Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Meeting Reminder, News Articles, and Radio Interviews

Please remember the meeting tonight at Wilderness Lake Campground- 150 Village Hill Road- from 6:30- 8:00.  If you would like to print up a copy of the agenda, click here.

The Courant covered our story again- click here to read it.

Willington's own Geoffrey Ecker and Stephanie Summers will be on The Pan American Express radio show today, June 30th, at 1:30.  You can tune in at WECS radio 90.1 FM, or click here to stream online.

Monday, June 29, 2015

TOMORROW'S RESIDENTS MEETING- CHANGES AND AGENDA

Tomorrow, Tuesday June 30, there will be a meeting at Wilderness Lake campground (150 Village Hill Road, Willington, CT).

The meeting starts at 6:30p.m., and will conclude at 8:00p.m.

Because time is one of the most precious commodities we have, the format for these meetings has changed to provide everyone with the most information and volunteer strategies, delivered in the shortest, most organized amount of time.




You can dowload a .pdf of the agenda here.



Sunday, June 28, 2015

A HUGE THANK YOU!


The hugest of thank yous to everyone who came out yesterday to help distribute flyers.  Because of your herculean efforts, the entire town got covered in a single day.

That means that today's distribution (Sunday, June 28) is cancelled- because there's no more houses to deliver to!

Thank you again so much.

An additional thank you to Mike at Billiard Table Moving, for offering to let the traffic from his domain, willington.com, be redirected to here.

And update about the format for the Tuesday meetings is coming later today; please check back to get the newest.

Friday, June 26, 2015

PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF TIME

Due to delays at the printer, the flyers will not be delivered until 10:30 tomorrow morning.  That means we need to push back distribution until TWO P.M.

We will still meet at Center School tomorrow, June 27th, we still need a battalion of volunteers, but we will not start until TWO P.M.

Please email Dave Decelles if you have any questions.  Also, if you can volunteer, but starting at a different time than TWO P.M., please contact Dave

SHOULD THINGS CHANGE, please continue to check this site, as it will be updated with all the newest developments.

SUNDAY DELIVERY: if you cannot help on Saturday, a Sunday delivery shift has been added.  It will begin at 9 a.m. at Center School.  If you can help on Sunday, but at some time other than 9a.m., please email Dave
Thank you.

Action Alert: Flyer Distribution

We still need as many volunteers to help distribute the flyers as we can get.  Dave Decelles has got the organization down to a science, so please be assured that your generous gift of time tomorrow morning will be put to the utmost use.

If you could donate a couple hours of your Saturday, you would be helping share the facts of this proposed paramilitary training compound with all the people of Willington.  All the amazing lawn signs in the world are useless if people don't know what's going on- and this flyer is designed to let people know what's about to hit us.

Volunteers meet tomorrow- Saturday, June 27th- at Center School (12 Old Farms Road), at 9 a.m. sharp.

Thank you all!

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Senator Guglielmo on the Radio

Earlier this week, Senator Guglielmo was on WECS FM, talking with John Murphy about the proposed State Police training complex.

Give it a listen here:
Music podcasts - Audio Hosting - State Senator Tony Gugliemo ...

And another HUGE thank you to our senator, who is working his hardest for what's best for all Connecticut.

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

CALLING ALL RESIDENTS!

Cover of the brochure.  All 3000 of them.
3000 flyers are on their way here.  3000 flyers with an overview of the paramilitary compound that the State Police are planning to build on Ruby Road.  3000 flyers folded, tucked into plastic sleeves, and ready to be hung from the mailbox of every household here in Willington.

And we need your help.

Please make plans to come help distribute flyers this Saturday, June 27th.  Meet at Center School, 12 Old Farms Road at 9:00 a.m. sharp.  Dave is organizing the event, and has maps, teams, and a wicked good game plan.

If you can make it, please email Dave (click here to email him), so he can get an idea how many teams he's got to work with.

Too many people here in town have only a fuzzy idea of what the State Police are proposing.  Worse yet, some people have no idea what's about to hit us.  Please consider spending some of your Saturday helping distribute flyers to get the facts in everyone's hands.

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

NOTICE OF CANCELLATION

The meeting scheduled for tonight has been cancelled.

It is tentatively rescheduled for next Tuesday, but tonight's meeting is cancelled.

Why We Are Not NIMBYs

The acronym NIMBY, which stands for "Not In My Backyard" is a pejorative term that has been lobbed at the residents of Willington with increasing frequency.

