To the Editor:

The new sidewalk additions create invitations to enjoy, to see in your own time, your own pace, the wonderful details of residential Newtown. A drive by on Main Street requires your undivided attention to the road and traffic. Noteworthy homes, maintained and restored, maybe freshly painted, thoughtful plantings, the long views of Ram Pasture and the adjacent homes and the cemetery will be missed, most likely. The new sidewalk section opens up these views and allows a freedom outdoors from our current safe-at-home existences. We can continue to “meet-n-greet” long after closure is over.

The elaborate Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial as now designed is to be a beautiful place, large in scale, requiring substantial mechanics and property upkeep involving continuous expenses. Fairfield Hills demolitions are a must, each building a costly teardown involving remediation, as documented by First Selectman Dan Rosenthal in his informational public meetings and projected as serious, long-term taxpayer responsibilities. We need to think.

Memorializing those precious lives taken on 12-14-12 is, I think, important to everyone. Would well-designed ground markers work? Simple, yet exceptional in significance and material spaced out individually in measured distances along the property side, parallel to or at the sidewalk’s edge. Children’s full names and birthdates, adult markers with full names and job title. Individual markers may make for more lasting recognition and recall as compared to an alphabetical listing somewhere.

Permanent Memorial dollars redirected in such a way could be put to work on eliminating the eyesores and unsafe situations at Fairfield Hills. Another possibility could be to provide more sidewalks. Maybe some of both projects, ideas that could spread those dollars forward to expediting existing needs and timely improvements.

Fairfield Hills has come a long way, is still a work in progress. It is Newtown’s treasure, a legacy to be protected.

Note: The permanent memorial remaining donated money: $38,000 or original $137,000.

Estimated total range: $2 million, land size, 5.5 acres, both plus or minus.

Drawings available at municipal Land Use office; referendum required.

Elizabeth Lincoln

34 Echo Valley Road, Newtown October 28, 2020