Council Delays Action

On School, Fairfield Hills

By Steve Bigham

The much-anticipated meeting of the Legislative Council on Fairfield Hills and the 5/6 school has been moved back from May 16 to May 23 as town officials try to gather more information.

Council Chairman Pierre Rochman announced his decision to postpone the meeting Wednesday morning following a discussion with First Selectman Herb Rosenthal.

“I think meeting on the 16th is just a little premature. It won’t effect anybody’s timetable,” Mr Rochman said. “We’re trying to get as much information as possible before making a recommendation to the public. We know more information is coming after May 16 and we’d like to wait for it.”

For anyone who might be anxious about resolving the issue, Mr Rochman said Fairfield Hills has been around for a long time and does not appear to be going away any time soon. As for the Board of Education, which has eagerly been awaiting the May 16 meeting, Mr Rochman assured members that the council remains committed to the new school’s timeline.

The council’s agenda for the May 23 meeting will remain the same, however. It will involve a lengthy discussion about how to deal with the bonding issue on the capital items to be voted on at a June 6 town meeting. Members say they are determined to get Fairfield Hills on the agenda, even if it does come at the 11th hour.

Last month, council members agreed that both the proposed construction of the 5/6 school and purchase of Fairfield Hills will be voted on at the same June town meeting. It also agreed that the two issues will be voted on separately. However, while the 5/6 school resolution is clear, there is still some question as to how the council will present Fairfield Hills. The estimated cost to purchase the 185-acre campus is in the $5 million range. However, the “Fairfield Hills project” has an overall cost of $21 million, which includes other capital items such as ball fields, municipal space needs, code updates at Edmond Town Hall, and improvements to the athletic fields at Newtown High School.

“We’re meeting on May 21 and we are hoping to have enough information to make a request for funds to purchase Fairfield Hills and do whatever other items associated with that, as well as ball fields, open space and so forth in advance,” Mr Rosenthal said.

Mr Rosenthal this week said that a number of legal and environmental consultants are working hard to get estimates and things in line in time for the May 21 selectmen’s meeting.

“We’re not short of any environmental information. We’re fine tuning our environmental issues. The main work being done now is determining what the demolition and abatement costs will be and what the renovation costs are for buildings we would re-use for town purposes,” Mr Rosenthal said. “Right now, this is an entirely town use project. We didn’t have any partners in the re-development, so we’re really focusing on town uses right now, whether it be municipal space, recreation use, or public safety.”

And since the re-development issue has been on hold, Mr Rosenthal believes most people in town should be unified in their feelings on Fairfield Hills. As he points out, both the Save Fairfield Hills for Newtown and the town-sponsored Fairfield Hills Advisory Committee plans are alike.

“If you take open space, ball fields, trails, and municipal uses of the buildings, those parts of the two plans are identical, so all we’re looking at right now are those uses. The only issue between the two groups was that portion of the campus that would be used for economic development,” Mr Rosenthal said. “The main difference between those two groups was on the amount of commercial redevelopment of the property, so since we’re not going forward at this time with that stuff, there should be pretty much unanimity between those two groups.”

Just about everyone agrees with the issue of being able to control the future of Fairfield Hills. Many residents have been skeptical about the town’s ability to manage such a massive undertaking. However, town officials urge the citizens of Newtown to consider the consequences.

“If we don’t purchase Fairfield Hills, the state can sell it to a developer who could do just about anything. Most of what we saw from other developers before was for housing,” Mr Rosenthal said.

The first selectman also warned residents that allowing the state to determine the fate of Fairfield Hills could result in what amounts to a minimum security prison.

“The state could keep property and use it for some purpose that’s not in the town’s best interest. Certainly one of the things that has been going through the legislature this past year has been alternate incarceration for people with substance abuse problems. And rather than locking them up, the state could be inclined to put them in dormitory type housing, and certainly there’s a lot of dormitories at Fairfield Hills. There are no guarantees that would happen, but there’s always that possibility,” he said.