To the Editor:

I want to thank the people of Newtown for coming out in strength and for passing the entire budget last week. The percentage of registered voters who usually come out to vote when it is not a presidential election is somewhere between 10 and 15%. For this vote, it was nearly 25%, which may still sound low, but is actually a huge improvement. Now we need to maintain that level of involvement with every future Newtown vote.

I have lived in Newtown for nearly 30 years and taught in Newtown schools for nearly 15. The thought of teachers being fired, a school potentially being closed, our precious C.H. Booth library possibly being closed, the high school roof not being repaired, among other important buildings that are in disrepair in Newtown, drove me and many others like me to the polls this time.

I always vote, because voting is a right in our country, and it’s a right that we must not take for granted, because it is not given in many other areas of the world. It is also a right that many Americans before us fought and died for. I remember that always when I step into the voting both, and I remember bringing my children with me when they were very young and teaching them how important each of our votes is.

I also taught them how important and unique our freedoms are. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to congregate and protest the things we want to change, and when they were old enough, the importance of due process.

I feel like we have forgotten how important our freedoms are of late. We are so caught up by fear of the other, the foreigner, the immigrant, that we have forgotten that we are all of us either immigrants or from immigrant families, and that our differences make us stronger, not weaker.

So I voted last week and will always vote in every election, as do my kids who are all grown up now, because voting is the only thing that preserves our freedoms. God help us if we forget that lesson.

Lynn Hungaski

Newtown