Great Pootatuck Duck Race Is In Planning Stage

By SHANNON HICKS

Published: Mar 27, 2009 12:00 am

Have you ever watched children enjoy playing in bathtubs with rubber ducks? With great glee, they watch the ducks race about, and they never tire of it.

This enthusiasm is exactly the reaction children of all ages have when they watch ducks merrily float down the Pootatuck River during the Great Pootatuck Duck Race. This year the Newtown Lions Clubâs Great Pootatuck Duck Race will be held on Saturday, May 23, from 10 am to 2 pm. Mike Porco has again offered to let the Lions Club use his spacious lot on Glen Road for the activities of the day.

The first twenty ducks that cross the finish line will win prizes. First prize this year will be a cash award of $2,000. Second prize is a weekend in New York with dinner, hotel and theater tickets included. The third prize is a Nintendo Wii Game Console, valued at $332.

In addition to the major event of the day participants will enjoy wandering the grounds being entertained by face painters and magicians or having fun on a moon bounce. Or they may choose to sit watching singers, performers, dancers and karate experts on stage.

A new addition to the entertainment this year will be a tug of war between the Newtown Lions Club and the Newtown Rotary Club to be held sometime in the morning. It is hoped that the firemen will respond to the challenge as well.

Last year 32 community groups were part of the festive day. They either sold items or handed out flyers about their organizations.

âWeâre pulling out all the stops to make this Duck Race the best everâ says 2009 Duck Race Chairman Schmitt.

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Reservoir Rd. does indeed appear to have an interesting history that I often ponder as I hike the Rochambeau Trail. Early on it was apparently part of a main route from the center of the Borough to Taunton, which went up Mt. Pleasant Rd. and then roughly followed a watershed boundary from Mount Pleasant to Taunton Hill. When the current switchback road was built from West St. to Castle Hill in the 1800s, replacing the indirect route through the campground that Rochambeau used, the part of that original route to Taunton now known as Reservoir Rd. became redundant. But on an 1868 town map and topographic maps from 1892 and 1915, it looks like both routes were still maintained as roads. By the time of the 1934 aerial survey of CT, the connection to Mount Pleasant Rd. (maybe called Reservoir Rd. by then since the reservoir is visible) even had two outlets onto Castle Hill Rd. Since it is only shown as a partial dashed line on a 1953 topographic map, it may have stopped being maintained as a passable through road by then. But on a 1963 topographic map, where the section down to Knollwood Dr. had become a normal road again, the other end is shown as a dashed-line road, still with two connections to Castle Hill Rd., and a structure on the east side where one can still find remnants of a house today. Maybe a longtime resident can add comments about what it looked like in the 1950s and 1960s?

Clarity on Reservoir Road and the Rochambeau Trail

Please stop referring to your fellow Newtowners as the Mob. I was at the Legislative Council meeting where Mr. Pisani insulted the intelligence of a room full of Newtown voters; twice, and not in a satirical way. Plenty of new projects have been given the green light - the repurposing of the Taunton Press property is a welcome addition to Town, a new retail center is under construction on Church Hill Rd there are ongoing plans for the existing Fairfield Hills campus. Newtown is a wonderful place to live. Kudos to the Town officials who have managed to grow Newtown and maintain a small town feel, which may mean saying no to development more often than you would like. There will always be two sides to any proposal - different points of view are welcome and essential - name calling adds nothing to the conversation.

Who is Calling Newtowners Stupid?

Appreciate your perspective. Rather than litiate all of your opinions expressed here, here....I would like correct your opinion about the BOS having the final authority on road discontinuance decisions. State statute (CT GS 13a-49), requires the BOS' decision to be approvate by a majority vote at a regular or special town meeting (just like the one Newtown had a few years back to decide to spend the money to build an addition onto the High School). In towns that no longer have any town meetings, that responsibility would fall on the town's representaive government, or legislative body....in Newtown's case, our Legislative Council. Failure to follow this statutory process is but one of the reasons the town/the BOS is being sued.

There are many private roads in Newtown where they property owner owns right to the center line, for example this is often true in the lake communities. Many of these roads predate and do not conform to the Town's roads standard and therefore the Town never accepted them into the Town road system. Does the Town actually own this road?

It’s important to clarify the tone and context of Derek Pisani’s remarks, particularly the satirical line about suing Newtown for "Gross Stupidity." This was clearly a tongue-in-cheek jab at the exhausting culture of legal threats that’s become a staple on the local Facebook Group forums. It was a reflection of frustration over endless regulatory hurdles and obstructionism, and the desire to avoid common sense solutions not an insult aimed at residents. Satire, is meant to provoke thought and highlight the absurdities. If we are unable to distinguish between satire and literal threats, perhaps the comment hit closer to the truth than we’d like to admit. Rather than focusing on Pisanis style, we should be discussing the substance of what he’s pointing out: that Newtown’s progress is being routinely blocked by a small but vocal contingent who seem intent on saying “no” at every turn. They are saying no to any development, no to common sense solutions to crowd control, etc. Newtown deserves leaders who are willing to call things as they see them, even if their language ruffles feathers. That doesn’t mean they lack respect for constituents—it means they care enough to challenge the Mob and push for solutions. Isn't that what we elect people to do? I applaud Pisani's dedication, he certainly has earned my vote. Regardless, let’s not reduce conversation to tone-policing and outrage. Let’s focus on the issues that matter.

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Great Pootatuck Duck Race Is In Planning Stage

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