To More Borrowing

To the Editor:

I would like to thank Ruby Johnson for writing her letter last week [“Fairfield Hills: Past, Present, And Future,” 1/21/11] reminding us of the foolhardy behavior our leaders have exhibited over the last ten years.

In that period we have increased our debt service to the “maximum” ten percent of budget revenues, and we are now talking about “off the balance sheet borrowing” through separate authorities. I guess our town leadership doesn’t get it.

Just say “No!” to more borrowing. The world has changed these past few years. Let’s wait before we borrow and spend on a firehouse, ambulance center, sewer lines, and more sports and educational facilities.

Stop promoting purchases of open space. FFH is our best open space. We should only demolish the existing buildings at FFH from current cash flow. We’ll save $400,000 annually by not needing expenditures to keep the campus mothballed.

Let’s stop thinking about economic development until the economic climate has changed. Just abandon all the volunteer boards created to figure out how to best spend the taxpayers’ money. Let’s tell the Board of Finance that we are not interested in learning new ways of borrowing even more money.

We’ll do just fine working on getting our fiscal house in order over the next several years. Let’s work on reducing our budget and current debt service.

When all the buildings are removed at FFH after several years, we’ll be able to see what a jewel we have there.

Gary Tannenbaum

Pond Brook Road, Newtown                                     January 22, 2011