25 Years Ago: In response to a request by the Durham Planning and Zoning Commission to design a planned residential community for the former Page property to preserve the architectural integrity of the area, a local developer presented his preliminary plans to the commission.

25 Years Ago: An East Haddam resident was chosen for inclusion in the 1986 edition of Outstanding Young Men of America by the group's awards program Board of Advisers. Donald Richard Hirth, of River Road, was to be represented by a biographical entry in the annual awards publication.

25 Years Ago: The second-year implementation of a wage and salary study and the proposed addition of a new personnel in the Old Saybrook Department of Police Services helped to boost the following year’s budget requests by general government agencies 18 1/2 percent.
25 Years Ago: The Durham Rod and Gun Club was a family-oriented sports organization that held an open house at the Durham Firehouse to attract members.

25 Years Ago: Middlefield First Selectman James R. Blois prohibited the town constables from using the town police cruiser for private duty and ordered the cars garaged on town property as opposed to being driven to and from work by constables.
25 Years Ago: Tara Turchetti, a 9-year-old who fell through the ice at Oxford Academy in Westbrook and was underwater for close to 15 minutes, walked on her own for the time since the accident, officials said following her recovery.

25 Years Ago: The Old Saybrook Board of Education decided against the complete reopening of the former junior high school and adopted a proposed $7.87 million operating budget. An additional $470,072 in capital improvements and equipment also received endorsement from the panel.

25 Years Ago: The cause of a barn fire that took Old Saybrook firefighters four hours to extinguish was still under investigation. A minor injury was reported.

25 Years Ago: Residents of Country Squire Condominiums in Cromwell went to the Board of Tax Review with 58 speakers who filed requests for reduction in their assessments because the town no longer plowed and maintained the private road off Route 72 that led to the 112 units.
25 Years Ago: A Middletown motorist suffered injuries when his car went out of control and rolled over on Johnson Lane near Maiden Lane in Durham. Joseph Munno, 20, of 41 Spring St., was westbound on Johnson Lane when he lost control on a curve and his car skidded to the right, state police said.

25 Yeasr Ago: An additional $24,000 appropriation request for the Essex highway department’s 1986-87 budget went before the Board of Finance and a town meeting for approvals.

25 Years Ago: A costly cleanup continued at Haddam-Killingworth High School 10 days after the 5,000- gallon oil spill.

25 Years Ago: The Killingworth Planning and Zoning Commission granted a developer’s request for an extension of the legal deadline for decision on the proposed 14-lot Stonehill Acres III subdivision.

25 Years Ago: Amtrak, the National Rail Passenger Corp., needed training in public relations and marketing, according to an Old Saybrook resident, who wanted to see more trains running on the northeast corridor between Boston and New York.

25 Years Ago: Clinton Eliot School students returned from vacation today in the wake of two tragedies. Eighth grader Jeffery Guidi was killed when a state police cruiser on call crashed into a station wagon carrying Guidi, his two sisters and two other Morgan School students on Route 17 in Durham.

25 Years Ago: A late-night discussion by the Old Saybrook Board of Education produced a five-member consensus that called for the reopening of the former Junior High School.

25 Years Ago: A two-year-old lawsuit filed by a trash hauler against Old Saybrook was settled out of court when the Board of Finance agreed in special session to pay $9,850 to the plaintiff, Bonnie Lynn Coates.

25 Years Ago: The Durham curriculum committee recommended the Board of Education to the total regionalization of District 13 schools. The regionalization of pre-kindergarten through second grades was seen as the only viable solution to overcrowding.

25 Years Ago: Some residents of Essex rallied together to save a copper beech tree at the corner of Westbrook Road and Main Street.
25 Years Ago: Haddam firefighters were shocked and saddened by the sudden death of Fire Department President John Bertolini soon after he left the scene of a structure fire on Route 157.

25 Years Ago: Cromwell’s grand list made an historic leap, rising 11.6 percent. The $23,118,153 additional in assessments beat the 1985 by $4.7 million.


25 Years Ago: Durham residents were still talking about a three-car accident that claimed the life of a 14-year-old Clinton boy and injured five other people in front of Cumberland Farms Convenience Store on Route 17.

25 Years Ago: About 90 maintenance workers and service workers and a dozen registered nurses at Harbor Crossing Skilled Nursing Care Facility in Old Saybrook anticipated voting on whether to strike the nursing home over alleged unfair labor practices by its owner, Albert Lizzi.
25 Years Ago: An agreement to purchase the 28-acre Mazzotta property on the south end of Main Street in Cromwell for $1.3 million was filed with the town clerk’s office. Mark Gerity and Vincent Stella, of Hartford and Robert Ciccone, of Glastonbury, wanted to put in a combination of homes and businesses.

25 Years Ago: In Deep River, the Supervision District Board of Education unanimously approved the Regional School District 4 Administrators’ Association contract and a change in the superintendent of schools’ contract. The request for the one-year contract for administrators was an 8½ percent pay hike, but five vacation days were brought back, which added another 1.2 percent to their salaries, bringing the total to 9.7 percent.
25 Years Ago: The Regional District 17 Board of Education and the Haddam-Killingworth Education Association approved a two-year teacher contract that ties 15 percent annual salary increases to increases in the length of the school day and year.

25 Years Ago: The Regional District 17 Board of Education reached a tentative agreement with the Haddam-Killingworth Education Association on a new teacher contract. The basic outline of the two-year contract agreement was concluded by negotiators for the board and education association at mediation session with a professional mediator.
25 Years Ago: An additional $10,000 was added to the Clinton Economic Development Commission’s 1987-88 budget request for the purpose of hiring a professional to search out and prepare state grant applications for town projects.

25 Years Ago: Peter Walsh’s proposal to convert an old house on Main Street into professional offices won the Essex Zoning Commission’s approval. This was Walsh’s third attempt to convert the house, once owned by deceased resident Emma Pratt, into a commercial use; the other two were rejected by the commission.
25 Years Ago: The Cromwell Fire District Board of Commissioners signed a contract with a Rocky Hill firm to lay a pipe and install a meter pit to enable the interconnection of the Cromwell and Berlin water systems.

25 Years Ago:For the second time, vandals struck Lyman Orchards Apple Barrel in Middlefield, causing much more extensive damage than the first time. Vandals spray-painted every window of the Apple Barrel Retail Store, broke lights in the parking lot and ripped up signs.
25 Years Ago: Edward R. Gomeau, a then- resident of Attawanhood Trail and administrative manager of Weston, was named by the Old Saybrook Board of Selectmen to the Board of Finance to fill out the unexpired term of the late Elliot F. Sparace. He was the second Democratic member on the board; the other was Donald Chapman, chairman of the town’s Democratic Town Committee.

25 Years Ago: K Mart security nabbed one suspect following a shoplifting incident in Cromwell, but the second woman got away driving a car that belonged to her companion. Police said both suspects, from Southington, were shoplifting clothing.
25 Years Ago: The Killingworth Planning and Zoning Commission questioned an unapproved split of property as it considers a proposed 13-lot subdivision of a 45½ - acre parcel on Chestnut Hill Road.

25 Years Ago: The users of the Durham Center Water Co. were delighted with the preliminary decision rendered jointly by the state Department of Public Utility Control and the state Department of Health.
25 Years Ago: Cromwell residents at a town meeting were asked to double the appropriation for legal fees, based on the expenses involved in two appeals of lower court rulings. First Selectwoman Mary Amenta said another $20,000 was needed from surplus for the remainder of the fiscal year.