Letters to the Editor - September 24, 2026

Public and private funds for affordable rental housing

The lack of affordable housing is the biggest challenge Salisbury faces if we want to remain an economically and generationally diverse community — a point the authors of the two September 17 letters (“Put $1M to work for housing affordability” and “Demand private capital with public for housing”) got exactly right. They’re also right that Salisbury holds substantial private wealth. So, let’s update readers on what’s already underway.

The Salisbury Housing Committee (SHC) builds and manages affordable rental housing. To date: Sarum Village has 34 units, Lakeview Apartments has six units, and East Meadow has eight units.Holley Place in Lakeville will add 14 rental units with parking beneath; Dresser Woods in Salisbury will add 20 units; and SHC is renovating a Bostwick Street property in Lakeville into three apartments.

Federal and state funding covers only about 80% of these costs — the remainder must come from the community. In 2023, the late Jim Dresser, an affordable housing advocate and SHC board member, raised over $1M to advance construction. A few years later, SHC launched a Capital Campaign that has since raised another $1.2M thanks to many generous members of the community. Our goal is to raise a total of 3 million.

119 people are on Salisbury’s affordable rental waiting list. The scale of that need is why larger developments matter — but pairing them with smaller renovations like Bostwick Street also keeps Main Street Salisbury alive and vibrant.

But we are not there yet. Reaching our final goal will determine how many of the families on our waiting list can find a home here rather than being priced out of the community they grew up in or work in. If you share the concern raised in last week’s letters, I’d encourage you to see the Capital Campaign not as a call for more debate, but as an invitation — SHC welcomes your support, your questions, and your involvement in getting this last stretch done.

Peter Halle

President, Salisbury
Housing Committee, Inc.

Helen Scoville,

Kim Fiertz,

Cathryn Scoville,

SHC Capital Committee

Thanks for turning out

Thanks to everyone for turning out for last Sunday’s “Meet The Candidates” event at the Grove, co-sponsored by the Salisbury and Sharon Republican Town Committees.While the weather forced usindoors, everyone’s spirits were given a strong boost by the goodies dispensed by Peter Doda’s Ice Cream Truck and the cheerful music played by the Shade Tree Jazz Ensemble.

All of the Republican statewide candidates were present:

Ryan Fazio (Governor), an energetic young state senator from Fairfield County who wants to make Connecticut affordable for everyone, not just the wealthy.

Matt Corey (Lt. Governor), a small business owner who envisions using the office to assist and promote small businesses by cutting the endless regulations and red tape they face.

John Bolton (Attorney General), a Westport attorney who believes the role of the AG is to serve and protect CT residents, not to file 65 (and counting) lawsuits against the Trump administration and sue to block the merger of Paramount and Warner Brothers.

Peter Lumaj (Secretary of State), who escaped a Communist regime in Eastern Europe where he experienced firsthand the importance of integrity in our election process.

Fred Wilms (Treasurer), who has spent his entire career in banking and finance and will, for the first time in years, bring genuine financial experience to the office responsible for managing our finances and pension funds.

Jen Tooker (Comptroller), a former First Selectwoman of Westport who built a career in the global reinsurance industry and will bring financial expertise to the management of Connecticut’s financial foundation.

They were joined by Congressional candidate Chris Shea, State Senator Steve Harding and Probate Court Judge Jordan Richards. Collectively, these candidates form the strongest ticket our party has offered in years,

The upcoming election offers an opportunity to break the Democrats’ total control of state government which they have held for the past 15 years.It is they who are responsible for the terrible state of Connecticut’s economy.For example, Connecticut ranks among the five least affordable states in the country, with more than 40% of residents saying they would like to move to another state;

Connecticut is tied with California, Washington and Oregon for the highest unemployment rate in the country; for years the state has been among the three or four states with the highest electric rates; and a survey by CNBC of Top States for Business found that Connecticut was near the bottom in every measure of business competitiveness.

Clearly, Connecticut is on the wrong economic track.Having enjoyed one-party rule for 15 years, the Democrats own this record.I urge voters to tune out the destructive hyper-partisan debate in Washington and focus on what is happening here in Connecticut. The Democrats’ stranglehold over our state government must end.

Tom Morrison,

Chair, Salisbury RTC

Lakeville

Thanks for Open House

Sharon Center School’s Open House and PTO picnic potluck was such a wonderful celebration of everything that makes our school so special.It was great to see children, families, teachers, and staff spend time together, share food, and enjoy a beautiful evening.The scavenger hunt was a fun way for students to show their families around classrooms and introduce them to the amazing teachers and staff who make SCS such a welcoming place.Special thanks to Principal Tomkalski, the teachers, support staff, Ms. Craig, Mrs. Poppy, and Mr. Dan, who helped make the evening such a success.Thank you as well to Superintendent Shanley, Dr. O’Reilly, and the Board of Education members who grilled and served hamburgers and hot dogs, keeping everyone well fed.We are so fortunate to be part of such a caring and supportive school community.

