A fine accomplishment undercut by secrecy


It is too bad that the vital question of a new site for the Salisbury Transfer Station has been confused by excessive secrecy on the part of First Selectman Curtis Rand. Selectman Peter Oliver has reason to be annoyed that he, like Selectman Jim Dresser, was not informed in advance of the option to purchase two pieces of property on Dimond Road; surely they could have been brought into the loop without jeopardizing the deal. This a prime example of how a negotiation about a matter of public interest undertaken with the best of intentions can be misunderstood when information about it is withheld.

That being said, Mr. Oliver is too big a man to let wounded feelings blind his appreciation of what has been accomplished. If the deal goes through, the long and often frustrating search for a permanent site to replace the present temporary location on property owned by The Hotchkiss School will be over and a long-range plan can be initiated for development of the facility as a recycling center.

The proposed new location will not be as convenient for residents of Sharon, who pay 40 percent of the cost of operating the present transfer station, although some of them may be able to use a back way through Millerton. It is not as if there were plenty of feasible alternative sites. One often-mentioned possibility, using a small part of Wack Forest off 112 in Lime Rock, would plainly arouse substantial neighborhood protests.


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Thirty-five years ago the Salisbury dump was on the Erickson Farm on Bunker Hill, surely one of the most photogenic sites in the country. It was a pleasure to meet one’s neighbors while unloading trash against a backdrop of Barack Matiff and Canaan Mountain. But the state of Connecticut closed the landfill for health reasons.

Salisbury selectmen scrambled to find an interim solution while they searched for a new site. They made a temporary arrangement with North Canaan to use its dump, only to have that plan scotched when the late John Bianchi stood up in a town meeting and asked (I heard him): "Do we want to be known as a garbage dump for those snobs in Salisbury?" End of meeting. Regionalism in environmental affairs has come a long way.

First Selectman Charlotte Reid negotiated with The Hotchkiss School to use the present site. This was always a temporary arrangement, however. In recent years Hotchkiss trustees have made it clear that they have other uses in mind for that land, and the town of Salisbury has been honor-bound to find a permanent site as soon as possible.

So that is where we stand. Plainly the current selectmen will need to supply full information about how the present arrangement was arrived at and the financial reasons for it in preparation for a town meeting to decide on the purchase. Plainly, also, this important question for the town’s future needs to be discussed on the nonpartisan basis that has always characterized Salisbury’s big, long-range decisions.


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When does a surge become a flood? President Bush’s call for 8,000 additional troops beyond those already committed to the campaign to bring security to Baghdad and dampen the violence in Iraq was predictable, as was his request for $8 billion more to finance them. There is little point in debating this because it has already, in effect, been decided. But there is a great point to the Democratic call to halt and begin withdrawal in 2008. Otherwise the escalation will continue to feed on itself.


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It is easy to understand the unhappiness of residents of West Cornwall and nearby Sharon at the proposed 120-foot cell tower that would dominate the skyline around the cherished covered bridge. It isn’t so much the idea of a cell tower, which many persons have come to accept as a necessity for public safety. It is the proposed "monopine" fake pinetree design looming much higher than anything else on the horizon.

An example is the enormous artificial pine tree along I-684 near the Putnam-Westchester County line that is about as incongruous as an igloo in the Sahara Desert.

If we must have cell towers, follow Oliver Cromwell’s advice to his portrait painter and let them stand on their own merit, warts and all.


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The oh-so-soft-spoken Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may not have denied under oath that the recent firing of eight United States attorneys around the country was done for political reasons, but he has certainly said that in several public forums. The evidence is overwhelming that he was not telling the truth. This is the same chief of the country’s law enforcement who contrived to find that the country’s spoken commitment to the Geneva Convention on treatment of war prisoners did not apply to persons accused of abetting terrorism. He has been behaving as President Bush’s pet poodle, in contrast to his predecessor, John Ashcroft, who behaved more like a pit-bull.

Historically there have been attorneys general of both parties who have not done the concept of impartial law-enforcement any good. It would be nice to have one again worthy of respect.


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The quiet departure of Bill Morrill as president of the Salisbury Association after 10 years of conscientious service ought not to pass unnoticed. He presided over many major activities of the association, including its centennial and the skillful acquisition of the Cannon property that so enhances the quasi-wilderness along Dark Hollow Road. Bill deserves the warm thanks of townspeople as he hands over leadership to Dave Heck.

 

 

 

 

 

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