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2^nd Annual East Haddam Community Foundation Gala Set for April 15th

East Haddam, CT – Since 2021, the number one goal of the East Haddam Community Foundation is to turn great ideas for community projects into real and actionable plans. On April 15th, they turn their sights towards the citizens to help make community event dreams a reality by raising funds through one of their largest annual events, The East Haddam Community Foundation Gala.

The East Haddam Community Foundation has helped bring support (through grant opportunities) to residents and businesses who have donated their time to bring the community a myriad of wonderful holiday-themed and enriching activities including the 12 Doors of Christmas, the Village Stroll, the decoration of village Welcome Signs, wreathes in Moodus, and the holiday tree lighting on the Moodus Green. Earlier recipients of the Foundation grant awards include the East Haddam Little League. Families can now enjoy the beautiful new scoreboard at games in Nichols Field. The foundation also offers scholarship opportunities to deserving students from East Haddam who are planning to attend college.

“We love seeing all the creative and unique ideas that residents have designed over the years. We’d like to continue to help keep these wonderful projects and events accessible to the community!” says Terri Garrity, a member of the Foundation’s Board of Directors. The Foundation is also looking forward to supporting more cultural initiatives designed to make a positive and uplifting impact on the East Haddam community.

The 2023 Gala is being held at the historic Gelston House. It will be a night filled with accolades honoring volunteers who have donated personal time and efforts to better the lives of the citizens of East Haddam. This year’s honorees are Lauren Pszczolkowska (2023 Foundation Hero), Forrest Anderson (2023 Volunteer of the Year), and Melanie Kolek (2023 Volunteer of the Year). Guests will also be kicking up their heels to local band Rock Landing and bidding on wonderful items sponsored by private citizens and local businesses!

“The Foundation’s goal has always been to encourage East Haddam’s biggest asset: its people and their ingenuity. Our fundraising efforts will provide seed money for great initiatives and completion of great projects for the benefit of our community” said Executive Director Irene Haines.

Another very important part of the mission of the Foundation is collaborating with local citizens for new ideas and inspiration. An advisory council made up of East Haddam citizens is currently being formed to offer feedback on grant-worthy initiatives. They are looking for volunteers right now! Your event idea could be the next big thing for East Haddam so they’re hoping to hear from you! To help support the Foundation with future community events and initiatives, they’re asking the community to consider attending the Annual Gala, sending a donation or becoming a volunteer. For more information and tickets please visit their website at https://www.easthaddamcommunityfoundation.org/.

The big news in Moodus? Think small. The "Tiny Cabin" trend has arrived in Connecticut.

EAST HADDAM, Conn. — The business of the backwoods is officially opened in Moodus.

Operating for the past two weeks, Getaway Machimoodus is an 86-acre outpost of tiny cabins, now welcoming guests from across the region. Essentially, Getaway Machimoodus is selling social distancing during the era of COVID-19.

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Getaway House, the parent company, already has locations in New York State and New Hampshire as well as additional sites across the country. The Connecticut location, built where an old 4-H campsite used to stand, has 45 tiny cabins.

“You come right to your door, you walk in and you enjoy your space and you are free to zone out and disconnect,” Allison Neeven, the assistant general manager of Getaway Machimoodus said.

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The tiny cabins range in size from 140 to 200 square feet. The largest cabins can accommodate four people because they are equipped with bunk beds. And, guests are welcome to bring their dogs.

The cabins include a large bay window that looks out to the secluded Connecticut woods, a kitchenette, bathroom with a very tiny but perfectly operable shower as well.

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“You are just in the middle of nowhere and it offers such a unique adventure,” Neeven said.

Adrienne Sakumoto, who visiting Getaway Machimoodus from Eastchester, New York, said, “It’s quiet, very quiet and it’s very cozy.”

Rental rates for the tiny cabins range in price depending on the day from about $120 to $300 a night. There is a walking trail and dog park on-premises. To find out more, click here.

Jimmy Altman is a reporter at FOX61 News. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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EAST HADDAM — On the same night that East Haddam’s only operating pharmacy closed its doors, owners from a group of regional independent pharmacies announced their intentions to fill that gap with a new Moodus pharmacy early next year — plus more ambitious long-term plans to expand it into a grocery store.

Greg McKenna and Chris Olender of Nutmeg Pharmacy said at a Monday night public meeting in East Haddam’s middle school that they’ve already signed a three-year lease for 38 William F. Palmer Road in East Haddam’s Moodus village, with plans to open a pharmacy in February. The audience of over 80 people applauded.

