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OLD LYME — Miami Beach Association has questioned the legality and content of an agreement with the town that has allowed public use of a short stretch of Pond Road since 1997.

Currently the agreement allows public vehicular access along Pond Road between Hartford and Portland avenues plus about 50 additional feet of Pond Road heading west.

The association owns Pond Road. The town owns Hartford and Portland avenues. The town’s beach parking lot is also bordered on three sides by Hartford Ave., Pond Road, and Portland Ave.

Mark Mongillo, president of the Miami Beach Association, told CT Examiner on Friday that the 1997 agreement posed a number of legal issues, including that Larrye DeBear, who was president of the association in 1997, did not have the authority to sign the agreement with the town.

“The board or the board members should have signed a corporate resolution granting the president the right to sign a document with the town and that never happened,” Mongillo said.

In addition, Mongillo said the original agreement with the town allowed only emergency vehicles and garbage trucks on the designated swath of Pond Road – which he said is reflected in the minutes of the association board and member meetings.

But the agreement was changed to allow public access, Mongillo said.

“For some reason the words in that agreement were changed – by whom we do not know – and I’m not pointing fingers anyplace. I’m just saying the words in that agreement were changed from what was communicated to the Miami Beach membership back in 1997, which are in our minutes,” he said. “Somehow, those words got changed to read ‘open to the public.’ Something transpired and we did not know, but that’s why it’s in the hands of the town lawyer and our lawyer because it’s not only the fact that the president didn’t have the authority to sign the document with the town… but also because the wording changed and we don’t know by whom or what.”

But Mongillo said he could not share the association minutes with CT Examiner until the legal issues had been resolved.

Mongillo also said research by association members uncovered the language change, which he said he raised with former First Selectman Bonnie Reemsnyder in 2013.

“We’re not just coming up with this now. This has been going back almost 10 years,” he said.

Mongillo said Miami Beach Association is proposing several options to the town, including that the town build its own road parallel to Pond Road.

“We’re trying to be good neighbors, and saying we need to reclaim our road. But we also understand the town needs a way to get from Hartford out to Portland Ave,” he said.

But said that his board is also willing to propose to the association membership the idea of giving the town an easement on certain areas of the property, which would require a membership vote.

“But the town has to make the first move as far as ‘are you open to putting in a road’ because that would be the easiest solution. If they want to, that’s the path we’re trying to go down… there’s options and to me that’s a neighborly, amicable way of resolving all of this.”

Mongillo said he gave the legal documents to First Selectman Timothy Griswold and Selectmen Martha Shoemaker and Matt Ward on July 7, and presented the information at the Board of Selectmen meeting on Aug. 7.

At the Aug. 7 meeting, according to meeting minutes, Keith Henson, who owns a parking lot at 11 Pond Road, told the selectmen that making Pond Road private would “shut down his business” and that he was being targeted unfairly.

Mongillo said that upon approval of his association board, the association would share excavation and paving costs and give the town two small parcels that abut the town parking lot.

As of Friday, Mongillo said he and the association attorney had not heard back from the town attorney about the issue.

“We’d like a fair and equitable resolution to an issue that has been out there for a couple of decades,” he said.

When CT Examiner spoke with Griswold on Friday, he said he remembered signing the agreement in 1997, the year he was first elected to office.

He acknowledged the association’s claim that President DeBear was not authorized to sign the agreement but said that the Miami Beach Association and President DeBear were represented by counsel at the time.

Griswold said that building a new road would involve moving electrical poles, contending with a water main and drainage issues.

He said the town has not responded to the association yet.

“It’s an open issue. We’d like to resolve it amicably,” Griswold said.

Pond Road is listed as an agenda item for Tuesday’s Board of Selectmen meeting.

Cate Hewitt is a reporter and Associate Editor for CT Examiner. Hewitt covers planning and zoning issues.

[email protected]

Beginning Tuesday, Aug. 1, crews will start the dangerous process of removing a rock ledge along Interstate 95 so a section of the highway in East Lyme, Connecticut can be widened.

When to expect disruptions

For the next six to eight weeks, closures will happen weekdays (with the exception of Fridays) from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The closures will be twice a day for 15 minutes.

It will impact the north and southbound sides of I-95 between exits 74 to 75.

Why does I-95 need to be widened?

Roughly 800 linear feet of a rock ledge need to be removed using explosives so an auxiliary lane and 12 foot shoulder can be constructed.

Josh Morgan, state Department of Transportation spokesperson, said the auxiliary lane will allow drivers “to get on exit 74 and get off at exit 75 without having to merge” with I-95 highway traffic. The DOT says the added lane will help alleviate traffic congestion and improve safety.

Why aren’t the closures pre-planned at night?

Morgan said state law requires a dangerous job, such as this project, be done during daylight hours.

