Capital Improvement Projects Greenwich Style

Even though the confetti has barely been swept up from this week's New Year's holiday, Greenwich officials already are wading through a a binder-full of Capital Improvement Program (CIP) requests for 2012-13.

At the first Board of Selectmen meeting of 2012 held at Town Hall Thursday, First Selectman Peter Tesei said a 12-member CIP committee is reviewing $56 million in requests submitted by the town and Board of Education. "The CIP committee has to prioritize all of the requests. The BET (Board of Estimate and Taxation) has set its debt policy with a limit of $210 million. There is approximately $47 million available to cover all capital requests including MISA (the Greenwich High School Music Instruction Space and Auditorium project)," Tesei said. "We have $56 million in requests. We are looking at the necessity of the requests."

Tesei said the committee met for the first time on Jan. 4 and will continue their review at 3:30 p.m., Jan. 11, in the Evaristo Room of Town Hall.

"The items have been categorized as maintenance, new initiatives and upgrades," said Tesei, who did not identify specific project requests. But among the projects to receive continued funding will be MISA, maintenance and upgrading of town and school buildings.

The committee will rank the requests according to necessity and be part of Tesei's proposed budget plan that's due by the end of January.

The CIP committee is comprised of 7 voting members — Tesei; School Superintendent Roger Lulow; Public Works Commissioner Amy Siebert; Parks and Recreation Director Joseph Siciliano; Comptroller Peter Mynarski; Town Planner Diane Fox and Planning and Zoning Commission Chairman Donald Heller.

Non-voting members include BET Chairman Michael Mason; Josh Brown and Erf Porter of the Representative Town Meeting, and Leslie Moriarty and Steve Anderson for the Board of Education.