Fire Marshal Bill Halstead has announced that the town's open burning season is extended to May 15 to allow residents sufficient time to burn small brush for its disposal.
Open burning season normally...
Town officials have called a briefing regarding the proposed Newtown Community Center and an April 5 referendum to vote on the project for Tuesday, March 29, at 6:45 pm. The special event will be cond...
Eversource Energy has notified the town that it will be performing aerial patrols on many of its transmission lines this week and next.
Work will be done March 30-April 1 and April 4-8, according to t...
Due to public interest in the Rochambeau Woods proposal to build 29 clustered condominium units at a 29.2-acre site on Mt Pleasant Road in the borough, the Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC) has schedul...
Newtown's Commission on Aging will be conducting a series of four forums and information exchanges over the next weeks for the "seniors and boomers" of Newtown to help clarify any confusion regarding ...
On a recent sunny day, several workers were busy renovating the interior of the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire & Rescue Company's newly expanded fire substation at 249 Berkshire Road (State Route 34).
The ...
Members of Women Involved in Newtown spent a few hours on March 18 working on one of the club's annual projects: filling baskets with treats for children whose parents might need a hand making sure th...
Standing in front of the familiar dome of the Connecticut State Capitol, holding a sheaf of paperwork, Newtown's 106th District incumbent State Representative Mitch Bolinsky announced via a Facebook p...
At about 3:30 pm on Wednesday, March 23, someone forcibly entered two locked vehicles that were parked along DG Beers Boulevard near Newtown Municipal Center at Fairfield Hills and stole a purse from ...
Police have arrested a man who had been working at a local theater group, charging him with eight sex-related felonies for allegedly pursuing, and in some cases having, sexual contact with underage fe...
CT primaries are closed to voters not registered with the party's designation. Dems can't vote in Rep. primaries and, vice versa. Unaffiliated and Independent voters cannot vote in them. Keep primaries closed!
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.
