To the Editor:

Your elected officials have voted to send to referendum a Community Aquatic Center spending re-quest of $14,550,000 dollars for the building. Taxpayers should consider the following before voting.

1. 70 percent of the $14,500,000 will be used to build the Aquatic Center and only 30 percent of the funds will be used to build the Community Center space. That's $8 million for the two pools and $3.6 million for the Community Center space. Two-thirds of the building space will be devoted to the pools.

2. $1,400,000 was bonded and money spent previously for the Community Center plans and demolition of Litchfield Hall and site preparation.

3. Another $4.5 million is scheduled for demolition of a building as a potential site of the Community Aquatic Center at the request of the first selectman.  Interest on these initial expenses and bonding is over $1,600,000. The FFHA wanted a different building taken down.

4. The town already authorized $450,000 of the G.E. Grant on planning for the failed previous proposal.

5. The requested $14,550,000 bonding does not include interest of $1,627,500.

6. The CIP also has another $3,000,000 planned for 2017 plus future interest of $1 million.

7. The bonding will also authorize Newtown to spend $5,000,000 from GE for operating expenses.

8. Total cost of the still to be designed Community Aquatic Center will thus be approximately $32,000,000 all in or more between the GE grant and town committed funds past and future.  Plus the inevitable cost and expense overruns.  Fees will be charged to people using the facility.

9. The bonding resolution could be amended in the future to spend more money from the Capital Improvement Plan with no additional vote required by the taxpayer.

10. We have little experience managing this type of building and future maintenance cost are unknown and inadequately unaccounted for in the projections.

11. Financial projections for covering costs have been, in the past, unreliable and wildly overstated, just look at Fairfield Hills. The financial cost projects omitted the cost of paying off the $5 million dollar bond and the $1,627,500 in interest. Those cost would not be incurred if we built a 26,000 square foot Community Center.

The resolution does not specify what will be in the Community Center beyond two pools and only commits to 13,000 square feet for the actual community part of the center. All other building decision are left to boards to decide, without taxpayer's vote. The Community Center Commission said the Aquatic Center and Zero Entrance pool would be designed and funded first with the Community Center built with the remaining leftover money, perhaps 13,000 to 18,000 square feet. The bonding provides no requirement as to what will be inside the center. If this sounds familiar it still sounds exactly like the original Senior Center Phase One and Phase Two. Just repackaged.

If you would still like to have a $10 Million GE Community Center, then vote this referendum down. Send them back to the drawing board for a reasonable request.

Bruce Walczak

President

Relocation Consultants Inc.

Glover Avenue, Newtown         March 16, 2016