Solar power plans have support of BOS

CORNWALL — Two solar-related projects are moving forward with approvals from the Board of Selectmen. One will provide power for town offices. The other will, it is hoped, slow down drivers as they pass through the center of West Cornwall.

A state Energy Block Grant, part of federal stimulus funding, will be used to install a solar voltaic system that will provide up to 5 kilowatts of energy, which is enough to power the lights and computers. About $30,000 is available.

At its Aug. 17 meeting, the board approved putting the project out for bids. They will ask for quotes on both 4- and 5-kilowatt systems, to assure the project can be done within budget.

The solar panel array will be mounted on the lawn off the back corner of the Town Office building.

An application for solar-powered, radar-controlled speed signs will be sent off to the state Department of Transportation (DOT).

Two signs, at a cost of about $4,000 each, will be permanently installed on the eastbound side of the Sharon-Goshen Turnpike (Route 128) by Bain Real Estate; and westbound, just before the sharp downhill curve, near the warning sign with flashing yellow lights (which has been nicknamed Wink-o-matic by  town residents).

The selectmen are anticipating that grant funds will be available, but they also have funds in a capital account for road work that can be used.

Will the signs be effective? And would they be more effective if a state trooper was parked near the sign and gave tickets to speeding drivers?

“Two years ago we put out a sign, and a trooper gave out seven tickets — six of them to Cornwall residents,� First Selectman Gordon Ridgway said.

His point: It is often presumed that it is only people who don’t live here and who don’t care about the town and their neighbors who speed around the blind curve.

Heading up from the Covered Bridge in West Cornwall, it is difficult to get up much speed, but drivers who have to wait to cross the one-lane span can grow impatient. And traveling even slightly above the posted 20 mph limit can be hazardous when tourists are roaming and snapping bridge photos.

The design of the signs is closely regulated by the DOT. The background needs to be plain or fluorescent yellow. Strobe lights, activated when the speed limit is exceeded, are no longer allowed. They can be a distraction and are believed to have caused accidents.

The selectmen are also questioning an oddity in the signs: They only record speeds up to 40 mph. While that is twice the speed limit there, it is certainly not very fast relative to the speed at which many people drive.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less