Leaders Lead,

Leaders Listen

To the Editor:

Leaders lead. Leaders listen. Leaders know when it’s best to follow. Leaders don’t say they can’t, they find a way they can.

While our children sit in overheated classrooms with leaky roofs and broken chairs, our first selectman is looking at fabric swatches for the drapes in his new office. His contempt and arrogance goes beyond the students and their parents of Newtown. It extends to our senior citizens as well, where he plans on literally leaving them out in the cold with insufficient program facilities. Is there anyone else left in Newtown for Mr Rosenthal to alienate?

Not surprisingly, Mr Rosenthal was unwilling to listen to the 400 residents that packed into the Middle School to voice their concern with the building of a new town hall. And, our first selectman’s “if I build it they will come” mentality is nothing short of laughable and reason alone to vote him out of office in our next election.

Businesses will not come to Newtown if we build a new town hall, period. Companies make decisions based on two main criteria: 1) positive working relationships and, 2) the ability to develop a path of least resistance. What intelligent businessperson would subject themselves to our first selectman’s pompous, self-absorbed, and arrogant personality? Let me put it another way: who would you rather do business with, Matt DeAngelis or Herb Rosenthal?

Given our town’s current level of disgust with our first selectman, I went to our Newtown library to review its original and current charter. To my surprise, there is no provision for removing our elected officials from office. The closest thing I could find was for us to file a complaint against our first selectman for his violation of our town’s Code of Ethics for disregarding the binding referendum that voted down the Fairfield Hills master plan. Unfortunately, our Board of Ethics is appointed by, guess who, our first selectman. So, it looks like we may be stuck with Herb until we vote him out of office in November.

Meanwhile, in The Bee’s February 9 editorial, it states that our first selectman faces a dilemma. Should he honor the town meeting of June 2001 (despite the fact that the Newtown voters subsequently voted down the Fairfield Hills master plan) or should he listen to the current will of the vocal majority of Newtown and put his proposed town hall on hold? Based on our first selectman’s history, I am sure he will chose not to listen to his constituents, do what he alone wants, and live six years in the past.

There is one solace, however, if Mr Rosenthal succeeds in railroading a new town hall down our throats. And that irony is that come this November when we vote him out of office, he will never get to sit in his new office that he has been dreaming about for years.

Phil Dinielli

9 Copper Creek Circle, Newtown                           February 21, 2007