To the Editor:

I read Darlene Ryder’s letter to The Bee last week [“A Dilemma On Main Street”]. I understand the many issues at hand, dilemmas being considered with many alternatives/suggestions for the location [of The Inn at Newtown, 19 Main Street]. The underlying issue here is not that the family has exhausted money and time (I would have done the same), but they elected to purchase the land and open a business that did not succeed (they have had other locations, which to my knowledge, The Cookhouse still operates and perhaps others).

It is not the taxpayers of Newtown’s responsibility to bail them out by changing the zoning. Good intentions only go so far. I’ll give you just one of the many issues at hand — is the Ryder family, or whoever the developer is that purchases 19 Main Street from them, willing to pay for perpetuity the cost of educating however many children who will reside in the apartments? I don’t think so — and Darlene wants her family to be treated fairly? I’m just not sympathetic and feeling the love when it’s about the money.

Philip Palilla

16 Winding Brook Road, Newtown October 15, 2019