Date: Fri 01-Jan-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

VonBank-Smith-Terrill-mountain

Full Text:

THE WAY WE WERE

JANUARY 4, 1974

After 18 years of talking on the phone, Myrtle VonBank, head switchboard

operator at the Town Hall, has decided she has had enough conversation and is

retiring. "I was going to work until I made my first million, but I haven't

made it yet, so I'm quitting," was the reason she jokingly said was the reason

she was leaving her job. Mrs VonBank has been head operator since she was

appointed by First Selectman Charles Terrill, and during her stint on the

switchboard she has managed to work all shifts of the 24-hour day, enjoying

every minute of it, and getting to know many Newtowners, at least by their

voices.

Town Counsel Robert H. Hall told the Board of Selectmen on Friday, December

28, that in his opinion the adjourned Town Meeting, which voted by referendum

on December 11 to abandon the Boyle site on Boggs Hill Road for a school

location, was invalid because the issue was not referred to the Planning and

Zoning Commission. Atty Hall's opinion agreed with the letter written on

December 14 by three Newtown attorneys, C. Harold Schwartz, David Chipman and

William Lavery, which pointed out that Section 8-24 of the State General

Statutes, requiring that a referral be made to the community's planning

commission before a town meeting act on any municipal property, had been

violated.

The Planning and Zoning Commission will conduct a public hearing at 8 pm on

Friday night, January 4, on an application to amend the town's zoning

regulations which could lead to the construction of apartments, condominiums,

housing facilities for the elderly and other types of multiple-family

dwellings in Newtown. The application, submitted by Atty Frank Mercier to the

Planning and Zoning Commission, and published in the legal notices section of

The Bee issues of December 21 and 28, calls for an amendment which would allow

planned unit developments as an accepted land use. Newtown's zoning

regulations presently allow no such use: residential zoning calls for

single-family dwellings located on a minimum of half, one, one and one half,

two and three acre lots. Atty Mercier told The Bee that his proposed amendment

can "allow better use of land by planned units."

At the Board of Selectmen's meeting on Friday, December 28, First Selectman

Frank DeLucia released a letter from the three persons who obtained an option

on the 22-acre Allen site on Route 6, with the intention of offering it to the

town as a possible school site. Also, the three optionees, Elizabeth M.

Fosdick, Lyman D. Rogers and Albert S. Goodrich, said that having paid $2,000

to maintain the option, since November, they will not pay the third $1,000

installment, which would keep the option open after January 20. The town,

however, can put up the $1,000 to keep the purchase option in effect. The

selectmen voted to send the Allen property plan to the Planning and Zoning

Commission as a mandatory referral and to seek comments from other town

agencies. Also, the matter of obtaining funds to pick up the option will be

referred to the Board of Finance, after which a town meeting would have to

approve the appropriation. A discussion on the issue will take place at the

BofS meeting planned for Friday, January 4, at Edmond Town Hall.

With 1974 upon us, First Selectman Frank DeLucia looks to the town's upcoming

budget considerations as the most important issue of the new year. In an

interview last week, Mr DeLucia stressed two things which he regards as vital:

that the various governmental bodies look at the budget "realistically" and

that the town continue to provide more information to the people on the

various items which would be included in the budget. One of the difficulties

which Newtown will face, according to the first selectman, is the price

squeeze. Emphasizing that this is a growing community with growing needs, Mr

DeLucia said the town is feeling the strain now because of rising costs. The

federal Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), which will require towns to

meet new and stringent requirements to increase safety standards, will reflect

in Newtown's budget, in the first selectman's view. OSHA, which will

necessitate such things as review and improvement of safety standards in

municipal buildings, town vehicles and road crew equipment, will be in force

within a few months. Another problem which Mr DeLucia foresees affecting all

phases of town planning, particularly during the first half of the year, is

the energy crisis. He did not predict what the extent of the effect would be,

however.

Conservation Commission Chairman Theodore Whippie presented to the commission

members at their meeting on January 3, a map he had just prepared showing the

areas of inland-wetland, determined by soil type, superimposed on assessor's

maps, showing property lines. He said that, in a matter of weeks, he could

prepare similar maps for every section of Newtown, 48 in all, and have them

copied in large quantities for use by all interested persons and commissions.

The commission also voted to reiterate, if asked, its unanimous decision

stated in 1970 on the advisability of acquiring the Boyle site for a school.

Mr Whippie recommended that all the commission members attend the forthcoming

Planning & Zoning Board meeting Friday night, January 4, because an

application to introduce cluster housing into Newtown was being considered. He

said the application was too broad in its wording to be safe to approve.

"Who," he asked, "would be asked to judge just what would be harmonious with

town and neighborhood?"

