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THE WAY WE WERE FOR FEBRUARY 26, 1999

MARCH 1, 1974

The Board of Selectmen has set Monday, March 18, as the date for a Special

Town Meeting on the Boyle site, to take place at 8 pm in the Newtown High

School auditorium. By the resolutions contained in the call of the meeting,

the Selectmen hope to either resolve the issue of having the town continue its

efforts to obtain the site on Boggs Hill Road for an elementary school, or

speed up the court processes now taking place.

The Voters Action Committee (VAC) of Newtown has completed its survey of

voters which was conducted to determine public opinion regarding the need for

a new elementary school and the retention of the Boyle property as a school

site. In addition to recording the answers to these two questions, further

inquiries were made to determine the basis for the opinions expressed and the

factors that most influenced the voters at the time of the December 11, 1973

referendum. With fully 75 per cent of the voting households having been

called, there is overwhelming support (2-1) for a new school; however, a

significant percentage of voters (25 per cent) are undecided and feel more

information is required. The majority (7-6) of those voters who expressed a

definite opinion on the Boyle property is in favor of its retention as a

school site; however, fully 34 per cent of those called are undecided and have

been confused by two major factors (1) the flyers mailed to homes under the

name of the Newtown Taxpayers Group and (2) the flurry of legal activity.

Approximately 50 people gathered in the lower floor meeting room at Edmond

Town Hall on Tuesday, February 26, to hear James Spencer, in charge of the

hydraulics and drainage studies section of the Bureau of Highways, Department

of Transportation, discuss his views on the proposed Route 25 expressway

corridors. Mr Spencer, along with Clem Zawodniak, in charge of soil studies

and Richard Carrier, from Mr Spencer's office, were guests of the Route 25

Impact Study Committee.

Newtown has received word it is now an official bicentennial community. The

information was received on Tuesday, February 26, via a telegram to First

Selectman Frank R. DeLucia. This telegram was read at the meeting of the

Bicentennial Committee that evening.

Technical problems could delay the Planning and Zoning Commission hearing on a

shopping center proposed for South Main Street. The hearing, set for March 8

at Edmond Town Hall, may be postponed because of a lack of required accuracy

in the borders shown in the plans submitted by the applicant. P&Z Chairman

Philip Kopp said this week that the inaccuracies came out when the notice for

the public hearing was being prepared for publication. The land involved in

the application for special exception for use as a shopping center by Cyril

Mantell, of Stamford, is some 11.6 acres, owned by Paul V. and Evelyn P.

McNamara. The property fronts approximately 700 feet on Route 25, running

north from the bridge over Deep Brook. In back, the property borders on the

Penn Central railroad tracks.

Sarah Larrabee was back in Newtown briefly last week on her way from Mexico to

Nepal and the Himalayas. She stopped in at The Bee office wearing a

three-cornered fur hat and a huge wraparound sheepskin coat over layers of

Tibetan clothes she had collected during her last stay in India. She found

time during her short visit with her family to speak at a Sunday night supper

the Pilgrim Fellowship served for members of the 60 Plus Club at the

Congregational Church on February 24. Miss Larrabee has been traveling in the

US since last May, finding markets for Indian and Tibetan crafts and products

like the red felt platform boots she wore to the Pilgrim Fellowship supper.

She has been sharing her experience of the Far East and seeking sponsors for

Tibetan orphans who, for about $5 a month, may live in a monastery school in

Dalhousie.

Cub Scout Pack 370 held their annual Blue & Gold dinner at the Dodgingtown

Fire House on February 25. A spaghetti dinner was enjoyed by all the Cubs and

their fathers. The following awards were represented: Bear Badge, David

Lawrenson, Sherman Corning, Bruce Caulkins, Scott Kordish, Daniel Radacsi,

Frank Scalzo; Gold Arrows, Frank Scalzo and Michael Corning; Silver Arrow,

Frank Scalzo; Denner Cords, Billy Bolmer of Den 4, Sherman Corning of Den 5

and David Vickery of Den 6.

