No one will be more affected by this project then my family

I currently live at 45 pearl street in Noank and I run Carson's Store at located at 43 Main Street. I also own Palmer's Provisions and pizza located at 17 pearl street. My mother and father own the building Carson's is located in 43 Main Street. They also own 45 Main Street where my sister currently lives and 51 Main Street where I grew up and they currently live. My father and his brother Jeff blacker own a company called Blacker Brothers llc that owns the multi family home located at 37/39 Main Street.

My brother Kevin and his wife Karlie were married last fall at the Latham Chester Store and town dock at the foot of Main Street. They lived above the Latham Chester store for years before purchasing renovating and moving into 11 Church street. My brother Kevin and my father own a landscaping company called blacker landscaping LLC that handles lawn care and snow removal that serves most of the village of Noank.

Growing up my mom was a teacher in Ledyard and a Sunday school teacher, at the Noank Baptist church. My father puts up the park Christmas tree every year, he started the Christmas Eve luminary, and walked all the town school children to school at Noank School for 15 years when it was located at the top of the hill. Carson's has sponsored the 4th of July concert in the park for my entire life. My father was on the zoning board and is president of the Noank cemetery and used to be part of the fire department.

Carson's is one of the last remaining institutions in Noank after losing Ford's this winter.

My reason for telling you all of this is that the project you are about to undertake will affect my life and my families lives more than any one else in town. I have lived in the village for 32 of my 33 years and plan to spend the rest of my life here running Carson's and Palmer's.

Over the past couple years Noank has gotten more and more recognition. I think that has happened in part from our proximity to Mystic and I-95 but also from exposure. The history channel filmed an episode of American Pickers with me at Carson's that aired in 2020 called "the lost tapes part 2". We also had hallmark film a movie called "Sand Dollar Cove" a few years ago that was filmed mainly in the village and specifically in Carsons.

One of the things that makes Noank so special is that it is mixed use. There is a nice balance of residential and businesses mixed together. Noank was built around the Palmer's shipyard which at its peak was the largest wooden boat building yard between Boston and New York City.It employed 600 skilled workers and many of the houses were built to accommodate the workers. It was a self sufficient seaport town with 4 churches, grocery stores, a train stop, a coal yard, a fishing fleet and many other businesses. Groton has done studies and all the recommendations say people want mixed use. Mixed use is hard to recreate, people want natural organic mixed use not planned new mixed used. As time has gone on more and more businesses have been forced out of Noank and not many remain but it is so important to remember that the village was not a residential housing development. It wasn't until 1954 when zoning was created that the push towards making the area predominately residential happened. Once the businesses are gone it will be hard to get them back and it will change the character of the village. it is my life goal to make sure that doesn't happen.

Below I will outline what I would like to see from this project.

1. Protecting on street parking, we do not have parking lot. we do a lot of take out business and access to ample parking for customers to get in and out quickly is so important. A big factor in deciding to open Palmer's was the need for parking for Carson's. If we have 6 employees and they work an 8 hour shift and park on Main Street and our average customer stays 30 minutes those employees alone could take up 96 potential customer parking spaces per day. Losing even one spot on Main Street would affect us for years to come.

2. As you know the majority of the village is on the national register of historic buildings. Keeping the village as traditional and aesthetically appealing as possible is very important. We are a traditional New England seaside fishing and boat building village. We have strict zoning to preserve the character of our village. Please keep in mind that anything modern will look out of place. If given the option we would gladly pay to upgrade any curbing to granite verse asphalt.

3. Please keep in mind the blending of the sidewalk in front of Carson's. Hundreds of people a day walk up over the curb to enter and exit, any tripping hazards we can avoid and keeping sewer grates and drains out of high foot traffic areas is important.

