To The Editor:

I’d like to thank everyone involved in working together this year on preparing, advocating for and voting for the budget. We saw an unprecedented amount of cooperation resulting in a budget that was appealing to a wide margin of the voters who chose to cast their ballots.

For the first time in my memory while there were a typical number of Yes votes, there was a remarkable decline in No votes. Some would say apathy keeps the numbers down, but perhaps we have reached a point where the direction the town is moving in is acceptable to the majority of the people who live here.

This budget was fair and balanced recognizing the need to invest in services like roads that we all benefit from, while beginning to address the realities of declining enrollment just like the rest of Connecticut is having to do and curbing our spending.

Next steps are for us to continue to grow our tax base so the burden of taxes can be balanced more evenly between personal property and commercial property, make some decisions about how to handle the continued declining enrollment, and investing wisely for the people of Newtown. Thank you.

Mary Ann Jacob

65 Mohawk Trail, Sandy Hook               April 23, 2014