Woodstock CT Café

The responsibility of both our boards, as well as the developers, is to demonstrate concern for key environmental elements within any property they review- or submit- for development. Without any additional “honking” over the number of house lots proposed- to which most can agree “less is better”- the developer completely ignored the vernal pool in their proposal, and never provided information- nor allowed further study- to determine “scientifically” if any salamanders were actually utilizing the area. The IWWA and PZC boards – sorry Jeff – but dominated by Republicans – were in a rush to approve the Douglas proposal- rather than actually taking the necessary time and steps to consider these environmental features (which if not for citizens- would never have even been identified). My original post was simply pointing out the irony of the same Republicans (yes Jeff- I realize I am generalizing- rather than continually naming names- Dexter Young, Fred Rich- it just makes for shorter posts!) who ignored the original destruction of a “potentially important environmental area”- and now are jumping on this landowner. It just makes the Woodstock board seem like special interest, small minded group – intent on “payback”- rather than truly understanding the environmental impact of specific development. Read the rest of this entry »

Quoting Colin McEnroe in the Hartford Courant in January 2007 “Blogging does not always show its best face, but when it does, I think it closely resembles the vision Thomas Jefferson had of America – an informed and spirited people who would care for one another and act decisively to safeguard their own liberties. The best way to make this happen (safeguard our liberties), Jefferson said, would be to ‘illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they (the people) may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes’. ”

Bowman said at the Cafe in March 2007 “We are experiencing a new medium for sharing information, expressing our opinions and doing it in a way we are comfortable with. Of course like all change there are people who will be against it. We hear that nobody should be anonymous, people should have the ‘guts’ to express their opinions at public meetings, etc. However that is the past and this is the emerging reality that everyone will be forced to deal with.

It’s a two edged sword. On the one hand it is much easier to publish and find data on a wide variety of subjects. I can remember when I was younger having to do all my research in a library and hoping the library was a good one. Today’s students have access to so much more information. On the other hand a lot of false information gets posted onto the web. So each individual has a greater access to information but along with that comes a greater need to each individual to be able to evaluate and verify if that information is accurate. Read the rest of this entry »

“Lisbon Central School has joined several districts in southeastern Connecticut in adopting a system that allows administrators to send messages instantly to hundreds of parents…”

Many towns in southeastern CT have this system. The Lisbon system was paid for the first year by the PTA. Lisbon Superintendent of Schools: 376-5565.

See the article in the Norwich Bulletin.