4. Keeping the character. In front of Carson's is one of 4 Antique fire hydrants that are no longer working. They served the Palmer Shipyard located where Noank Shipyard now sits. Please do not remove these. They help tell the story of our village past. the building my pizza shop is located in was the Palmers Shipyard store, the house at the top of snake hill aka Palmer quart was the Deacon Palmers house, the white greek revival mansion on church street was the Palmers in and was a gift to the Deacons son for a wedding gift in 1907 the same year Carson's opened. Palmers cove can still be seen on maps and the reason the railroad tracks came to Noank was due to the influence of the Palmer Family who wanted to be able to get workers and visitors to to the Palmer Shipyard. Please come visit Palmers Provision's and Pizza and let me tell you about that history. I recently got a beautiful map of what the old shipyard looked like from the Mystic Seaport and it now hangs at 17 pearl street. The hydrant in front of Carson's fits with the old fashion aesthetic of the store we have worked diligently to preserve, please leave that and try to imagine how good Main Street would look with that but not the power lines.

5. Please add more parking spaces at the town dock near the town pump and Latham Chester Store. we have very short on parking and the grass area is under utilized and the high granite curbs make it hard for cars to park. the town dock is regularly full in the summer. Also please don't remove the pump. if anything restore it, when I was little it was still there.

6. Consider public restrooms somewhere like the town dock. currently noank has no public restroom and Carson's and Palmer's have for years helped fill the need. Besides a seasonal port-a-potty located at the town dock there are no other public facilities for miles around. I have been trying for a few years to get the sate to add Noank Village historic district to their highway attraction signs and one of the requirements is there needs to be public bathrooms, just a thought.

8. If there was only one request on my list that I could convince you to undertake it would be burying the power lines, from the park to the front of Palmer's. This is the only chance in my life time that this will ever possibly be able to happen. If it doesn't happen I will have to look at the results of it every day for the rest of my life. Keeping the village commercial district intact is so important and Carson's is the heart of the village. Directly in front of Carson's is a huge ugly telephone pole and transformer and its in every photograph and picture ever painted of the store which is 1000's. Aesthetically removing this and putting the lines under ground would be stunning. It would make Carson's and Noank look so much more authentic. The village is already like living in a real life movie set, but this would really be a game changer. The project it already going to be expensive, at least at the end of the project if we could look around and say wow this really looks beautiful, they made some really nice improvements, we can feel like it was money well spent.

I am not asking for this for personal gain. I am willing to contribute any amount of money necessary to make this feasible and think containing it to the village commercial district would limit the expense to a more reasonable amount.

My family pays property tax on 5 properties ($30k+ annually)in the village and has for 30 plus years. We pay sales tax on 3 businesses (1 of those is over $40k+ annually) and income tax one 6 individuals. We also pay Eversource about 10 different electric bills both Carson's and Palmer's regularly exceed $1000 a month in the summer. Think about the total amount of taxes we have personally contributed just in my life alone. I plan to work another 30 years here at least so I would be willing to say that amount will more then double. We employ about a dozen people year round and also pay payroll taxes, etc. and we maintain all the sidewalks during snow storms free of charge, we plow the fire house, and the water company and when people need something we are who they call. Having Carson's and Palmer's are amenities to residents who would otherwise have to leave town for meals, we provide services to all the local marinas customers making Noank more appealing to stay and keep a boat, and we increase local property values, because having a spacial place like Carson's makes the neighborhood special. The history channel saw it and so did hallmark. Admiral Bull Halsey the last 5 star admiral in the US navy which took an act of congress to appoint sailed all over the globe and when he retired he chose Noank, if that doesn't scream special I don't know what does. Look at many local house listings and you will find mention of Carson's and local lobster shacks as a main selling point to why you would want to live here.

I have previously contacted Eversource about what it would take to get the wires buried, I know it would be more costly, I'm begging you to please present an initial option with the wire buried from the park to palmers. the village commercial district. tom Veronica was in charge of protons engineering then it was Steve mc Gowan, then Nathan hall, I most recently spoke to Jason Dojay who said he was taking over for Nathan. Its hard to describe in this email but the wires shift across Main Street from the utility pole in front of Carson's across the intersection to the opposite side of the street on the corner of pearl. due to the weight of the wire pulling towards the street, a guide anchor pole had to be placed 65 feet into our property at 37/39 Main Street in the back yard and support cables run from the pole in front of Carson's in-between 37/39 and 43 Main Street, burying the wires would help eliminate these wires and make it so much nicer looking. The pole is located where it is because of this guide pole and it can't move because there is little room between the buildings.

