How Will The Town

Maintain Fairfield Hills?

To the Editor:

It is of great concern to me, of the current trend of a group of taxpayers, legislative council members, and our first selectman, concerning the possible purchase of Fairfield Hills property from the State of Connecticut. I can understand the politicians doing the normal thing of riding the wave of public hysteria of having to spend and spend tax dollars to save “open space” in this town. While I do agree that we need to preserve open space in this town, we also need to realize that we can’t always use taxes to obtain that goal.

  While I may be a little naive as to the way zoning laws are made, is there no way to have zoning regulations to preserve some of this land? Did we not have a study and a plan put into effect for the Hawleyville section of this town? There were different zoning parcels put into effect as to control the growth of Hawleyville. So my point is, why can’t a special zoning parcel be put into effect for Fairfield Hills?

  Has anyone in this town, either the selectman, the special interest group, or the council, sat down and figured out in hard numbers what the cost would be to operate and maintain all of those buildings and property for a fiscal year? Then they will say, “Oh the town can sell those buildings and control the development of Fairfield Hills.” How about all of the environmental concerns of the property? Asbestos in all of the buildings. Who knows what the state dumped into the ground all those years they were operating the hospital? I do believe the state has a proven track record that they can’t be trusted on any dealings with the town.

  The town should not be in the real estate business. We own several houses on Queen Street that the town was supposedly going to sell. Now a year later we still own them and now a few legislative council members  say, “Oh in the long run it would save us money to rip them down and have the open space.” If memory serves me correctly that was not the deal the town made with the taxpayers when this whole deal was done.

  I have lived in this town for ten years, five of which I have owned a house and paid real estate property taxes. In those five years, my taxes have gone up every year. Now the legislative council wants to put “all their eggs in one basket.” Please, as it is, if it went through, the school budget alone would raise taxes by 3.5mills. I agree that a new school is needed, and I agree that something needs to be done for government offices. We do need to look at all of the capital projects with great care and prioritize them in importance.

  We all have to remember not to put our town financial well being into jeopardy by taking on too many debts. It is now becoming too expensive for our elderly and the average middle income class family to live in this town.

We need to slow our residential growth down and encourage commercial development in this town, to spread our tax base over a wider spectrum.

  If you view this in the same light as me then I encourage you to go to the town meeting, when and if it reaches that point, to be heard. I can guarantee you that the special interests will have their support there to get their purchase passed. So, please think long and hard about this. Think of the long-term effects on our taxes and the unknowns of the Fairfield Hills property. How will the town manage and maintain such a huge property?

Sincerely,

Sean LaPak

30 Greenbriar Lane, Newtown                          February 3, 2000