Is the quality of life getting better or worse? Of course it is worse. We used to know everyone, my grandfather buried many, and my great-aunt worked at The Bee for many years. Any family name going back to the Depression and residing in Newtown could be found visiting at grandma and grandpa’s. Sundays were the best, no stores open. You were happy to be at home, something would always come up. I remember Irish singers, really from Ireland, crooning my grandmother under the big oak. Grandpa used to sit with her under that tree and sing to her all afternoon. We ate great food, all homemade of course...we played cribbage for hours, and gramps cheated. He used to take me down to the hook where he would play cards in the tavern and I would drink orange soda, got my haircut across the street from the tavern. Oh and so much more… Was it better? I am just about 50 years old. Thought I was older, didn’t you. Of course it was much better. I am Sean O’Donnell Bennett of a Newtown family since the 1920s, now exiled in Maine

Sean Bennett

Maine

 

I think the quality of life is going to be status quo for a short while, then rapidly get worse. Too much new housing, heavier traffic, and the new roadway at the dam proposed for [Route] 34 will bring increased truck traffic onto our roads. Also with the budget being cut, we need to see how services get slashed. Also I believe more business will leave Newtown in favor of cheaper labor elsewhere.

Jim Webb

85 Great Quarter Road

Sandy Hook,

 

Worse. The condition of South Main Street. Where were the planning and zoning people when all these small shopping areas were built? Traveling down South Main Street is “putting your life at risk” with auto traffic. It is not the amount of traffic but the fact in some areas there seems to be driveways every 50 feet, and they enter from either side. Also there are no left turn lanes, and I have seen cars backed for several blocks. So much for our town ten-year plan.

Sand Hill Plaza is the best thing that has happened in Newtown for shopping safety and appearance. You want to see a great shopping area, go see Southbury’s Main Street.

Robert P. Siwik

2 Greenknolls Lane

Newtown

 

Having just moved here one year ago (with the exception of property taxes), I cannot imagine it getting any better!

R. Auerbach

Sandy Hook

NEXT WEEK’S QUESTION: What would like to see come to Newtown that doesn’t currently exist here? And what in Newtown do you wish didn’t exist here?

Click on the “Talk Back” link at NewtownBee.com (or mail your comments to The Bee at PO Box 5503, Newtown CT 06470) and watch for your views in print in the next edition of The Newtown Bee.

Contributors will be limited to one published submission per month.