Torrington City Council
9/8/26 6:30 p.m.
Present: Mayor Molly Spino. City Councilmen David Oliver, Paul Cavagnero, Anne Ruwet, Armand Maniccia, Rachel Hannon-Harrel, and Chris Beyus.
The City Council and Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA) began their joint regular meeting by hearing from Darlene Battle, the City’s Republican Registrar of Voters. She said the staff at the Torrington Office of the Registrar of Voters anticipates a busy election season this fall.
The Aug. 11 primary elections and the lead up to them meant busy work weeks, Battle told the Council. The office staff is made up of Battle, Democratic Registrar of Voters Jacque Williams, and two deputies. “We worked almost like 60 hours (a week) during that time,” she said.
Some of the added work included additional programming of computers, tabulators, and integrated voting systems machines or IVS. These machines are ballot marking devices that facilitate voting for voters with restricted mobility, limited fine motor skills, and low vision or blindness, Battle said.
Battle said there are two weeks of early voting coming up before the General Election in addition to Election Day on Nov. 3. “I am here to request that those hours could be extended during election time,” Battle said. “We really need to extend the hours. It was a lot of work, and this is going to be 10 times as worse.”
Currently, the Registrars are covered by the City’s management resolution, Spino pointed out later in the meeting when Councilors discussed Registrar’s Office staffing. Ultimately, the Council took no action related to the matter. “So that limits them to a max of 20 hours per week that they can work, but they also receive a stipend for the election work that they do, an additional $147 stipend, which is what they had always received in the past,” Spino said. “It's nothing new.”
Cavagnero asked Spino to clarify the loss of a Registrar’s Clerk position and whether that has left the office understaffed.
“We did restructuring of that office, which removed that position because after looking at different towns such as Cheshire and Danbury, their elected Registrars actually do the work of the Registrars per state statute, whereas in the past, our Registrars were not doing that work,” Spino said. “It was left upon the Clerk that we had in that office…which is not how it's supposed to be done by state statute,” Spino said. “So, we restructured that office and now the Registrars, the elected Registrars, actually do their job that they're required to do by state statute. There’s no longer a Clerk that’s in there 40 hours a week,” she said.
Spino said Registrars who have held the office in the past “never came into the office.” They had received a stipend of around $6,600, Spino added, and now their yearly salary amounts to $26,000.
“Now we've got people who have responsibilities, and they're going to be held accountable,” Spino said. So, they get paid an hourly rate for 20 hours a week in order to come and do their job.”
Cavagnero said, “What’s bubbling up to me is that 20 hours a week is not nearly enough time to do the job as required.”
“It is, with the exception of election time,” Spino said.
Cavagnero said, “So we’re going forward that the system is in place, it’s there. These people signed on for the job, and they’re going to just need to do the work.”
Spino said, “Yes. They’re elected officials. They’re not employees.”
Also at the meeting, the Council approved an agreement that would allow the Town of Harwinton to use Torrington’s Water Resource Recovery Facility (WRRF) for the transmission, disposal, and treatment of Harwinton’s wastewater. The Town would use Torrington’s plant to process wastewater for 304 homes, according to the agreement. Ruwet moved to allow the pact, Oliver seconded it, and the vote was unanimous in agreement.
The meeting adjourned at 7:05 p.m. on a unanimous vote after a motion by Oliver and a second by Cavagnero. The Council also was scheduled to meet on Oct. 5 starting at 6:30 p.m.
