Clean Slate Needed

(The Bee has received for publication the following open letter to First Selectman Herb Rosenthal.)

Herb,

Your letter to the Letter Hive (May 23) urges Newtown residents “work together to develop strategies for improvements...and additional efficiencies in all departments so that we may have a better result in 2004.” Pity you haven’t followed your own advice. You chose to fire the social services director for reasons you feel the public doesn’t need to know, yet, the “anti-community development director” remains gainfully employed while another major commercial taxpayer leaves town with no replacement in sight! More and more of us have been waiting at least six years for some kind of “better result(s)” as if waiting for Godot, or Guffman, even. You’ve been quoted as saying, “The voters are in charge here. They are the taxpayers and they pay the bills.” I’m sure you had this mind with the Fairfield Hills Authority and your latest “end-run” around the voters.

Once again you have slapped the taxpayers in the face. By rushing your FFH Authority bill to the state legislature, attaching it to another bill, and getting it passed immediately, you’ve done the usual dirty deed so often associated with politics. You’ve never moved so fast, either! Now, you will handpick yet another bogus committee (see Board of Finance and FFH Advisory) of cronies to control FFH, totally eliminating any control or decisions by the very people you claim to be in charge –– us! The facts are indisputable. At your behest, Attorney Grogins suggests Newtown needs an “Authority” to run FFH. Why? Isn’t there enough bureaucracy in town to screw things up? Apparently, not. You felt a selfish compulsion to wrest the core campus for your needs, not the citizens of Newtown. You and your pals, at the least, can create “sweetheart” leases. You’ve created staggered terms for this committee and the first selectman’s term, ensuring you enough time to have your way until a new first selectman can correct such egregious acts. Selectmen Brimmer, Bojnowski and Legislative Council members Holian, Rodgers, and Pennarola were your accomplices in this latest theft from the good people of Newtown. Residents should be very aware of how poorly they are being represented. Mr Rodgers’ recent obnoxious tirades toward concerned residents are documented, but not in this paper.

In closing, you have performed as a seasoned politician (um, Herb, that’s a bad thing). To your credit, however, you seem to see the “writing on the wall.” The taxpayers are fed up with the ineptitude that has existed on Main Street for so long. The puppet show is closing and you have chosen to continue on the public dole by scheming to run FFH as the autocrat we know. Residents of Newtown deserve to know that all income received by your new authority is to be kept apart from town funds and subjected to the order of the FFH Authority. Sweet deal for you, Herb! Well, done.

Now it is up to our only hope, the Republican Party, to nominate men/women with spines (how novel!) for first selectman, selectmen, and Legislative Council members, rather than the shameful puppets currently in office. Clean slate indeed!

Respectfully yours,

Robert Hennessey

21 Sleepy Hollow Road, Sandy Hook                              June 4, 2003