Off Course

At Fairfield Hills

To the Editor:

It has become clear the Fairfield Hills (FFH) project has gone somewhat off course from the town’s original concept when purchasing the campus.

Where it had been conceived of as a central piece of land for recreation and education, it is now being promoted for a new town hall and commercial development.

Somehow our leadership has not gotten the message. I hold these truths to be self-evident:

We can and should reconfigure our current town hall. We do not need to have government be the largest project at FFH. One possibility is to double-decker the gymnasium for office space. This will preserve history as well as provide for the future government needs on Main Street in a time of technological advancement using less space.

There are other sites in town for significant commercial development. Read the “Way We Were” [column of ] last November 24, and we can see talk about office development in Hawleyville in 1981. That parcel is still available.

Our efforts at FFH should be to pursue recreational and educational goals, not to historically preserve a psychiatric hospital site. The buildings there are functionally obsolescent, and it’s time for us to stop funding studies about how to resurrect these buildings from the dead and instead use the flatland under them for the recreational purposes the town sorely needs.

Yours truly,

Gary Tannenbaum

36 Pond Brook Road, Newtown December 12, 2006