There is something that cliche-enamored journalists and cranky online commenters don't realize, though,  and that's what Willington is actually saying.   This thing, this sprawling, secretive, expensive and polluting training complex shouldn't be in ANYONE'S backyard.

  • Nobody should have to send their children to school a mile from a weapons compound used by unnamed, armed foreign groups.
  • Nobody should have to worry that their water supply is contaminated with lead.
  • Nobody should have to see their property values plummet because of state overreach.
  • Nobody should have to attend worship services amid the sounds of gunfire.


When people in the media throw out the phrase "NIMBY", they don't realize that this is a literal thing, that this massive training complex the State Police are pushing on Willington is literally in people's backyards.  In their schoolyards.  In their church yards.

The State Police need to come up with a solution that doesn't place their proposed paramilitary complex in any town's residential section.  Surely our State Police can do better than this.

And that's what the people of Willington are saying.  This isn't a case of "not in MY backyard, this is a case of "not in ANYBODY'S backyard".

But that doesn't create as cute an acronym.

Monday, June 22, 2015

Read the Signs

They're popping up all over town.  Handwritten, spray painted, professionally printed.  More and more signs as the people of Willington make their will known to Connecticut lawmakers:



Connecticut deserves better than fiscal irresponsibility, environmental recklessness and state overreach.

Come to the meeting Tuesday, June 23rd at Wilderness Lake Campground.  Meeting starts at 6:30 in the rec. room. 

It's voices like this that the lawmakers and State Police need to hear:
"I'm 9 yrs old.  Gun shots @ nights = no sleep"

(have a picture of your opposition sign?  Email it here)

Friday, June 19, 2015

Perspective

Just how far away will you be from this proposed training complex and gun range?  Keeping in mind that gunfire can be heard over 10 miles away, due to topography, elevation, and time of year, and that the proposed site is one of the highest points in town, try this:

1. Click here to go to Google Maps.

2. Enter in the coordinates of the proposed training complex:
41.899449, -72.257391

3. Hold your cursor over the red dot and right click your mouse.  Choose "measure distance"

4. Find the location you'd like to know how far away it would be from the complex (home, school, church, etc.) and click on that location.  It will tell you how much distance is between you and a compound that will offer shooting on four ranges, up to six days a week, from morning until dusk, with night shooting on the schedule.  

How far is your house from this potential source of lead contamination?  How far is your child's school from the sound of gunfire?  How far would you have to go to escape gunfire, lead contamination, and plunging property values?


Thursday, June 18, 2015

Action Alert and East Windsor Response

1.  Today the Board of Finance meets.  7 pm at 40 Old Farms Road.  Please attend to show support for requests for funds made by the Board of Selectmen to help oppose this training complex.

2.  Have you signed this online petition yet?  It will be presented to Governor Malloy, the state Senate, and the state House of Representatives.  We're so close to 1,000 signatures.  Sign it and share it.

3.  It seems that while Willington is working together to oppose the training complex/gun ranges, a portion of East Windsor (where the other proposed site is located) is busy fighting their Board of Selectmen in hopes of getting them to the same thing.

A huge, huge thank you to Willington's Board of Selectmen, the Conservation Commission, the Board of Education, and the Historical Society for publicly taking a stand against this proposal.

If we could get all 12 town boards and commissions to officially speak out against the training complex, that would send a loud and clear message to the state of Connecticut.  Here's the list of the town boards and commissions, please consider contacting the chair of each committee to urge them to officially oppose the training complex.

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Action Alert

Willington's Planning and Zoning Commission met last night, June 16, to discuss their official response to the 327 acre paramilitary complex to be built in the middle of a neighborhood.

Reports from the meeting are shocking and disappointing.  Despite the Board of Selectmen, the Conservation Commission, the Historical Society, and hundreds of residents condemning the proposal, the P&Z board seems reluctant to follow suit.

This is puzzling, considering the very real fact that this complex, as a state project, will be constructed and operate entirely outside the zoning laws of Willington.  Not a single one of Willington's democratically determined zoning laws will have to be followed by the State Police, so why are is the Planning and Zoning Commission sitting on their hands?

They put off the issue until their next meeting, Tuesday, July 21st.  This provides enough time to take the following actions:

1. Write to the Planning and Zoning Commission.  Their specific item for delay was the need to look over Willington's Plan for Conservation and Development to see if and how this proposed complex would be at odds with it.