“Seven days ago there was nothing,” McKenna said in an interview after the meeting. “Now we’ve got a lease. We have drawings. We have it sent into the Board of Pharmacy. We have a construction company already pricing up the job, and we’ve got a pharmacist ready to go in there and do it.”

Nutmeg Pharmacy had already hired two drivers to offer delivery service to East Haddam before the pharmacy opens, McKenna said.

In the weeks before the meeting, news had circulated around town that Nathan Hale Pharmacy was closing on October 28 after operating in Moodus for 47 years and that customers’ accounts were being transferred to the CVS Pharmacy in East Hampton, which is about an 8-mile drive away.

“There will be a period of time when there is no pharmacy in Moodus,” said Bradley Parker, East Haddam’s director of senior services, during the meeting. “We’re here tonight to talk about what kind of services can be provided now and in the future.”

McKenna said his plan was to start with a relatively small 2,000 square-foot store on Palmer Road for the three-year lease, but “the dream” was to then expand and build a new building to function as a supermarket — addressing another gap left in East Haddam since the closing of Grist Mill Market earlier this year.

“I’m now in fact very close to finishing up gathering the lands to build not only a big pharmacy like you’re used to, but hopefully we can bring a supermarket to town,” McKenna told the audience, to another round of applause. “Nathan Hale left us some big shoes, and to fill those shoes we have to work a lot harder. We’ve got to work a lot harder, and let me tell you we know that… We’re going to be working our tails off.”

Seniors especially affected by closing

Bradley Parker, the director of East Haddam’s senior services, organized the meeting for residents to hear from McKenna. Originally Parker had planned to hold the meeting at the town’s Senior Center, but he rescheduled to the Nathan Hale-Ray Middle School cafeteria after hearing a resounding response from the public.

“There are a lot of seniors who can’t drive to East Hampton or Colchester or Deep River for their prescriptions,” he said during the meeting. The Nathan Hale Pharmacy closing had left many of them concerned.

When it comes to pharmacies, Parker said, a lot of seniors seek out delivery services and “that extra touch and extra care.”

Nathan Hale Pharmacy’s shareholders made the sale to CVS about a year following the November 2018 death of the Nathan Hale’s founder, Jack Herman, who was a widely admired figure around the town.

“Our pharmacists had been here a long time so they got to know the customers and and know their families,” said Nathan Hale business manager John Banta. “We want to send a message that we thank every customer for their patronage over the years.”

There were no plans to open a CVS Pharmacy in the former Nathan Hale space, Banta said.

CVS has made similar purchases of independent pharmacies around Connecticut in recent months, including Lenox Pharmacy in Manchester, Suburban Pharmacy in West Hartford, and an independently owned Quality Care Drug pharmacy in New London.

During the meeting Monday night, Parker said that when residents talked with him they were interested in a “small-town pharmacy. We want hometown service.”

Parker praised McKenna as “community-oriented, customer service-oriented, and caring.”

McKenna said in an interview that Robert Casner, chairman of the town’s Economic Development Commission, had contacted him about starting a pharmacy in East Haddam.

Nutmeg Pharmacy was formed in the past year out of a partnership between several independent Connecticut pharmacies, McKenna said.

They currently have locations in Higganum, in Essex’s Centerbrook hamlet, and in Norwich’s Taftville village. Bordonaro’s Pharmacy in Portland is also part of the group but retains its own branding.

Chris Olender, a co-owner of Nutmeg Pharmacy and operator of the Centerbrook pharmacy, said that small and independent pharmacies are able to take extra time and care with each customer.

“I think we do a good job not treating people like a number,” Olender said. “It’s very important to us to give each person their own individual respect. You take the time to take care of someone and it shows.”

McKenna said that a large number of former Nathan Hale customers had already switched over to Nutmeg Pharmacy for their prescriptions, which he said showed a large buy in from the community.

“We signed a three year lease because we’ve got to step up… Everyone’s devoting their lives to making sure something big is happening. So now the pressure is on to get this to happen,” he said.

EAST HADDAM – Under pressure of legal deadlines and holidays and a developer’s building impatience, the joint meeting of the boards of Selectmen and Finance was called this week to move along in redesigning the future of the downtown village.

But in the end, that goal was derailed by the boards’ agreement that the process had become a doomed-to-fail example of the cart before the horse — an expression that came up repeatedly during the session.

