1. Weather.com is predicting a drizzly morning and a mostly cloudy day, with a high temperature of 73 degrees and an overnight low of 64 degrees. Expect showers this evening. There's a 30 percent chance of rain all day and tonight.
2. After building a marvelous middle school and with the High School Athletic Complex construction in progress, the East Lyme Board of Education is now turning its attention to some of the district's aging elementary schools.
The conversation begins tonight with a public information session from 6 to 8 p.m. at Flanders Elementary School. The evening opens with a presentation regarding the deficiencies identified in all buildings and various options for revamping them, as identified by the East Lyme Public Schools Facilities Vision Committee.
Then the floor is open to community members as the district aims to find out what people think ought to be priorities moving forward. In a letter to the community (which is attached as a PDF with this article), School Superintendent James Lombardo said there will be small group discussions to tackle the following questions:
- What are the greatest facilities needs?
- What are the most important educational and workplace elements to include in a project?
- Which community uses are most important to preserve or include in designing the renovation and construction projects?
- What are your reactions to the four options identified by the Facilities Task Force?
3. The Lyme-Old Lyme Board of Education meets tonight at 6:30 p.m. at the Middle School Cafeteria. Items of new business slated for action include new security doors for the school building, the purchase of a new scoreboard for the high school, safety netting for the lacrosse field, and the purchase of new furniture, fixtures, and equipment for phase 3 and 4 of the High School construction project. There will be a progress report on that too.
4. At 7 p.m. there will be a Special Town Meeting at East Lyme Town Hall decide whether the town should use $425,000 from the Capital Non-recurring Fund to buy the historic Samuel Smith House for the purposes of preserving it as a museum. This is a special appropriation but there 0 of the purchase price. The decision will be made by a town vote.
5. The East Lyme Board of Selectmen will hold a regular meeting following the Special Town Meeting. The big topics on tonight's agenda include an update on the High School Athletic Complex construction and a discussion of disposal of town-owned property. There will also be discussion and possible action on the the emergency dispatch contract.
No question, it's a big night for meetings and to get to all of them, I'd have to clone myself. That doesn't mean you can't go, though!
This Day in History
On October 3, 1863, November’s last Thursday was appointed “Thanksgiving Day” by President Lincoln.
Daily Trivia
Upon his victory over Pontus in Turkey, Julius Ceasar uttered which three memorable Latin words? (Bonus points if you can translate what he said!)
Yesterday's Answer: Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer before he became President of The United States.
(This Day in History and Daily Trivia created by John Carroll.)
