The Daily Five: Winter Storm Watch, Noise Ordinance, Trash-to-Energy, And The Vote Must Go On

1. The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Watch for our area starting tonight at 6 p.m. and continuing into Friday until 6 p.m. The forecast for today, however, doesn't seem all that dire.

Weather.com is predicting a cloudy, windy day, with a 70 percent chance of showers and a high temperature of 41 degrees. Precipitation is expected to begin this afternoon, starting with showers and turning to snow overnight, when temperatures drop to 32 degrees. That's when things could get ugly, with wind gusts of up to 50 mph and heavier snow. We could get four to six inches of snow overnight.

Check back with Patch later to find out about cancellations if the storm proves to be as big as predicted. 

2. East Lyme Board Of Selectmen meets tonight at 7:30 p.m. but the first order of business will be a public hearing at East Lyme Town Hall at 7 p.m. on a proposed new noise ordinance for East Lyme. You'll find the background and the ordinance posted on Patch. If you've got something to say about this, for or against, now's the time to make some noise!

3. Lyme First Selectman Ralph Eno spent much of the day yesterday in Hartford lobbying in favor of a bill that would set minimum energy prices for Connecticut trash-to-energy plants.

Why does he care? Because, like most local towns, Lyme sents its garbage not to a landfill but to a trash-to-energy plant where tipping fees are offset by the fact that these plants can sell the energy they produce. The proliferation of natural gas, however, has made it very difficult for these plants to sell the energy they produce at the rates they need to sustain their operations.

If these plants are forced to close, local towns will have to pay to truck their garbage to landfills in other states.

"That takes you back 20 years," said Eno.  

4. Local Registrars of Voters have been busy recently developing emergency preparedness plans for election day. The state is now requiring that every town have a plan in place for all contingencies: unruly crowds, natural disasters, fires, bomb threats, power outages, ballot shortages, malfunctioning voting machines, you name it.

In the event of an emergency, the vote must go on, so Registrars need to know how to safeguard ballots and voting machines, and have alternative polling sites ready to go if need be. Local registrars presented their plans to East Lyme and Old Lyme Boards of Selectmen recently and everything should be good to go.

5. Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, meanwhile, announced yesterday that she has been named a national co-chair of a task force of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) focusing on emergency preparedness for elections. Secretary Merrill will head the panel with Secretary of State Tom Schedler (R-Louisiana) that will focus on identifying laws and practices that enhance the ability of state election officials to prepare for, and respond to, emergency situations.  

“In Connecticut we lived through storm-related and man-made election emergencies in each of the last three years,” said Merrill. “We are eager to share what we learned, and study best practices in other states."