Members of Newtown Congregational Church (NCC), 14 West Street, conducted a Contactless Pick-Up Mississippi BBQ Dinner for community members on Saturday, Octobe...
Newtown High School’s cross country teams hosted Immaculate of Danbury on October 23. The boys won their race 19-38 and the girls fell 25-30 to the Mustangs.
Ai...
National Guard Captain and Army Dental Officer Sean Lee, DDS, MOS is inviting his brothers and sisters in arms for a free dental exam and no-cost treatment on V...
The Newtown Chamber of Commerce has announced the promotion of Helen Brickfield to executive director, effective immediately.
Brickfield has served as the chamb...
Failure To Maintain Lane
Derek Coulson, 34, of Monroe, was operating a 2019 Ram 1500 traveling east on Sugar Street around 1:28 pm, September 25, when he f...
All in all, it was a strong couple of games with the same result for Newtown High School’s girls’ soccer team. The Nighthawks earned a 1-1 draw with unbeaten Po...
This series of profiles taps Newtown residents who are finding passion and inspiration as part of the growing community giving powerful hyper-local voice to...
At The Newtown Bee, we are working on articles every week for our readers’ education and enjoyment, and subscribers get the first — and sometimes exclusive — lo...
To the Editor:
Regarding a recent letter entitled “Help Make The World Better.” (October 30, 2020, The Newtown Bee.) Clare is so right that trash, particularly ...
To the Editor:
On Labor Day of 2020, President Donald Trump held a conference in which he announced the state of a COVID-19 vaccine, “we remain on track to deli...
The issue is not that our taxes will go up. The issue is that the assessment came at a time when the pandemic brought folks to Newtown in a frenzy to buy small houses (like mine <2000 sq ft). 13 houses on my street with long time residents sold in less than 2 days each with most getting more than asking. And these 'comps' were used for my assessment (42% increase). Now that the market has stalled, housing prices have dropped dramatically. We will pay increased taxes for the next 5 years until the next assessment corrects this anomaly. And wait for the car tax! Not to mention the 'R' word.
I hope that concerned folks will focus on the budget that we vote to approve each year. It is the primary determinant of the taxes we pay. Assessments are, in a way, the distribution or redistribution of that tax burden across taxpayers based on the value of their homes. Even if there were no revaluation taking place, we would be paying more tax because we voted for an increased budget. The only other offset would be a meaningful increase in businesses or new homes providing additional tax revenues. As I understand it, the mil rate will adjust based on valuations (grand list) to provide the budget we vote for. Taxes will go up until we spend less or get more revenue from new sources.
Editor's Note: It should also be pointed out that NYA (and NVAC) built their own building — which has a footprint larger than Newsylum, Parent Connection, and the Ambulance headquarters combined — that each of the latter organizations also contributed their own significant funds to their construction and improvement projects; and that Newsylum and the Parent Connection both improved existing abandoned buildings that may have otherwise continued to be unused and deteriorating.
