Breaking up is hard to do

Barkhamsted Selectman Don Stein had the right idea last month when he sent a letter to lawmakers urging them to use more common sense this year when they redraw Connecticut’s legislative districts.

Stein points out obvious nuisances that came out of redistricting in 2000, which left his small town divided into two districts — the 62nd and the 63rd — with one side of town lumped in with towns to the east and the other with towns to the west. He speculates that the reason for this move may have been to connect 62nd District town New Hartford with the next town in the district, Granby.

Anyone who looks at the 62nd District on a map sees the resulting “hook� created by the small tract of Barkhamsted that is used to link New Hartford to Granby and East Granby. Everyone in Barkhamsted who lives east of the Farmington River is considered part of the hook, while residents to the west join Hartland, Colebrook, Winchester, Norfolk, Canaan and North Canaan to form the 63rd.

Everyone knows the redistricting process is tainted by politicians who use it for political gain, drawing up boundaries they think will win them the most votes. This is already a sickening example of the self-serving nature of political partisanship today. But when the process becomes so convoluted that it starts breaking up small towns, residents have the right to be angry.

In Barkhamsted, breaking up is hard to do. A town of less than 3,700 residents ends up with two polling stations every time there’s a state or national election. Some residents become confused as to where they need to vote, while taxpayers foot the bill for extra poll workers and machines.

Barkhamsted isn’t the only town that has been divided by redistricting, but it’s certainly one of the smallest, and it is paying an unfair price to adhere to the whims of politicians. State leaders should pay attention to this problem and do what they can to correct it when the 2010 redistricting process begins.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less