To the Editor:

In October 2013 GE and the town announced a gift to develop a stand-alone Community Center because ”Newtown lacked a central meeting place for the whole community.”

Fast forward and the current plan as presented at the Community Center Forums has changed dramatically. The plan now contains a senior’s only center with a private entrance and parking lot. Gone is the space to have a useful central meeting place for the whole community. (Just a Senior Only Center, a lobby , some office space and a aquatic center)) That Community Center that we thought we were getting will be Phase Two for $15 million dollars of taxpayer money. So claims that this will not cost Newtown anything are greatly misleading. If we want a real Community Center it’s going to cost big bucks, more than the Municipal Center cost Newtown.

The referendum question is not just to accept the gift; it also includes language that we agree to follow the GE Donor Agreement. As of today that agreement has not been published in The Bee and yet the voters are expected to agree to it.

Even some GE employees who were involved in the original group who suggested the gift feel it’s not in keeping with the original intent.  We should not be using GE’s gift to create an exclusionary Senior Center; the gift was intended for the entire community to bring us together. 

The GE gift was very generous and we should use it for the original purpose intended. Our elected officials have distorted this gift into something that divides the community not unites it.  If we want a senior’s only center we should be using town funds to develop that. We need to start over on the so called Community Center Plan and create a true meeting place for the whole community. 

Bruce Walczak

12 Glover Avenue, Newtown                        March 25, 2015