The Courage

To Ask Questions

To the Editor:

I applaud the words written in last week’s Bee under the heading “Editorial Ink Drops,” where your last paragraph mentions inadequate schools, deteriorating roads, diminished public safety, overused and unavailable playing fields. You might add that we couldn’t use the middle school’s auditorium because the seats were broken, and that the parents are asked to pay for refurbishing them.

What you didn’t mention was that it took someone like Matt DeAngelis to come forward and make us all aware that the big dollars weren’t going to be spent to remedy these problems, but to the building of a totally unneeded town hall.

If his wakeup call cost the town $50–$70,000 in legal fees, it pales, I’m sure, in comparison to the monies spent on the consultant who presented a report on Shelton. That it could be used, or it couldn’t be used; and now we learn that, of necessity, it will become a body of water! Such an astute report could have been mailed in by anyone at the cost of a 39 cent stamp!

Then there was the consultant who had us playing monopoly with replicas of the buildings until it was suggested that this was ridiculous since no one knew the costs involved in the movement of the pawns. What was he paid? We must assume the list goes on!

There is an arrogance of power in too many of the committees. I attended one Fairfield Hills meeting at the library. When the audience was asked if there were any questions, I asked who in the town authority was capable of offering out contracts for construction after the debacle in fixing the high school field. Apparently, it was too tough a question to answer, because the chairman never responded. Instead, he asked if there were any other questions, and closed the meeting.

I take no pleasure in writing this, because I am a friend and neighbor of our first selectman, but I am appalled by the letters condemning Matt DeAngelis. Regardless of whether you are for or against the idea of a new town hall; whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, we should all be thankful that there is such a man who, at his own expense, asked for answers to the questions so many of us have, but lack the nerve to ask them, or simply don’t want to be involved. I, for one, want to thank him for that!

Richard J. Cole

72 Main Street, Newtown                                               April 20, 2007