Vanessa Bousquet

Sharon

Harding works tirelessly

This letter is in support of the re-election of Steve Harding to the State Senate. Steve is a lawyer who has lived in Brookfield for over 30 years. He served four terms in the Connecticut House and then, in 2022, was elected to the State Senate where he represents the 30th District. He was re-elected in 2024 and is the Minority Leader in the Senate.

Steve is one of the very best representatives that we have in Hartford. I have watched him work tirelessly for the benefit of all Connecticut residents. As Minority Leader, he has forcefully advocated for pocketbook issues that would benefit Connecticut residents, such as lower electric rates and lower taxes. He will push back against Hartford Dems’ attempt to impose statewide zoning mandates and a state income tax on homes above a certain value, even if they are your primary residence.

Steve is married with three young children and so he understands the burdens that our young families face. He is a gracious and caring person and is always available to everyone regardless of party. We must keep this man in office.

Janet Lynn

Lakeville

Thank you, Brian Kenny

My daughter, husband and I had a flat tire right behind the firehouse in Sharon. No one was around and out of nowhere appeared Brian Kenny of Kenny Funeral Home.

He asked if he could help and offered to drive us to our home in Ancram which I knew was way out of his way.He drove our adult daughter and then came back to see if there was anything more to do to help.He didn’t know us, we didn’t know him and all he did was help when help was needed.This isn’t an advertisement for his funeral home but if this is the way he treats strangers then he is the best of funeral directors anywhere.

Lorraine Coyle and Oliver Koppell

Ancram

Send Shea to U.S. House

It is my pleasure to enthusiastically support the candidacy of Chris Shea for congress.

Chris is a Navy vet who cares about the citizens of CT.

He plans on lowering the cost of living, growing jobs and wages (sorely needed in CT) and improving education for our students.

He is also in favor of reducing taxes, regulation and red tape, also needed in CT.

His opponent actually voted against a tax relief bill that would have given a tax break to senior citizens, working people and anyone in CT who owns property.

All the more reason to support Chris’s candidacy enthusiastically!

Maureen Bateman

Salisbury

Protect our natural world

The Endangered Species Act was bipartisan legislation signed into law by President Nixon in 1973.It protected animals and plants vulnerable to extinction and the habitat they need to survive. In 1982 Congress added amendments to make it easier for non-federal land to develop habitat for endangered species which might be harmed.

But developers, loggers, mining and drilling corporations have pushed to get around the law, and the Trump administration is listening. They want economic factors to be a part of the species and habitat designation. This could cause long-term damage to forests which benefit us by soaking up carbon dioxide and to wetlands and swamps which trap carbon.Furthermore, on the coast, wetlands serve an important function by acting as a buffer for hurricanes and rising sea level.

The Trump administration wants to weaken the Endangered Species Act and open the door to more oil and gas drilling and mineral extraction on our protected public lands.They want to open 1.3 billion acres of coastal water to drilling. Plans to remove federal protections for wetlands and streams could threaten drinking water for millions of Americans.

Both the American buffalo and the bald eagle were close to extinction before the Endangered Species Act was passed. By revoking grazing permits for bison on our public land, Trump could again bring bison numbers dangerously low. Banning DDT saved the bald eagle, which consumes fish and is our national symbol, but lifting protection for wetlands and opening oil drilling on the coast could put them back on the endangered list. We must insist that the Fish and Wildlife Service not alter the Endangered Species Act, for it would be detrimental to our animals,birds, their habitat, our drinking water, our quality of life and for the future generations who follow us.

Lizbeth Piel

Sharon

This is not science fiction — the AI threat is real

I am not an alarmist. But after reading widely and following the experts, I’ve become convinced that the race to build superintelligent AI — machines that could eclipse humans at every task — carries a real risk to humanity’s future.

Don’t take my word for it. This concern is shared by leaders and senior researchers at OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepMind, and xAI, many of whom have left in protest. Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced legislation to ban the development of artificial superintelligence and is pushing for a U.S.-China treaty modeled on Cold War arms control. Even longtime AI optimists like Bill Gates have voiced concern about the risks.

Chief among these voices is Geoffrey Hinton, the “Godfather of AI” and a 2024 Nobel laureate, who left Google in 2023 to speak freely about the dangers of the technology he helped build. Hinton now believes we may have only months or a few years to solve AI’s “alignment problem” — keeping these systems safe and under human control. Unlike human brains, he notes, digital intelligence can share what it learns instantly across countless copies of itself, a kind of collective learning humanity has never faced. This is no longer hypothetical: Hinton points to recent incidents where AI agents “escaped” their testing environments, evidence that safety hasn’t kept pace with AI’s growing autonomy.

Hinton isn’t calling for a halt to AI — just for safeguards to catch up. As he put it, those against oversight “want a very fast car with no steering wheel.” We’d do well to listen to the person who built the engine.

What’s needed now is an international framework for managing this risk, starting with China: independent testing teams with real access to frontier systems, and a crisis hotline between the two nations, much like the ones that helped defuse nuclear tensions during the Cold War.

If you agree, please share this and get involved.

Chris Pouler

Lakeville