BRANFORD, CT — The Academy on the Green Commission meets at noon Friday, Oct. 9, to take up repairs to the historic building on the Branford Green, a garden club's idea for a pollinator garden on its grounds and a Halloween tour that will pass by it.
The town calendar lists the special meeting for Friday. The agenda, filed with the town clerk Thursday, gives the Academy on the Green as the place.
Academy on the Green Commission
Commissioners will hear where the building's repairs stand: the windows, graffiti removal, a threshold, the outside lights, painting and upkeep, and restoring the bell and returning it to the tower. On Aug. 21, the agenda says, Chair Donald Gentile asked First Selectman Josh Brooks for an update on the work, the window project most of all, including its scope, who would do it, the decisions still open and a timeline.
The Branford Garden Club has proposed a garden of native plants for pollinators on the Academy grounds, which the agenda places for now "somewhere between the Academy and the flagpole." As the club described it to Gentile, its master gardeners would help, the club and its youth committee would keep it up, and the Federated Garden Clubs of Connecticut would pay for it. Gentile has asked for a written plan first, the agenda says, covering the garden's size and site, a sketch, the plants, who maintains it, the money and a promise that it would cost the Academy nothing. The commission is to decide its next steps.
Parks and Recreation had floated using the inside of the Academy for a Halloween tour. Organizers wrote Sept. 29 that they would not use the interior this year, according to the agenda. The tour, town history mixed with folklore and told by costumed actors carrying lanterns, will instead point out the Academy as walkers pass it on the way into the cemetery. Organizers said the building could have a bigger part in future years if the tour goes well.
The commission will also review the minutes of its May 27 special meeting and a treasurer's report.