We are throwing a party and you all are invited! As we celebrate our first year in business, we are inaugurating what we hope will be an annual tradition—we are going to have a party and honor a Greenwich resident as our “Sentinel” of the year. Details are still being finalized and invitations will be in the mail shortly for what promises to be a wonderful event in late June.
We have been asked often about our name. Before we could launch the first edition of our community newspaper we had to come up with a name and design our flag—the space at top of the paper on page one. We thought long and hard about the name. We wanted something that would resonate with our mission and the community. After a notebook page of potential ideas and talking with a trusted group of advisors and friends, we all agreed that Greenwich Sentinel was the perfect name for a weekly community newspaper.
What is a sentinel, you may ask. A sentinel is a soldier or guard whose job is to stand and keep watch. The origin of the word is unknown, however it existed as far back as the 16th century in Italy as sentinella. For our purpose, we want to keep watch on what is happening in town and be an honest recorder of the news. We added a wood cut of the light house on Great Captain Island, not just because it is an iconic image of Greenwich, but because it too is sentinel, standing watch over Long Island Sound, guarding mariners against the rocks.
You may be wondering who we will be giving our first Sentinel award to. For the time being, it is a closely kept secret. We want to build momentum for the award and the event. We have established criteria for the award. The recipient must be a Greenwich resident and exemplify the mission of the paper. The person must be someone who demonstrates leadership and seeks to strengthen our community. It is often said that “strength lies in differences, not in similarities.” Our recipient must understand that. They may or may not be at the conclusion of their career. They may have much to offer our community that is yet untapped, or they may have earned this accolade because of a lifetime of achievement for the betterment of Greenwich.
Our honoree is chosen. Stay tuned for the announcement of who it is and how you can be involved as we celebrate with a combination birthday party and “Sentinel” award.
Budget III
The clock is winding down on the current legislative session in Hartford. The lawmakers are scheduled to adjourn at midnight on Wednesday, May 4, and there is still much work to be done. The budget deficit situation has not improved since we last wrote about it. In fact, the unions have continued to refuse to meet with the Governor to try and find reasonable concessions in their contracts. As a result, the layoffs have begun with nearly 200 state employees losing their jobs.
This week we saw what we feared at the beginning of the current legislative session, when the Governor said we had to waken to a new fiscal reality and live within our means. The Democratic leadership, the majority party in both the House and the Senate, has refused to meet with the Governor about his budget proposal to alleviate the deficit. At the table ready to meet were the Democratic Governor, the Republican leadership, and empty chairs.
We implore the Democratic leadership (and the union leaders as well) to come back to the table. We do not want to see wholesale layoffs of state employees if other cost-saving solutions can be found. The only way we are going to get our financial house in order this year and for years to come is if we find a bipartisan solution to this fiscal crisis. Games belong on the playground.
EDITOR’S NOTE: After this week’s paper went to press, we learned that the state is facing a new $141 million budget deficit in the current 2016 budget which ends June 30, 2016. This comes less than one month after the Connecticut Legislature closed a previous $220 million deficit in the current budget. It looks to be a long hot summer as it is anticipated that the Legislature will adjourn May 4th without having passed a budget for the next fiscal year. They will need to negotiate and pass a budget prior to June 30.
