More 9/11 Coverage, Town Meeting and Budget Referendum, Inland and Wetlands

Avon Patch caught up with Heather Toyen, Roaring Brook School guidance counselor and the sister of Amy Toyen, yesterday. Amy was in New York on business on 9/11 and died in the tragedy. There is a sculpture of her as a child outside the Avon Free Public Library and we filmed an interview with Heather sitting on the bench next to her. 

At the time of the tragedy, Amy was living in Newton, MA and engaged to Jeffrey Gonski. He has since married and has a son. In order for his son to learn about Amy, 9/11 and his father, Gonski is doing a multimedia project, featuring his photography and video blogs on the tragedy, how he has coped the past 10 year and how he is achieving a new normal. He takes a lot of the photographs with old film that Amy's father, Martin Toyen gave to him. Readers can also write in questions and comments to him. The project is called The View from Ten. 

My father was in at Ground Zero on 9/11, but he luckily was not in either Twin Tower because he did not smoke. Read more in my column about his experience.

The annual town meeting was Monday night, but only a few members in the audience were residents who are not town employees or town board members. The Town Council and Board of Education presented the final budget that will be on the referendum ballot.  The referendum will go from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Avon Senior Center on May 11.

The Inland and Wetlands Commission will meet Tuesday night at 7 p.m. Blue Fox Run Golf Course LLC is looking to install a "riprap spillway" for pond maintenance and to "dredge a portion of the existing pond" to restore its size, according to the agenda.