Hospice Hosts
Its Annual Summer Breakfast
By Tanjua Damon
The Newtown Chapter of Regional Hospice held its 13th Annual Summer Breakfast June 13 at the Fireside ...
Newtown Middle School Environmental Projects
By Tanjua Damon
Newtown Middle School has students in seventh grade who could well be on their way to being environ...
Thanks To The Fifth Grade
To The Editor:
The members of the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire & Rescue Company would like to thank the fifth grade graduating class of ...
Alfred        Killing
Alfred Killing, 87, husband of Avis (Fisher) Killing of Deland, Fla., formerly of Newtown, died June 16 while on a Caribbean crui...
Free Concert Of Traditional Music
EASTON — The Friends of Easton Library will host a concert by tenor James Brown and lutenist James Smith, who will...
After missing qualifying for the United States’ team that competed in the World Age Group Triathlon Championships a year ago by just one place, Stev...
After missing qualifying for the United States’ team that competed in the World Age Group Triathlon Championships a year ago by just one place, Stev...
‘Peter Pan’ At
Fairy Tale Theatre
DANBURY — Musicals at Richter will continue its Fairy Tale Theater series with performance...
Celebrate Our Independence:_Options For Americans Of All Ages
BY SHANNON HICKS
The highlight of the year for the red, white, and blue is Independence Day. July ...
BOE Referendum, Round Two, UnderwayRegistered Newtown voters are heading to the polls today, for the second attempt by the Board of Education to get a budget for the 2024-25 academic year passed.Registered Newtown voters are heading to the polls today, for the second attempt by the Board of Education to get a budget for the 2024-25 academic year passed.All voting is again taking place at Newtown Middle School, 11 Queen Street. Polls opened at 6 am and will remain open until 8 pm.Following a rejection of the school budget by 507 votes at a referendum on April 23, the Legislative Council at its April 29 meeting slashed $1,408,307 from the Board of Education’s proposed 2024-25 budget.The reduction was unanimously approved by all 12 councilmen, in contrast to a previous, pre-referendum meeting on March 27, where no bottom line for the school budget drew more than a simple majority of seven votes.The new bottom line of $87,409,066 is a $2,339,415 or 2.75% spending increase over the 2023-24 budget, which places it in line with the municipal budget, which was passed by voters.The previous proposed 2024-25 BOE budget rejected by voters was $88,817,373, which would have been a $3,747,722 or 4.4% spending increase.The education budget failed, 1,701 No votes to 1,194 Yes votes.On the secondary question to the education budget — If the proposed sum for the Board of Education is not approved, should the revised budget be higher? — the responses were 727 Yes and 2,071 No.The Registrar of Voters reported 15.1% of Newtown’s registered voters participated in the April 23 referendum, with 2,952 people showing up at the middle school to vote and another 47 turning in absentee ballots.
It is a shame but yes, we are so broke... The NIMBY crowd will not allow any new development so there is no ability to add to the tax base... got to hire strangers to park at our schools, and grocery stores and sneak around on our property to ensure our kindergartners Spanish class doesn't get canceled.
I was the recipient of such a invasion of my privacy when my daughter was visiting her boyfriend in Waterbury. They tried to get me to pay them taxes instead of Newtown. They were rude, offensive and threatening and I had to call the mayor of Waterbury to finally get it cleared up after being threatened. It was a long drawn out process to get this overturned. Are we that broke that we have to turn our residents over to these mercenaries? This is beyond belief. How dare you hire these rent a cops to harass and threaten us?
Thanks for the quote, many people don’t realize Newtown does not exist in a silo and we have peers to benchmark against. For example Trumbull also spends less per student and outperforms us.
ALL students benefit from consistent policies and quality education. Affordability matters, especially to less affluent families which tend to skew more heavily minority based on census data.