Waterford’s Newest Business; Coyote Sightings Galore

This week, we had the regular slew of local government stories that is the bread-and-butter of most local newspapers. Yet, perhaps to the surprise of few, those stories were far less popular than other articles about people, crime and - yes - coyotes and groundhogs.

One of the most popular stories this week was . The store’s owner, Lacey Arndt, has always longed to start her own business, and now she has one, a consignment shop in the Wynding Hill Plaza.

Another hugely popular story this week was about a 21-year-old New London woman . The woman was an employee at Waterford's Jared Jewelers, where she allegedly stole 20 to 25 charms a shift over a 10-month span, according to police.

The most popular story of the week was a simple link to Waterford’s crime and sex offender map. The link shows what crimes happened and where in the past 30 days and all the sex offenders in town. And another popular story this week was about coyote safety, as Waterford-East Lyme Animal Control Officer Robert Yuchniuk told Patch that many people have voiced concerns about seeing coyotes in town recently.

Then, there was all the local government news, some of which had some real significance. Most importantly was a story about Waterford’s new grand list, which was just signed off on after the town completed its once-every-five-years real estate revaluation.

Unsurprisingly, home values plummeted since the last time the town did a revaluation, which was 2007. The bottom line for taxpayers is that real estate now makes up a smaller percentage of the overall grand list, with businesses like Millstone Power Station taking up a larger percentage. That means that the percentage of taxes demanded from businesses and motor vehicles will go up, and the percentage demand from property owners will go down.

This week was also the first week of the Board of Finance’s budget reviews. On Tuesday, we ran a story detailing the proposed budget for the 2013-14 fiscal year, a 4.16 percent increase over this year’s total, and on Thursday we ran a story about how the finance board approved the police department’s budget as presented.

In other news, the town is a step closer the Zoning Board of Appeals appears a step closer to rejecting a proposal to turn 171 Rope Ferry Road into housing for recovering drug addicts, a Board of Finance member is worried that parents are drinking at little league games and oil companies are not happy about Connecticut’s new energy plan. Oh, and who could forget about that East Lyme woman, and her pet groundhog…