Invest in Greenwich

“I’m from the RTM and I’m here to help.”

Most municipal governments are run by a mayor, who has administrative and budgetary powers, and a council, which is the legislative body. Newcomers, to Greenwich, and even long-time residents, are often confused about the structure of our Town’s government, which is fairly unique to New England.

Today, when a prosperous town needs a capital improvement, such as a school, they will issue a long-term municipal bond to pay for it. A long-term bond lets a town address a specific need and helps maintain the value of the town’s infrastructure. It also ensures that citizens who benefit from the capital improvement pay for it over its “useful life” of 20 or 30 years.

Our Greenwich Public Schools are amazing in many ways.  Embedded in the curriculum are numerous programs which benefit students who are gifted, developmentally delayed, or emotionally disturbed, as well as students who potentially could fall through the cracks and never obtain a college education due to socioeconomic factors or simply because they were born into families where English is a second language.

If you have seen Mark Ruffalo’s disturbing film “Dark Waters,” you may wonder whether the issue of choosing artificial turf over natural grass for Greenwich playing fields has something similarly sinister going on beneath the surface.

Greenwich CT is often synonymous with gilded mansions, finance magnates, sprawling estates and soon: decrepit and failing schools.

By Janet McMahon, District 8

Like many other families in town, my husband and I CHOSE to buy a home in Greenwich because we wanted to ensure that our children had access to a quality public school education.

by Mareta Hamre, RTM District 10, Education Delegate

At the June RTM meeting Monday, the 230 RTM members and many non-members from the public spent hours debating the Sense of the Meeting Resolution about the BET cuts to the Education budget. All but one of the non-RTM members spoke against the cuts, reflecting the public outcry that has occurred in a petition (signed by roughly 3000 people), a drive-by protest at town hall, and hundreds of emails to RTM members.

We can fix this. It’s not that difficult to do. You would be shocked at how much less garbage you generate if you participate in programs like food scrap recycling or eliminate single-use disposable items from your household.

Greenwich has a twin trash problem. One is a fiscal problem — how to come up with roughly $1MM annually to pay for the increased cost of recycling. The other is a capacity problem — how to reduce the volume of trash because Connecticut is running out of space for it.

At a February meeting of the RTM Appointments Committee, as I was being interviewed to be re-appointed to the Labor Contracts Committee, I was asked whether my religious activity was a conflict of interest.