Let’s Not Turn Our Back On Kevin’s

Community Center

The Fairfield Hills Authority has been discussing with Kevin’s Community Center (KCC) the terms of a proposed lease for space in one of the duplex buildings at Fairfield Hills near the west meadow between Wasserman Way and Mile Hill Road South. The center, which has been growing both in its patient load and capabilities, provides free primary health care to adults who are uninsured, underinsured, or have limited financial resources. In a time when people have come to doubt the ability of so many institutions to function, much less succeed, KCC is meeting its mission of service with competence and compassion. The Town of Newtown’s collaboration with the nonprofit clinic in finding a more permanent home after years of making do in make-shift and temporary spaces has resulted in a $500,000 state grant tied to this lease deal. The money will help KCC upgrade and retrofit the building. That work is being coordinated with separate town plans for $350,000 in infrastructure improvements to the “duplex loop” at FFH, where the town hopes to attract other services and enterprises that will benefit the town. Yet now, as town officials are at last moving to complete a lease agreement with KCC, questions are being raised with the apparent intent to scuttle the deal. We are having a hard time understanding why.

The Board of Selectmen, which must review and accept the proposed lease deal, was criticized by a couple of residents at its meeting last week. One suggested that the town should not be spending money on infrastructure that will serve a clinic that in turn serves some people who are not from Newtown. “It appears Newtown is putting up infrastructure to help anyone who comes,” she said disapprovingly. Another suggested that the town should be in no rush to accommodate KCC when “there are other sites that should be considered.” Meanwhile, three members of the Legislative Council who are associated with the Independent Party of Newtown sent a memo to the Board of Selectmen urging the suspension of all lease negotiations at Fairfield Hills until a townwide space needs study is completed. (The memo echoed with irony since the selectmen had issued a similar request to the Board of Education, seeking to delay a decision on the institution of full-day kindergarten sessions in the school district.)

We understand that these last minute maneuverings on the KCC lease are supposed to give political potency to the issue, which will be batted one way or another in the coming local election cycle. But we are truly disappointed to see Kevin’s Community Center hoisted as a piñata for this purpose. We wish there were some other issue or town initiative to fight over that was not of such vital importance to so many people in such great need. People’s lives depend on this clinic, literally.

The founder and director of the clinic, Dr Z. Michael Taweh, estimates that the clinic provides more than $500,000 in free and volunteer services each year, with most of those services going directly to Newtown residents. It also serves people in need from the much smaller towns of Roxbury and Bridgewater, which are members of Newtown’s regional health district.

To suggest that Newtown should choke off infrastructure support to a paying tenant in a leased building because it provides free services to poor and sick people from another town seems to go against everything Newtown has stood for in the past: inclusion, compassion, helping others in need no matter where they are — Afghanistan, the Gulf of Mexico, Haiti, and yes, even Roxbury and Bridgewater. To purposely derail a lease, which will in turn threaten $500,000 in clinic facility funding at a time when few state grants are nailed down, and Hartford is looking for any reason it can find not to fund its obligations to towns and cities, seems, at best, wasteful, and at worst, cruel.

Our community must choose whether or not to turn its back on a nonprofit organization in need that was itself founded on the principal on not turning its back on those in need. It will be a defining moment for us. How will we define ourselves?