Local Prevention Council

Prevention: (Noun); the action of stopping something from happening or arising. This is what the Suffield Local Prevention Council (SLPC) is all about. My name is Nikki Lengyel and I am the new Chairperson for the SLPC. I am incredibly excited to be a part of this important group that strives to make a positive change and raise awareness on multiple matters in the Suffield community. In the past, the Council has focused primarily on the topic of opioids due to the current crisis and concerning numbers of overdoses involving opioids.

Know Your Probate Court

This article is intended to help residents of Bloomfield, Windsor Locks, East Granby and Suffield who live in the Tobacco Valley Probate Court district become more informed about our probate court system. Our Chief Clerk Laurie Roberts is one of the most experienced in the state; she is available to assist you. Laurie is supported by three other staff: Clerk Louis Taylor, and Assistant Clerks Pam Griffin and Erin Keena. Together they work to answer procedural questions from the public, process petitions, schedule hearings, coordinate with other referring courts, prepare notices and decrees, calendar required reports, organize each case file, input data into the central computer system, undertake initial reviews of financial reports and tax returns and keep the Judge updated on all files. It is a tremendous responsibility that is assigned to our staff.

Read Across America Day!

McAlister Intermediate School (MIS) students joined our friends at A. Ward Spaulding School for the morning to celebrate Read Across America Day! This particular day is chosen as it is the actual birthday of Dr. Seuss himself! His real name was Theodor Seuss Geisel, and he was born on March 2, 1904, in our neighboring town of Springfield! Some of our McAlister fifth graders read as our younger students listened intently, and everyone participated by wearing their coziest pajamas, Dr. Seuss shirts and hats or other items commemorating this event. On a cold, wet and sometimes snowy winter’s day, what better way to celebrate Dr. Seuss than to curl up with a good book in the company of good friends and neighbors!

The Solution Is Complicated

My concern with the theme of the article [Beth Chafetz’s March Editorial No. No. Not Again] is that the crux of the argument centered on the tools that were used, rather than the root cause. If we continue down this argument road, we need to also speak about the use of automobiles/trucks, chemicals that can be used to create bombs and other items that can be used for violence. Instead, we need to shift the discussion to the mental makeup of those doing these unspeakable deeds so that we can stop the violence at the source.

Planting for the Future

The Suffield Tree Committee has the pleasure and responsibility to follow the directives of two special Funds. The first was left in memory of Helena Bailey Spencer, in care of the Town to be administered by a committee of the First Selectman, Town Treasurer and the President of the Suffield Garden Club. The second was a bequest from Vallyn Gallivan, a forward looking woman, who left her gift in care of the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving to be administered by that same committee. Additional members have joined this committee and many of the past presidents of the Garden Club have stayed on. In the past few years the committee has planted 46 new trees with 39 of them planted within the Main Street Historic area.

SHS Walkout Becomes Vigil

Exactly one month after the Parkland shooting, a majority of the schools in the country walked out of their school at precisely 10 a.m. in the morning. Suffield High School joined along, 135 students signed up to walk out of class at 10 a.m. to walk to the auditorium. After the students piled in, high school senior Madison Kadamus leads the group into seventeen minutes of silence. Every minute, Kadamus would say one name of the seventeen victims of the shooting. The entire auditorium was enveloped in silence, the only noise coming from the occasional squeak of a chair and a cough here and there.