TORRINGTON: Wow, that just happened and boy am I proud of this community.
By an overwhelming margin, the Torrington High School/Middle School Building Project was approved at referendum and the students of our fine city are the true winners.
An effort that first began nearly three years ago and was only brought to the public in a big way two months ago when a magnificent PAC was formed, has passed.
Get ready, future students who will call the campus of Torrington High School/Middle School home, it’s happening.
Two months of word of mouth, phone calls, door to door efforts, mailers, rallies, Zoom forums, radio ads and an unrelenting power of positive has led us to this momentous point in history.
I go back to wow. Referendums are really hard to pass on the first try, in a pandemic no less.
I cannot praise the forward-thinking folks here in Torrington for putting our kids first.
For a guy who makes his living with words, it’s actually pretty hard to come up with enough great ones to describe the joy I feel.
One of the co-chairs of the building committee, Mario Longobucco, shares my surprise but also the joy related to it.
“I’m very happy and certainly a bit surprised but must of all thankful that the vast majority of the voters shared our vision for the future of the kids in Torrington.” Longobucco said. “All the credit in the world has to go to the PAC for their unbelievable work to promote the concept. I’m just so impressed with their efforts. There’s a lot of work ahead of us but the building committee is going to do everything humanly possible to deliver a quality building to the city and the Board of Education. This is a big moment for the city”
Here are the numbers from in person voting today. A win at every polling location.
City Hall 1: 284-156
City Hall 2: 178-110
Armory: 2396-1548
Torringford 4: 127-92
Torringford 5: 867- 500
Coe Park District 2: 647-559
Coe Park District 3 126-74
TMS 1983-1120
Totals in person: 6608-4159 (That’s a 61.3 winning percentage for those scoring at home.) Talk about bringing home the win in a big way!
Mail in and absentee ballots were being counted at the time I wrote this but the numbers but the huge in person vote put us over the top.
What’s next?
Here is the timeline.
Design and Permitting Phase: 1/2021-2/2022.
New Building Construction: 3/2022-8/2024
Occupy New Building: 9/2024.
Where’s my shovel? I’m ready to help.