Let's help them out.  You can find the PfCD document here.  It is not compiled into one document, so start at Chapter 1 and go from there.  Pick two or three paragraphs that are at odds with the State Police's plan, and explain why in a letter to the Planning & Zoning Commission.

Letters can be sent to:
Mr. George Marco, Planning & Zoning
40 Old Farms Road
Willington, CT 06279

Email can be sent to: mdupilka@willington.org  For ease of sorting, use "Opposition to Police Complex" in the title.

2.  Make plans to attend the next P&Z meeting.  I know, a person could spend their whole week going to meetings to stop this proposal.  But if we could fill the room with people opposed to this gun range- and that is an easy enough thing to do- perhaps the Planning & Zoning Commission would be inclined to take a stand.

Thanks again to Ralph Tulis, who went to last night's meeting and emailed the above suggestions.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Share This Site

The more eyes we have on this site, the more voices can speak out for Willington.  To help share the information here with as many people as possible, there is a little button bar at the bottom of each post.  It looks like this:


The buttons to the right of the pencil are, in order:
1. a mail button so you can share this site with people in your email contact list (the M button)
2. a button so you can blog about this site, should you operate a blogger-based blog (the B button)
3. a Twitter button so you can share posts on Twitter (the t button)
4. a Facebook button so you can share posts on your Facebook wall (the f button)
5. a Pinterest button so you can share posts on Pinterest (the P button)
6. and a Google share button so you can share posts on your Google account ( the g+1 button)

Don't be shy about sharing.  Information is meant to be set free.

You Are Here

Do you recognize this?


If you live in Willington, you do.

The area outlined in red is the 327 acres the State Police are looking to buy up.  The crosshatched square in the middle is 30 acres worth of land- the amount the State Police say the proposed facility will occupy.  The current site is on 12.5 acres.

Now take a look at the circles.  They represent .5 mile, 1 mile, and 2 miles out from the center of the Ruby Road site.

Do you see your house there?  Your child's school?  Your church?

Keeping in mind that under normal conditions, the sound of gun fire can be heard 4-6 miles out, take another look at that map.

In the coming days, the map will be updated, with buildings marked in, circles radiating outward.

How long until they reach you?

Please makes plans to attend the meeting at Wilderness Lake Campground tonight, June 16, at 6:30.

And huge thanks to Mr. Tulis, who is compiling this map and offered to share it in its unfinished form.

Monday, June 15, 2015

Action Alert

The Willington Board of Selectmen will meet tonight, June 15, at 6:30 in the Hall School gymnasium.  All are welcome and encouraged to attend.  The next steps in preventing the training complex will be discussed.  Other agenda items will be addressed before the training complex; First Selectwoman Mailhos says they'll probably get to the training complex around 7:15.

Willington's Planning and Zoning Commission meets Tuesday, June 16th at 7:30 in the Town Offices (40 Old Farms Road, Willington).  Having them officially condemn the training complex would be a great thing.

The residents of Willington and surrounding towns will meet on Tuesday, June 16th, at Wilderness Lake campground.  The meeting is at 6:30 in the rec hall.  Please come and see where you can volunteer.

Under the Myth/Fact tab on this site is a growing collection of graphics dispelling the misconceptions about this training complex.  Please feel free to copy and share the pictures as needed.




Friday, June 12, 2015

Willington: The Not So Quiet Town in the Quiet Corner

Tucked in the northeast section of Connecticut is a region known as "The Quiet Corner".  As Wikipedia notes, it's earned this name because:

The Quiet Corner is more rural than southern or central Connecticut, with large areas of farmland, rivers and lakes, and state forests.  Its population centers are largely rural and semi-rural towns, many with populations below 5,000.  It is one of the least-urbanized districts along the Northeast Megalopolis...The region is popular with tourists for its traditional New England scenery, culture, [and] locally produced foods.  

But if we peel back the postcard veneer of Willington, what do we find?


  • An interstate highway cutting across the town.
  • Several main roads that see more than their share of dump trucks, semis, RVs, and motorcycles.
  • A large scale rock quarry 
  • A major highway rest stop 


How quiet can Willington be, then?  What's an admittedly necessary gun range going to do but add a small amount of noise to this already existing cacophony?

This would be an absolutely fair question if:
1. we were dealing with general noise
2. we were dealing with a simple gun range

Let's look at what Willington is facing in terms of noise.

Road noise, while sometimes certainly loud in Willington (as anyone living on Tolland Turnpike can attest), more or less stays at a hum.  There are ebbs and flows in the hum, and it's always a nice break when commuter traffic has settled down for the night and things get quieter, but overall, it's a noise that is consistent enough to become background information.

