May 3, 2013 - Southingtonlibrary.org

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6 To advertise, call (860) 628-9645 Friday, May 3, 2013 •Second Look Column.......page 8 •Neighbors............page 9 •Good Times........page 16 Our Views Stop for stopped school buses ED HARRIS editor Established in 1975 Published weekly by The Step Saver, Inc. 213 Spring St., Southington, CT 06489 editorial: 860-621-6751 advertising: 860-628-9645 circulation: 860-628-9438 fax 860-621-1841 e-mail eharris@southingtonobserver.com All editorials are intended to reflect the position of the publisher and not that of any individual editorial writer. Signed columns, on the other hand, reflect the position of the author and not necessarily those of the publisher. www.SouthingtonObserver.com www.StepSaver.com Knowing your state legislators Often many do not know who the members of their state delegation in Hartford are, never mind the various committees that these individuals sit on. Because of this, we thank Southington’s legislative delegation for taking time out of their schedules to enjoy a breakfast with the Southington Chamber of Commerce and their attempts to flush out what they are doing in Hartford. This will help people understand what their elected representatives are doing while serving and also allow them to know which delegation member to get a hold of for any specific issues that they may be facing. Most of Southington’s legislative delegation flushed out their roles in Hartford during a recent legislative breakfast event, hosted by the Southington Chamber of Commerce. Only Republican state Rep. Al Adinolfi, who oversees a sliver of Southington ever since the redistricting in December 2011, was not in attendance. Republican Rob Sampson, now in his second term, serves on the Appropriations, Real Estate and Insurance and Environmental Committees. Southington state Senator Joe Markley, a Republican serving in his third, non consecutive term, serves on the Appropriations, Program Review, Human Services and Labor Committees. Democratic state Rep. Dave Zoni is a little more than three months into his first term. Zoni serves on the Aging, Public Health and Finance Committees. Fellow Southington state Rep. Joe Aresimowicz, who has served for close to a decade, is the House Minority Leader and therefore does not sit on any committees. Al Adinolfi, a Republican, serves on the Judiciary, Veterans’ Affairs, Appropriations and Aging Committees. Giving veterans a helping hand Our military veterans have sacrificed a lot of our country, so we were glad to see two of them get a helping hand this past weekend. Members of House of Heroes Connecticut came to Southington on Saturday to aid with needed repairs and renovations at the homes of Walter and Karen Grover and Maria Perreault. Walter Grover is a U.S. Army veteran who worked in nuclear warhead maintenance and security in West Germany during the Vietnam era. Maria is the widow of Dennis Perreault, a U.S. Navy and Vietnam veteran who passed away in 2009. The Community Foundation of Greater New Britain and the Rotary Club of Southington are supporting the projects. The Community Foundation awarded a Catalyst Fund grant to the House of Heroes in December. This grant will help the House of Heroes repair and renovate a select number of veteran’s homes in Berlin, New Britain, Plainville and Southington. House of Heroes is also utilizing money donated to it from the Southington Rotary’s Blues, Brews and Barbeque event held at Hawk’s Landing in September. House of Heroes, founded in 2000, is a nonprofit organization that serves the nation’s military and public safety veterans, as well as their spouses, who are disabled, living on a fixed income, or facing other physical/financial challenges. Volunteers make minor repairs and improvements to the homes, at no cost to the veteran. The costs of the repairs are funded through various charitable donations. Since its inception, House of Heroes has helped provide repair services to more than 600 veterans and their families. Back in high school, my friend Dimitri was the first in my group of friends to go for his driver’s license. We were all excited. No longer would we be at the mercy of our parents. If we wanted to go somewhere or do something, we would have Dimitri to drive us around, provided he could talk his mother into lending him the car. It seemed as if freedom was on the horizon. Or so we thought. For some reason, still unknown, Dimitri failed his drivers test in the most spectacular way. And by spectacular, I mean boneheaded. While out on the road portion of the test, Dimitri decided to pass a stopped school bus, which had its lights flashing and stop sign out and extended. Obviously he should have stopped and waited for the school kids to enter or exit the bus. Instead, he decided to keep going, past the stopped bus. This earned him an automatic failure and endless ribbing from our group of friends. A bit later he retook the test and was able to pass. I do not remember if he had to stop for a school bus the second time around. My friend has learned his lesson and every time that I have driven with him, he has always stopped for busses, when needed. But this is Battle lines: