By John H. Palmer
As I sit here on a calm Sunday morning writing this column, I have but one thought: Enjoy the peace and quiet while you can, because that’s about to change.
Indeed, this week promises to be a long one, as many of you will be alongside us reporters as Westport makes its way through a long series of meetings regarding the Hamlet development and the Long Lots Elementary School project.
I’m going to make my column this week short and sweet, and I’m staying neutral to the various sides of these constantly evolving stories.
My inbox has been swamped with emails this week, ranging from accusations of illegal meetings of the Long Lots Building Committee to nefarious spiral-bound financial documents that the Board of Finance has reportedly been hiding from the public.
I was sent an apparent copy of the state grant application, a copy of which was inadvertently left behind on a table, which someone swiped Tom Cruise-style as in one of the “Mission Impossible” movies.
I’ve also been seeing a lot of nasty finger pointing, and that’s got me feeling a little on the downside. For the record, calling people names, swearing at them, and using threatening language doesn’t impress me as an editor, and it won’t get you into the comments section of our stories any faster. It certainly won’t make me want to include you in one of our stories.
As I’ve noted before, I spent about 10 years of my life teaching school, ranging from elementary age students to high schoolers, and it’s a shame that I feel like I’m back in the classroom, needing to scold and remind grown adults to play nicely in the sandbox.
Thankfully, these people are the exception rather than the masses. We need to be reminded that we live in a town full of educated, tolerant, and well-meaning people who just want the best for their kids and that’s why so many heated opinions have come out as Westport prepares to authorize the expenditure of $108 million, as of the last reports I’ve heard.
My colleague Gretchen Webster this week covered a meeting of TEAM, the town’s committee on diversity, equity, and inclusion, as town officials and advocates gathered together to share some local stories of hate crimes, while brainstorming ways to educate the public and bringing to light some resources available to help bring a stop to those incidents.
We need to remember that we are all neighbors sharing space
The Long Lots school is going to cost a lot of money, probably the most that the town has ever spent on a capital improvement project. The need for oversight and public scrutiny is paramount, and that’s why there is a public process with the opportunity for public hearings, and yes, editorial comments in the newspaper, as long as they are done tastefully and with respect.
This is what I love about community journalism. For all of the hours spent covering late-night meetings, and weekends spent puttering through emails, there is something warming to my heart about watching the process of an important civil discourse making its way through the various steps to get to the final completed project.
But I want us to ultimately come out with a beautiful new school that we all can live with, and for that matter a Hamlet development that will look good, bring prosperous businesses and delicious new restaurants to town, and maybe not increase traffic to the point where we’re Boston.
I also want us to survive at the end of the process, as a town, as a society, as a people who need to continue to live and work together.
Let’s all take a deep breath and get this done.
John Palmer, a Norwalk native, is editor of the Westport Journal, and has covered community news in Fairfield County and Massachusetts for over 30 years. He can be contacted at jpalmer@westportjournal.com.
It is going to be a very long week indeed.
But there is one aspect which must be recognized.
This will not be the last underhanded and illegal stunt pulled by both the BOF and the RTM.
Since you are a relative newcomer to these town conflicts, particularly the ones the selectwoman takes immense pleasure in, having gone out of her way to pit one group against another, causing immense divides, you might do well to look at the history here.
Freedom of speech is a wonderful civil liberty, and constitutional right – first ammendment.
Beginning soon after her narrowly won election, Tooker started to unleash the spending spree of champions, and the agenda was divisive and extraordinarily unpopular among the majority of residents.
If you look back upon the last 3 plus years you will notice a pattern of severe authoritarianism, unpopular and costly agendas, and an absolute dogged refusal to listen to members of the electorate.
First our rights to petition, were stripped away by the RTM, thanks in full to the moderator and his loyal group of same, who trounced all over the charter duly ignoring it and in no way shape or form representing the electorate. But certainly behaving like a rubber stamp for the selectwoman.
Known as the RTM29.
6 RTM represented the electorate. 29 did not.
We had the resignation of Brian Stern, BOF, an excellent elected board member. A huge loss to that board.