However, when something happens to change the hum of that background noise- a dump truck engaging its air brakes, for example, the nature of the noise changes.  It is no longer background noise.  And, if it is a sudden, sharp, unexpected noise, it becomes a particular kind of sound known as an impulse noise.

And impulse noises have devastating effects on humans, particularly children.

According to a study on children and noise, conducted by the World Health Organization, children can suffer profound psychological damage from impulse noise:

(source)

Guns, like the ones the State Police will be employing 5-7 days a week, from 9:a.m. until dusk (with night shooting admittedly on the docket), constitute impulse noise- the sudden, unexpected sound that can do physical and psychological damage to children.

So we're not talking about adding "just more noise" to the not-so-quiet-corner of Willington.  We're talking about the addition of a specific, detrimental sound to the lives of children (and everyone else) in a rural town.

Secondly, this is not "just a gun range".  In addition to the sprawling complex the size of the White House, the State Police are starting out with four gun ranges.*  Four ranges that can be used simultaneously, creating a great wave of impulse noise, or one at a time, drawing out the sound of gun fire for hours and hours. 

Pistols, rifles, semi-automatic and automatic weapons will be used.  Specialty equipment will be used.  The State Police refuse to provide a list of all the weapons that will be employed on the gun range, so the residents of Willington have no way to know just what is awaiting them.

No complete list of weapons to be used on the firing ranges has been provided to the people of Willington.
(source)


It is true that Willington is not a silent town.  We won't be silent about the addition of a 327 acre training compound that will fill the air with the sounds of physically and psychologically damaging gun fire.

The question remains- why are the State Police trying to buy up private land in the middle of a rural town, rather than revamping existing facilities or employing already owned state land in a more suitable location?  

As for a State Police answer to that question, all we hear are crickets.

* For reference, the current State Police training center in Simsbury, CT, only has two ranges, and due to the layout of the facility, they cannot be used concurrently.  This means that if the State Police are allowed to construct their complex in Willington, there will be four times the gun fire that the residents of Simsbury currently have to endure.

Action Alert

Willington's Planning and Zoning Commission meets on Tuesday, June 16.  To date, P&Z have yet to join the Board of Selectmen, the Conservation Commission, and the Historical Society in condemning the construction of a massive, 327 acre State Police training complex in the middle of a residential section of town.

Please consider writing a letter to the chairman, Mr. George Marco, urging the commission to come out against this proposal, and to put their opposition in writing.

For the most impact, letters should be received before the June 16th meeting.  They can be mailed to:
Mr. Marco, Chairman, Planning and Zoning Commission
40 Old Farms Road
Willington, CT 06279

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Upcoming Meetings- Seating is Limited, Make Plans Now

(Kidding about the seating being limited.  The more, the merrier)

Two dates to put on your calendar:

Willington Board of Selectmen will be meeting Monday, June 15 at 6:30 p.m. in Hall School gymnasium.  They will be discussing the proposed training complex/gun range.  All are welcome.

Residents of Willington are meeting at Wilderness Lake Campground Tuesday, June 16th at 6:30 p.m.in the rec hall.  They will be planning legal strategies, and continuing committee work.  Please come and see where you can help out.

Meetings are open to all people who want to volunteer,  after all, this is not a problem that is limited to Willington's town line.  People from Tolland, Stafford, Mansfield, and Ashford will be affected as well.  Come on down and help.  UConn students with a reduced summer schedule?  Come on down and help.  Tired of wasteful government spending and overreach?  Come on down and help.  Love the environment and want to reduce human impact as much as possible?  Come on down and help.

You get the gist.  Come on down and help.

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

What Good Is Ruby Road?

What's the value of 327 acres?  $660,000?  A million?  Two million?

Connecticut State Police haven't disclosed- or, according to them, even discussed- price with the owner of the Ruby Road property.  An odd oversight, as anyone who has bought or sold things would readily agree.

But beyond a price tag- to be paid for by Connecticut tax payers- does land have value?  Is there non-monetary worth to a piece of earth?

The Willington Conservation Commission thinks so, as do the majority of people in the town.  The Conservation Commission put together several maps of the town, detailing the location of plants and animals in the National Diversity Data Base, prime farmland soils, wildlife corridors, archeologically sensitive areas, and places of high conservation priority.

The Ruby Road site is located within, or very close to, the majority of these areas.


The Ruby Road site is circled- located within an area of "high resource value".


