Feeling Great About Our Democracy

To the Editor:

While I am the spokesperson for The Concerned Citizens of Newtown, my participation in last week’s petition campaign was by no means part of an organized effort. I only came out to collect last-minute signatures on Friday afternoon in front of town hall because the small group of very committed people that I had been in touch with earlier in the week had convinced me that it was possible to get the signatures we needed by the deadline.

When I called town hall from work on Friday morning, only 601 signatures had been verified and there were only five hours left before the deadline. I became concerned that if the petition failed by just a few votes because I was not out doing my share of petitioning, I would live to regret it. In the end, to my surprise, the number of signatures on my petitions represented only a fraction of the 2,100 that were collected in the five days that were available.

You could not help but feel great about our democracy while watching car after car pull up with drivers either asking to sign my petition or dropping off one of their own. There were people from all walks of life, including many with children in the schools who quietly passed us by and entered town hall with their own handful of paper only to stop on the way out to let us know that they had just dropped off their own petitions and would have collected many more signatures if not for the 4:30 deadline.

The individual and significant accomplishments by Paul Fortugno at the Town Recycling Center, Bob Hennessey in front of Dunkin’ Donuts, Barbara Bloom and Marty Bennett to name just a few are all the more interesting when you consider that each petitioner had no clue that so many other petitioners were out there doing the same thing.

From the conversations and phone calls that followed, I learned that the reasons for their effort were as diverse as the people who shared them. First and foremost, a town meeting held in the evening would exclude thousands of taxpayers. That would be unfair. Secondly, no one wants to see the school system or the children suffer. Nearly everyone is confident that the skills and the experience of the superintendent and the Board of Education will ensure that they will succeed with the budget that is finally approved. And when it comes to paying taxes, the revaluation and the budget increase are not different, except that while the taxpayers had little or no say on how the revaluation will increase their taxes, they do have this narrow opportunity with the budget increase to limit the impact.

The bottom line as I understood it is that despite the merits of each of the increases, most of Newtown’s families will be paying far more in taxes going forward than anyone had expected, and for those with fixed incomes, the extra dollars will mean something else in their monthly budget will have to go. Similar to the challenge facing the schools, this all comes at a time when families are seeing their own costs for health care, energy and insurance outpacing any increase in income.

In this environment, the Board of Education’s increase doesn’t sit well with the Silent Majority.

Kevin Fitzgerald

24 Old Farm Road, Newtown                                        May 16, 2003