Costs to Install Surveillance Cameras Exceed Budget by $7,400

The members of the Board of Parks Commissioners, seeking ways to improve security at Crescent Lake in Southington while minimizing costs to taxpayers, asked Director of Recreation Willian Masci to submit a letter to the Board of Finance, appealing for a special appropriation of $7,400 to allow them to complete surveillance camera installation before winter. According to Commission member David Kanute, costs include canopy improvement and the site is not conducive for such a project: if it were done in parts without the grant, some of the same costs and work would be repeated.

Recount Confirms Democratic Victory for Town Council

Democrats hold a 5-4 majority in the Town Council after a recount Sunday reaffirmed that Michael Spiteri outpolled Dawn Sarro on Tuesday, November 6th. The narrow 21-vote victory margin led to an automatic recount, which yielded a 38 vote-margin for Democrat Spiteri, according to Democratic Registrar of Voters Barbara Kapi. Republican Registrar Chester Miller said that the discrepancies arose mostly from voter-error and that the recount could have been more efficient if only the top two candidates and not all 17 candidates were reconsidered. 60 people met at the Town Hall to count all 11,600 ballots, a process which took all day Sunday, November 11th. At $10 per hour for each counter, the affair could cost more than $3,500.

Local Pharmacist Invents an Easy Button for Meds

A local Southington inventor and full-time pharmacist, John C. Dobbins, has created the Talking Rx, a device that records and plays back instructions regarding medicine. The miniature digital recorder fastens to the bottom of a prescription bottle. It has one simple button that, when pushed, plays up to 60 seconds of a re-recordable message. It is designed to help patients who are blind, have other vision problems, or cannot read English well take medicine without difficulty and confusion. Dobbins was inspired when he worked as a pharmacist at the New Britain General Hospital, now the Hospital of Central Connecticut, in 1992, helping patients understand their ailments and why they were taking medication. He found himself unable to communicate with a man who spoke only Spanish. In 1996, while on vacation in Las Vegas, Dobbins witnessed one of the first talking greeting cards at Circus Circus and knew he had found the missing piece to his invention. Upon returning home, he bought and dismantled a recordable pen, placing the recording device in the cap of a medicine bottle. Although this prototype was top-heavy, Dobbins decided to patent it along with any future versions that would hold the recorder elsewhere on the bottle. The current model, which Dobbins still fidgets with in his basement—what his wife, Joan, calls “research and development”—lodges the recorder neatly at the bottom. Recent adjustments include fittings for multiple sized bottles and a recessed button design.