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To Middletown Citizens,
City-Wide Parks Improvement Bond Referendum will be on the Nov. 3 ballot in Middletown, authorizing the city to spend up to $33.5 million on badly needed improvements to City Parks and athletic fields. Please support this long-term investment in our parks and healthy outdoor recreational opportunities!
Why should you vote yes?
- Middletown’s parks and playing fields have needed attention and facility upgrades for many years.
- The improvements will take place over 8-10 years and increase the quality of life for many residents.
- All our kids, walkers, bikers, families, sports, recreation, transportation, safety, & accessibility will benefit. There’s something for everyone!
- Improvements to existing grass playing fields and new grass playing fields to add capacity and amenities
- Improvements to our parks including landscaping, lighting, amenities and building upgrades
- Veteran’s Park improvements including new pool and building
- Basketball, volleyball and tennis courts
- New exercise and walking trails
- New floating dock for crew and other river-related activities
- Bike paths and bike-friendly amenities
- Splash pad/spray park and playground construction
- Increased safety and accessibility
- Dog park
John Hall and The Jonah Center for Earth and Art,
the Complete Streets Committee,
Ecoin (Environmental Collective Impact Network),
ARTFARM,
Middletown Garden Club,
Central CT Rowing (CCR),
Middletown’s Resource Recycling Commission,
and Project Green Lawn
……ask Middletown voters to choose “YES” on the ballot.
6 comments:
I will be voting no. Hall and Bowers are getting what they want in this taxpayer pork project. Hall doesn't even live in Middletown.
I'm not paying for a dog park. No for me.
I have no problem with tax dollars being used in improving our parks/fields for all to use.
What I am against is a open ended request that outlines no clear financial cost that each park is going to need or which parks are going to be worked on.
Without a clear budget for each parks/fields needs of repairs/upgrades, or even which areas are going to be improved, this money could be used up before even half of the "proposed" areas are completed.
Until the Mayor and his office can provide detailed information I will be voting NO.
I disagree with this opinion piece. The parks bond is poorly planned and filled with giveaways.
I can't vote Yes on a Referendum Question, to appropriate almost $34 Million Dollars, without an itemized Bond Plan. So far, we the public, have not gotten that. Even, me, a Candidate for Mayor, has not been given that. If you are asking people to shell out that kind of Money, they need to know exactly how it will be spent, how many permanent jobs will it create, and exactly what is the timeline for the projects. I'm sorry I cannot support this. I will be voting NO!
I'm appalled that the excuse "All these others schools did it" is being used to defend synthetic turf. The list of "gotcha" toxins is huge, and it's not confined to Superfund sites: mercury, lead, asbestos, DDT, PCBs -- all of these and many, many more poisons have had to be banned and then remediated from our environment, at huge cost. And the cost to human lives is rarely part of the calculation --- we usually focus on what it's going to cost in dollars to our communities, when we have to build a whole new school or transport our children to a different location.
Greater use of playing fields is not an excuse to introduce more toxins into our lives. I would rather my children and grandchildren played fewer games, rather than getting exposed to carbon black, benzene, lead, mercury, or any of the long list pf chemicals in shredded tires -- most of them tested individually, but not in combination with each other. Nor have they been tested on young human beings -- children should not be the victims (or guinea pigs) in these calculations to save short-term dollars on maintenance.
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