Letter to the Editor

Connector Road

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An important issue that has troubled and eluded our town for many years is the lack of a connector road from Bradley International Airport to the Enfield-Suffield Bridge to divert traffic from Main Street. It is a proposal that I vigorously advocated as First Selectman, but I could not get traction at the time. I urge the town, its leaders and citizens, and local, state, and congressional representatives, to wage a bipartisan effort to resurrect this project. Area industry is expanding and Bradley is growing, with a current passenger count of over 6.5 million yearly. There are plans this summer to build a new car rental facility, plus a new terminal in the near future, as DOT projects the passenger count to go to 10 million plus.

Letter to the Editor

Pay To Play

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Our recent Town budget includes a potential Pay to Play option going into effect for future school years despite overwhelming comments at the last meeting to not have this happen. I believe the Pay to Play fees will pertain to athletics and potentially, clubs/activities at SHS and/or SMS.

My concern is that we are pricing some students out of participating in said activities. If you are familiar with Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, you know kids/teens that are able to pay for the elite teams (travel, premiere, private training) already have a distinct advantage over those that cannot afford it. In turn, their skill set will allow them more success and advantages. Think college scholarships.

Op-Ed

Happy 95th Birthday Bridge Street School

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I always love coming back to Suffield. It is such an incredibly beautiful town – both in its landscape and its people. I was recently in town for the annual Suffield PMC Kids Ride, which had a record number of riders (208 children) and raised over $55,000 for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. An event like that does not come together without a dedicated group of volunteers and families willing to actively participate. The sense of community spirit was very strong on that beautiful Saturday in May.

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.

Editorial

Find Your Volunteer Home

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Volunteering should be simple, shouldn’t it? Building off my Co-Editor’s May Observer editorial draft, with a shared desire to improve our community, I am dedicating this editorial to providing information and perspective about how and why to volunteer.

Letter to the Editor

Local News is Important

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What would we do without The Suffield Observer? Many years ago, we could rely on Winnie Johnson, Eleanor Smith and Thea Coburn, who were local “stringers” for The Springfield Union, The Hartford Times and The Hartford Courant, to report local news every day as needed.

Editorial

Let’s Not Put Our Heads in the Sand Again

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My family and I moved to Suffield in late 1984. By the time we arrived in town, residents had attended many town meetings and participated in many discussions regarding installing sewer lines on the East side of town. At one time, the federal government would have paid 80% of the installation costs. Ultimately the taxpayers had to pay 80% of the costs rather than the Feds. This decision cost the town considerable dollars and prevented us from being able to afford future bonding.

Editorial

Got Music?

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One Saturday evening this past March, I sang with the other 80 members of the Springfield Symphony Chorus (SSC) in Springfield’s beautiful Symphony Hall. It was a concert filled with well-known music from 16 Broadway classics including Oklahoma, Guys and Dolls, West Side Story, Chorus Line, and Phantom of the Opera. The hall was filled with appreciative Broadway music fans entertained by Springfield Symphony’s (SSO) amazingly talented orchestra directed by Maestro Keven Rhodes and the SSC. The SSC tends to sing primarily classical music (our Mahler concert is in the spring), but the Chorus has been invited to sing in a variety of non-classical concerts over the past few years, which, as a diverse music lover, has been a hoot! In 2017, I was lucky enough to be part of a group of 30 SSC singers who got to work with the SSO to sing “background music” as part of a Video Games Live concert, which is dedicated solely to music from video games.