To the Editor,

Your title for last week’s Editorial Ink Drops was only half correct. “Seeding and Tending Economic Development” should have read “Seeding and Tending Newtown’s Democratic Party.”

Lately Newtown has been ripe for harvesting. A disengaged electorate proven by a 2021/22 budget referendum voter turnout of less than 10%, voter fatigue resulting in a town government that can’t fill openings on boards and commissions, and a misinformed public led by a local newspaper bent on pushing one political party’s narrative.

Newtown’s Democratic Party has their seeding and tending routine down pat. Gain power through our town’s labor unions, maintain it through guaranteed salary raises and benefits for the labor unions who give them their power, raise taxes on the disengaged electorate, then repeat.

On occasion, mix in economic development that the electorate doesn’t really want in the name of improving our town that is really there to offset the ever-increasing cost of salaries and benefits that make up most of our town’s budget.

The 2021/22 budget was an opportunity to reduce spending, or at a minimum hold the line on spending given the extenuating circumstances of the global pandemic. Not even a global pandemic could stop our town’s Democratic Party from raising taxes to pacify our town’s labor unions.

Unless the paradigm changes, I’m afraid the only fruit that will be harvested from the fields of Newtown is more spending, higher property taxes, and a further disengaged electorate. A bitter combination to swallow.

Robert W. Katrinak

Sandy Hook

Editor’s Note: Both the 2021 and the 2020 municipal budgets approved by voters reduced local residents’ property taxes. The 2019 budget increased local taxation by 1.56%.