I am pleased to announce two promotions in the Windsor Police Department this evening. Officer William Priester has been promoted to the position of Sergeant, which was effective Monday March 29,2004. Sergeant Priester has been a Town of Windsor employee for 11 years and has held several positions within the Police Department including Partnership, PAL, and DARE.

It is also my pleasure to announce the promotion of Sergeant Tom LePore to the position of Captain. His promotion will become effective on Monday April 12^th. He will be commanding the Patrol Division. He has been with the Windsor Police Department for more 20 years. In that time, Captain LePore was a detective from 1987-1991 and was promoted to Sergeant in 1993. He has received numerous commendations for work on narcotics and criminal investigations, and is a member of the bicycle squad and the commander of Scuba Team. Most recently, Captain LePore played an integral role of the town wide project to revamp our radio systems.

I would also like to offer my compliments to all the other candidates who went through the rigors of the testing process for these two positions.

Public Works has begun the annual street sweeping program and I would like to remind everyone that the order of neighborhoods to be swept rotates each year. This method is used so that no neighborhood is always done first or last.

The order of sweeping this year is as follows:

The schools and public facilities will be swept during school vacation April 19th - 23rd. Day Hill Road will be swept over 2 Saturdays during the month of April. We hope to be completed, weather permitting, by the first week of June. This schedule can be viewed on the town’s website where it will be updated periodically.

The State of Connecticut, acting through the Department of Revenue Services, administers a program entitled the Neighborhood Assistance Act (NAA) Tax Credit Program which provides corporations with tax liability in Connecticut an opportunity to receive tax credits for contributions they make to eligible, tax-exempt organizations. All eligible contributions qualify for a 60% credit. In order for tax-exempt non-profit organizations to utilize the program they must first secure approval from the governing body of the town in which they provide services. Upon approval by a local governing body it is then the responsibility of participating tax-exempt organizations to solicit corporate donations. The program simply provides a financial inducement intended to encourage corporate contributions to eligible organizations. Last year three local organizations utilized the program to help leverage $125,750 in corporate donations. Any groups interested in this year’s program should contact the Community Development Office at 285-1984.

We recently received some updated information from the Traffic Division at the Connecticut Department of Transportation regarding our recent request to investigate traffic signals at the intersection of Route 159 (Windsor Avenue) and Corey Street (the location of the town’s Community Center at 330 Windsor Avenue.) They indicated that the State would be conducting traffic counts at the intersection. They are also conducting some preliminary investigations into the vehicle crash history and other intersection characteristics and do not think that the intersection will warrant traffic signals installations. I will keep the council updated as we continue to receive information from the state.

The Recommended Conservation and Development Policies Plan for Connecticut, 2004-2009 has been completed and is available for review. In accordance with Governor Rowland’s Executive Order Number 30, the Recommended Plan will not be distributed in print format, but has been made available at the Office of Policy and Management’s website at www.opm.state.ct.us/.

This Recommended Plan replaces the Draft Plan that was distributed in December of 2003. It reflects the thoughtful and careful consideration that was given to all comments received on the Draft Plan during the formal public review period. For more detailed information, visit the Office of Policy management’s website.