Save it, Don't Pave it!

“COME TO YOUR SENSES” is the name of a program scheduled for May 1, 2011, at the to celebrate Earth Day.

With regard to the future of this property, we hope that the Board of Finance is able to do the same. Many years ago, we moved our families to Trumbull to take advantage of the educational opportunities and the “country feeling” of the town itself. The Nature Center addresses quite a number of educational opportunities for kids of all ages and also helps to preserve one of the few open spaces left in our town.

Many of us knew Mr. and Mrs. Wagner as neighbors when they sold Christmas trees that they had grown on their property. We are of the understanding that the Wagner family sold the property to the Land Acquisition and Preservation Committee giving use of the property to the Nature Center in perpetuity, the intention here being to protect the property as well as the character of the town from over development.

It angers us that this promise will not be kept. That trees will be cut down and animal habitats destroyed as this perfectly functional and ideally located Nature Center is demolished after volunteers from our town worked thousands of hours to create it.

Additionally, we have now learned that the town administration has included $1 million in its five-year Capital Improvement Plan to relocate the Nature Center with the intention of possibly changing the zoning there from residential to commercial.

The frontage of this piece of property is narrow, but the remaining 11 acres is deep, dividing two residential neighborhoods as it extends much of the length of Owl Hill Trail and Tashua Road on either side.

We realize that commercial development of this property could increase revenue.  If that development should occur, however, the property values of the many homes surrounding this acreage will be dramatically decreased. Surely this $1 million could be put to better use.

We would like to take this opportunity to ask the Board of Finance once again to come to their senses and to honor the ideals and commitments of those responsible for creating the Arts and Nature Center, especially the Wagner Family, who sold the property at below market value with the promise that it would be preserved.

We can only echo the simple truths stated by Ray Jaroszewski in his editorial to the Trumbull Times a few months ago: “The idea of having to destroy nature to protect it does not hold water.  The idea that if we develop everything we can, this will save Trumbull from rising taxes is wrong.  More development brings more people, more traffic, and more roads to maintain.”  Let’s not pave Paradise and put up another parking lot. 

Al and Suzanne Stewart
Keith and Susan Gooden
Steve and Susan Jobbins
Robert and Amy Lilley
John and Karen Signes
Linda and Martin Kentosh
Michael and Lisa McAndrews
James and Dorothy Tucci
Steven and Mary Ciulla
Larry and Carol Schweitzer
Richard and Stephanie Frazier
Ed and Carol Ahern 
Vincent and Sandra Mangiacapra
Joseph and Helen Mangiacapra
Alma Iucopilla