Letters to the Editor 9-15-16

Syrian family resettled in Salisbury thanks to broad community effort

We are members of a group of local citizens that is resettling a refugee family in Salisbury. We are writing to thank the others in this group for their hard work, and the wider community for its extraordinary support. 

This young, Syrian family — mother, father, five little girls and one boy — became the newest residents of Salisbury a few days ago.  For the Al Ghanems, the journey here was a long one. Driven by war from their home in Syria, they spent three difficult years as refugees. Two years ago, they began an arduous vetting process by the U.S. State Department, Homeland Security and other agencies that resulted in their being granted legal immigrant status here. They arrived at JFK airport last week. 

Concerned about the global refugee crisis, our original, small group formed the Refugee Committee under the auspices of St. Mary’s Catholic Church earlier this year. We soon expanded to include Trinity Lime Rock Church, others of different faiths and many with no religious connections. This diverse mix of people shares one goal: to help a family in need.

In June, the Committee affiliated with Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS) in New Haven, the leading refugee resettlement agency in Connecticut. IRIS trained us, vetted us and finally assigned us a family in early August. We had just three weeks to prepare. 

Luckily, a longtime Lakeville resident offered the family a home within walking distance of town on very generous terms. Then a team of remarkably committed Trinity and St. Mary’s parishioners took charge of its preparation. With astonishing generosity, many others provided furniture and household goods, and stocked the kitchen with food,

Our focus now turns to self-sufficiency. This means employment and English language learning for the parents, and schooling for their children. 

As we navigate these challenges, we are most fortunate to have several Arabic speakers among us who are tirelessly helping the family find their way.  Interpreters are necessary right now, but English language proficiency is key to independence. Our group also includes experienced ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) teachers. They will begin formal English instruction at St. John’s next week for the parents (and other adults in town). Informal English lessons began at JFK. 

Much more remains to be done to get our family launched. We have a medical doctor, a social worker and others on our team who can navigate the official resettlement requirements. Once these formalities are completed in the next few weeks, the kids will start at Salisbury Central School. We will need additional help in the coming months, and will reach out to our neighbors again. 

The Al Ghanems are gracious and grateful. The kids are charming and ready to learn. The father is eager to work. The mother is happy to see her family in a safe place. We are proud to be part of such a welcoming community.

Katherine Perry

Sean White

Lakeville

Dragging Hillary Clinton over the finish line

Hillary Clinton’s doctor diagnosed her with pneumonia last Friday, but we didn’t hear about it until Sunday when Mrs. Clinton had to be carried to her vehicle from a 9-11 ceremony.

Chances are we never would have heard about it without her near collapse in public. The image of the presidential candidate being dragged and hoisted to her vehicle was surreal, and it underscores the secretive nature of her campaign. Her staff and protectors were trying to make things look normal even as she stood virtually immobilized at the curb.

Hillary has a lot of help at being secretive. Her “baskets of deplorables” remarks about millions of Trump supporters were buried by the New York Times on an inside page on the same day. Whenever Donald Trump indicts millions of people with his mouth, the story always goes straight to the top of the Times’ front page, as it should. 

It should for Hillary too, but she has the advantage of deploring groups whom it is politically acceptable to disdain. She is usually more guarded in her speech than Trump, but no less biased.

The sad fact is that fewer and fewer Americans want to vote for either Hillary or Donald for president, and most of the press that covers them would not get many votes of confidence either, other than from their own partisans. Fox News, of course, is in the tank for Trump, while most other news outlets, including the fabled “paper of record,” operate like Hillary’s handlers, trying to prop her up and drag her over the finish line.

What’s really scary, given the trajectory of the country and the culture, is that years from now, when we’re deciding between, say, Miley Cyrus and one of the Kardashians for president, we may actually look back on this cycle with fond regret.

Mark Godburn

North Canaan

Regarding damage to Sunday racing signs

This letter is written to the individual(s) who have been vandalizing and stealing the “No Racing on Sundays”  signs in Lime Rock and the area, which are posted on private property.

 We hope that you understand that in America, it is our right to make our wishes known by posting signs on our lawns.

It is your right to have a different opinion. It is your right to strongly disagree. It is not your right to trespass on our property and remove or destroy these signs.

You have the right to place a sign on your lawn in support of “Racing on Sunday.” I can guarantee that I would have no desire or need to trespass on your property and steal or damage it. Making your ideas and opinions known in a constructive manner, rather than destructive, is the way to make change and get things done. 

Perhaps you do not understand that by acting out in an illegal manner, your message is not being heard. Instead, the focus is on the negativity of your actions. This does not help to support racing on Sundays and casts a negative light on the cause that you wish to support. To put it in the most basic terms...You are hurting your team ...  not helping.

Arrogant, lawless behavior will not produce good results. Negative, destructive actions always backfire. What goes around, comes around. Karma, or whatever you want to call it ... will teach you some tough lessons.

Or ... you could choose to get involved in a real way and support your cause with intelligence. Being heard and respected as a human being will likely be a new experience for you. You just might learn to enjoy it.

Denise Tamburrino

Lime Rock

Not much chance that negotiation will happen now with LRP

Ted O’Neill’s letter in the Sept. 1 Lakeville Journal was dead right in one respect: The Lime Rock Citizens Council (LRCC) would love to see an end to the litigation.

But let us remember who started it; it wasn’t us. The track, having operated for 57 years under a no-Sunday-racing order from the court, and Mr. Barber having purchased the track fully aware of the restrictions imposed on it by the court, started the litigation last September by filing four lawsuits against its neighbors, Trinity Church and Music Mountain. Since then, it has filed two lawsuits against the town of Salisbury.

Let us also remember a point made in our ad in the Aug. 18 issue: Property owners within the track’s zone of noise pay just about 10 times the tax that the track pays. Those taxes rest on assessments that are lower because of the track, at least 10 to 20 percent lower. Do the math and there would be not a decrease in taxes paid to the town of Salisbury, but an increase. And if the track gets the expansion it wants, those assessments, and the taxes, would go even lower.

Finally, based on close to 50 years of law practice, I beg to make three points about the chances for settlement by negotiation.

First: There has never been a serious overture from the track for settlement. The track did make what it called an offer of settlement on April 15, but it was, indeed, a most curious offer. It asked for more expansion of activities than did the track’s court filings last September.

Second: There is little or no chance for settlement at this point, since both sides are awaiting Judge Moore’s decisions in two cases: (1) the LRCC’s motion in Adams v. Vail to stay the court proceedings and send this case to the Planning & Zoning Commission; (2) the track’s appeal from the Zoning Board of Appeals’ order restricting camping. In this case, the ZBA’s attorney has brought forth an argument that could, if adopted by Judge Moore, destroy the track’s entire legal basis for changing the present rules.

Third: Four-day racing weekends, including Sundays, with some 40 hours of unmufflered racing, are essential to what I believe is the track’s plan to bring in the big boys such as NASCAR and IMSA (International Motor Sports Association) for four-day events. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, would hear those races all over town. IMSA, for example, boasts cars with 450 to 600 horsepower, capable of 200 miles per hour.  

In this context, I hope all of us can see that settlement by negotiation, now, would be extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible. That time just might come, some day, but it is not now.

Stuyvesant K. Bearns

Lime Rock Citizens Council for the Northwest Corner

Lakeville