To the Editor:

The Newtown Community Center Commission has made their recommendation with the #1 priority being "Development of an aquatic center featuring a 50 meter competition-ready swimming pool, and a separate zero-entry recreation pool" and only after that do we get "a community center facility that is as large as can be completed with the balance of available funds."

I hope I'm not the only one who sees the irony in this? However, let's be 100 percent clear...  GE donates $15 million to the town to build a community center. After months and months of deliberation and meetings and surveys and false starts the NCCC decides to recommend that we build an aquatic center and only then if there's any money left we'll build a community center?

I'm sorry. What part of "community center" is so difficult for people to understand? It would seem to me, and to many others, that first we should build a community center and then with any remaining funds we'd build as big an aquatic center as possible?

For the record I am not against an aquatic center, but I feel we have our priorities out of order. First priority should be a multi-use community center that serves as many people a possible and only then should we consider what we can build with any remaining funds.

Robert Rabinowitz

30 Alpine Circle, Sandy Hook         February 16, 2016