Aug 24th Newsletter

August 24th Newsletter

We all have maintenance plans for our homes, our yards, our cars, and our bodies.  We keep an eye on our roofs as they advance in age, we check the carpentry on our porch steps, and most of us floss and schedule dental checkups every six months. We get the furnace inspected each Summer and have annual physicals. This keeps our homes and bodies in good repair.  Regular checks catch problems when they are small and avoid the “surprise” of sudden large repair bills.

This year, Deep River taxpayers were asked to vote on very large bond issuance requests to repair and extend athletic fields at our regional schools.  Would the size of this request have been necessary had the funds and work hours been regularly scheduled each year over the past 20 years to actually maintain the fields and athletic equipment?  We’ll never know because there has not been a consistent, quality, maintenance mindset driving our facilities and property management. This is just one large, obvious example.

Regularly scheduled inspections and structured maintenance and repair schedules are common sense, and a respectful way of managing, containing, and planning for needed maintenance and replacement costs. Many of our parents and grandparents lived through the Great Depression - - an experience which forever shaped their outlook on spending and saving money and keeping everything they owned in good repair.  They couldn’t afford to just buy everything new, and they knew the perils of debt. They lived with a maintenance mindset.

As First Selectwoman, I plan to take a close look at every property the Town owns.  I will look at each building and property’s current review and maintenance schedule and will assess the life of the various elements of the property (roof, machinery, drive, gutters, mechanical equipment, landscaping, etc.). I will work closely with our School Boards and School leadership to ensure that they keep a keen focus on property maintenance and cost control.  We need to start seriously maintaining what we have, repairing where we can, putting aside money on an ongoing basis for repairs and replacements which we know will be coming due in the next several years.  We need to foster a maintenance mindset and live within an economic reality which doesn’t break the bank or mortgage our Town residents’ future.

Thank you for your continued interest and support of my campaign.

Warm regards,

Katie