Airport referendum passes with comfortable margin
Posted Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - 8:09pm
Topic Tags: in
The town's proposal to purchase Robertson Airport passed in a referendum today, March 31 with 1,432 residents voting yes and 791 residents voting no. Of the 10,513 eligible voters, a total of 2,223 people voted, according to Town Clerk Carol Skultety.
Councilwoman Helen Bergenty, who supported the airport purchase, hailed the news. "The people have spoken," she said, adding there was plenty of information available to citizens prior to the referendum.
John Kisluk, who led the opposition effort, said that he was "disappointed," but did his best to get his message to voters.
David E. Koskoff, who also was opposed to the airport purchase, said he hopes if the town does any more property purchases, it becomes a little more tight-fisted on using updated appraisal and marketing figures, instead of relying on old figures when the country was enjoying more robust economic times.
The purchase price for the airport is $7.7 million with Plainville's share to be $96,395 and the rest coming from state and federal governments.
Comments :
Plainville Airport
Submitted by Debra (not verified) on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 1:27pm.Well, there you are people of Plainville. Now try to sell your properties at the old inflated rates and see if Plainville will buy your properties too. How stupid can people be. This will be a HUGE TAX BURDEN for the people of Plainville. SHAME ON THOMASO family for being so GREEDY to the people of Plainville. Well Plainville residents tiime for you all to wake up and even if it is a little late for this episode but now that you all now have to pay to upkeep this AIRPORT and where is the money coming from for all that????? And furthermore, where do our elected town officials get off buying something of this magnitude and not have the sense to require a fair updated appraisal for this Airport? This all has a foul smell in the air for certain. With the economy in the state that it is right now and the upcoming budget due to vote on in April this should be a very interesting agenda. Hopefully now that Plainville will be the owners of this Airport, what will the future hold for the residents and the school system and all the other costs to keep up the services needed for the residents of Plainville. What will get chopped out of the town budget to keep up this Airport? Only time will tell and because people did not take the time to go vote on March 31 to VOTE NO on this purchase or at least vote to table it until a fair appraisal in todays market could be achieved all I can say is SHAME ON YOU. And to the officials that sit on all the municipal boards for the town of Plainville, you all need to be voted out of office since this is a clear misuse of your duties to the town and the residents of the town. I lived for many years in Plainville and nothing has changed. In the day when there was beautiful areas in town that should have been preserved as open space the town did not listen to us then either, the town just kept building, building, building. Now most of all that building is boarded up and not being used and there you are. Have a nice day!!!
Robertson Airport
Submitted by Airmechanic (not verified) on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 10:19pm.Thank you concerned citizens of Plainville for doing the right thing. Who in their right mind would want more housing devolped in this town further putting a burden on the already budgeoning school system in this town. Having the Airport remain as is is not only good for Business but also the historical aspect of Aviation in this State and Country. God Bless America.
airport
Submitted by yea (not verified) on Thu, 04/02/2009 - 7:29am.To "debra" - Town officials have stated that the airport will support itself and NOT be a tax burden. Can we at least wait & see what happens before asking what the impact will be to the Town budget? We realize you are a cynic - we get it. This issue was well debated before the referendum. 1500 other people disagreed with your point of view.
BTW - other towns spend hundreds of thoudsands of dollars per year on open space that does nothing. You yourself said that open space "should have been preserved". That does not happen WITHOUT an investment by the Town.
The taxpayers overwhelmingly approved spending $950,000 to purchase open space several years ago. If this money were spent, it would IMPACT the town budget. Here the Town officials have bought something worth SIGNIFICANTLY more than $950,000 for a cost of $96,000 to preseve 75 acres of land from potential development. Most people understood the concept. Unfortunately - you don't.
Robertson Airport
Submitted by Doug (not verified) on Thu, 04/02/2009 - 9:57am.I find it a little strange to read the above comment. We are a democratic nation, and the people voted yes, and that is the end of it. If someone is not happy with the elected officials, then move. There are plenty of countries where people are executed on a daily basis for wanting the opportunity to voice their opinion, and yet, here, where we are able to do so, people can not accept the outcome? If you are bitter with the results, then it is apparent that you are on the wrong side, as the majority has spoken. If people can not accept the outcome of elections, or voting on whether or not the town should move forward with one thing or another, then there is something very wrong. You should be thankful that we are able to voice our opinions, that the town of Plainville didn't just go ahead and say yes without asking the citizens, and should accept the outcome regardless of the results - that is what America is about, has been about, and will continue to be about for decades to come. If that is too hard to accept, then you can always move to one of the 60+ countries without the right to vote -
Post new comment