Letter to the Editor

TO THE EDITOR:

BoF Members: Today's email in support of the current, proposed 20/21 BoE and BoF budgets will focus on issues of liability and insurance.

Passing a 0% budget - against the express will of town residents - during a national pandemic is not only fiscally irresponsible, it opens the town up to massive liability issues.

Imagine a scenario in which a child is exposed to the virus either during school or another town activity and develops Kawaski disease, or an adult in town is exposed to the virus through their kids' exposure and dies. A lawsuit will be filed.

But, we're a town government, we're protected, you say. No, not against negligence.

And this would be no "freak accident." This would be a known risk that you are choosing to give the town and schools less resources to defend our citizenry against. A lawyer would absolutely use both the budget cut and the fact that it was done against the express will of 75% of the town.

(I doubt a lawyer or a court is going to make a distinction between the "quality" and "quantity" of emails you've received from citizens.)

But we have insurance for that, you say. Well, having worked in insurance my entire career, rates are set based on a thing called risk. Cutting the town budget in the middle of a pandemic - against the express will of your constituents - and opening the town up to massive lawsuits would absolutely put us in a high risk category - insurance rates would skyrocket.

Instead of paying lawyers, and higher insurance rates - and more importantly putting the health and safety of our community members at risk - instead let's choose to spend a penny (or in this case $18/month, which in Fairfield county roughly equates to a penny) to save a pound.

Please represent your constituents and vote for the current, proposed town and school budgets. Or, give the citizens back their voting rights and we will (overwhelmingly) pass it for you.

— Sarah Grigerick

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