Town buildings, facilities begin reopening

CHESHIRE — The activities of town government are starting to return to normal after more than two months of operating in a limited capacity or, in some cases, being closed entirely.

The long road back to normalcy began with a few baby steps Tuesday as the town’s dog park, skateboard park and municipal tennis courts next to the Youth Center all officially reopened. Town officials also announced plans for reopening of other facilities next week.

Town Hall will resume normal actvity starting

June 3, said Arnett Talbot, Cheshire’s public information officer.

Since March, municipal departments operating out of the building have been operating on essentially an appointment-only basis with some town employees working from home. Talbot said residents needing to do business with a particular municipal department have been coming to the main entrance of Town

Hall and using a phone outside the building to be let into the building.

Starting next week, Talbot said the building will be open 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., but with certain crowd control precautions. Visitors will be asked to register at the front door and indicate the department they want to visit so staff can monitor the number of people in the building and in each office.

Visitors may need to wait in the lobby for others to exit before they can go to an office, according to Talbot. The lobby will be limited to five people at a time, and individual offices will be limited to one or two

visitors at a time, depending on the office, she said.

Several other municipal buildings, including the Youth Center, the Fire Department, and the police station lobby will be open regular hours, but will be limiting the number of

visitors, according to Talbot.

Other town facilities will remain closed, she said. The Senior Center will not be open to the general public and a date for reopening the Cheshire library has not yet been determined, in part because of work being done on the facility’s roof and the replacement of its heating

and air-conditioning system.

The town’s Community Pool will remain closed, as well, also because of repairs.

An Indiana-based company, RenoSys, is replacing the pool’s liner at a cost of $144,000; once that is complete, it will take at least another two weeks before the pool can open, according

to Talbot.

The town’s Mixville Park was closed shortly before the Memorial Day weekend as Town Manager Sean Kimball and other officials work to develop a plan that will allow it to operate safely and not put town employees or visitors at risk.

Currently, the state’s coronavirus pandemic

rules do not allow swimming at freshwater beaches and Mixville Park is a popular swimming spot for those who don’t use the Community Pool. An additional factor in the closing of the park, Kimball said in a statement, was the state’s requirements for keeping public restrooms clean.

“We cannot realistically keep up with the stringent and constant sanitizing standards required to make them available per recent public health directives,” he said.

Kimball said he hopes to have a plan that will allow Mixville Park to reopen at some point in the coming weeks.