To the Editor:

Our new first selectman is off to a roaring start. He has clearly identified our town's least pressing need and is focusing in on it like a laser.

The most recent issue of Connecticut Economy; a quarterly review put out by the University of Connecticut, Connecticut's towns were ranked by their current levels of development. Not surprising to anyone familiar with development trends, Killingworth once again ranked among the least developed towns in the state. In the quarterly's three tiered ranking system Killingworth ranked in the lowest tier - "Less developed than expected". With a total developed area of 8.8% - Killingworth is the only town in its market area with single digit developed land area. How about our neighbors? Such paragons of pavement like Madison and Guilford have over 100% more developed area than Killingworth. Where did those two towns rank in the survey? The lowest tier as well. Thank goodness our leadership is emptying the town coffers to prevent Killingworth from becoming the concrete jungle that North Madison has become.

The fact is Killingworth consistently ranks as one of the towns in Connecticut with the highest percentage of permanent open space. Despite the fear mongering that goes on about the loss of our rural setting Killingworth is not very suited to development and a considerable portion of the town is permanent open space already (state forest, water company, dedicated open space).

Mr. Klein has already seen fit to make an offer on the Wettish property and is busy negotiating for the Venuti property. Based on.... what? An extensive knowledge of the current market value of the property? There hasn't been an appraisal on the Wettish property so Mr. Klein has no idea what the market value of the property is. Why is the Wettish property suddenly on the market to the town when it was not before? That's not hard to figure out either. The deal to sell it to the state has fallen through. Who better to sell your over priced property to than a town so frightened of children it will gladly over-pay for any piece of land to avoid the horrifying specter of even one more needy child moving in and burdening us with their selfish desire to get a good education and find a little grass to kick a ball around on?

How about the idea that we need the Wettish property for ball fields? We already own 132 acres of land centrally located on Route 81. The Wettish property is unsuitable for more than one or two fields. It is located on Parker Hill Road (full disclosure: where I live) a rural country road that would be inundated by the traffic from multiple fields. Two fields would require over 80 parking spaces and result in as many as 400 additional vehicle trips a day on a Saturday. All this on a road that still has a piece of car bumper up in a tree by Jackson's corner.

Let's do the math. We need to spend $2.5 million so we can acquire land to build playing fields on - call that another $1 million - because we can't afford to build on the Bosco property. I think we can probably squeeze out a field or two for $3.5 million on the 132 acres we bought for that purpose to begin with. I've heard it said that you just need to mow the grass and put some lines down to get some playing fields on the Wettish property. That's nonsense. Anyone involved in field construction knows good playing surfaces don't just happen. It's time we took some pride in our town and built fields we can be proud to have our children play on. At the very least how about just some fields that have grass on them come October?

How about the idea that buying up open land saves tax dollars by preventing new housing units? That's another myth our town leadership has been foisting off on the citizens of Killingworth for years. Studies have consistently shown that new housing units do not have the tax impact that has been claimed. They are frequently tax neutral or in some cases a tax gain to the town. These studies are available on-line to anyone who wants to read them (see "Deconstructing the Myths: Housing Development versus School Costs" by the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority). Better yet, before we part with another few million, why not commission our own study? I bet I could even do a quick study myself using my publicly funded education skills. The average number of children per household for new construction, even at the high end with four bedroom homes, rarely exceeds 1.35 in any study I have read. The actual average for all new homes is closer to .75%. The price of a new home in Killingworth seems to be over $600,000. So even a conservative outlook based on a $550,000 value and our current mill rate nets over $11,000 per home in taxes. At the current cost to educate our children (at 1.35 per unit) minus what we receive in state funds we are floating somewhere near neutral. Don't agree? Get your own calculator out, find some studies and hash it out. The bigger question is why am I doing the math and not our town leadership? Right or wrong at least I am trying to apply basic cost - benefit analysis to multi-million dollar expenditures.

According to Regional school district 17 total enrollments have grown a little over 1.5% per year. This has resulted in the phenomenal explosion in school construction we are currently experiencing. Yep - a new school... every 35 years. At this rate we may even be able to send back all the portable classrooms our complete lack of long term planning has necessitated. For reasons that still escape me we even have a portable town hall. We have plans for a new one but no funding.

Our children play on muddy, over-crowded fields. Our citizen's park on Route 80 to watch their kids play ball on weekends and our town officials do business in trailers. Our library has to beg for funding. The town has no effective conservation zoning that would preserve open space while allowing reasonable development. We have no age restricted zoning regulations that would allow residential development with a positive tax impact. One of our most successful businesses and community members is not allowed to expand their business... in a business district (sorry Tru-Value, we are trying to limit our tax base). Our leadership decries the lack of affordable housing while it attempts to buy up available land - resulting in... even less affordable housing.

How is our leadership attacking these issues?

Mr. Klein is buying dirt... at the bargain rate of twice its value.

If the citizens of Killingworth are asked to approve the purchase of property under the guise of playing fields then the referendum should include at least two items. One: a fair market appraisal. Two: The plan and cost for all improvements. If this is not done we will just end up owning more land - not the playing fields we think we are voting for.

Tom Smith

(Full disclosure: I am a local homebuilder, land developer, volunteer soccer coach and father of two educational pirates.)