While the Board of Finance has cut at least $87,500 out of the proposed $832,355.19 Highway Department budget request for 1975-76, its members did add one new item to the engineering services account of the public works department. According to a release made public Wednesday, $5,000 has been added to that $10,000 account. The Board of Finance, with the agreement of the selectmen, recommend this be used “for an independent consultant’s study of the Highway Department, to maximize the productivity of this major department, with the greatest economy.”

***

The weather for the past ten days has been beautiful, but it has also created conditions which firemen look upon with a leery eye. High winds and extremely dry air make the brush fire hazard very high, and so, all over the State of Connecticut the lookout is on for woods or brush fires. There have been many reported in the state, with Waterbury having over 70 to contend with in one day alone. Newtown has had its share, too, and according to a count which was taken from the fire call log book, there have been 27 brush fires in town since April 10. In one instance, three, all at different locations, were called in within minutes of each other.

***

Barring any roadblocks, the town may be moving in the direction of an effort to locate its proposed garage-maintenance facility on about seven acres of sand and gravel mining-zoned land owned by Fairfield County businessman F. Francis D’Addario. Mr D’Addario has offered the tract to the town with a $105,000 price tag, or $15,000 per acre. The parcel is adjacent to acreage of the D’Addario Sand & Gravel Company, located east of Deadman’s Curve on Route 25.

***

Newtown’s Deputy Fire Marshal George Lockwood has put a $12,000 damage estimate on a house which was badly charred by fire on Monday afternoon, April 21. The house, owned by Mary Stefanko and being rented by Mr and Mrs Robert Mathison, is located on Riverside Road in Sandy Hook. The blaze started at the base of one of the exterior walls of the house and fed right through the walls of the old structure up through the roof. Heaviest damage was to the attic area.

***

Newtown’s Royal Guardsmen Color Guard, with an almost flawless exhibition of marching and maneuvering ability, won two more top awards Saturday, April 19, in Hartford.

***

Dickinson Memorial Park is brighter and cleaner after this past weekend when over 100 men, women, and children pitched in to help Park Superintendnet Arthur Bennett prepare the park for the spring and summer season. Buildings and fences were painted, the grounds raked and cleaned, and the park pool partially cleaned.

***

The black and white bird which was photographed recently resting on the roof of a Newtown residence has been identified by Mrs Eugene R. Lucas of West Road, Watertown, as either a white Rock Dove or a Ringed Turtle Dove. The Ringed Turtle Dove is a common caged bird, which has gone “wild” and proliferated in the downtown areas of Tampa, Los Angeles, and Miami.

APRIL 28, 1950

The annual Borough election will be held on Tuesday, May 2, at the Edmond Town Hall, with the polls open from 9 am to 5 pm. The following candidates, named at the Borough caucus on April 14, will appear on the ballots: Henry L. McCarthy, warden; S. Curtis Glover and Wallace N. Mitchell, burgesses; Miss May E. Sullivan, clerk; Walter A. Reynolds, treasurer; Charles F. Cavanaugh, tax collector; John A. Carlson and Gilbert Aiken, board of assessors; Frederic H. Duncombe and Joseph Hellauer, board of tax review; William Hunter, registrar of voters; John A. Carlson, pound keeper; Walter A. Reynolds, Judge Paul V. Cavanaugh, and John A. Carlson, board of fire inspectors.

***

Edmond E. Neary was elected president and Miles Harris vice president of the Rotary Club of Newtown at its annual meeting held in the Parker House Monday evening. Alfred H. Jurgens was reelected secretary for the coming year and Fred Buermeyer, treasurer. E. Ford Cordial and Joseph F. Hellauer were elected directors.

***

The Newtown Country Club is now officially open for the 1950 season. Danny Lawler, golf pro, has reported that the course is in excellent condition, the best it has ever been at a similar date in recent years.

***

Future plans for the supervision of Newtown schools were discussed at the regular monthly meeting of the Newtown Board of Education held April 21 at the Hawley School. Two courses of action are open to the board, employment of a superintendent, or a return to state supervision. Superintendent Carroll F. Johnson announced to the board that he would not be a candidate for any position which might develop. Upon instructions of the board at a previous meeting Superintendent Johnson had prepared for board study a discussion of characteristics of a good school site for Newtown.

***

The public is invited to attend an open meeting which is being sponsored by the Town Development Committee and will be held in the Alexandria Room of the Edmond Town Hall on Thursday evening, May 4, at 8 o’clock. At that time, Warren J. Scott, director of the Bureau of Sanitary Engineering of the State Department of Health, will talk on the subject “Sewage Problems and the Need for Local Regulation.”

***

Girl Scouts of Troop 37, Newtown, are now making schoolbags of cloth material and filling them with such articles as crayons, pencils, erasers, notebooks, paste, and even a few gay things to wear, colored hair ribbons, warm mittens. So that the young people receiving them will get to know more about America and the Scouts who are working on the “Schoolmates Overseas” project, the girls are including in the bags scrapbooks showing representative incidents of the town and something of their own activities.

***

Some very attractive planting has been done around the Congregational Church House, through the generosity of Mr and Mrs W.H. Mackenzie of Key Rock Gardens.

APRIL 24, 1925

Among those attending the battery ball at Branford last Friday were Mr and Mrs Ralph Peck, Mr and Mrs Irving Chambers, Mr and Mrs William Beardsley, Mr and Mrs H. Millspaugh and son, Stewart, and Miss Margaret Loughlin.

***

The Upham Food Products Company, Inc., of Hawley, has built a gravel road from their plant across to the Hawleyville road. They are also putting down a fine cement walk and will have it bordered with electric lights.

 

APRIL 27,  1900

The Newtown Railroad Station was burglarized on Monday night, but the visitors secured only a small amount of booty. The burglars first gained an entrance through the office window, but finding the office door locked, they made their exit through the window they had entered and went around to a south window, which was forced open. They then broke open the slot machines, securing $2.80, and examined the contents of the various packages in the depot, but apparently carried nothing away.