The Daily Five: Affordable Housing In East Lyme, Care & Share Open Meeting, And Why Volunteers Are Vital

1. Today will be partly sunny and partly cloudy, with a high temperature of 30 degrees and an overnight low of 25 degrees, according to Weather.com. There's no chance of precipitation until tonight (and even then it's just a 20 percent chance).

If you've got places to go and people to see, however, today is the day to do it. The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm watch for tomorrow starting at 1 p.m. and continuing until Saturday at 1 p.m. that could bring as much as two feet of snow!  

2. Care & Share, the food pantry serving East Lyme and Salem, is holding a public membership meeting tonight at 7:00 p.m. at its new permanent home at 12 Roxbury Road, in Niantic. This is an opportunity for people to learn about the organization’s efforts, meet current members and find out what they do as volunteers. 

Care & Share depends entirely on donations and volunteers to provide emergency food delivery, prepare and deliver holiday food baskets and gifts, collect and sort donated winter outerwear and linens, help with events anf fundraising for scholarships and camperships.

To find out more, contact Care & Share at 860-739-8502 or go to the nonprofit's Web site: www.careandshareofEL.org.

3. John David Kelsey is one busy fellar. Not only does Kelsey run Hamilton Point Investments, a company he cofounded in Old Lyme in 2010, he's an active community volunteer.

Kelsey serves as an Alternate on the Old Lyme Board of Finance, he's a member of the Sound View Beach Committee, he sits on the Board of Education’s Facilities Committee, and is Treasurer of the Phoebe-Noyes Library Board of Trustees.

And now he's taken on one more responsibility.  to serve as its new Chairman. Kelsey will succeed John Bysko, who is stepping down.

4. As small towns, Lyme, Old Lyme, and East Lyme depend heavily on the willingness and ability of local folks to step up and volunteer to serve on committees. Despite being the largest of the three, however, East Lyme has had no luck whatsoever in attracting volunteers to serve on the town's Economic Development Committee.

The volunteer committee serves in an advisory capacity, but it is mandated by the town's charter. It has not, however, met in several months because it lacks a quorum since a number of people who had served, and served well, for years have stepped down. At last night's meeting, East Lyme Board of Selectmen debated whether they should dissolve the committee entirely. In the end, they decided to take over its responsibilities for the time being at least.  

5. East Lyme Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing tonight on a request from Theodore A Harris, agent for JAG Capital Drive, LLC to rezone West Main Street/Capital Drive from light industrial to allow for a new development of 69 units of afforable housing. The developer is also seeking approval from the Zoning Commission for this new housing development. 

At the request of the developer, this public hearing has been postponed a number of times now but it is on agenda to be held at East Lyme Town Hall's main meeting room at 7:30 p.m. this evening.