Blasts cannot be pre-scheduled.

“This operation is so technical and it's going to be incredibly dependent on conditions in that moment,” Morgan said.

Drivers who sign up at I-95eastlyme.com will be sent a text message 30 minutes before a shutdown happens.

The CTDOT has posted a map suggesting drivers use Boston Poad Road and Route 161 as a detour when a closure does happen.

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Nardelli's Grinder Shoppe, named Connecticut's "best regional fast food" by Food & Wine, has opened a new location in East Lyme, with an Enfield location also planned to open later this year."

The Italian sandwich shop opened within the Noble gas station at 51 Boston Post Road in August, and Nardelli's has also noted its Enfield location as "coming soon." The Enfield Nardelli's will be at 190 Elm Street, and Nardelli's also plans to open its first Massachusetts restaurant in Sturbridge.

The grinder shop features a large variety of hot and cold grinders, with its signature Italian combo among the best sellers, and other favorites like chicken cutlet, prosciutto hot pepper chicken, eggplant and meatball parmigiana and shaved steak and cheese. The restaurants have also begun offering plant-based meats and other vegan options.

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Nardelli's is a regular winner for "Best Grinder" in Connecticut Magazine's Best of Connecticut reader polls, and Hearst Connecticut Media readers chose it as one of Connecticut's favorite regional restaurant chains in July 2022 (though the top honor went to Duchess, which has 12 fast-food restaurants in New Haven and Fairfield counties.)

Food & Wine wrote that Nardelli's "has figured out how to scale up the [Italian grinder] without sacrificing the soul of the real deal."

"There are so many options, but you'll begin with the Italian Combo, stuffed with prosciuttini — pruzitini, if you're speaking the local dialect — and ham cappy, salami, provolone, and a marinated mix of vegetables tossed in olive oil, vinegar, and spices," editors wrote.

Brothers Giuseppe, Antonio and Frederico Nardelli came to America from Italy in 1914, and eight years later, they opened Nardelli's Grocery Store in Waterbury, according to the company's website.

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"They were amazed at how well the grinders sold. Soon, people were coming from all over Waterbury to get a grinder," the website notes. "Some days, the line would wind all the way down South Main Street. It was obvious that the brothers had created the perfect balance of 'over-stuffed' ingredients and attractive prices. A combination grinder made from 1/4 loaf of bread cost 10 cents, a 1/2 loaf cost 15 cents and a whole loaf, 30 cents."

More than a century later, Nardelli's now has locations all over Connecticut, including two in its native Waterbury and others in Cromwell, Danbury, East Hartford, Farmington, Meriden, Middletown, Milford, Naugatuck, Norwalk, Oxford, Southbury, Southington, Torrington and Wallingford.

OLD LYME — A nearly three-year standoff about public access is nowhere near resolution between Old Lyme and the owner of a historic landing on the Connecticut River. Nevertheless, the town announced Friday it will move ahead with installing signage on the property, establishing rules for public use.

“The signs are being fabricated. Three signs will be installed, I would say probably this month,” First Selectman Tim Griswold told CT Examiner on Friday.

But property owners George Frampton and Carla D’Arista, who purchased 12 and 19 Tantummaheag Road in 2020, have not agreed to public signs identifying the 300-year-old Tantummaheag Landing and directing vehicles toward a parking area away from the Framptons’ house and buildings.

Frampton told CT Examiner this week that the town does not own the land and that a public road never existed between his driveway entrance and the land leading to the Connecticut River, according to his research. If a road did exist, he explained, it was deemed legally inactive after 1727 through the landowner’s will.

Though agreeing that Old Lyme does necessarily not own the land, Griswold said the public has used the roadway or right-of-way on the property since about 1700. He argued it’s a town road regardless of who owns the underlying real estate and that, over the years, Old Lyme has maintained the road and mowed the path to the river.

Frampton said he and D’Arista bought the property “with the understanding there was a pedestrian right of way,” that “it was possible for cars to go down there,” and that people had launched kayaks from the river.

“We understood there would be people using it, and people have used it. I mean the neighbors, fewer now, not very many people. But there are half a dozen neighbors, at least, who walk a couple of times a week,” he said.

But when the owners tried negotiating limits on use of the back driveway to reflect “a balance of public access with our safety and security,” Frampton said, the town insisted on unlimited car and truck access, parking for two cars, signage, and promising year-round vehicle access.

Frampton said he and D’Arista presented the first selectman with an “extensive deed search and historical archival record analysis” in July 2021, showing that they owned the entire landing and that the town had no ownership interest.

Frampton accused Griswold of keeping the research secret for several months, but the first selectman denied the claim.

“In terms of hiding or having secret information, I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Griswold said. “If it’s in land records, it would be public information, so I’m not sure specifically what is meant by the town hiding information, because all of the information comes out of land records.”

