To the Editor:

After attending the WSA meeting last week and hearing the comments and complaints about multifamily residences in Newtown, I started to reflect on the general mood and atmosphere when the decision to install a “sewer system” in Newtown was being bantered about.  What was most interesting to me then and again today is the “unspoken!”

The objections are generally environmental, increased traffic, municipal cost increases, etc. What’s really going on in people’s minds and hearts? What’s the thought process?

The objections against the sewer system were many.  Too many to address in this short missive. The driving force, though is easy to remember and relatively concise, is “a sewer system will encourage development.”  A lot of people did not want that, and it’s raised its elitist head again today.  “I’m here, I got mine” and the never spoken in public – “we don’t want those people.” Who are “those people?” To me “those people” are residents paying rent, which subsidizes our tax base, patrons of local restaurants, markets and stores.  Some may even work in businesses in town.  All of this translates into one important area – real estate taxes, as well as, a diversified tax base.

It appears to me that most people resist change.  Understandable, however, this is usually detrimental. “The good old days” might have been good, but they occurred in the past. The world today, the Newtown of today, is not the same Newtown of 1975 and so on.  We cannot approach municipal fiscal costs with that old Yankee reactionary mentality of yesteryear. Applying the “old thinking” results in what I see as mill rate creep!  It becomes like a chronic virus that never goes away and quietly erodes the ability of folks to live and work in a city or town.

You can’t have it both ways.  You can have exclusionary zoning, good education system, nice parks and a top-rated police department.  But with that combination, you get (you guessed it) the virus of mill rate creep. 

Add planned development.  Not fear-based and reactive, but, forward thinking and proactive.  What’s the result?  No virus, a diversified tax base and a reasonable mill rate with top notch education and services.

Make your choices and place your bets.  Just remember you can have it either way, just not both ways.

PS-“Those people”?  Learn to love them, they’ll help pay your taxes.

Jim Maguire

8 Watkins Drive, Sandy Hook                     March 23, 2015