Move Forward On Fairfield Hills
To the Editor:
We have a choice to make and I believe it will affect us for years to come. The master plan for Fairfield Hills w...
A trip to New Jersey turned out just great for the Newtown Heat 14-and-under travel softball team.
With wins over the Suffolk Storm, North Edison Blue Devils, S...
Helen Murtagh
Helen (McKeefrey) Murtagh, 78, wife of the late Thomas Murtagh, formerly of Ridgefield and Newtown, died at Rhode Island Hospital on July 28.
Mrs ...
Two New Free Tour Programs At Weir Farm
WILTON — The National Park Service staff at Weir Farm National Historic Site announces two new ranger-led wa...
Martha Fortier
Martha J. Fortier, 53, the widow of Paul H. Fortier, of 7 Arbor Drive, Dover, N.H., died July 26 at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital, Dover, following...
Goodwin Appointed To CT Invasive Plants Council
David Goodwin, who works at Planters’ Choice Nursery in Newtown, has been appointed to the Connecti...
Saturday, August 2
Donut Drive-Thru, 9 am–noon, St John’s Episcopal Church, 5 Washington Avenue, fresh, hot donuts, also scones, be...
A Search For Nighttime Insects
SOUTHBURY — The Audubon Center at Bent of the River is offering a program with well-known Connecticut naturalist John...
Bits & Pieces
By Kim J. Harmon
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I swear, I thought I had stepped into an alternate universe.
It certainly wasn’t the universe where I had bee...
Benefit ‘Wizard Of Oz’ Performances
DANBURY — More than 30 children and adults from the greater Danbury area will be feature...
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.
You have Capital Tax Recovery confused with a different company, Municipal Tax Services. Municipal Tax Services works with the City of Waterbury. That was discussed at a previous counsel meeting.
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.