In addition to Willington's natural resources, it has a rich human history, with the Ruby Road site located in one of the areas of high archaeological importance.


The construction of a sprawling 55,000 square foot complex, with additional land eaten up by gun ranges, control towers, parking spaces, and septic systems not only comes at a price to Connecticut's pocket book- it comes at a devastating price to our history and environment.


How Big Is 55,000 Square Feet?

The building currently proposed by the State Police is billed as approximately 55,000 square feet.  To help get a scope of the building alone*:

A football field (with two end zones) is 360 feet long and 160 feet wide for a total of 57,600 square feet. If you exclude the end zones it is less than 50,000 square feet.  

This.  Twice.
source: nye.com


Star Hill’s Family Athletic Center in Tolland is 105,000 square feet. (less than two times the proposed training complex)  Inside there are:

·         3  90’x180’ turf fields (soccer, lacrosse, field hockey)
·         2 hardwood basketball courts
·         1 three lane walking/jogging track

It also contains 2 restrooms and some small bleacher areas not listed on their website.  Their main facility is 30,000 square feet (smaller than the proposed training complex).  Inside there are:

·         Multi-purpose rooms
·         Aquatic center (6 lane 25 yard pool)
·         Fitness center
·         Locker rooms
·         Rest rooms
·         CafĂ©
·         Pro shop
·         Birthday party/meeting rooms
·         Arcade

·         Administrative offices (not listed on website)

Star Hill Family Athletic Center, Tolland.
source.

The White House is about 55,000 square feet.


55,000 square feet is roughly 1.3 acres.  

The current site in Simsbury is cited in the State Police's own presentation as being unusable because 1. of its location on a flood plain, and 2. the layout requiring the pistol and rifle ranges to be perpendicular to each other (meaning only one can be used at a time).  It is presented to the public as a problem with location, not with size.

So why is a sprawling, 1.3 acre building suddenly necessary- at Connecticut tax payers' expense?

The answer, if there is one, isn't being shared by the State Police.

*55,000 square feet is for the training complex alone.  The four gun ranges, control towers, parking lot for 125 cars, and fencing are not included in this number.

The Story

The Connecticut State Police need a new gun range and training facility.  This is a fact.  Their current location in Simsbury is outdated and poorly built for the site it's on.

For the past several years, the police have been scouting a location for a new, updated range.  This project has been controversial from the start.  Instead of an updating of the current facility, which consists of a pistol range, a rifle range, and a classroom for 20 students, the new version of the project has swelled to a 55,000 square foot building, two control towers, four outdoor shooting ranges, an indoor range, parking for 125 people, lockers for large stockpiles of weapons and ammunition, and a garage- with hundreds of acres left to expand.  Off the record reports include a landing pad for helicopters, a driving range, and a possible relocation of the entire police academy.

Shooting will go from dawn until dusk, Monday through Friday, with weekend shooting admittedly on the schedule.  There will be nighttime shooting, and use of this massive facility will be open to not just Connecticut State Police, but also unnamed and unnumbered national and international entities.  

Instead of updating the current location, and using the 30-acre plot already owned by the state, Connecticut State Police are now actively pursing a privately owned parcel of land in Willington, Connecticut.  This plot of land is 10 times bigger than the current facility, and would take 300 acres of land out of private ownership and into State control.

Instead of looking at land already owned by the state, thus saving Connecticut taxpayers, the State Police are looking to purchase more land, and build a massive para-military compound on it, all while refusing to reveal a budget, a firm blueprint, concrete hours of operation, a list of groups who will use the site, or environmental safeguards.

And since this is a state project, none of the construction will be subject to the democratically crafted zoning laws of the town that will house it.  Zero outside oversight.  Zero accountability.  Zero limits.

The location of this proposed training complex is smack dab in the middle of a residential section of a rural town.  It is within a mile of houses, apartments, schools, churches, and a historical district.  

Opposition to this proposal as it stands goes way beyond "Not In My Backyard" mentality.  Opposition to this proposal is not about gun ownership, gun control, or the Second Ammendment.  Opposition to this proposal is not about police.  What this opposition is about is protesting a massive overreach by a state entity that should not be allowed to happen in any town.  This is about the troubling militarization of our country's police force.  This is about the effects of gun ranges on the environment.  This is about the crippling loss of property values a small town is facing.

We are Willington.  And we are unwilling to let the state damage our environment, destroy our property values, shatter our town's character, and steamroll the democratic process.