Making The Budget

More Accessible

To the Editor:

We are very pleased that the 2009-2010 town budget passed on the first referendum. While it was a difficult budget process, we believe it was in the best interests of the town to get this budget passed on the first vote.

This year was also an experiment in creating greater transparency around the budget process. As the Communications Subcommittee of the Legislative Council, we were committed to making this year’s budget process more accessible to citizens by having the meetings taped for video and audio distribution. We believe that this effort made the budget process accessible to more Newtown residents than ever before, and we hope it led to a better-educated citizenry when it came time to vote on the budget.

We were successful in achieving this objective thanks to the hard work of many people.

The majority of the budget proceedings held by the Board of Finance and the Legislative Council were televised on Channel 17 and broadcast on YouTube thanks to the efforts of the Newtown High School Tech Team — especially Laura Newberry, Charlie Lundblad, and their advisor, Assistant Principal Jason Hiruo — and Greg Van Antwerp, Charter Communications community assistance supervisor. Thanks to Associate Editor John Voket and The Newtown Bee for posting video files to YouTube and audio files of the meetings on The Bee’s website.

Further, town employees Chris Kelsey, Sue Marcinek, and Debbie Aurelia worked with us and with the PTAs to post a tax calculator link on the Newtown home page for ease of access to folks interested in calculating their property tax under the proposed budget.

We are working diligently to ensure that the new town hall, scheduled to open this fall, will be equipped with the necessary audio and video equipment to allow for televising important town meetings held by our government, as well as audio equipment to help the hearing impaired who attend town meetings. This has been a team effort involving the town and school district IT staffs, and the many consultants working on the town hall project, including those from construction firm O&G, architectural firm Tai Soo Kim, and technology firm BVH.

We all benefit when government is more accessible to its citizens. We will continue to explore ways to make it easier for Newtown citizens to keep track of their government’s activities.

Sincerely,

Pat Llodra, Legislative Council District 2

Jeff Capeci, Legislative Council District 3

Gary Davis, Legislative Council District 2

45 Main Street, Newtown                                                   May 9, 2009