Home Care In Seymour, CT

SEYMOUR — At the annual meeting of FOCL held on Saturday, June 10, 2023 at Avon Public Library, Pat Pierce received the Individual Achievement Award for municipalities with 15,000 to 25,000 residents.

Nominated by Laura Bracci, also a volunteer with the Friends of Seymour CT Public Library, the award was one of seven presented that day.

The Seymour Friends belong to FOCL which is a non-profit organization consisting of local Friends groups, organizations and individual members who believe that libraries are an essential resource for the citizens of our State.

Founded in 1979 FOCL now includes over 100 local Friends groups, organizations such as the Connecticut Library Association and the Association of Connecticut Library Boards, various book sellers and many individual members.

FOCL is a statewide support group whose members believe libraries are essential and exists to promote library enrichment by helping Friends groups support their libraries through education, advocacy, training and resources. (www.foclib.org)

Laura nominated Pat for her organization skills in multiple areas of the Friend’s room – from getting additional shelving installed, to categorization and display of different genres. CD and DVD sections are also sorted by categories, making it easier for patrons to find what they may be looking for, along with other items of interest from jewelry to stuffed animals.

Since Covid, puzzles donation have increased significantly, and Pat developed the pricing system according to the number of puzzle pieces – from 100 to 1000 plus. She schedules volunteers to work the book sales and provide assistance at sales, which are determined according to the quantity of book donations received.

As Treasurer, Laura knows the effect Pat’s creative ideas have had – Friends members get first shopping options on sale days before the general public, and this has helped the Friends to contribute $2000 toward an outdoor pavilion, and $2500 toward a new book drop. Quilting is a passion of Pat, and she has fabricated quilts for Friends raffles and also assisted as an instructor in a quilting class held at the library. Suzanne Garvey, Library Director, submitted a letter that was read by Pam Monahan, President of FOCL, in support of all that Pat has done for the library and the Friends.

Pat faced some health issues in 2022, but carried on with her volunteer activities, inspiring Friends and patrons alike. Her fresh ideas and enthusiasm keep everyone working to continuously improve the groups activities in support of the library for the benefit of the patrons and the town.

Six days after a brain cancer diagnosis as he was leaving the hospital with wife, Gina, and their four children, Chris Prue, 37, said to Gina, “Let’s get a tree.”

She noted he could barely walk, but he insisted, saying he would just “stand by the car,” as their life revolves around their children.

So they got that Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving — and it’s been downhill from there, as Chris would soon return to the hospital.

“I do a lot of praying – I rely on God,” Gina Prue, 35, said. “I know it’s out of my hands.”

Life has been tough financially for the family since Chris Prue’s diagnosis Nov. 18, as he hasn’t been able to work. A normal week for him includes lots of overtime for the family to get by.

The hard-working couple is behind on their bills and managing to pay rent on their Seymour duplex through a GoFundMe campaign set up by his brother, Len Prue III. So far they have raised $14,405 of a $20,000 goal.

They are eating by the grace of a meal train set up by friends in the community, Gina Prue said.

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Chris Prue, a patient at Smilow Cancer Center gets a visit from daughter Penelope, next to him, as wife, Gina and son, Elijah, pose for the camera. The Prues have four young children.

But just when they thought the generosity of the community would get them by short term, the family’s 2007 Dodge Caravan broke down for good on the day of his diagnosis.

Len Prue said he believes the engine has seized.

Len Prue said he is hoping a car dealer might have a reliable, used van they can donate to get his younger brother’s family through the crisis more smoothly.

“We’re very blessed with all the support we’ve had,” Len Prue said. “It would be a lot more difficult without people backing us up.”

Gina Prue is borrowing a nephew’s car for now, but in order to go anywhere with all the kids, most importantly to visit dad in the hospital, they need a van because there are three car seats.

There are also grocery trips and doctor’s appointments.

Their oldest, Penelope, turns 10 on Dec. 26, Samson is 3, Daphne is 18 months old, and the baby, Elijah, is 4 months old.

Len Prue said his brother is a great dad — engaging, loving — and the kids are surely “confused” by his absence.

“They’re kind of heartbroken,” Len Prue said. “This hit us out of nowhere, a lot of emotions.”