Then we have the parking sham ! Parker Harding.
A disaster which is still not over.
Hand picked guaranteed YESMEN, appointed to a committee DPIC, to push the selectwomans trophy project which could result in the ruination of the downtown-especially retail.
As though Main Street is not already full of empty storefronts and restaurants.
But that fiasco is still raging on with the latest survey asking questions like
“The town is considering a paid permit system for all day parkers( primarily downtown employees) . How do you feel about this?
This question does not pass any sniff test.
Not only does this scream “segregation” and “racism” . It is a systemic mistreatment of a group of hard working individuals, providing a service within the downtown, and I consider it at this point to be a relentless persecution of business’s staff. It’s more of that vindictive and malicious carry on.
Not to mention the permits they want to sell to the staff are for outliar lots nobody wants to park in, so adding insult to injury now the staff might have to pay for the privilege of parking in lots far away from their jobs.
The most anti business move I’ve ever heard of.
Long lots school which was let go to hell in a hand basket because for the past 10-12 years nothing was maintained. I absolutely agree that it is in a desperate state and requires extensive renovation or a rebuild.
I do not think it is in an appropriate condition, and I have no issue with a rebuild, but I also believe the electorate who will be paying for it deserve transparency, and we have most decidedly not got anything like that.
The numbers provided by the LLSBC( another handpicked group of Tooker YESMEN) have not been justified.
They cannot be because just 2 line items I have looked at are adding up to 15 million more than is necessary. Fine tune HVAC and electrical, and the saving is 15 million.
That’s 15% and millions.
Sometimes it feels like the general opinion of this administration is that we simply do not have a brain.
We have the 7 million dollar shed at Longshore, replacing what looks like a $70,000 shed… 100x the cost of what it will replace.
Maybe that explains the 13 million dollar hvac at the school.
Are you seeing a spending pattern here.
Then the vindictiveness towards our only community garden.
Employing bully boy tactics.
Colluding with the police chief to force a new rule prohibiting the gardeners from accessing the plots they accessed for 20 years during the school day, in case the residents and tax payers working those plots, and have background checks done on them, should suddenly go rogue and attack the children.
The inference was school shooters/axe murderers.
Quite a history to catch up on here John.
Not an easy task.
The accusations of illegal meetings you got emails about are just that ! Illegal.
The document found ( not mission impossible style) but left behind by somebody, is in fact not the same document that you were emailed. But yes it very much exists.
There are 2 documents.
One left behind at a meeting and then another, the other is the FOIA’d state grant application, and is not an apparent document, it is a legitimate document legally procured, thanks only to FOIA. This town was certainly not offering it up.
When we asked for the package given to BOF, we were denied( illegal- I believe)
No doubt when we ask for the RTM package tomorrow, we will also be turned down( illegal I believe)
So who is going to vet the numbers? Because the public is meant to be permitted to do so.
Let’s not forget the Hamlet.
The sneaking around behind the scenes that took place with RTM’ers and some members of the PZ, and the administration and chief of police for 2 years before it was ever heard of..
The promises of commuters railroad parking, parking which they were called out on and flatly denied by those who “promised”. The skullduggery..
the posturing. The RTM 33-1 vote which represented in no way the electorate.
All the while no statements of any kind from the selectwoman.
Why.. because it was obviously unpopular.
It is a disaster.
But silence is complicity.
Then lo and behold, a westCOG application assisting the developers of this fiasco to obtain 12 million dollars in grant funding to remediate.
All out of tax payers money.
Well one silver lining out of that was foia’ing the application which shed light on their employee numbers.
620.
Until then a safely guarded secret.
It is just disturbing to see the elected officials in this town bending over and going out of their way to assist a group with a project most residents do not want here.
A development the vast majority do not think is appropriate.
So while we will survive all this.
It is impossible to see it through the rose tinted glasses you appear to be wearing.
And back to freedom of speech.
It is a beautiful thing, that first ammendment right.
Public officials would do well to remember, it is not your town. It is all of our town, and we are not going to sit back and watch it get destroyed.
It used to be possible to disagree without being disagreeable.
It used to be. Alas not any longer.