KENT—The Board of Selectmen voted Wednesday afternoon to rescind a decision to close Town Hall at 1 p.m. on Fridays during July and August after First Selectman Marty Lindenmayer heard concerns from townspeople about the move.
“I received a lot of calls, some from people who thought we were closing at 1 o’clock every day,” he said earlier on Wednesday. “So, we are going to rescind that.”
Lindenmayer introduced the idea of a universal closing time at the June 26 meeting of the selectmen. He said that the “whole first floor” is off at noon on Fridays, while he, Treasurer Barbara Herbst and Park and Recreation Director Matt Busse continue to work upstairs. When people come to the Town Hall, despite posted hours for the other departments, he and Herbst are frequently interrupted to try to help the visitors.
“I received a lot of calls, some from people who thought we were closing at 1 o’clock every day. So, we are going to rescind that.”
—First Selectman Marty Lindenmayer
“If the door is open, people come in and say, ‘Where is the tax collector?’” he told his fellow selectmen, Glenn Sanchez and Lynn Mellis Worthington. “I don’t think it’s fair to set expectations that someone will be there when the door is open.”
His idea of locking Town Hall doors at 1 p.m. on Fridays while work goes on upstairs was met with reluctance by Sanchez and refusal by Worthington. “I understand the rationale and how frustrating it must be for Barbara to be doing things that have nothing to do with her work, but you’re not going to get me to vote for this, Marty,” she said. “The questions really is ‘Why aren’t these offices open?’ I don’t want to be in support of being open less. It seems like we have contracted. It wasn’t that long ago [that] there were hours on Saturday (for Social Services).”
She said she had heard “lots of complaints that people come in and can’t get what they need,” conceding that “maybe it’s a case of they don’t pay attention to posted hours.”
She said she had also heard public complaints that Town Hall employees didn’t seem to be working, a notion Lindenmayer rejected. “[The issue] is all encompassing,” he said. “They fulfill their hours—that’s not the issue—but is it at the right time? Times change. We have more people here at night than I have ever seen. Are we servicing people the right way?”
Discussion turned to structuring Town Hall hours so they are more convenient for the public, particularly at lunchtime when many people run errands. Worthington argued that two-person offices should have staggered lunch hours so the departments remain open when people can visit.
Turning to other issues, Worthington asked if there is a way to measure the decibel level of noise so fines or tickets could be issued to offenders. Kent, a destination town for day trippers, is plagued by the often-massive noise of motorcycle traffic. “I hear so many complaints about how loud it is,” she said. “We’d make a lot of people in the village happy if could cut down on noise.”
She was told the town does not have a specific noise ordinance, and that to create one would require decibel readers. She said she had read of new noise meters that function like travel cameras do for speeders.
In his first selectman’s report, Lindenmayer noted that the traffic tracker system was turned over to the Town of Washington on June 7 after having gathered data in Kent from three locations: North Main Street near the Congregational Church, on Route 7 South near the Kent Greenhouse, and, for a short time, on Elizabeth Street near Kent Center School.
Lindenmayer is waiting for the final data from Traffic Logix and hopes to address this information and present a proposal to the selectmen and the Board of Finance in either July or August.
