Chester, CT Debt Consolidation in Connecticut

The photography show at the St. Vincent DePaul Place soup kitchen is constantly changing - just like the visitors.

In a brazen attempt to "raise awareness" of their presence, ambulances in Oklahoma are now being equipped with some pretty serious sonic firepower to make sure they're heard over the music played in nearby ...

KISSING GAMES OF THE WORLD By Sandi Kahn Shelton Shaye Areheart, 400 pp., $23 TIME OF MY LIFE By Allison Winn Scotch Shaye Areheart, 304 pp., $23 THANK YOU FOR ALL THINGS By Sandra Kring Bantam, 448 ...

Eileen Daly staved off a determined challenger Tuesday to retain the 33rd District State Senate seat.

Democratic state Sen. Eileen Daily is fighting for her ninth term in the 33rd District seat, against Republican Vin Pacileo, a third-term Essex selectman.

On Nov. 16, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, Mass., will open an exhibition of Sol LeWitt wall drawings covering nearly a mile of walls in a 27,000-square-foot building.

Over the past several years the whisper of regionalization has grown to a shout.

Just 11 days before the November 2008 presidential election, a group of women gathered at the Chester Historical Society for a discussion about women in politics.

Jane Stueck, 80, of Essex died at home Sept. 22. She was the wife of the late James E. Byrne and Phillip J. Stueck.

For U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, politics was the main business of a campaign swing through town Monday to support state legislative candidates.

A nursing home and six assisted living centers in Maine operated by Eagle Landing Residential Care LLC, a Chester, Conn.-based company, have been placed in receivership by the state.

Nicknamed the "Dengler," in honor of Chester Hose Company member David Dengler, the new Ranger will be used for medical rescue, police operations, missing persons, and for special events such as the Chester ...

Lead captain John Marshall at the helm of the 60- year-old Selden III. Marshall says the length of the trip varies according to whether commuters or sight-seers are on board.

Food, fun and friends drew a large crowd to Haddam Neck Friday evening for the opening day of the 97th annual Haddam Neck Fair.

On Saturday, August 23, Goodspeed Musicals, the only two time Tony Award winning theatre in the country, will hold its Theatre Treasures Tag Sale in the lobby of The Norma Terris Theatre.

Jeanne Field Spallone of Sunset Hill and Deep River, Conn., died Tuesday, August 5, 2008 at Middlesex Hospital in Middletown, Conn.

The Broadway-bound two-actor Canadian musical, The Story of My Life, will be tested by Goodspeed Musicals this fall in a production starring Malcolm Gets and Will Chase.

The office of the A.A. Zanardi Paving and Excavating Co. at 23 E. Liberty St. was destroyed late Wednesday afternoon by a fire of undetermined origin.

The fire, in a former barn that the company converted to an office a decade ago, was reported at 5:15 p.m by a neighbor across the street. James Grzybowski, deputy chief of the Chester Hose Company, said the structure was fully involved 'with fire blowing through a hole in the front,' when firefighters arrived.

Grzybowski said Chester volunteers received mutual aid from firefighters from Deep River, Essex, Haddam, Killingworth, Old Saybrook and Middletown's South District fire departments. He said about 45 firefighters were on the scene for nearly three hours.

Region 4 Superintendent Kim Caron has received a contract extension and a 5 percent salary increase after winning high marks in a recent evaluation. Caron, 53, assumed the district's top job in August 2006 after working as a director of special education and assistant superintendent at the Norwich Free Academy, a public high school that serves students from Norwich and several surrounding towns. Terry Stewart, chairman of both the Region 4 Board of Education and the Supervision District Committee, said Caron's performance over the past two years was reviewed last month by each of the district's four school boards, including the Region 4 board and the school boards of Chester, Deep River and Essex. After the evaluation, which also included a self-evaluation by Caron, details of the contract were negotiated by the four board chairmen. 'The boards of education are extremely pleased with the direction and program Kim Caron has made with our schools since his arrival,' Stewart said. 'He is very committed to our region.' Stewart said each of the four school boards unanimously approved a one-year extension, through June 30, 2011, of the initial contract negotiated in 2006. Caron's 5 percent raise brings his annual pay to $159,000 in the current budget year. Caron also receives an increase in his tax-free retirement annuity, from $5,000 to $11,000, and a $500 increase in his mileage allowance. Stewart said the boards wanted to keep Caron's compensation package competitive with the that of superintendents in other regional school districts, particularly because the governance structure in Region 4 is one of the most complicated in the state. Along with the Region 4 board that supervises the operation of Valley Regional High School and John Winthrop Middle schools, there are three local boards supervising the elementary schools in each town, and a supervision district Committee that governs shared services for all of the schools. Stewart said changing the governance structure to a unified K-12 regional school district is one of Caron's goals during the coming years. The process for the change includes a one-year study and report to the state Department of Education followed by required referendum approval in each of the three towns. Stewart said board members were also impressed with Caron's efforts to increase coordination and cohesiveness in the K-12 curriculum across the schools, improvements to the district's financial accounting and budget preparation process, and his role in assembling a new leadership team that includes an assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, a new finance manager, and new principals at the high school and Chester Elementary School. Stewart added that Caron had indicated during the evaluation and negotiations that he hopes to continue serving Region 4 for the next three years.

River Rep Theatre Company, the New York City-based professional Equity troupe that brought live, award-winning productions to the lower Connecticut River region for almost 20 years, will no longer be producing ...