To the Editor:

Ms Ferguson wrote a letter [The Newtown Bee, October 16, 2020, “Writer Speculates: Does Rebekah Like Newtown?”] containing legitimate questions concerning Rebekah Harriman-Stites expressed intent to change Newtown in three critical areas. Rebekah responds [The Newtown Bee, October 16, 2020, “Rebekah Loves Newtown, For Many Reasons”] by avoiding any meaningful answer to the changes and their impact on Newtown, all the while assessing blame for raising the issue and obscuring her real intent with platitudes about why she loves Newtown.

The issues are real. Rebekah is running for an office that is charged with the preservation of all the good things Newtown has to offer. Her rebuttal reminds me of another politician who believes that his constituents don’t deserve an answer to a legitimate question.

I am certain that Chief Viadero agrees that police officers that act outside of established training and protocol should be held accountable. No one disputes that, nor can it be considered “reaching common ground” in any meaningful way. However, to strip our police officers of qualified immunity, as proscribed in the law that Rebekah supports, is an injustice of monstrous proportions to those who risk their lives every day to keep us safe. The effect of those provisions will substantially and negatively affect public safety. I am certain that there was no common ground there.

Of course, Rebekah equates preserving our history and quality of education to racism. It was very clear in her finely crafted statement that any resistance to the “new history” is a result of privilege, not intelligence. However, she may be correct in stating that the decline in education will not proportionately effect college admissions, as she assumes the country as a whole will acquiesce to this standard without substance. But don’t count on it.

Newtown is endowed with a setting and history that has carefully evolved over 200 years. Affordability is achieved through fiscal responsibility and careful development under local control. The bill Rebekah supports wrests control from our local boards and our citizens for the sake of uncontrolled population density, which is euphemistically labeled “affordable,” but rarely results in such.

Rebekah says she loves Newtown, but the platitudes she offers are not enough to preserve or protect Newtown from the policies she promotes.

Charles Ambrosecchia

86 Riverside Road, Sandy Hook October 20, 2020