“It seems, in my humble opinion, that the cart is sort of before the horse here,” finance board member Harvey Thomas said less than ten minutes into the meeting that would feature nearly three hours of debate over how to proceed toward a public referendum on a developer’s proposal to turn the mostly-abandoned riverfront village into a lavish hub of commerce.

And in the meeting’s final moments late Wednesday night, First Selectman Irene Haines invoked the ancient phrase again as she floated a quickly-approved motion to shelve any official decisions on Swing Bridge Landing until next year.

“That’s the problem,” Haines said, referencing Thomas’ opening comments and the agreement that more work on many fronts was needed before the question could be put to taxpayers. “To go way back two-and-a-half hours when you said we’re putting the cart before the horse. That chicken and the egg kind of scenario.”

A referendum on perhaps the most hotly-debated topic in town in decades had tentatively been scheduled for Dec. 14.

Final details of the referendum question were to be decided Wednesday, centering on whether the town should enter into negotiations to sell the 2.75-acre heart of the village for $450,000 to local architect and developer Jeff Riley and his Centerbridge Group of investors.

And though no other formal votes were taken Wednesday, members of both boards appeared to agree that a Village Redevelopment Agency now being formed by the town should study myriad aspects of the proposal and make its recommendation on it before voters are asked to weigh in.

“One would imagine a more orderly process,” Thomas said, in which the redevelopment agency would advise residents if Riley’s approximated $50 million, 94,000 square-foot proposal “is the best thing since sliced bread or no, it doesn’t really fit our vision for the village.”

Most board members agreed that a redevelopment agency should provide the town with answers to several major questions before a referendum is held, including what costs taxpayers would incur; what, if any, tax abatements would the project be given; what are the implications for traffic in the area, and whether the town should sell the property at all or maintain ownership and lease it to Riley.

“What bothers me is that we have no idea what the cost to the town will be,” finance board member Todd Gelston said, adding that the property offering expansive views of the Swing Bridge and the Connecticut River below is a valuable town asset that perhaps should not be sold. “We’re essentially putting the cart before the horse. I don’t think there’s any rush to sell this property, right?

Other questions raised included what liability the town might have if it agrees to sell the site to Riley, but then the project is subsequently blocked by decisions by other town boards such as the Planning and Zoning Commission that would have to approve it, with public input.

In lengthy public comment at Wednesday’s meeting, several residents voiced doubts about the viability of the project and the speed of the referendum process.

Mark Thiede, owner of the popular Two Wrasslin’ Cats café in town, said he has heard complaints from many customers who believe the town is “ramrodding” the public on a referendum without providing clear information on exactly what the vote would mean.

“We know that Jeff Riley wants to buy this property and everything else is a mystery,” he said.

Resident Laurel White, a member of the East Haddam Village Alliance formed in opposition to the proposal as it stands now, said she fears that the ambitious scale of the shops, restaurants and apartments that Riley has proposed will ruin the historic look and feel of the compact village, which includes the landmark Goodspeed Opera House.

“There isn’t a person in Connecticut who doesn’t recognize that iconic view,” of the village that sits on the east end of the East Haddam Swing Bridge, White said.

She added that perhaps Riley “should take this to Moodus Center,” the village in the northern section of town that was leveled for redevelopment in the 1960s and replaced with strip malls – a transformation that still draws the ire of many residents.

One consistent supporter of moving ahead with the referendum and the project during the meeting was Randy Dill, a member of the town’s East Haddam Village Revitalization Committee that for more than a decade has been trying to attract development in the area – and had passed a resolution that the vote should take place next month.

He stressed that Riley was the only developer to even offer a proposal during his time on the commission, and is concerned that Wednesday’s vote to table the matter may prompt Riley to abandon the project and leave the site “a parking lot.”

“It takes a unique developer,” to take on the complicated project, Dill said, “and I think that’s Centerbrook.”

Riley, who has long-expressed frustration at the protracted approval process on the proposal he made nearly two years ago, has said he would consider calling the whole project off if a referendum did not give it overwhelming support.

He could not be reached for comment despite several attempts since the meeting.

Haines, who took office less than three weeks ago with a vow to get the project to a public vote, says she is intent on making the project happen, and will work toward holding a referendum in January.

“I am not going to let this go,” she said. “I’m moving the ball down the field and we need to go back to the drawing table and get a more pertinent referendum question and bring this to a vote of the people.”

Haines said she has not spoken to Riley since the meeting, and has “no idea” if he plans to continue with the project.

