Letters to the Editor
Journal Inquirer
April 23, 2008

The animals lose out again. Due to human greed and indifference to other species, the last safe havens for them are disappearing.

In this world that moves far too fast, Bolton Road has become a thoroughfare for harried motorists tailgating and speeding along at a breakneck pace, passing in no-passing zones and ignoring all the rules of the road. The road being widened will give them more opportunity to harass drivers who obey speed limits and enjoy the country setting, and they will be able to maim and kill more innocent animals trying to make their way from one side of the road to the other. Photographers are often seen stopped by the side of Bolton Road to capture a beautiful fall landscape scene or a breathtaking sunset given forth from our picturesque area of which we are so proud to be residents.

As if we need another Home Depot — there is one just a stone’s throw away in Manchester — that is what we are getting in a once-beautiful, bucolic area of Vernon. So much for the quiet, peaceful reservoir where geese waddle across the road with their babies and herons nest. I’ll no longer be able to stop my car in the quiet area to tell them to take their time crossing. They’ll be flattened and forgotten about in no time.

Why couldn’t planners use the long-empty grocery store at Tri-Town Plaza, which is already zoned for business, or other areas along busy Route 83 instead of disrupting nature and beauty for so-called “progress”?

To complete the picture of “improvement,” the gorgeous hilltops surrounding our valley are fast becoming eyesores, desecrated by the construction of McMansions and condominiums.

I fear our town will soon rival Waterbury for the amount of clutter that sullies our formerly beautiful environment.

Gloria Deske
Vernon