No Town Vote

As Promised

To the Editor:

In your front-page editorial of The Bee last week you stated your opinion regarding the need to spend $12,500 for another Fairfield Hills public opinion survey. In the editorial you stated that during his reelection campaign, our first selectman had made clear his intention not to bring a revised FFH plan to the public for a vote. It is possible that I missed something along the way, but I do not recall Herb Rosenthal taking that position on the record at any point since the first FFH development plan was turned down by Newtown’s voters.

About a month a go, I attended a selectmen’s meeting to argue that spending another $12,500 for a “professional” FFH opinion survey would be throwing good money after bad. I came to the meeting armed with a box containing the results of over 1,200 surveys from four different polls. The largest and probably the most informed of the polls were conducted by the town’s own FFH consultant and this newspaper. Many of those survey participants actually took the time to either read the plan details or to visit the FFH site and meet with the town’s paid consultant.

Despite the majority opinions of each of the four surveys pointing in the same direction, the first FFH plan ignored this data and I fear that a second FFH plan will do the same.

It was at this meeting that Herb Rosenthal informed me that he no longer intended to include a town vote in the FFH planning process. He and another of the selectmen had shared with me that while campaigning, they had met enough people with opinions on FFH that a vote would not be necessary. I was dumbfounded when I heard this in person and then again when it did not show up as a headline in The Bee.

In the first selectman’s opinion, he has delivered on his promise to the town. He said he never promised that the town would get to vote on the final FFH plan, only on a FFH plan.

So soon after he was reelected into office, our first selectman is attempting to abandon his commitment to embracing the people of Newtown. I hope that you, the editor of this newspaper, and the people of Newtown, do not let him or any other public official get away with it.

Kevin Fitzgerald

24 Old Farm Hill Road, Newtown                           January 2, 2004