going-in what they could ask for. Therefore, he stated that they would be able to scale that
request for the outside consultants by telling them what they wanted to get done, and the amount
of money they had to spend. He went on to explain that updating the Plan of Conservation &
Development was the type of work where the Planning & Zoning Commission could do as much
work as they could; and then outside Consultant could step-in and do the work that the
Commission cannot do, therefore, he thought that it was a low risk.
Councilor Brunelle, attending remotely via Zoom, stated that she thought the planning and
conservation for affordable housing was very important. She stated that she has listened to all
pros and cons; and she stated that it was important, and was good planning to put money aside.
However she stated that she did not feel comfortable with moving the money now because “It is
a nice to have”; noting that “It was not a must have” right now. She stated as of right now this
was not a “Must have emergency”. She stated she was tempted to say “No, for now”, because it
could always go into Undesignated, and when it was needed and necessary, they could get the
money from the Undesignated Fund.
Councilor Saccone stated the Land Use Department has $60,000 left in their Operating Budget
that they want to transfer to their Capital Budget for a specific use, which was to update the Plan
of Conservation & Development (POCD) and the Affordable Housing Plan (AHP), which was a
state requirement; and ne noted that there were only a few days left before June 30, 2025 for this
fiscal year. He stated that he understands this process noting that as the former Fire Chief of the
Gales Ferry Fire Company he has done this same thing several times. He stated that next year’s
budget was already set and because there was no funding to update the Plan of Conservation &
Development (POCD) that they were going to have to find the money from somewhere.
Therefore, he stated made sense to transfer these funds to the Capital Account to be used to
update the Plan of Conservation (POCD) and that he was in-favor of the request, noting that the
money was not going to be used foolishly.
Councilor Garcia-Irizarry questioned: (1) Who the Land Use Department was going to hire?; (2)
When was that going to happen?; (3) Do we broadcast to the world so firms will respond to the
bid inquiry?; and (4) They would most likely interview the companies and then select one. She
stated the reason she was asking these questions was because if they were going to hire
somebody next week; then she could see the point of moving the money; and not to postponing
it, because it would cost more in the long run. However, she stated that since they do not have a
plan yet of who they were going to hire, and when it was going to be done, then they really do
not know if it was going to cost more. She stated once the Planning & Zoning Commission
decided that they need these people to help them out that they could come here and ask for the
money; which would probably take a period of maybe a month or two. However, she stated if the
Planning & Zoning Commission was not going to need the money for two or three years that the
money would be sitting there for a while not doing anything. She stated that she thought the
Land Use Department’s intent was to move forward with the Request for
Proposals/Qualifications (RFP/RFQ) relatively soon. Therefore, she stated the question was what
the timeline was from when they put that RFP/RFQ out to getting and evaluating the Bids.
Mr. Woody stated that he did not know what that timeline would look like, and therefore, he
could not answer Councilor Garcia-Irizarry’s questions. However, he stated from his past
experience in serving on the Planning & Zoning Commission and working on the Plan of
Conservation & Development Committee (POCD) that he could tell her that it was a long
process with many meetings and workshops. He stated what he was concerned about was the
