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.

Letter to the Editor

Support for the Observer

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The Suffield Observer newspaper has always lived up to its mission: “To build a sense of community… and provide a forum where all sides of issues may be addressed.”

Letter to the Editor

Remembering Suffield Town Center

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The demolition of the old Suffield, Connecticut town center was the biggest mistake the Town ever made. Why wasn’t the town center placed in the Historic District by the Historic District Commission?

Letter to the Editor

Thanks to the Suffield Police

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We are an elderly couple who recently moved to the beautiful Suffield area. And you know sometimes a bit forgetful. After taking a nice stroll along the canal waterway, we arrived home only to realize we had left our digital camera at the park. Fearing it was lost, I posted on Facebook hoping to get help in finding it. Within a day, I got a reply from a nice man who is involved with the conservancy of the canal who returned the camera to us.

Op-Ed

Too Much, Too Fast

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The Library dust is barely settled. Bridge Street School sits and decays. Major Town Hall renovations are just beginning. Now the Board of Selectmen proposes to undertake a full Fyler Place makeover. Most would agree that mixed development of that area is highly desirable.

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.