Occupation: I’m president of Sibley Smart Copy, LLC, a content marketing firm. I do all kinds of copyediting and am a content generator for many companies. It is pretty much anything and everythin...
February 24, 1989
Two men, one of them a Sandy Hook resident, have been arrested in connection with a January 2 incident in which they allegedly harassed the American bald eagles that are winteri...
Under the tutelage of creative writing instructor Chris Belden, inmates of Garner Correctional Institute have published three editions of a literary magazine, Sentences. Issue number 4 is ready to be ...
Members of the Ben’s Bells Newtown (BBN) team visited Pequenakonck Elementary School in North Salem, N.Y., recently.
A family session on January 31 had 140 students, teachers, and parents all working ...
Recently, a friend offered me some tortilla chips from a local restaurant. I declined, explaining that lately corn chips were making me congested. (What the heck?!) That got me lamenting to him about...
Nearly a century separates the lives of the man recognized as Newtown’s first historian, Ezra Levan Johnson, and Newtown’s first official historian, Daniel Cruson, but uncanny similarities between the...
Survivors and supporters gathered at Newtown High School Monday night with one goal in mind: fighting cancer.
Kicking off this year’s Relay For Life, which will take place from the evening of May 31 i...
Valentine’s Day came a little early for some of Newtown’s youngest as well as the town’s most experienced residents. For the second year in a row, the Newtown Youth Basketball Association (NYBA) teame...
Occupation: I work for Prudential Financial in Shelton as a technical product manager. I’ve been there for 16 years.
Family: I’ve been married to John for 13 years. I met him on a blind date, ...
Instead of the usual NBC “Bugler’s Dream” trumpet blast that has been greeting my ears during the 2014 broadcasts of the Winter Olympics, I perked up at one point when I recognized the Connecticut-pro...
Tom, I appreciate you sharing your perspective. My advocacy isn't about a personal 'vested interest' in a single field; it is about the Standard of Newtown.
While you categorize the salt shed and library parking as 'essential' and the turf as an 'upgrade,' I would argue they all fall under the same umbrella of maintaining town assets.
The Turf Field ($1.4M): This was a replacement project for a facility used by thousands of youth athletes, not a new 'luxury' add-on.
The Salt Shed ($1.2M) & Library Parking ($1.4M): These were passed at almost identical price points.
The point isn't to say these items aren't important; it’s to ask why we find the money for infrastructure that serves one demographic while claiming we are too 'fiscally strained' to fund infrastructure for another. When we categorize things we use as 'essential' and things our neighbors' children use as 'extras,' we aren't having an honest discussion about priorities, we are picking winners and losers.
The goal of my letter wasn't to be 'unproductive,' but to sound the alarm for the 82% of residents who didn't show up to the polls. We cannot be a community that only thrives in parts. If we want Newtown to remain a place where people want to move and raise families, we have to invest in the next generation with the same urgency we use to fix our parking lots.
Michelle, I am sorry to see that you are also a victim of fabrications. All those rumors that go round that seem so convincing. All so often, those rumors are little more than convenient lies. This has been happening for several years and hopefully we can come together to stop them.
Until then, I ask that those of you who have heard disparaging remarks about the candidates take the time to meet with them to ask them directly what you are concerned about. Get to know them better rather than assume. We all will have better representation both locally and state-wide if you do so.
This is disappointing because it frames voters who rejected the Treadwell turf replacement as selfish or anti-youth. When I suspect that Katherine's motives were likely because she has some vested interest in those turf fields, which makes it exceptionally selfish.
There is a clear difference between maintaining basic town infrastructure and approving an athletic facility upgrade. Library sidewalks, parking access, and a salt storage facility support safety and essential town operations. The turf field may be worthwhile, but it is still a different type of request.
Residents can support youth sports and still question the cost, timing, or priority of a specific project. Calling that selfish, or turning it into a generational argument is unfair and unproductive.
Newtown is better served by honest discussion about priorities, not by accusing voters of lacking community spirit because they disagreed on one ballot item.