Project proposals from town boards and agencies to be included in Newtown's

Capital Improvements Program from 1974-1979 have been compiled in a report for

the boards of Selectmen and Finance, in accordance with Town Charter

revisions. The report, put together with the assistance of the Department of

Community Affairs, lists projects that each governmental body included in a

questionnaire that was sent out by the Board of Selectmen. Capital improvement

projects include such items as land acquisition, improvements to structures

and new facilities for the community. Total cost for the proposals is

$8,289,581, and a priority rating has been established for each expenditure.

On New Year's Day between 3 and 4 am Newtown Police Officer Richard Stook

found, on his routine patrol, that a total of six stores in the Queen Street

Shopping Center had been broken into. Officer Stook first noticed that Dr

Denninger's office had been entered, and at that time he requested the

assistance of Officer Kevin Flynn. The two officers then went on to check the

other buildings in the shopping center.

JANUARY 7, 1949

At its January meeting held on Tuesday evening, the Newtown Parent-Teacher

Association took up the subject of serving hot lunches to all the school

children of town. This plan, if adopted, would go into effect after the

completion of the Hawley school addition, when pupils are concentrated under

one roof. L.E. Pelletier, P.T.A. president, spoke briefly, saying that the

hot-lunch program at the Sandy Hook school, which the P.T.A. has been

operating for about five years, was now serving lunches to nearly 100 children

a day. If this undertaking is transferred to Hawley school there may be as

many as 500 children taking the lunch, which poses new and greater problems in

management, organization and equipment.

The Hawley High football team, winners of the Housatonic Valley Schoolmen's

League championship, will be honored at a dinner on Saturday, January 29, at

7:30 pm, in the Alexandria Room of the Edmond Town Hall. At the dinner, which

is being sponsored by the Parent-Teacher Association, the champion footballers

will be presented with a trophy.

Flood-ravaged sections of Connecticut returned to normal the early part of

this week after melting rains and snow had caused the swollen Housatonic,

Farmington and Naugatuck rivers to overflow. After three days of driving rain,

climaxed with sleet and more than four inches of snow, hundreds found

themselves temporarily homeless on the eve of the New Year and damages were

estimated at more than two million dollars. Route 6 in Hawleyville was also

inundated to a depth of about six inches, but cars were allowed to proceed

through the area at a crawling pace.

Mr and Mrs Jan Mayer of the Dodgingtown district gave their usual New Year's

Eve party this year, but instead of holding it in their home as has been their

habit for a number of years, the largely attended affair was held in the

Alexandria Room of Edmond Town Hall. The young people's party given by their

son, Pieter, home for the holidays from the George School, Newtown, Penna.,

was combined with that of the adult group. Guests in both groups enjoyed

dancing until a late hour. The hall was decorated with evergreens and the

buffet table was arranged at one end of the room, with the entire floor space

being used by the dancers.

On next Thursday evening, January 13, at 7:45 o'clock, the Zoning Board will

hold a public hearing in the Alexandria Room to review the application of Mrs

E.C. Parker, present owner, and J.D. Gerald and C.R. Hamilton, holders of an

option to purchase the Parker House property and to make alterations to the

present building. The petitioners propose alterations to provide for a

prescription pharmacy, display rooms, sales rooms, offices for an interior

decorating and home furnishing business, and also a general hardware store,

all on the first floor. The proposed alterations would include space for

professional offices and other display rooms on the second floor, and if space

permits, a small store for the sale of clothing specialties of the general

type of Peck and Peck of New York City.

In preparation for the annual March of Dimes campaign in Newtown, John Hansen,

local chairman, distributed on Monday the familiar coin boxes which are now

placed in all of the stores and business places in town. The Camp Fire Girls

are busy preparing the coin cards for mailing thus contributing their efforts

in the arduous task of properly addressing the cards to go through the mails.

In an effort to move several rolls of newsprint at The Bee office last Friday

afternoon, the combined strength of Lindy Crouch, Wallace Mitchell and Editor

Paul Smith was not enough to keep one roll in control. In its sudden fall,

some of its one thousand pound weight landed against the editor's left arm. As

a result, he is now wearing a plaster cast while the large bone just above the

wrist knits itself together. Needless to say, it is a handicap in his

newspaper work, but the editor hopes that the cast can be removed at the end

of four weeks.

The annual meeting of the Visiting Nurse Association of Newtown, Inc., was

held at the Edmond Town Hall on Tuesday, January 4, at 3:30 o'clock. The

president, Mrs Ellis Gladwin, who is serving her second year in this capacity,

presided. Reports given by the various officers of the Association, showed

that the year had been a very progressive one with emphasis largely on the

preventative field of health work.