The Charter Revision Commission has come upon rocky ground in its

deliberations on the role of a town fiscal officer in the charter to be

presented to the town for a vote later this year. The Commission's effort to

determine what help a fiscal officer might be in the operations of the Board

of Education was deferred since the Commission's meeting February 27

conflicted with a Board of Education budget meeting. The question of how the

fiscal officer should be appointed occupied most of the meeting and revealed a

division of opinion which indicated divergent ideas about the form town

government should take in the new charter.

MARCH 4, 1949

Following an informal meeting of town officials, including the Board of

Finance, Board of Selectmen and Board of Assessors, held on Saturday, February

19, in the Selectmen's office, a bill has been presented in the General

Assembly at Hartford to provide for a single assessor in Newtown. The bill

carries the approval of the Board of Finance and the Board of Selectmen and

has been submitted by Representative George M. Stuart at Hartford at their

request. According to the terms of the bill, if passed by the State

Legislature, it will become effective only upon its approval by vote at a

special town meeting called for that purpose. The bill creates a single

assessor for the town of Newtown to be appointed by the Board of Finance upon

nomination by the Board of Selectmen, for a four-year term. This single

assessor will replace the present three-man Board of Assessors, whose present

tenure of office, according to the terms of the bill, will be terminated upon

the appointment of the single assessor by the Board of Finance.

When school reconvened on Monday after a week's vacation, elementary school

children experienced quite a thrill as they moved into the recently completed

Hawley school addition. Previously housed in the outlying district one-room

schoolhouses, children were filled with excitement as they occupied the ten

new rooms for the first time. They came from classes formerly conducted at

Flat Swamp, Land's End, Huntington, St Rose and Sandy Hook. This move has done

away with all classes not heretofore housed in Hawley school with the

exception of the kindergarten class which now makes use of the St Rose hall.

The annual meeting of the Newtown Country Club will be held at the club house

on Tuesday evening, March 8, at 8 o'clock. Officers will be elected, reports

given of the activities of the past year and plans discussed for the coming

year. A nominating committee, composed of H.N. Kirby, chairman, Fred

Buermeyer, James B. Forbes, Joseph Hellauer and James L. Purcell, has

nominated the following candidates: For president, Allen Northey Jones; vice

president, Edmund Foster; secretary, Edmund Neary; treasurer, Felix Baridon.

The Hawley High Basketballers got off to a poor start in their first state

tournament games at New Britain on Monday afternoon and never pulled out of

it. They opened the game by tossing in a one pointer from the foul line and

then their first few following attempts at field goals rolled off or bounded

out, while the fast-traveling Tourtellotte Memorial lads from Thompson ran the

score up to 25-5 in no time.

In spite of the severe snow storm on Monday, more than 75 women attended the

birthday luncheon sponsored by the women of Trinity Guild. The affair was held

in the Guild Rooms of Trinity church, which were attractively decorated with

forsythia. At four tables, representing the four seasons, the guest enjoyed a

meal of salad, sandwiches, coffee, ice cream and cake. Following the luncheon,

Miss Eloise Steel of Newtown addressed the group on the art of braided and

hooked rug making.

Virginia and Jack Lathrop of The Village Coffee Shop, who have been filling an

engagement at the Capitol Theatre, Washington, D.C. these past few weeks, and

who performed for President Truman at the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner

celebration at the Hotel Mayflower last week, returned to Newtown this

Thursday noon. Tom Ramsdell has been officiating behind the counter during

their absence.

During the height of Monday's storm, Harrie Wood of the Dodgingtown district,

The Bee's unofficial ornithologist for Flat Swamp and vicinity, reported

spotting a fox-sparrow (Passerella iliaca) on his property. Mr Wood was of the

opinion that this might presage a prolonged and tedious winter, the

fox-sparrow, as everyone knows, being native to northern Canada, Alaska and

some of the remoter regions of the Berring Sea. Not so, however, we discover

upon investigation, for the fox sparrow winters in Connecticut, Ohio, and

during especially brisk seasons has been known to take up temporary quarters

as far south as Gastonia, North Carolina.

Because of the severe storm on Monday, the special Ladies Night program

originally planned for that evening, a date that coincides with the tenth

anniversary of the Newtown Rotary Club, had to be cancelled at the last

minute. The speaker, Dr James H. Halsey, president of the University of

Bridgeport, would not have been able to attend; members themselves would have

found it difficult to have made the trip to the Parker House in time for the

6:15 meeting.