A Missed Opportunity Or

Predetermined Outcome?

To the Editor:

If you are like me and were hoping this would be the year that you can cast separate votes for the town and schools budgets, you’ll have to wait at least another year and hope that in the meantime, the Legislative Council convenes another Charter Review Commission to restudy the bifurcation question.

It seems that last week, under the wrong impression that Newtown cannot legally bifurcate a budget without a passed budget being binding, the Legislative Council, by a vote of 11-1 agreed to accept the recommendation of the Charter Review Commission. I believe this falls very short of what the public has been asking for year after year. 

Meanwhile, towns like Simsbury and our neighbor New Milford (for the past ten years) have been successfully splitting the budget and providing advisory questions without any risk of tying the council’s hands if one budget passes and the other fails.

Why, after months of work and research by the Charter Review Commission, did the commission and the council get to this point not believing or simply ignoring that such a referendum model was possible? I’m not sure, but it was certainly a missed opportunity on a very important issue.

Kevin Fitzgerald

37 Platts Hill Road, Newtown                                February 16, 2011