Every Avon voter faces a crucial choice in the near future. We will each get a ballot from the town council asking us whether (or not) the town should proceed with Phase 1 of the Hahnewald Barn Project. If approved, this decision will commit the town to spend $1.6 million of taxpayer dollars to relocate and repurpose a barn that has no significance to most of Avon’s residents, and which has no symbolic meaning to Avon’s founding or why we are here today.
Voters, the choice is yours. Should we spend this large amount of taxpayer money on a project that has no definitive build-out plans or cost estimates, and no definitive operating plans? Barn advocates say it will serve as an events center, but the town has no idea how to operate such a business, no revenue estimates, nor any idea of how much money such an operation will require each year for management, staff, equipment, operation and maintenance. Avon doesn’t need another events space for taxpayers to subsidize.
Wouldn’t it be better to devote the time, energy and money to a more useful purpose? The Avon Recreation Center is already a hub of activity. Let’s spend some of that barn money to expand the rec center space and the programs it offers. There is a need for pre-K education/childcare and a growing need for senior programs and transportation. Why not combine these two ends of our age-spectrum and have seniors able to volunteer for pre-K reading,teaching of lifetime skills, and offering companionship to our youngest citizens? What a win-win that would be.
Please join us on voting “no” on the barn survey. Save the funds for Avon’s future, not the past.
Greer and Jack Gardner
Avon