Newtown-based dance school Ashurst Academy of Irish Dance recently sent two dancers to Dublin, Ireland, where they competed in the World Irish Dancing Championships.
The story of Connecticut’s Charles Goodyear and his long quest to invent commercially useful rubber — much of which was done in Sandy Hook — will be the focus of a Seymour Historical Society program on Sunday, May 18.
UPDATE: This year's event has been postponed to Sunday, June 1. || The Newtown Lions Club Great Pootatuck River Duck Race will be held on the Saturday after Memorial Day weekend this year. The event will again be centered around Heritage Park in Sandy Hook Center.
UPDATE (May 21, 2025): Ahead of inclement weather expected tomorrow night, organizers of Celebration of Kind Works are postponing the May 22 fundraiser to Thursday, May 29.
Ahead of Newtown's 14th Annual Strutt Your Mutt, the Newtown Board of Realtors is hosting an Animal Shelter Donation Drive to benefit Newtown Animal Shelter.
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.
