Northwest Hills Council of Governments
2/12/26, 10 AM
Present via Zoom: Board Chair Dan Jerram, Vice Chair Michael Criss, Secretary Patrick Roy, and Treasurer Tom Weik, Town Leaders: Greg LaCava, Molly Spino, Henry Tirrell, Todd Arcelaschi, Denise Raap, Meaghan Cook, David Barger, Magi Winslow, Eric Epstein, Jim Brinton, Doug Thompson, Curtis Rand, Paul Harrington, and Katherine Kiefer
The Northwest Hills Council of Governments (NHCOG) has been working on a program to showcase the best of the business centers of the 21 municipalities in the area for the past 18 months. The council voted at their Feb. 12 meeting on three items to move the program forward, but questions among municipal representatives about the program’s efficiency remain.
The items included entering a contract with Connecticut Main Street Center, a statewide nonprofit that aims to develop vibrant downtowns, for $25,000 from NHCOG’s budget to be used on workshops that could help municipalities build a vision for what they want their downtown to be. The sole representative to vote against this item was Town of Burlington First Selectman Thompson.
The council also approved an expenditure of $35,900 to create an inventory of every main street in each of the 21 municipalities, detailing information on properties, parcels, local amenities, and business information. NHCOG Director of Community and Economic Development Rista Malanca said the inventories would help customers and business owners alike. It could also help municipalities identify opportunities for new development, she added.
The only representative to vote no on this item was Criss, the First Selectman of the Town of Harwinton.
The last item of the three was approving an expenditure of $3,500 to create marketing content that advertises the best of main streets across the Northwest Hills. The $3,500 would go toward creating relationships with influencers and local artists to highlight the 21 municipalities.
The contract would go toward Alyssa Archambault, a local social media expert who would meet with business owners across the Northwest Hills and take photos, create videos for social media, and collaborate on that content creation with Norwich-based marketing agency Miranda Creative. This item was unanimously approved by the board.
“She’s been working with Miranda Creative to really direct what that work will be,” Malanca said. “Because it’s a continuing contract, it was very short term. We would like board approval to go into a recurring contract. What we’ve done right now is we’ve limited the contract terms through June 30, with up to $3,500 dedicated toward this.”
The funds for these items come from NHCOG’s budget: The $25,000 to be used on the creation of the workshops is from a pile allocated toward matching a Regional Performance Incentive Program (RPIP) grant. The grant is part of a state program administered by the Office of Policy and Management that incentivizes municipalities to collaborate on shared services. It aims to create efficiencies, lower local tax burdens, and improve public services through regional cooperation among councils of governments and regional educational service centers.
The $35,900 expenditure for main street inventories across NHCOG municipalities will be covered by a $41,000 allocation in NHCOG’s budget meant to go toward housing programming. That programming fund is part of an overall $100,000 housing fund in the organization’s budget. The $3,500 for the contract with Archambault also comes from the $100,000 housing fund.
These expenditures will help further NHCOG’s PROMISE Program, which stands for Partnership to Revitalize Our Main Streets with Integrated Solutions and Efforts.
“NHCOG’s promise to the municipalities it serves to provide, coordinate, and sustain the resources necessary to help towns maintain healthy, vibrant, and economically resilient main streets and village centers,” according to the program’s description found in the NHCOG meeting agenda for Feb. 12.
While the three items were approved by the council, some municipal representatives cast doubts on the value of some of the expenditures. For instance, Thompson said Burlington has already gone through some of the workshop process and noted that he would prefer seeing those $25,000 used to aid municipalities directly.
“I would be hesitant right now to move forward and spend $25,000 for more workshops. Unless we examine: Can that $25,000 be allocated in some way directly to the communities, rather than having it absorbed by consultants?” Thompson said. “It almost seems like we’re just creating more check the box programs and not having things that are trickling down and benefiting our community.”
Malanca and NHCOG Executive Director Robert Phillips noted that the funds that will be used for the workshops were meant to go to a grant that can help build capacity. Malanca said that the workshops would accomplish building some of that support across NHCOG municipalities.
“You do need a working group. You do need a group of people who are committed to making this happen, and are driving the direction in which your community is growing or changing,” Malanca said. “We’re just here to support the implementation of that.”
Applying for the RPIP grant, Malanca said, seems far away. But spending on building the workshops with an organization like the Connecticut Main Street Center, Malanca continued, would help establish a clear vision and goals that could in turn yield grant funding to beautify business centers across the Northwest Hills. Connecticut Main Street Center, she added, knows and has worked with some of the municipalities represented in the NHCOG.
“I don’t think we need to apply for the [RPIP] grant yet,” Malanca said. “I think we can make some huge leaps forward by using the money directly on the workshops.”
