Each year the Annual Town Meeting is held to enact town business and to accept the Annual Report of the Town of Old Saybrook. The special moment each year is when the annual report dedication page is unveiled and the honoree lauded.

This year’s honoree is past Fire Chief David G. Heiney, Sr., who died suddenly on Feb. 10, 2015. As noted in the dedication page, Heiney first joined the Old Saybrook Volunteer Fire Department on April 6, 1976, the same year he graduated from Old Saybrook High School. He rose through the ranks, becoming chief from January 1999 through January 2002.

During the 1980s, while also a volunteer firefighter, Heiney worked for the Old Saybrook Police Department both as an emergency telecommunicator and as police officer.

Heiney’s two sons, William and David, Jr., followed in their father’s footsteps, serving both as officers in the Old Saybrook Police Department and then moving on to take positions as career firefighters in Connecticut.

More than 20 firefighters and public safety officers attended the Annual Town Meeting, held this year on Nov. 23, to show their support for David Heiney and the family he left behind when he passed.

In addition to voting to accept the reports of town departments, boards, and commissions as compiled in the annual town report document, voters also approved several funding requests.

Approved were appropriations of $4,200 for the painting of the window system on the front of Town Hall; $155,942.70 for the Public Works Department to buy a 2015 John Deere loader; and $11,400 to buy and install a new natural gas boiler at the town’s Youth and Family Services agency building on Main Street.