An Open Letter to Board of Education, Board of Estimation of Taxation and Board of Selectman
Thank you for your service to our town during this unprecedented time of a national health and economic crisis. As you know, residents of Connecticut, and especially Greenwich, have been hit hard on many levels due to Covid-19. Our lives have been impacted emotionally, socially and financially. Jobs are insecure, businesses are desperate, and savings accounts are demolished.
It is not unreasonable to say, “We don’t know what our future holds, but we know it will not be business as usual.”
As town leaders, you have the very important role in shaping our budget and in deciding which capital projects the town will undertake. We are writing to urge you to work in a bi-partisan fashion to make every effort to reduce the town budget to reflect the reality that the financial resources for the town’s taxpayers are intensely strained.
We ask that the town should take every appropriate measure to find prudent operational savings, and eliminate non-essential capital spending, such that the FY21 budget will be flat to lower than FY20 and that a negative mill rate be reached! It is important that this mill rate reduction be achieved through lower spending rather than increased borrowing or raiding our General Fund, which are not sustainable solutions. We are all making prudent financial decisions in our own lives. It is only appropriate for the town government to do the same.
We, the undersigned residents of Greenwich, thank you in advance for being the kind of principled leaders that our town needs now. Our resilient community, with strong town leadership, will overcome the challenges of these times.
We are counting on you for fiscal responsibility, which is a true necessity in these vital times.
Submitted by the following Greenwich Residents:
Natalie Adee
Pepper Anderson
Nancy Armstrong
Nisha Arora
Ana Arsov
Walter Auch
Mike Brescia
Brook Bremer
Jude Collins
Whitney Connor
Lucy Conrod
Doug Conrod
Tina Courpas
Allyson Cowin
Holli Cutting
John Cutting
Scott Diddel
Anne Driscoll
Kevin Driscoll
Kim Fiorello
Icy Frantz
Sarah Gallagher
Kaity Geren
Laura Gladstone
Ingrid Hang
Hilary Haroche
Andre Haroche
W. Brooks Harris
Gale Hartch
Tom Hartch
Lisa Hurst
Katherine Hynes
Katie Johnson
Kimberly Johnson
Penelope Kassaris
Heather Khuu
Rick Kolman
Felicity Kostakis
Beth MacGillivray
Suzanne Branch Martin
Wynne McDaniel
Tog Pearson
Doreen Pearson
Alex Popp
Trey Reynolds
Kim Salib
Frank Salomone
Suzanne Sennatt
Daniel Schreck
Stephen Schmalhofer
Patrick Smith
Jane Sprung
Lloyd Sprung
Sheryl Sorbaro
Liz Tomassino
Kristen Waldorf
Sage Withrow
Morgan Withrow
Sherry Jin Yi
Dr. Wendy Zhou
And these Greenwich residents:
Melissa Devaney
Maya Tichio
Gerrit Argento
Laura Tobias
Kristen Webb
Tyler Webb
Larry Codraro
Alexandra Codraro
Carl Anderson
Aldo Pascarella
Scott Diddel
Michael and Mita Spilo
Phil Connor
John Lucarelli
Geoff Gentile
John Straus
Jasbeena Layman
Ralph Layman
Don Whamond
Kathy Georgas