Gina Prue said Christmas gifts for the children aren’t a concern because they are not materialistic during the holiday and each child gets a couple of gifts.

Chris Prue is back in the hospital and recently spent a week in ICU because of pneumonia and a blood infection or sepsis.

Chris Prue was diagnosed with melanoma last year and went through chemotherapy treatment expecting a cure. He missed some work installing garage doors when chemo had side effects, but managed to work most of the time.

But in recent months he began having memory issues, slurring, numbness on one side.

Chris Prue didn’t tell his wife at first because he wanted to continue working.

Finally when he told her about the numbness, she said he had to call the oncologist.

An MRI confirmed on Nov. 18 that the cancer had spread from his lymph nodes to his brain, she said.

“He couldn’t process it or it was a lot to take,” Gina Prue said of his seeming under-reaction. “He said it will be fine.”

There were six large lesions they targeted with gamma-knife radiation cancer.

After that treatment combined with immunotherapy, he developed the sickness that put him back in the hospital.

He remains hospitalized, but has stabilized, Gina Prue said.

As for the cancer, with immunotherapy doctors give Chris a 40-50 percent chance of survival, Gina said.

Anxious about finances, Chris Prue keeps asking the doctor when he can go back to work. Doctors tell him they will take it week by week.

Gina Prue is a preschool teacher, but her salary doesn’t come close to paying the bills. The family has no internet right now.

“I think the hardest thing is when I put the kids to bed and I’m by myself,” Gina said. “It’s our us time before bed…”It’s so hard without him here. I’m really lost.”

The couple met when she was 16, he was 18 at a mutual friend’s house. They became friends and stayed that way until she was 22 and it turned romantic.

They had Penelope, who remained an only child for years.

But the couple took stock of priorities during the pandemic, and decided they wanted a big family.

They have since had the three other children, never imagining a wrench like brain cancer.

Gina said she and Chris are so connected with the kids they don’t do date nights, but do family outings instead.

She and brother Len said Chris likes to spend every minute he can playing with the kids. The children are expressing that they miss him at home.

“He’s very kind. He’s just a really good person,” she said. “He has a gentleness to him, He never yells.”

Gina Prue said they aren’t the type of people to ask for help, and she’s amazed by the outpouring in GoFundMe donations and from family and friends.

“We are so lucky to have a great support system, it’s beyond helpful,” she said.

The day the van broke Gina Prue was on the way home from the hospital with son, Samson, 3, who had been rushed there by ambulance because he had eaten a Tylenol thinking it was candy and had an open bottle in his hand. Gina said the Tylenol is usually kept high above the kids’ reach, but her husband was needing it a lot, so it was accidentally left out.

It turned out Samson was fine and hadn’t chewed any more than that one pill.

The van started to die as she followed the ambulance to the hospital, then conked out on the way home.

A new report is issuing a worrisome warning for residents in Naugatuck Valley.

The Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments (NVCOG) is warning that a nearly mile-long dam at Coe River is at serious risk of breach, and if it’s not addressed, there’s a potential for loss of life and property.

“It holds Coe Pond back from the Metro North Rail Line which is below it, and the Naugatuck is below that. If that sandy berm should fail, which the engineers say it’s likely to fail, [water] will come crashing through, across the rail line and down the Naugatuck River toward Ansonia, Derby and Shelton,” Rick Dunne, executive director of NVCOG, said.

The issues came to light Friday, when NVCOG said it received an inspection report from engineers as part of the Kinneytown Dam Removal Project.

According to a press release, NVCOG received a $15 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) through the Restoring Fish Passage through Barrier Removal Funding Opportunity under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to fund a project to acquire and remove Kinneytown Dam.

The dam is owned by Kinneytown Hydro Inc. and is a federally-regulated hydroelectric facility on the Naugatuck River consisting of two dams, but its powerhouses in Seymour and Ansonia are non-functioning.

The goal of the project is to “restore the river to its natural course, restore migratory fish passage, eliminate dam safety concerns, reduce up and down-stream flood risk, improve water quality, restore natural sediment flows and restore access to the Naugatuck River for residents and visitors,” according to a press release.

