An Appeal To Budget Opponents

To the Editor:

I appeal both to voters who might have otherwise supported the budget, absent concerns about the new town hall, and to “traditional” No voters who feel the spending is still too high.

To the town hall voters: Voting No on the budget will neither delay nor prevent construction of a new town hall. The town hall project was approved in a previous bonding issue. There is no money in the budget for construction directly, rather merely a debt service for principal and interest to be incurred with respect to the bonding amounts for construction. Eliminating the debt service would not prevent use of previously approved bonding. Read council member David Brown’s submission elsewhere in the Letter Hive.

Proceeding with the project is now properly within the purview of the executive branch of government and our first selectman has stated that said construction will proceed. To vote against the budget solely for town hall issues is to waste your vote. Moreover, because no present means exist to officially determine the reasoning behind a No vote, there is danger that such a No vote will be misinterpreted as voting No for traditional or other reasons, and thus could actually lead to a result the town-hall-No-voter does not intend or support.

I will not address the merits or faults of a new town hall at this juncture so as to not improperly merge that issue with the budget vote. I will, however, make two points about voting motivations. To those of you who support education but oppose the town hall: education administration and authorities came to the Fairfield Hills Authority and town officials to seek inclusion in the town hall office spaces some time ago and have been actively involved in the design of such spaces since then. Finally, there is no “crossover” permitted, that is, the bonding funds have to be used for the purposes set forth in all the original bonding documents.

To the traditional No voters, this budget should be acceptable. It is now under $100 million in total spending; more importantly, the mill rate increase now stands under three percent. That latter increase would be acceptable in a static system yet our town is not static — it continues to grow and the Grand List does not grow at a pace that fully compensates for the expenses associated with such growth. Finally, the Legislative Council has reduced the increase to the overall budget by almost $2.3 million through now. That assures that your voice has been heard and I urge you to compromise and support this budget, just as I urge those who feel the budget does not spend enough to address their desires to similarly compromise.

Extended referenda at this point are unlikely to result in budget changes significant enough to offset the damage to the town’s reputation, financial and otherwise, that will result from continued wrangling. The time has come for everyone to support the present budget and pass it by a strong margin.

Will Rodgers

Chair, Legislative Council

208 Hattertown Road, Newtown                                     May 30, 2007