“We’re hoping he’s going to hang in there with us,” she said. “But if not, we’re going to try to market ourselves to other developers. We tried our best and it didn’t work out so we’re going to move on.”

Steve Jensen was a journalist for 13 years with the Hartford Courant and Journal Inquirer of Manchester before becoming a Communications Director for the State of Connecticut. Jensen covers politics and law enforcement for CT Examiner. T: 860 661-6404

EAST HADDAM – Town Planner James Ventres said that under East Haddam’s current regulations, he had to tell several families that they couldn’t keep a farm animal for a 4-H project because they didn’t have enough space to meet the town’s setback requirements for animal shelters.

On Wednesday night, the town Planning and Zoning Commission agreed to loosen those setbacks for small “hobby farms,” including 4-H students. The commission also agreed to tighten setback regulations for new, larger animal operations – an effort to prevent a repeat of an incident several years ago when someone tried to move thousands of chickens into a residential property.

The current rules governing agriculture are one size fits all – any structure for animals has to be set back 100 feet from any road and 75 feet from a rear or side property line, said Ventres. The new regulations are meant to accommodate smaller, less intensive “hobby farms,” which the regulations define as housing no more than 25 poultry and rabbits, or up to two large-bodied animals.

Ventres told the commission that the 75 foot buffer may have been set in the “old days” as an attempt to keep any kind of farming outside of the one-acre residential zones, or to provide a 75 foot buffer for manure piles because wells could be close to the property lines.

The setbacks effectively make it impossible for anyone with a 1-acre property with 150 feet of frontage to build any kind of structure for farm animals, he said. Ventres told CT Examiner in a recent conversation that the issue has mainly come up with parents whose children are working on a 4-H project, and he’s had to tell them the regulations simply don’t allow it.

“I don’t know how many times someone has come in and wants to have a goat or a few chickens for a 4-H project, and they can’t have it,” he said.

Instead of having one-size setbacks, under the new regulations, hobby farms could have smaller setbacks – 75 feet from a street, 40 feet from the property lines, and at least 100 feet from existing, neighboring residences. The new rules should allow for some more flexibility for those small hobby farms, he said.

Emily Alger, the 4-H program coordinator for Middlesex County, said East Haddam has always done a great job looking out for 4-H students. Alger said there are young people in East Haddam raising everything from rabbits and poultry to horses and cattle as a part of their 4-H livestock project.

“I get the spirit of the law, so that people don’t build a three-sided lean-to right on the property line and then there’s an issue,” Alger said. “But we have extremely diverse sizes of property, anywhere from hundreds of acres down to way less than an acre. I think it’s great that if you have an educational project, you don’t have to put your chicken coop on your front doorstep because that’s the only place far enough away from your property line.”

The livestock projects aren’t just a way for the students to learn about the animals they raise, they learn skills that transfer into other parts of life – it’s an opportunity to learn how to keep records, and to learn how to speak in public, she said.

Because the 4-H students learn from UConn researchers, it’s also an opportunity to share the latest research with the students, who in turn share that with the community.

“You want to know where your vegetables come from, you want to know how the person took care of them, how they kept the bugs away,” Alger said. “All of those things are really important, and when kids have projects like that, they have the opportunity to educate the public on all of their practices and their best management.”

The new regulations also add restrictions for manure storage on “intensive” farm operations – meaning larger farms with more than 200 poultry or 20 large livestock, or that require a building larger than 5,000 square feet.

Under the new regulations, those farms must keep their animal waste storage or treatment more than 225 feet from the street line and 300 feet from any other property line. The commission can also require those operations to plant a 100 foot buffer with trees and shrubs around any property line, but can also reduce the setback to 100 feet from the property line if the adjoining property is open space or unsuitable for development.

Ventres said about 8 years ago someone came to the town and asked to bring in 500 chickens to create a specialty hatchery on a property in a residential zone.

“The next thing you know, he had 10,000 chickens,” Ventres said.

The operation was abiding by the 75 foot buffers, but didn’t have proper manure management or sufficiently address runoff issues. The farm became a major nuisance in the residential area before the state shut it down, Ventres said.

The new regulations wouldn’t affect existing farms, but if someone else came in looking to develop an intensive animal operation, the regulations would give the commission a chance to look at the proposal and make sure it’s properly managing issues of stormwater and manure management, he said.

“We don’t want to discourage you, but we want to have an idea of how this is going to work,” he said.

Brendan Crowley covers energy and the environment for CT Examiner. T: 860 598-0050

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