Structural Perks of Everbridge:
Everbridge is the current system backing the state-level "CT Alert" reverse-911 infrastructure, which means thousands of Cheshire residents are already inherently baked into its database.
Despite being a vastly superior, public-sector focused utility, Everbridge’s quote came in at $9,800 per year, which is actually $1,500 cheaper than what the town was actively paying for Code Red.
The Handover Mechanics: Cheshire still has roughly two months left on its active Code Red contract. To ensure an uninterrupted safety net, Everbridge agreed to build out the town's system, transfer the files, and bring the new platform completely online free of charge until the Code Red contract expires. Dual-billing will not occur.
Scrubbing the Data: The town will use this transition to completely purge its database of dead numbers (e.g., people who have moved out of Cheshire but still receive alerts). Everbridge features a public-facing portal where residents can self-manage, register new family members, or remove themselves with a few clicks. The town will issue a formal press release and coordinate a town-wide test call during safe, daytime hours to ensure everyone is properly synced.
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