Kids versus dogs I was at a party recently, and among the crowd there were two young couples sharing their common experiences of raising toddlers. It was very cute listening to them express amazement at every new event in their children’s development, as if their offspring were the first ones in the history of the planet to do things such as crawl up stairs, flush a hair brush down the toilet, or point to Barney on TV and exclaim, “Mama!” When the two young couples started talking about the high cost of car seats and baby shoes, I had to force myself to keep quiet when I wanted to blurt out, “Car seats? Just wait till they want their own car! And baby shoes? Have you priced orthodontia lately? How about prom dresses? How about college tuition?!” Luckily I was able to refrain from sharing my “wisdom” with the naïve young couples — which, from their perspective, would have been simply a grumpy old man performing an uninvited “grump dump.” Instead I just stood there and smiled. This is yet another good reason (I’m now up to reason number 4,278) why it was a fabulous thing that I quit drinking many years ago. I’m pretty sure if I had been drinking, my speech filter would’ve been disabled after the third beer and I not only would’ve “grump dumped” about the high cost of raising kids, but every other inappropriate thought that popped into my head Ed Harris Thoughts around town not always the case, we still have people that drive around buses, with no regard for the safety of the school children. Because of this, I am thankful to see that the school system taking steps to ensure bus safety, but I will take a wait and see approach to see just how big of a problem there is in town of cars passing stopped school buses. Recently the Southington School district joined a program that will place cameras on buses to monitor drivers who ignore bus safety rules. The program is a collaborative effort between the schools, the police, New Britain Transportation and the company RedFlex Traffic Systems. Bill Dunn Laugh or Death would have blasted right out of my mouth. Which probably explains why I was not invited to very many parties back in the bad ol’ days. Anyway, this little conversation at the party was proceeding nicely, with the young couples regaling us with tales of their precocious youngsters, when suddenly another young lady joined the discussion and said, “Oh, the same thing happened to us the other day when Fluffy was playing with a ball in kitchen!” The room suddenly went silent. Everybody, even people who were not a part of our conversation, turned and stared at the young woman. She was oblivious to the sudden hush, since visions of her precious Fluffy were still dancing in her head. After a few awkward seconds, which seemed like ten minutes, someone, whose speech filter had been disabled many beers ago (it wasn’t me!), broke the silence by The town piloted the program in February 2012. State legislation has made it possible to implement the program at no cost to taxpayers. RedFlex will receive a portion of any ticket that is handed out thanks to the cameras. The camera turns on when the bus driver extends the vehicle’s stop sign and turns off when the sign is retracted. Last year, school officials said that they periodically receive complaints about drivers who ignored the stop signs on the buses, but noted that it is difficult for them to actually track how often this was happening. The still video provided by the cameras could provide the opportunity. RedFlex will review the tapes and send footage of potential violations to the police for examination. There is likely not an epidemic of cars passing a stopped bus in town, though an instance or two every so often can still pose potential dangers to the students on the bus. Hopefully, with word getting out that the drivers will be on candid camera these instances will stop. Comments? Email eharris@southingtonobserver.com. yelling, “Hey lady! A freakin’ dog ain’t the same thing as a kid!!” Ooh. Now it was out in the open. The atmosphere of the party turned cold. Battle lines were drawn as other dog-loving couples came to the young woman’s defense. At the same time parents with small children gathered around the original two young couples to assure them that raising a child is indeed much more difficult than owning a mere dog. That’s when I realized there are a lot of people who consider their pets to be their children. Of course, there are common experiences in both situations. Whether you have a baby or you own a pet, you spend more money than you ever expected, you can no longer go away for the weekend without first lining up someone trustworthy to take care of your bundle of joy and you quickly become an expert at cleaning up poop. Now, I have a few strong opinions on this subject, but I also have a number of friends with young children and/or pets. Fortunately I am sober right now and the filter is operational, so I think I’ll just stay out of this heated debate and change the subject to something less passionate and volatile. So, what do you think of Obamacare? How about gun control? Bill Dunn is a freelance writer who resides in Torrington. He can be reached via his website at: www.boomertrek.com.
