Currently the City of Norwich stores their city and historical records at the vacant waste water management facility. Dufour presented to the council the option of having the records moved to the Eaton Center as a temporary solution while they work the get the records digitalized. (Photo by Tyler Murphy)

NORWICH – At Tuesday night’s City of Norwich Joint Committee meeting the common council and finance department discussed options for how to improve the storage of city and historical records.

Near the end of December of last year, a concerned community member addressed the common council about the dilapidated state of the city and historical records. Since then, City Clerk and Director of Finance Dee DuFour has been working to find a solution to correct the storage situation.

According to DuFour, they had the vacant waste water managmement facility where the records are stored inspected. It was determined that the storage situation was harmful to the paper records due to the amount of mold and mildew, and it was also a health and safety hazard to employees accessing them.

Dufour said bringing the records out of the basement of the building to a higher level would not be possible without investing over $100,000 to reinforce the building due to the weight of the records.

After some research, Dufour presented to the council the option of having the records moved to the Eaton Center, where she says many other organizations are currently storing their records.