During the meeting on April 13th, the Mayor’s Report opened with an impassioned monologue about his love for the library and reminding the community that his proposed Town budget keeps the budget for the library the same as it was in 2025.
In the Mayor’s Proposed Budget the line item for the Stratford Library Association states:
In 2025, the actual total operating budget of the library was $3,548,842.
In 2026, the total operating budget of the library was $3,774,330
In 2027, the library is requesting $3,983,364, a decrease in their initial request of $4,027,898. The library’s budget can be viewed here.
The Town Budget proposed by Mayor Chess for the 26/27 fiscal year, proposes an operating budget for the Stratford Library Association of $3,800,000.
The second topic Mayor Chess spent time discussing was the Re-evaluation. Mayor Chess reiterated his office hours, inviting residents to come to his office to speak one on one with him about their concerns. In his closing speech before handing the meeting back over to Chair Afriye, Mayor Chess stated, “Remember, this assessment began well before November, and the tax letter assessment that you got in your home mail, came to your mailbox a day after the election, so this was well underway. This is my inheritance. Nobody wants this but we are going to deal with it, and deal with it respectfully, thoughtfully, and in the best interest of our town members.”
When it was time for questions, Councilman Boyd encouraged Mayor Chess to discuss how the previous Hoydick Administration delayed the home revaluation process by one year, which had direct implications on the inheritance Mayor Chess referred to.
Councilman Green, who is a member of the reestablished Finance Committee, working to bring increasing transparency to the finances of the Town, after not having such transparency in former Mayor Hoydick’s administration. Green said, “Not only were there holes from the prior administration in this current budget that we have to fill, because they were accounting tricks, but they also left a hole in our general fund in our current year’s budget. Mayor, can you speak to that?”
About thirty minutes before the meeting concluded, Town Council Chair Anthony Afriye made a statement. In it he said, “The question before us is whether this proposal presented reflects sound policy, transparency and due diligence. We are being asked to legislate first and analyze later and that’s backwards governance. This proposal creates winners and losers, but fails to clearly articulate who bears the cost. In the Mayor’s newsletter that he sent out this weekend, he said commercial. That’s not the full story, it’s non-occupied owners (renters), but we aren’t talking about that in the newsletter,” Afriye said, in part. You can watch the entire April 13th meeting on YouTube, which can be found here.
In his recent newsletter Mayor Chess said, “Since there’s been a lot of information shared, and because tax relief options are on the hearts and minds of all of us, and are very important to me, I invite you to a Budget Q & A for Residents that I will be hosting on Monday, April 20th, from 5:30 – 6:30 PM. My goal is to empower you with the information you’re seeking and to answer your questions.” You can learn more about this meeting, and more information on the Town website.
