BEACON FALLS — Residents will have to wait a little longer to have a say on the future of the town-owned Wolfe Avenue property.
The town bought the house and land at 35 Wolfe Ave. — known locally as the Tracy Lewis House — in 2008 with the intent of building a new library and community center on the property. The plan never got off the ground, and the building is now in disrepair.
The Community/Media Center Building Committee requested $60,000 in this fiscal year’s budget to begin drafting plans for the building. The Board of Finance denied the request because board members wanted to see community support for the project before allocating funds toward it.
In August, the Board of Selectmen proposed adding survey questions on the property to the ballot for the municipal election in November. Last week, the board ultimately decided not to move forward with the survey on Election Day.
The survey would have asked whether people will support spending money for a building project, and, if so, what type from the following choices: community center, media center, a community center and media center, or a new town hall building.
At the time, the thought was having the survey on the ballots would reach the most people. However, the survey questions aren’t allowed to be on the ballot.
After conferring with the state Secretary of State’s office, First Selectman Christopher Bielik said the questions can’t be on the ballot because they don’t ask residents to approve a specific amount of money for the project.
Bielik said the town’s next thought was to give the surveys out at the same time as the ballots in the gym of Laurel Ledge Elementary School, where voting is scheduled to take place.
“We assumed this was going to be something easy to do. Even if we had to have a separate venue that was something as simple as partitioning the gym would have been satisfactory. We found out that would not be a viable solution,” Bielik said.
Election laws require that surveys and political signs have to be at least 75 feet away from polling locations.
