To The Editor:

I am casting a no confidence vote for our current First Selectman Jeff Capeci. The fact that our community was not fully apprised of the damage from the August 2024 storm to the Aquarian Water Company’s wellfield, our primary source of our water in Newtown, is extremely troubling. Until recently, over a year after the fact, we have finally connected to the Fairfield Hills, only as a temporary measure.

The process has been poorly managed, the people in the Borough have been unfairly inconvenienced. The community in general, were kept in the dark for months about this occurrence until, as I understand it, a FOIA request was submitted and the First Selectman was forced to discuss it during a February Board of Selectmen meeting. From August 2024 to February 2025 — that’s seven months where even the Selectmen were uninformed.

Now, another seven moths later — we have a bandaid in place. We still don’t have a permanent solution to this problem. Also we are still in the dark as to what needs to be done to get our town back up to speed. As climate change is increasing the intensity of storms — will the Fairfield Hills bandaid hold? Do we need a larger capacity wellfield? Are the tax payers going to be hit with an increase to pay for this? Is this lack of a long term water source holding up new building projects? Why is the Community on a need to know basis?

It’s been over a year, the public should have been fully informed and we should know what the long term solution is. Our community deserves transparency from our top official.

Rich Hungaski

Newtown