Make Open Space A Common Goal

To The Editor,

It is indeed a frightening thought to imagine Newtown a community of 38,000 residents. Although this may a worst case scenario, it is imperative that we, as a town, do something to preserve some of the open space that still exists. Efforts to do just this go back to the Open Space Plan of 1975, the Joint Open Space Sub-Committee of 1976, the Greenways Committee of recent years, and more recently, an Open Space Task Force which has been meeting since January of this year. Many of the ideas and proposals that these groups came up with are echoed in the Newtown Plan of Development (1992).

The Open Space Task Force is presently working with an updated map (thanks to the Newtown Bridle Land Trust), which shows the open space and trails in Newtown, and our charge is to recommend to the conservation commission specific parcels of land to consider for acquisition. We hope to involve the Newtown community as much as possible for their valuable input and urge residents to contact the committee with proposals they deem worthy of consideration. If preserving open space is a common goal for Newtown, let us support the acquisition of open space and the greenway concept. It will benefit all of us in untold ways.

Sincerely,

Judy Holmes

25 Hundred Acres Road, Newtown                               May 22, 2000