The Suffield Observer (https://thesuffieldobserver.com/category/opinion/page/10/)
My name is Charlie Watras; I reside at 32 Wendover Road in our lovely Town of Suffield, CT. While a relative newcomer to the community (I am now in my 3rd decade of residency), I have participated in our local government having served on the Board of Finance and two prior Charter Revision Commissions.
As I’m sure many of our readers have noticed, Rick Stromoski’s cartoon has been missing from the paper for the past couple of months. Rick has decided to end his time with the Observer, and the town will be the poorer for it.
As always, we enjoyed reading the latest Suffield Observer from cover to cover. There was one disappointment, however.
It’s been brought to my attention that some residents complain that The Suffield Observer is too liberal, that the paper doesn’t publish viewpoints other than those with a liberal slant. The editorial cartoons are too liberal and there is no voice for other viewpoints.
In April of 2019 we moved south to Suffield from West Springfield. We were also drawn by the physical beauty of rural Suffield with amazing historic homes and beautiful scenic roads and farmland.
My husband and I are happy to live in a community with an amazing grassroots effort that is working on multiple fronts to call out and defeat bias and racism in our Town. ABAR Suffield (“anti-bias, anti-racism”) is growing in strength and numbers.
I remember as a kid reading JFK’s Profiles in Courage, a collection of stories about eight United States senators who showed courage in the face of great personal detriment by doing the right thing. Virtually all of them paid the price by losing their seats in Congress but maintained throughout their lives that, in John Quincy Adams’ words, “Private interest must not be put in opposition to the public good.”
Robert T. Molleur, a former resident, grew up working on farms.
This morning I was sitting in the doctor’s office waiting to have my blood drawn. I was mentally making a list of things to ask the doctor about when I thought “This is boring; why don’t you put it in verse.”