Blaming Others For Poor Management

To the Editor:

The Fairfield Hills cost overruns our town officials have chosen to highlight demonstrates our town government’s poor project management, poor community relations, and failure to effectively work with the state to meet state regulations.

As has been the pattern, the people responsible for Fairfield Hills are again trying to blame others for their failure to execute.

Some elected and appointed town officials give the impression in The Bee that it’s okay to skirt state law to save money. It’s not okay. It’s clear that the state did find something wrong, and it cost taxpayers $662,217 to make things right. If it was done right in the first place, I suspect we would not have incurred some of these additional expenses.

Taxpayers have a vested interest in how their tax dollars are spent. Our local government should be encouraging more involvement in town government, not less. Town officials must use the interest expressed by the community on issues, such as Fairfield Hills, and channel it in a productive manner.

Our town officials had a wonderful opportunity two years ago to work with community members who were raising legitimate questions about the new town hall being constructed at Fairfield Hills. At the time, I recognized the need for a new town hall, but not as a priority over other pressing needs in our community. I asked that the town provide more information to demonstrate why the town hall needed to be built at Fairfield Hills and in the currently proposed timeframe. It took seven months before I received some perfunctory answers.

When the Newtown Youth Academy project was proposed, I voiced support and urged our town officials to use existing bond funds to meet our obligation to complete parking for the facility while NYA was being constructed, which included removing the dilapidated buildings surrounding this beautiful facility, instead of pursuing a more costly plan that called for an interim step of providing temporary parking. This would have allowed the town to finish a portion of the Fairfield Hills campus before the end of 2008. During the last election, town officials said there was enough money to build town hall and complete the parking. Of course, that turned out to be false. Changes were made to the NYA lease to spend additional millions to cover parking construction. Meanwhile, NYA and its patrons unfairly faced a parking predicament for several months.

I support the development of Fairfield Hills, but only if we can maximize the return we receive from the investment of our tax dollars. I encourage interested taxpayers to continue to question activities at Fairfield Hills. It is your right.

I have called for a full detailed accounting of all cost overruns, not just the ones town officials want to blame on others. I have also asked for a process to review the current Master Plan for Fairfield Hills to determine if changes are warranted before we invest further funds.

Sincerely,

Gary Davis

Legislative Council – District 2

23 Charter Ridge Drive, Sandy Hook                             July 15, 2009