Choose To Get Involved

To the Editor:

Did you vote on April 25? If you’re like 78 percent of the registered voters in Newtown, you didn’t.

I voted and I’d like to share with you why I chose to do so. My road is relatively new, so it won’t be getting drainage or being paved soon. My son goes to a private school, so making sure the school budget was passed doesn’t directly affect me or my family. His school is out of town so we don’t benefit from the transportation portion either. Everyone in our house is under 45, so a new Senior Center won’t be much help to us. We do use the town parks and occasionally have taken in a movie at Edmund Town Hall, so I guess there was some personal gain to be had by voting. Mostly though I voted because it was the best budget we were going to get.

Somewhere in Newtown, there is a road that has pot holes the size of Manhattan and now, it won’t get paved this year. There is a child that won’t be able to participate in a sport, music lesson, or get needed extra help to read better. There is an isolated senior who won’t be able to participate at an already over crowded Senior Center. That person was the reason I voted. For the good of someone I may or may not know. The process we have may not be the best one you’ve ever seen or dreamed of, but it is the one we have. If you want something different, figure out how to work with others to make your plan work. Depending on others to further your ideas probably won’t get you what you want, but getting involved can. So the next time we get to decide the future monetary needs of Newtown, I hope you choose to vote, choose to get involved.

Deb McGrath

11Yogananda Street, Sandy Hook                                    May 3, 2006