Select board appoints town clerk, creates housing group
July 1, 2022 | By Lisa Scagliotti 
Karen Petrovic will succeed Carla Lawrence as interim town clerk. Courtesy photo
Two months before she plans to retire, Waterbury Town Clerk Carla Lawrence has a successor to train to serve until Town Meeting 2023 and possibly beyond.
The Waterbury Select Board last week unanimously approved appointing Karen Petrovic to serve as interim town clerk and treasurer starting Sept. 2. Petrovic currently is the utility billing clerk for the town administration where she has worked since 2015.
Lawrence recently announced she would be retiring at the end of August. She will oversee the Aug. 9 primary election and overlap with Petrovic as part of the transition to hand over the position ahead of the November general election and March Town Meeting. Petrovic said she is interested in running to serve a full term as clerk and treasurer and would plan to be on the March ballot.
The town will advertise to hire a new billing clerk to succeed Petrovic.
The board took a number of other actions at its meeting last week including a vote to create a Waterbury Area Housing Task Force committee to explore the potential for public-private efforts to create new housing in Waterbury.
The vote came after a presentation from Revitalizing Waterbury Executive Director Karen Nevin and Economic Development Director Mark Pomilio Jr. regarding a housing study commissioned by RW last year. All agreed on the need to broaden housing options as an effort of community and economic development.
Municipal Manager Bill Shepeluk briefly spoke about recent discussions he’s had with the nonprofit agency Downstreet Housing about potential sites in downtown Waterbury for new multi-unit housing development. He pointed to 51 South Main Street, the former location of the town offices prior to Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. Flooding caused extensive damage to the building which has since been razed leaving an open lot so far only used for parking. The property is owned by the Edward Farrar Utility District as it previously was under village ownership before the village municipality was dissolved.
Another spot Shepeluk mentioned is a section of the State Office Complex property where the former Stanley and Wasson Halls were located. Those state buildings were demolished in 2021 and the lot currently is vacant. The state after Irene entertained transferring the property to the town as a possible site for new municipal offices but voters rejected a bond for that proposal.
In voting to create the new group, the select board said it would discuss at a later meeting potential members and the various entities they might represent.
At Shepeluk’s request, the board heard from Fire Chief Gary Dillon regarding the C. C. Fisher Reserve Fund that the Fire Department has invested and uses its interest to fund training activities. The discussion covered a recommendation to update how the account is documented in town budget reporting to show its income and expenditures from the fund.
The board briefly discussed the federal funds coming to the town as part of the American Recovery Plan Act. Waterbury will receive $1.5 million and so far has allocated just a small portion. Further discussion of how to spend the funds will happen in the coming months. Shepeluk called attention to one recent request that the board approved in April to allocate $50,000 to the CVFiber district that’s working on expanding broadband internet service in the region. The district has an opportunity to use state grant funding to match municipal contributions.
Shepeluk said he was unclear as to whether the board’s vote to allocate the $50,000 was sufficient and whether it instead should be included in the town budget or approved by the voters.
The board asked that Shepeluk look to clarify that point before it signs off on a contract with CVFiber to proceed with designing and planning for internet service expansion in Waterbury.