Editorial

Library Staff – “Thank You”

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The community of Suffield should be thankful to Jackie Hemond, Library Director, and her library staff. With the Kent Memorial Library closed for almost five years, they managed to provide services to our residents through an undersized temporary building on Fyler Place. To say this was an inconvenience for them is an understatement. They managed to hold most of their usual events there or they were creative in finding a more suitable place in which to hold them. The reopening of the library was such an up-and-down situation with the Department of Environmental Protection calling all the shots that planning was extremely difficult. Basically the Town had no control over the situation.

Editorial

We Are the World

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Bienvenido a los Estados Unidos. Welcome. Wrote Emma Lazarus, “Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” With the image of caged children seared in our brains, it’s time to reflect. We are a restless species and every one of us, or our ancestors, came here from somewhere else.

Editorial

Self-Expression

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True creative output comes from within and cannot be squeezed out by force. No school assignment could set off the same eruption of raw creative passion that I experience through accepting my sporadic impulse to write; to allow my ideas to surface and to watch them climb into the vessel of articulated language. I am not arguing against the utility of external prompting, far from it. But for one’s product to be genuine and pure, their response must be completely voluntary. When one seeks to fulfill others’ demands for their creativity, true success requires that they be intrinsically motivated to create.

Editorial

Pay to Play

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With the incoming school year commencing August 29, Suffield High School students will be forced to make some financial adjustments. That is, if they want to continue and/or take up playing a sport. This year, the high school has brought on the seemingly sudden change of enforcing a pay-to-play rule, where students must pay a fee of $75 each time they enroll in a sport, with a cap of $225 per year. This fee does not include the gear that is required to play sports, such as padding, shoes, and helmets, all of which the players pay for out of their own (or their parents’) pockets. Indeed, the ability to pay for helmets can make all the difference in a player’s safety.

Editorial

Pay to Play and Student Parking Passes

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As a former 12-year member and Chair of the Suffield Board of Education during difficult economic times, I faced more than my fair share of difficult budget fights. Class sizes soared, building maintenance and desperately needed capital projects were put off, (to the town’s ultimate detriment I might add), administration was reduced, and extracurricular activities at the high school especially were eliminated. The high school was threatened with loss of accreditation due to the insufficient per pupil expenditure. In all that time, however, although it was discussed, the then Board of Ed did not institute a pay for play in the sports program. The reason was simple and equally applicable now.

Editorial

Signs, signs, signs

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When someone places a sign on the Town Green or along a roadside, I assume that they want the public to know something. Usually the main message is in large, readable letters. However, the rest of the important information is in letters so small that it cannot be read from your car. Now we all know that Suffield is not exactly a walking town, so most of the info cannot be seen by a passing motorist. What to do?

Editorial

Response to Selectman’s Criticism

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As a volunteer and occasional coeditor at the Observer, I take exception to certain comments in First Selectman Melissa Mack’s column about the paper. In a discussion with Suffield Middle School students about her job, she chose to take a cheap shot at the Observer due to her distress over an article written about the Suffield Police Department. Referring to the paper as the Obscurer, a term the Observer staff themselves coined in a satirical issue created in jest many years ago, Ms. Mack takes the volunteer staff to task for not living up to “the most basic of journalistic standards” and cites the article “SPD Review Causes Stir” as evidence that the Observer lacks a “devotion to impartiality.” To the contrary the Observer goes to great lengths to ensure that the reporting is accurate and unbiased, often spending many hours attending town and commission meetings, reviewing documents, reports, agendas and minutes and talking to those involved in the issue being reported. Likewise, if there has been an error in reporting and it is brought to the Observer’s attention, a correction is printed. Moreover, the Observer clearly states that editorials and opinions are those of the writer and not of the Observer.

Editorial

Get Involved Before It Is Too Late

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There are issues today in America that are happening and it scares me. It scares me because they are happening without our knowledge or consent. We will wake up one day and realize that we don’t have any civil rights left. History is full of events driven by greed for power and money, complacency and/or fear. Salem Witch Hunt, Nazi Germany, Bosnia genocide.

Editorial

Measles – A Battle Report

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Connecticut has one of the nation’s highest rates of vaccination for the measles virus. Many of our State’s legislators, including Governor Lamont, have expressed serious concern with our State’s compliance rate. Both of these contradictory statements are true. The discrepancy arises from the latest State vaccination report. Past data disclosed only state averages for school vaccination rates, perhaps creating a false sense of security.

Editorial

Embrace the Volunteer in You

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In last month’s issue, the Observer reached out to the community looking for people to write. For some time, finding people to get involved and commit time and effort has been an ongoing concern for this organization – as it has for many others in town. The Observer came to life in the spring of 1999. A significant number of residents were enthused about this grand endeavor of providing news of all the activities going on in Suffield that the city papers failed to notice. They reasoned that an informed town would lead to better public participation and better transparency.