If one or more trees on your property is threatening to disrupt electrical service, you may be receiving a text, e-mail, and/or phone call from Eversource or one of the utility’s authorized contractors.
The Chamber of Commerce, Town of Newtown, and Newtown Community Center will sponsor "Horns For Hope," a townwide celebration of sound, Saturday, May 2.
As Newtown's COVID-19 case and death counts mount, trusty volunteers are "lined up and ready" to assist with shopping to help ensure residents remain better distanced from possible coronavirus exposure.
School district leaders are proposing to carry most or all of a COVID-19 related surplus into a non-lapsing fund - and use some to offset bonding for the Hawley School's HVAC project.
Newtown has lost its sixth resident to COVID-19, according to Health District Director Donna Culbert while new cases and hospitalizations statewide continue to decline. The state has also announced its formal program to ramp up contact tracing - read about it here.
The Department of Children and Families (DCF), in partnership with United Way of Connecticut, recently launched their “When it Builds Up, Talk it Out” campaign.
A combination of dedicated police work and an apparent random traffic stop in Danbury has led to the arrest of an alleged Newtown home invasion suspect.
With fishing season already opened earlier than normal due to the COVID-19 emergency, Governor Ned Lamont has joined several fellow governors in reopening state and local marinas, signaling a planned reopening of Newtown’s Eichler’s Cove facility on May 9.
Bruce, welcome to the conversation.
Your recent statement after the storm — admitting that you should have communicated “faster, more completely, and more personally” — was fine as far as it went. But this is not just about one storm. It is about a pattern. You ran on openness, responsiveness, and transparency, even saying that “evasive answers or silence are unacceptable in government.”
The problem is that Newtown residents have been dealing with exactly that silence from you since you were elected.
Newtown’s Emergency Management page says the town, together with the Office of the First Selectman, provides “critical public information and warning” during emergencies. The town also rolled out CodeRED cellphone registration on March 24, 2022 so residents could receive emergency information directly.
So where were you when police were searching for missing 23-year-old Kateri Doty in January? Where were you during the brush fires near the Newtown town line in April? Where were you on April 22, when state police and Newtown police were searching for two people who fled an I-84 crash and a canine search moved into the Church Hill Road area?
Residents should not be hearing about a missing person, wildfire conditions, or police tracking dogs moving through backyards from Facebook, neighbors, or kids in town. They should be hearing from their town government.
This is not really about whether you personally press the CodeRED button. Or how many task forces you have created. It is about leadership. You are the First Selectman. You are responsible for making sure the town communicates clearly, quickly, and visibly when public safety is involved.
So yes, it is nice that you have finally acknowledged the problem. But the public did not need this storm to figure it out. We have been saying it for a long time.
Bruce, you were missing when the town needed to hear from you. The question now is whether this storm finally woke you up, or whether this is just another late apology followed by more silence.
The topic may be the same but the narratives every other week differ and I appreciate the installments. Rebuttals on factual content rather than focusing on form would improve the discourse.
Congrats to all the 275 graduates.
For context...class of 2005 had 360 students, the number of graduating seniors seemed to cap out in the late 2000's in the low 400's.
