To the Editor:

Please do not waste a single cent of taxpayer money on another traffic study to learn that indeed, the flagpole causes numerous car accidents and that the intersection of Church Hill Road and Main Street is a dangerous one. We already know this has Newtown’s second highest accident site. The simplest solution to the flagpole hazard is to simply move the flagpole to a new place of honor on the plaza in front of Edmond Town Hall, just a half block away. The flag would be just as magnificent waving in front of that beautiful building as it would in the middle of the street.

A traffic circle is not the solution. On my daily commute to Seymour, the traffic circle where Routes 188 and 334 meet gave all of us commuters white knuckles as we would try to navigate the entrance to the rotary, which seemed to be full of speeding tailgaters who did not want anyone else to enter.

The Seymour/Oxford Rotary was in the middle of nowhere, and yet it was difficult to enter. A traffic circle in the busy heart of Newtown would certainly never work, be just as dangerous as the flagpole obstacle, and almost as bad, would require taking land from the four beautiful buildings that are on the corner properties there.

Newtown’s flagpole is designated an official landmark, subject to historic protection, and as such, cannot be moved. As President Dwight Eisenhower said almost 60 years ago, but what still holds just as true today, “The world moves, and ideas that were good once are not always good.” In 1956, President Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act to build the Interstate Highway System to meet the growing number of automobiles on America’s roads.

I have a great love of our country and respect our flag (two wave at my home), but the flagpole is just plain dangerous in its present location. Serious bodily injury has been inflicted upon crossing pedestrians, as well as to drivers and passengers in the numerous car accidents, due to the location of our nation’s symbol. If holding a public ceremony would ease the pain of this move, let’s have a flagpole celebration on “Moving Day”.

We are a government By the People, For the People. We need to petition the state for permission to relocate the flagpole. Rules, laws, and ordinances, and regulations are changed all the time. Up until recent history, we had Blue Laws in Connecticut.

Please just move the flagpole a half a block and do not spend money on hiring an engineering firm just to tell us what we already know – the flagpole intersection is treacherous to drive through.

Lois Barber

33 Zoar Road, Sandy Hook               August 20, 2015