Where We Lean In The Balance Of

Gain And Loss

Most references to government these days suggest a monolithic entity that, depending on our mood or point of view, acts with singular purpose to protect or trample us according to its inherent skill or ineptitude. But when we unbutton our actual governmental institutions from this straw man costume, we can see they are as conflicted and contradictory as the electorate they represent. This week, the executive and legislative branches of our federal and state governments around the nation were pushing and shoving each other close the brink of paralysis over budgets and spending. And even here in Newtown, the lack of coordination in the public sector led to some disorientation for those following the work of Newtown’s services and agencies.

Newtown’s Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC) has been at the center of a couple of recent land use disputes involving the town’s Economic Development Commission (EDC) and the Newtown Hook & Ladder Company, the volunteer fire company that serves the town with the help of taxpayer subsidies and public donations. The wetlands panel has disappointed both groups. In December it rejected Hook & Ladder’s plans for a 11,414-square-foot firehouse at 12 Sugar Street. And just last week, it rejected the EDC’s much-revised proposal for a industrial condominium complex off Commerce Road known as Newtown Technology Park. Both projects, according to the wetlands commission, posed significant environmental threats to proximate wetlands. Newtown Hook & Ladder is now taking the IWC to court in an attempt to overturn the decision. (The fire company announced last week that it would also be suing in court for relief from the Borough Zoning Commission’s rejection of its Sugar Street plans.) And the EDC voted Tuesday evening to pursue its own court appeal of the wetlands commission decision.

Newtown is already spending about $350,000 on attorneys and legal services this year without its various agencies and services lining up to give sworn testimony against each other. The prospect of a town suing itself seems absurd. But a town has many missions, including nurturing its economic base, its public safety infrastructure, and its environmental resources. We are extremely fortunate that people of principle still donate their time and talents to help the town pursue each of these missions with a passion and doggedness that would be impossible to adequately compensate. However, when the inevitable happens, and their respective interests and priorities come into conflict, everyone needs to step back a moment and reorient themselves, not as economic developers, or firefighters, or environmentalists, but as Newtowners.

Clearly the town’s administrators have a mediating role to play in weighing gains against the losses in such internecine conflicts. We look forward to both the first selectman and the Legislative Council offering their good offices to squelch the legal squabbling and to search for a new home for Newtown Hook & Ladder and viable opportunities for economic development off Commerce Road and throughout town. But in finding the balance between gain and loss, we urge all our community leaders to always lean away from irretrievable losses, particularly of the town’s natural resources. Without clean water, clean air, and protected natural areas and vistas, Newtown irretrievably loses the powerful lure that has drawn people and businesses here for centuries, irretrievably loses its environmental buffers from threats to public health, and irretrievably loses its legacy as a place apart from all others.