Griswold said the 1700s land records are “murky” and not as carefully documented as contemporary records.

“We maintain, based on advice from learned counsel, that the road was made and it existed, and as to the exact spot, I don’t know,” he said. “But the whole idea of the road coming forward to the present is that it is in the right location. … We’re not saying that we own the ground, but we have a town road.”

Frampton sent a complaint and compromise offer to the town on May 27 that included a demand that Old Lyme “issue and publicize a written apology to the Framptons acknowledging its failure to be forthright about the status of the Landing for the past two years.” The letter also demanded the town record a quitclaim deed conveying any “right, title or interest of any kind the Town may have in Tantummaheag Landing” to the Framptons.

“The Framptons will be under no obligation whatsoever [to] post signage or place or stow objects or allow any form of vehicular access of any kind or parking on their property,” the compromise offer stated.

Griswold said the town has not yet responded to the compromise offer, but that his answer would be “no.”

“We haven’t responded, and I personally would have trouble with some of those suggestions. But we would leave that to counsel, but it seems like we’re diverging instead of converging and trying to get something solidified,” he said.

The first selectman also noted there are many roads in Old Lyme that the town does not own, but that property owners are not allowed to block them.

“We don’t own the real estate under Lyme Street. We don’t own real estate under Mile Creek Road. So many, many roads are basically rights-of-way, and they evolved from people saying ‘I need to get from here to there,’ and you make a kind of deer path and it becomes a road,” he said.

Griswold said the town is offering the Framptons its proposal from two years ago – drafted by the Harbor Management Commission and the Board of Selectmen – which included a sign with hours of operation, private property signs and parking signs, as well as a boulder placed on the path to prevent vehicular access to the water.

According to Frampton, the town’s latest offer also bans the owners from subdividing their land, but Griswold said he was unaware of that requirement.

The first selectman said residents are frustrated with the long resolution process.

“People have been critical that, for a good long while, nothing’s happened. And we have been back and forth, and spent money trying to come up with something that would be an agreeable way to come to conclusion. … That has not really materialized,” he said.

When informed of the town’s plan to erect signs on his property, Frampton responded, “If the town believes it has the right to secure public access to our back driveway greater than the pedestrian access we have consistently afforded … Connecticut law requires the town to establish the exact details of such use in court.”

“They continue threatening to bulldoze our property because they believe it’s been a public highway for the past 300 years,” he continued. “… Their continuing threat to bulldoze our back driveway, carve out new parking places that have never existed, erect their own signs and smash our wetlands without any legal basis at all to do so is simply lawless behavior unbecoming of such a storied community as this.”

Cate Hewitt is a reporter and Associate Editor for CT Examiner. Hewitt covers planning and zoning issues.

[email protected]

An endangered fish was found washed onto the shores of Old Lyme's White Sands Beach this week. The body of a five-foot Atlantic Sturgeon, native to Connecticut, was collected by the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection on Monday morning.

"We performed a preliminary necropsy. There were no obvious external signs of damage that would enable us to determine the cause of death," Paul Copleman, Media Relations Manager for DEEP, said. "The fish was entirely intact with no wounds."

According to Copleman, DEEP encourages anyone who sees a sturgeon, either dead or alive, to contact the organization as the fish is classified as a "threatened and endangered species." There are two species of sturgeon that are native to Connecticut: Atlantic Sturgeon and Shortnose Sturgeon. Both species can be typically found in the Connecticut River, but due to dam building, their populations have dwindled in recent years. Sturgeons can also be found in the salt waters of the Long Island Sound.

If a sturgeon is accidentally caught, DEEP recommends that the angler keep the fish in the water and release it quickly. It is illegal to keep a sturgeon in Connecticut.

DEEP has its own Sturgeon Sighting Survey, which tracks "breaches, strandings, observations of dead sturgeon, or anything unusual involving a sturgeon" in Connecticut. Information needed includes where the sturgeon was spotted, its size, photos and whether it was an Atlantic Sturgeon and Shortnose Sturgeon.

Monitoring efforts by DEEP on Connecticut's sturgeon population trace back to the 1980s, during which caught sturgeons were tagged and implanted with ultrasonic transmitters that tracked their locations in the water. If a sturgeon is caught with this ultrasonic transmitter attached to it, DEEP asks that anglers leave the device alone.

Most sturgeon are bottom-feeding fish who travel up rivers in order to find food and nest, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They typically eat crustaceans, worms and mollusks. Sturgeon eggs are sought after as they are considered "high-quality caviar." Common issues facing sturgeon include habitat degradation, the buildings of dams and strikes from boats and propellers.

Norwalk's Maritime Aquarium recently unveiled its latest open touch tank last month, which allows visitors to interact with Atlantic Sturgeon.