Besides the aesthetics we are located very close to The Atlantic Ocean and 50 feet above sea level leading to regular strong winds. We long over due for a major hurricane like the one that hit in 1938. if your are unfamiliar read the books "Sudden Sea" or "A Wind that Shook the World". When Sandy and Irene hit the town lost its grocery store and we ran Carson's on a generator for 6 days and it was big service to the community. Another will hit in my life time and when it does, buried utilities with seem very foresightful. If you look around town you can find examples of it already starting.

When down town Mystic streetscape they did it for their commercial district, Riverview avenue in Noank by Fords has done it (Halsey family paid to have it done, we have done it to 45 and 51 Main Street.)

Other things to consider, the giant chestnut tree on pearl street is going to come down some time soon and when it does it will wipe out Pearl Street's power for days. Something else to consider, in order to utilize the upper floors of 17 pearl street parking will need to be solved and in the future there is a very good chance some of the surrounding smaller buildings may need to be moved to reconfigure parking, if we don't seize the oppurtunity to get the lines under ground now it may make that work much more costly and more difficult to accomplish in the future.

9. Please consider the prospect of future gas lines before undertaking this project. Drive up West Mystic avenue if you want a lesson in what not to do. You can clearly see what houses have gas by the trench leading up to each one and the uneven backfilling job done afterwards. Poor planning led to a new road being cut open and patched back together for the benefit of a private company and it has been years that residents have had to deal with the uneven road. If Noank is going to get gas line which I don't support please make sure it is done now and not after we get a new road. We don't want a patch job after the fact and years of dealing with the affects.

10. I would like to offer both Carson's and Palmer's as a warm space with bathrooms space/ food/ and office areas and parking lot if you need a headquarters or a place in close proximity or a staging area for a trailer. I also don't think you could find a better public liaison to help spread the word about the project and keep public opinion on your side. I am currently working on a website about Noank called noankct.com and Carson's is where many people go to get their updates about what's happening in town. I have an email customer list of more than 5000 customers we can reach directly. I am willing to do anything I can to make this project run smoothly. Both Carson's and Palmer's will feel financial impacts and business disruptions from this work. I am not here to complain or make your life any harder. I want to be on your team because I love Noank. It is my home and it's where my children are growing up and where I plan to spend my life. I am asking from the bottom of my heart to please consider the issues I have mentioned and please help me get the utilities underground. I've waited ten years for this opportunity and will never have the chance again in this life time. The decisions you make today I will literally look at and live with for the rest of my life. Noank is a Gem to the town of Groton. I will spend my life making it a place people want to be. Look at how many other businesses fail in the village. I'm willing to contribute to the project financially and do anything I can to convince the public of the benefits this would have. I thank you so much for taking the time to read this and I sincerely hope you will reach out to me to meet, talk, let me show you everything I've mentioned in person. I would very much like to meet with you and Eversource soon while still in the planning phase to see if we could make this work.

Noank is a special place. PLEASE include buried utilities in the initial proposal for the village commercial district. We are talking about 8-10 utility poles with us willing to contribute financially and dig our own trenches at each property we own (we have a mini excavator, a skid steer, a backhoe, dump truck, and laborers, conveyor belts etc. It will be much harder to add to the project after at an additional cost, and it will be harder to convince the public of more expense. If burying the utilities is proposed initially I can convince the public of its value. If it has to be cut back later at least I will know we gave it our best shot to make it happen.

I truly appreciate your time. If you have any questions or would like to meet please don't hesitate to contact me via text, call or email

my number is 8604605544

my email is palmersprovisions@gamil.com and I can be found in person at either Carson's or Palmer's every day.

All the best,

Andrew Blacker