The Editor's Notepod, Wed., June 17, 2009

Meriden: Everyone can understand the State Health Department rules on fresh produce and why it rules out vegetables and fruits grown in the back yard. At the same time, everyone can be impatient with such a rule. Yes, the idea is that food bought from stores is regulated, home produce isn’t . . . but the rule entirely ignores the fact that people get sick quite regularly from eating items sold at stores large and small, not through any particular negligence or evil intent but through some glitch along the supply route — an un-cleaned blade in a slicer for instance. What’s more, fruit and vegetables bought at the store, much of which has been transported thousands of miles and carted around by many different people in different countries, can’t really be effectively “washed” with a little cold water.

Wallingford: while one can be happy for the plaintiffs out at Mountain Brook, who, according to the one paragraph decision can apparently keep their “not on the original site plan” play sets, it sounds like a bad decision or bad paperwork somewhere. If the court is not going to uphold municipal rules, however much they might grieve owners, it should say why it is doing so.

Wallingford: Mayor’s letter on budget says no layoffs but that jobs won’t be filled. Negotiations still on-going and tangled, with new contracts on the table simultaneously with budget talks. This is a heck of a way to have to run a municipality.

Southington: PZC okays excavation for new library parking, a project in the works for many months, and has dovetailed it with BJ construction, whence the dirt will be taken and used, thank you very much!

Meriden: Purchase by the city of a long strip of land along Hanover Road. Undevelopable? Sounds as if the priorities need to be clarified a little. From the GIS it looks like a strip a couple of hundred feet long and about 10 feet wide between the road and the pond. It’s something that should be owned just to prevent any sort of weird development.