Friday, May 3, 2013 The Step Saver/ The Observer To advertise, call (860) 628-9645 Southington says Your Views 7 This week we asked Kelley School third graders: If you were school principal, what rules would you have put into place? Photos by Tammi Naudus "All students will be able to read whenever they want to." Regan Plourde Southington "I love math, especially multiplication tables. So I would say, everyone is allowed to do math facts in their free time." Trent Campbell Southington Reward offered for bat To the Editor, My name is Mark Halliday and along with my wife and son, we live in Southington. Five weeks ago my wife purchased a brand new baseball bat for my son. The bat is an “EAS- TON” brand and it is a new composite material bat. My wife spent $275 on this bat. Four weeks ago, my son attended a batting practice at an indoor batting facility in Southington called UBSA on a Friday night with his Southington North Little League team(UBSA stands for Ultimate Baseball Sports Academy). Like most 10-year-old boys, he got caught up in the moment playing and talking with his teammates. In the process, he forgot to put his brand new bat back into his baseball equipment bag when practice was over. The very next day, one of the owners of UBSA saw the bat hanging in a bat rack at UBSA. He later told me that he thought to himself “Huh, what is that bat doing there? That is not a UBSA bat.” By the end of the day, the bat was gone. The owner is beside himself over this incident. Both myself and the owners of UBSA feel a young boy between the ages of 8 and 14 took the bat that day when no one was looking because they recognized that it was the EASTON “S1” composite bat. UBSA told me that they had many baseball players that Saturday attending practices and lessons. There are no cameras at UBSA and it is understood that everyone who attends UBSA, is pretty much on “Scouts Honor.” Both myself and the owners of UBSA feel that somewhere out there, there is a parent or parents that just don’t realize that their son took a very expensive bat from UBSA and that it belongs to someone else. Today, most parents just drop of their kids at games and practices and never think to look in their equipment bags, ever. There is a $50.00 reward for the safe return of this bat with no questions asked. Both my wife and I want all parties concerned to remain unknown to the public. All anyone has to do is leave the bat with the owners of UBSA along with their mailing address (only the owners of UBSA will know the mailing address) and they will receive $50 in the mail for returning the bat. The bat is a 2013 EAST- ON S1 composite bat. It is a black bat with bright yellow printing and markings on the bat. Both my wife and I are hopeful that if you run this story, a good Samaritan will come forward. Mark Halliday Southington Letters "Absolutely no drinking soda in school (which is a rule now, but I would seriously enforce it)." To the Editor, Megan Daley Southington One of the characteristics of American life from its earliest beginnings has been the willingness of its people to help each other. From early times, when people pitched in to help a neighbor build a new barn, America has been a nation of volunteers Volunteers played an important role in building the nation. And despite the complexities of today’s world, volunteers can still play a vital role in their communities, in the nation, and in the world. Volunteers indeed are one of the nation’s most valuable resources. During National Volunteer Week, April 21-27, thousands of these dedicated men, women, and young people here in Southington as well millions in communities across the country should be saluted for their efforts and their commitment to serve. "All students will be allowed to read at whatever reading level they desire." Abbie Flanigan Southington On behalf of all of us at the Southington-Cheshire Community YMCA, we want to convey a very special thank you to the many volunteers here in Southington and Cheshire who makes a difference every day in our community and in the lives of many of our neighbors. Locally, at the YMCA, we are blessed with over 700 volunteers, including board & committee members, clerical helpers, youth sports coaches, gymnastic swim team and Indian Guide parent clubs, child care aides, maintenance helpers, teen leaders, fundraisers, and road race, special event and YMCA Camp Sloper supporters. Recently, nearly 70 volunteers donate over 300 hours of time and talent to help get YMCA Camp Sloper ready for the upcoming season. Volunteers have been and will always be critical to our success of meeting the needs in the community. "All classes will have gym everyday. I think Mr. Korp would like that!" Abbey Shubert Southington YMCA thanks volunteers On top of their time and talents, they are an inspiration for all of us who work at the YMCA. Volunteers enable the YMCA, as well as other organizations, to provide more services to more people in our community. For the volunteer there is not only the satisfaction of working with others but often the development of leadership skills that carry over into other parts of their livers. And certainly the whole community gains from the programs volunteers make possible. This is a great week to show how volunteers make a difference in our community. We encourage everyone to find some time to volunteer. More times than not, volunteers themselves are recipients of feeling good about helping others. John Myers-Executive Director of the YMCA Melissa Sheffy-YMCA Board President Zoni supports court advocates for animal cruelty SUBMITTED State Rep. Dave Zoni speaks in favor of appointing a court advocate for serious animal cruetly cases. State Representative David Zoni (D- Southington) is supporting legislation now before the General Assembly that would provide for the appointment of a court advocate in cases involving serious animal cruelty cases. Rep. Zoni participated in a recent bipartisan State Capitol news conference involving legislators and animal advocates who called for a comprehensive re-evaluation of the state’s animal cruelty laws following a rash of horrific cases where alleged perpetrators were given no jail time. Rep. Zoni said he supports HB 6690, “An Act Concerning Court Proceedings And Animal Protection”, which has been approved by the Judiciary Committee and is expected to be readied for a House vote soon. “There is little doubt that when a person has a history of abusing animals, it’s a red flag for future violence or worse abuse against people,” Zoni said. “The fact that UCONN law students will volunteer to participate in the program along with private law firms is great news and it’s another positive sign that this proposal is being taken seriously. Rep. Zoni praised State Representative Diana Urban (D-North Stonington/Stonington) for her long standing effort in behalf of the legislation. www.SouthingtonObserver.com Point & Click Read it all on the Web. www.SouthingtonObserver.com
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May 3, 2013 - Southingtonlibrary.org

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