BURLINGTON

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Dunne said through that process, engineers found a secondary dam, the Coe River Dam, is not stable. It dates back to the 1840s.

“What we found out was, it is in seriously poor condition. It should be reclassified as a high-hazard dam, and there’s significant risk to life and property if it should collapse,” he said. “We don’t know exactly what it would do, but it’s about 40 acres of water, about 15 feet deep, it’s a significant amount of water.”

He said climate change and frequent rainstorms are to blame. The report states that the inspection found vegetative growth, beaver activity, erosion and evidence of overtopping.

It also warns that a breach would come with no warning.

“Lack of instrumentation to monitor water levels means there is no ability to provide warning ahead of a breach event or notify the railroad and utilities,” the report reads.

“It’d be a heck of a disaster, I’ll tell ya,” Elliot Wilson, of Shelton, said. “The last [flood] I saw was in ‘55 and there was two of them. Everything washed away.”

Dunne added that the owners of the dam are not responding to their requests. Engineers recommend the water in the pond be reduced as soon as possible.

“There’s an owner, but the owner’s not been responsive. They basically acquired a bunch of these dams from a Spanish company and then abandoned this hydroelectric facility for intents and purposes,” Dunne said. “First step, we’ve notified the owner, we hope that they’re going to take action against this, but failing that, we have an obligation as a government to safeguard the health and safety of the people in the area.”

He said all involved parties have been notified, and they’re hoping to meet soon to come up with next steps.

Kinneytown Hydro Inc. did not respond to our request for comment.

SEYMOUR – A recreational marijuana retailer is being planned at the former Trilogy restaurant in the Seybridge Plaza at 39 New Haven Road.

Renovations are underway. Plaza owner Joe Nesteriak said the shop could open in March. He declined further comment.

Earlier this month Derby’s Planning and Zoning Commission approved a site plan for a cannabis shop on 90 Pershing Drive. It’ll be built within what now houses Italian Pavilion. That restaurant will remain in business, but it will be much smaller.

The Seymour shop, which The Valley Indy learned about from a reader on Facebook, is on track to open earlier than the Derby shop.

The Derby shop is being done by Let’s Grow Hartford, LLC in New Haven.

The Seymour cannabis business is by Divine 1, LLC, based out of Bensalem, Pa. Divine 1’s owner is listed as Dharini Patel.

The Valley Indy left several text messages and emails last week to a company representative, Alex Ostendorf, for more information about the new store, but did not hear back.

Divine 1 is a busy cannabis company.

It submitted more than 2,000 license applications to the state’s lottery system to determine the first cannabis retailers, according to The Hartford Business Journal.

The business began pulling permits to convert the old Trilogy space in the fall of 2023, according to the Seymour building department.

Because the space is already zoned for commercial/retail use, the business wasn’t required to go before the town’s planning and zoning commission, according to First Selectwoman Annmarie Drugonis.

Seybridge Plaza houses several businesses, including Hot Tamale’s Mexican Grill and Bar, Seymour Veterinary Hospital, Dunkin Donuts, Sacred Art Tattoo and Seybridge Pharmacy.

Trilogy went out of business when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020.

Drugonis said the store will be a financial benefit to the town.

“From a financial standpoint, it’s a great thing, because the town gets a percentage of the sales,” she said. ?“The state made (marijuana) legal, but we have regulations in place. You can’t be out in public places in town, smoking it.”

According to the state Department of Consumer Protection, Divine 1 received a provisional license from the state in October 2022 to open a cannabis dispensary. DCP spokesperson Kaitlyn Krasselt said a final license is required before the store can sell the product.

A final license could be issued upon inspection of the store by the DCP’s Drug Control Division once it’s ready to open, according to Krasselt.

Krasselt said the Seymour store would be selling adult-use recreational cannabis, and not medical marijuana.

The sale of recreational marijuana became legal in Connecticut on Jan. 10, 2023. Between January 2023 and December 2023, recreational adult-use cannabis and medical marijuana sales totaled more than $274 million.

The Board of Selectpersons in March 2022 approved an ordinance that prohibits people from smoking or consuming marijuana in public places, which includes town-owned property, such as sidewalks, parks, fields, playgrounds and municipal buildings. The ordinance also bans smoking pot in outdoor sections of restaurants in town.

