Jim Taylor

6 days ago | newtownbee.com | Jim Taylor

Voters will have the opportunity to cast judgment upon not only the fates of the proposed 2025-26 municipal and education budgets, but also five capital projects, during polling hours from 6 am to 8 pm, Tuesday, April 22, at Newtown Middle School. This year’s proposed budget is $49,866,665 for the town and $91,744,644 for the schools, for an overall bottom line of $141,611,309. The budgets include a 6.72% tax increase, as well as a 28.78 mill rate, a 1.81 increase from last year.

2 weeks ago | newtownbee.com | Jim Taylor

UPDATE: After press time, the Legislative Council on April 2 decided to approve the Board of Finance proposed 2025-26 budget with no further cuts. For the full story, see next week's paper. This is an update from the published version of the story.

3 weeks ago | newtownbee.com | Jim Taylor

BRIDGEPORT — Aquarion Water Company on March 26 announced a mandatory ban on non-essential outdoor water use for customers in Bethel and Newtown. This measure is being taken as the company continues to utilize its interconnection with the Eastern Fairfield County system while its primary source of water supply, the Newtown wellfield, remains offline. Last August, Aquarion’s Newtown wellfield sustained severe damage from a rainstorm and flooding, resulting in it being taken offline.

4 weeks ago | newtownbee.com | Jim Taylor

Town Finance Director Glenys Salas asked the Board of Selectmen to place a $100,000 borrowing cap on Edmond Town Hall at a meeting on March 17. Salas said the financial relationship between ETH and the town’s General Fund has been “complex,” with ETH in September 2024 owing over $300,000 it had borrowed. Salas said she had talked with the ETH Board of Managers, and “they had been doing very good” for the last several months, recently getting the debt down to $117,000.

1 month ago | newtownbee.com | Jim Taylor

After more than 30 years with Parent Connection, Founder and Executive Director Dorrie Carolan has stepped down to retire and named Nicole Hampton as the new executive director. According to the Parent Connection website, ctparentconnection.org, starting Parent Connection was never part of Carolan’s plan. But she founded it in 1993 to network with other parents as she was raising her four children in Newtown.