Thursday, January 30, 2020
www.plainvillecitizen.com
Volume 16, Number 52
Fire marshal, assistant to town manager leave posts Over his more than two decades of installing smoke detectors, ensuring that homes have proper escape routes and teaching children about fire safety, retiring Fire Marshal Larry Sutherland hopes to have made life a little less busy for local firefighters.
who is retiring effective Monday, Feb. 3.
Sutherland has served as the town’s fire marshal Sutherland since 2000, before which he worked in the office as a building inspector “The better prevention proand the deputy fire marshal grams, the less people get in- for five years. jured” and property gets “I'm very happy to report damaged, said Sutherland,
that we’ve reduced our incidents of fire,” he said. “Generally we respond to roughly, it depends on the year, 480 Colby calls a year … but I can say that probably — without going into the hard copy reports here — I can say a large percentage of those calls are routine calls and not calls for fires. I'd like to
say some of the work we've done in our office has reduced the threat of fires to our residences.” Much of that work took the form of inspecting the thousands of homes across town. That includes around 2,200 apartments, many of which are required to be checked annually, a daunting task for such a small department. The American Red Cross helped Sutherland canvas the town to identify areas where homes were less likely to have smoke detectors installed and donated 120 detectors to residents.
BOE reviews super’s budget request obligated to provide. Not including retirements between the end of the current fiscal The Board of Education indi- The school board is schedyear, those contractual inuled to vote on the budget, cated support for a budget creases would add up to which constitutes a 2.6 perproposal from Superinten$972,354, compared to the cent increase in school fund- overall budget increase of dent of Schools Steven LePing, on Feb. 10, after which it $998,572. age which includes a nearly $1 million increase in school will be considered by the Town Council in March and Some positions are expected spending. to shift in the budget, inwill go before voters during Board member Rebecca Mar- the all day budget vote on cluding not replacing a techtinez described the budget as April 28. nician in the Technology De“very conservative, very repartment and reinstating an sponsible” during the board’s Superintendent Steven LeP- English position at the Midage said the budget is nearly dle School of Plainville, cut final workshop Monday. entirely driven by increases in previous years. The direc"I would support this budget to wages and benefits that as is and just hope we're not the district is contractually By Devin Leith-Yessian The Citizen
cutting it a little bit too close," she said.
See BOE, A9
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Also, Home Depot and WTNH News 8 make an annual smoke detector donation, and Sutherland would distribute the devices across town and help install them in the homes of elderly or disabled residents. Following his father’s example, Sutherland joined the Plainville Volunteer Fire Department in 1975 at the age of 21. He would rise to the rank of first lieutenant and served one term as the department’s assistant fire chief. “It’s a very gratifying career,” Sutherland said. “I hope that
I’ve made a good impact on safety in the town.” Assistant to the town manager takes job in Windsor After working for four years in the Town Manager’s Office, Scott Colby has moved on, taking the job of assistant town manager in the town of Windsor. Colby’s last day in Plainville was Thursday, Jan. 23. “There’s a lot of opportunity and new challenges that I feel are beneficial for my professional career and growth,” said Colby, who is a resident of Windsor. “ … A lot of it was looking at a larger town and a lot of things happening.” Colby came to Plainville as a college intern in October 2015 and continued working with the town part-time until being promoted to assistant to the town manager in August 2016. Town Manager Robert Lee said Colby was the lead staff person for the Wheeler Elementary School renovation and upgrades being made to the town’s water pollution control facility. See Posts, A9
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By Devin Leith-Yessian The Citizen