Incompetence And Indifference

To the Editor:

The 36 percent of Newtown’s registered voters that actually care about the future of our town approved the 2003–2004 budget on the third try. Our first selectman’s response? “It was very close. The town is clearly divided.” No kidding! By passing this budget by only 137 votes, 49 percent of those who actually care enough about our town to show up to vote are sick and tired of the incompetence and indifference of our elected officials, whose only response to our town’s fiscal problems is to continue to increase the burden on the taxpayers, year after year.

Now that the budget is behind us, it is time to focus on Fairfield Hills. In June 2001, the voters of Newtown decided that rather than continuing to use Fairfield Hills for free, we would rather pay the State of Connecticut for this privilege. Let us not forget that three weeks after the town approved this purchase came September 11. With this tragedy came economic recession, individual salary cuts and job losses, and reduced state and local tax revenues. Most importantly, the State of Connecticut cut the amount of funds it is sending to Newtown. Based on these events, we should proceed with Fairfield Hills in the following manner.

First, we must immediately rezone Fairfield Hills to ensure open space and limited commercial development, assuming that this is what the Newtown taxpayers actually want. Second, we must tell the State of Connecticut that based on its reduction of state funds to Newtown, we have changed our mind and we are no longer interested in buying this toxic waste dump from them. However, we would be happy to accept this property from them as a gift. If the state is unwilling to gift this land to Newtown, we will be happy to continue to use the land for free and, with the aforementioned rezoning, we will have limited the commercial viability of the property so no developer will ever be interested in purchasing this white elephant from the state.

I hope our town officials sent flowers and a fruit basket over to their counterparts in Brookfield. By failing to apply to the state for $630,000 in reimbursement for eight school improvement projects, Brookfield town officials actually made our Newtown officials look competent by comparison for once.

FYI, over two weeks ago I telephoned the Newtown tax assessor’s office requesting what I thought was two simple pieces of information. First, how many property tax appeal requests did their office receive? Second, how many property tax appeals did the assessor’s office actually grant? I have still not received even the courtesy of a return telephone call. Why not, do they have something to hide? If, as I suspect, that virtually no appeals were granted, this could be a perfect opportunity for the town to cut expenses at the assessor’s office. Rather than further placing the burden on our school system to balance the budget through the continued elimination of services for our children, we could simply reduce headcount at the assessor’s office. For anyone else who’s interested in this information, you can try and contact Charles V. Framularo, Jr, chairman, at (203) 270-4240; maybe he’ll return your call.

Anyway, that’s what I think. Tell me how you feel Newtown; the editorial pages are now open.

Philip Dinielli

9 Copper Creek Circle, Newtown                                    June 2, 2003