Individuals found in violation of the ordinance face fines of $50 fine. Businesses face fines of $1,000.

SEYMOUR – The owner of a downtown property that was destroyed by a fire last year wants to redevelop the site with a three-story, mixed-used development of residential and retail.

Lon Syla, owner of the property at 141 – 143 Main St. for 15 years, unveiled his proposal during a public hearing held by the Seymour Planning and Zoning Commission on Aug. 10.

He’s scheduled to appear again to review his plans with the commission on Oct. 12.

Architect Joe Mingolello, of Mingolello & Hayes Architects of Shelton, unveiled a proposal that calls for the construction of a 5,000-square foot, three-story building on the site that previously housed four businesses that were gutted in the April 2022 fire.

Once the charred property was cleaned up, it was reduced to a large hole, surrounded by a fence, where four businesses – The Artful Eye antique shop, Ro & Bette’s Attic, Seymour Spa and Fade Away barber shop – once stood. Three of the businesses have since relocated to other areas of town.

Under the proposal, Mingolello said the building’s first floor would house two spaces for retail along with two, one-bedroom apartments. The second and third floors would house an additional 12, one-bedroom apartments and one studio apartment.

Syla did not have rent info.

The one-bedroom units would range in size from 628 – 660 square-feet, with the studio apartment at 460-square feet. The building’s exterior would be brick to match the existing businesses downtown.

Mingolello said he and Syla kicked around different uses for the property, including possible office space, but said a mixed-used development of housing and retail space is the best fit in the current market.

Parking could be a hurdle for the project.

Mingolello said the town zoning regulations require 30 parking spaces for what’s being proposed. The project doesn’t have any spots on site, but the applicant hopes the available parking downtown satisfies the requirement.

Mingolello also said the tenants may not need vehicles due to the fact a bus stop and the Seymour train station are next to the property.

“The building uses 100 percent of the land, so we have no parking,” Syla said. ?“We would like to use public parking, which we believe the Town of Seymour has plenty of.”

Mingolello said with the existing public parking lots downtown, including the Strand Theater lot, and the lot next to the train station, he doesn’t foresee a problem with future tenants finding somewhere to park. He said he and Syla conducted informal surveys at different times of the week, and at different times of day, of the various parking spaces and found there would be sufficient parking for tenants.

Syla said aside from Saturdays when downtown tends to be busier, ?“70 percent of the time, downtown is dead.” He said his proposal can help spark new life in the area.

However, Seymour Town Planner Keith Rosenfeld, along with a few of the downtown business owners, said parking is already tough downtown.

“We have a parking problem downtown in the commercial business district,” Rosenfeld said, telling the owner he would need to seek an amendment to change the current parking rules.

Mingolello suggested the commission consider an amendment that would not require two spaces for every unit, but rather one space per studio apartment and 1.5 spaces per one-bedroom apartments.

Downtown business owner Lynn Giardini, who owns Hair by Lynn at 139 Main St., said there’s not enough parking for her clients, let alone for an additional 15 apartments and two new retail spaces.

“I welcome any new retail, but 30 spaces down there is not going to work,” she said.

Stephanie Young, who works at Hair by Lynn, agreed.

“All day long we see other business owners parking in front of their businesses in the spaces where clients need to park,” Young said. ?“It’s like a free for all.”

Syla told The Valley Indy following the hearing that he’s hopeful the commission sees the need for a project like this. He also thanked First Selectwoman Annmarie Drugonis for working with him after the devastating fire.

The town received a nearly $700,000 grant last year from the state to buy Syla’s property, but he’s not interested in selling.

The fact that Syla isn’t willing to sell complicates Seymour’s grant.

Connecticut Office of Policy and Management spokesman Chris Collibee told The Valley Indy last year the state money was for the acquisition and preparation of the site.

The grant’s guidelines state that?“only minor changes germane to the original scope from the approved application shall be approved by the administering agency.”

Seymour government may have to regroup and meet with OPM officials about how they now intend to use the money.

Drugonis told the Valley Indy the town also hopes to use the money for new sidewalks, curbing and lighting on the property.