Letter: Time for a town manager

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To the editor,

As I read this article, “Naugatuck may see high tax rate rise even higher,” this morning Thursday, June 12, it really hit me again — it’s time for a town manager-town council form of government.

Again, I read not only on www.bobmezzo.com, but again in [the Waterbury Republican American] a detailed report of surrounding towns’ tax rates, towns’ home revaluations and towns without revaluations, the Naugatuck town budget on the Mayor’s blog and on the Naugatuck website.

Good job Mayor but, by the way, you and the elected borough are supposed to do this for us, the citizens of Naugatuck.

We are not stupid and naïve. We read the local newspapers, budgets, blogs, Facebook, etc., and some of us go to the borough meetings. I don’t blame a lot of local citizens for not going to these borough meetings because we only get lectured, bullied and humiliated. We’re not treated like mature adults, and when the Deputy Mayor says at one of these public meetings (April 1, 2014) that the citizens should not speak while at the public podium in “general terms” but only speak with “facts and figures” in hand. This is so disrespectful to humanity. The USA is a free country.

Most of us regular layman workers have street smarts or what I call common sense (native good judgment or common feelings of humanity) for which will create decent facts and figures. The Mayor and the elected borough officials don’t get it. We don’t want no new taxes. We had enough. And we want the citizens’ referendum, whether you and others like it or not. Citizens of Naugatuck please vote in the referendum, watch for the date/time.

The list of area towns with 2012 revaluations in the article dated June 12, 2014 has the towns of Bethel, Danbury and Newtown, which are listed in the top ten best places to live in Connecticut. And in the list of Naugatuck Valley towns without revaluations the town of Shelton is listed in the top 20 best places in Connecticut to live. Naugatuck is ranked 37th. Citizens of Naugatuck doesn’t this tell you something about our local government management abilities?

These rankings of Best Places to Live in Connecticut were ranked by Movoto Brokerage of California recognized for its national unique research by Forbes Magazine.

Emidio C. Cerasale

Naugatuck