At this time last year, the world was poised to celebrate the millennium. Like everyone else, we were caught up in the moment, taking bows on behalf of all humankind for managing to negotiate another thousand years without doing ourselves in.  (We ignored, for the sake of celebration, our recent inventions of world war and hydrogen bombs.) So perhaps we can be forgiven for our overly optimistic view of the great foundation we would lay for the future in the year 2000. We were all talking big because it was such a big year.

We had thought the year 2000 would be the year we would know what would happen to Fairfield Hills, and yet, here we are, still guessing about the future of that vital 185-acre tract of land. Sometimes it seems like we are stuck in that perpetual trap of always progressing halfway to the goal, learning as we proceed that always going halfway, no matter how often we do it, never gets us there. The goal becomes impossible to reach.

The problem is that there is so much riding on this impending deal with the state. Edmond Town Hall is cramped and crumbling. Newtown’s myriad youth sports teams now need traffic controllers to land them on a playing field in a time slot that doesn’t conflict with another team or sport. The Newtown Middle School is currently operating over capacity and is growing. These and other lesser issues related to either the development and planning of Fairfield Hills or the financing of its purchase are awaiting resolution of the Fairfield Hills issue.

There are at least three more halfway steps to be taken before the most important step – a town vote on the purchase – can even be scheduled. First Selectman Herb Rosenthal’s negotiations with the state on the terms of the sale must conclude. The first selectman and the Legislative Council must agree on their respective roles in coming up with a development plan. Then they must produce a development plan the town can understand and support. This doesn’t sound like quick work to us – in fact it sounds nearly impossible.

But we are talking now about the year 2001, which our priggish friends remind us is the true beginning of the new millennium. It is also the year made famous by author and visionary Arthur C. Clarke more than 30 years ago. The story he told, 2001: A Space Odyssey, was about brave new beginnings and possibilities. Perhaps we can take heart from “Clarke’s Second Law”: The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

The year 2001 is also a local election year in Newtown, and as we all now know, in an election year anything is possible.