Letters to the Editor

Don't let Oak Hills

die a slow death

Anyone attending the public hearing held on Thursday night, Jan. 19, could plainly see that of the nine members of the Oak Hills Park Authority, none of them had a clue about what is needed to put Oak Hills back on track to being a competitive golf course in Fairfield County. Their proposal to try to regain fiscal solvency is to raise the residents' fees to get a resident card to $100 and raise the cost of a round of golf by $2 for everyone. For employees, there will be a steeper increase.

There has been no thought of how to market this course to neighboring towns which don't have a municipal golf course of their own, such as Darien and New Canaan. There has not been an idea involving creativity of any sort by this less-than-interested group of folks. They want to whine about how they weren't told anything by the former director for year after year while the course conditions and revenues went down due to economic conditions. By their own admission at the meeting, they are so dysfunctional they don't even communicate with each other. While these are volunteer positions, governed by the prevailing political influences of the mayor and common council, if you don't have the interest to do the job, get out.

There were former members there who tried hard to justify their tenure on this body, and one was shouted down and left the meeting. In all, it was a large finger-pointing meeting and showed that since the authority was implemented in 1998, this city still hasn't figured out how to maintain this golf course. In all, I left with the feeling that things were just going to continue to go downhill, and that folks like me were going to go and buy nonresident passes at courses like Smith Richardson, Fairchild Wheeler and Longshore and play their weekly rounds at other courses. This will accelerate the downward spiral and drive more nails into the slowly rotting course, which many of us have played and supported for many years.

Having spent five years on another authority, I can say that there is always information available to the members, and it is up to those members to use this information to do the job it has been tasked to do. It also seems that this city council and mayor are too disinterested to either find a way to help the situation, or make a decision to close the course. They are content to sit back and let these folks on the authority, who by all empirical evidence haven't got a clue, let this whole mess implode. While this is harsh rhetoric, had you been there and watched the chairman totally not bother to control the meeting, one member repeatedly tell us how they have been in the dark about all of this information, and the rest of them looking like they wanted to be anywhere else, you would see that I paint a pretty accurate picture of that meeting.

Oak Hills, with good management, has the potential to compete with any other municipal course in Fairfield County, but has been neglected for years. At one time, there was a groundskeeper who had the course in wonderful shape, but he left for a better paying job with a course that would support his efforts. Since that time, this course has undergone major neglect and indifference from this authority and the city which saddled it with an enormous debt service from a restaurant that disdains the golfers which could make it a profitable venture.

All in all, until the city decides it wants a golf course worthy of attracting those visitors, which it claims to want and need for economic stability, the Norwalk taxpayers who want to play at their municipal course will either have to pony up major dollars to play a sub-par course, or go out of town to enjoy a sport which for many of them is a major part of their lives. It is time for this authority to resign their positions in favor of others who can do this task, or for the city to step in and either manage the course or find a management company to do it. It is a crime that Norwalk claims to have the best interests of its citizens in mind, and then allows their political appointees to preside over the decay of a fine public golf course and die a slow death.

Stephen Bentkover

Norwalk

Join the National

Bone Marrow Registry

Might you be familiar with the lifesaving services made possible by the National Marrow Donor Program?

Just by chance, I recently met a person from Union, Conn., who had "been submersed in it," as he explained, for the last two to three years. During that time, because a donor had been found, this young father of two daughters had received a bone marrow transplant to treat his lymphoma. He had been declared cancer free nine months ago, and was now pursuing his goal of trying to get as many people as possible into the Be the Match registry.

Just an inside the cheek swab for 30 seconds. It's that easy. If you are found to be a match, then arrangements can be made to donate bone marrow cells through a blood transfusion or marrow aspiration. Anyone can join the registry at any time by going to the website www.BeTheMatch.org. If you prefer a personal contact, Tracy Julian, the account executive for the Northeast District-Recruitment, can be reached at 800-676-4545, Ext. 7050.

The program literature explains that "Be the Match offers the unique opportunity to give a life saving marrow transplant to someone in need. Thousands of patients with leukemia and other life-threatening blood diseases depend on this program, the largest and most diverse registry in the world to find a life saving donor."

Of those patients needing a marrow transplant, 70 percent do not have a matching donor in their family, 10,000 each year need a transplant from someone outside their family, and, sadly, only four out of 10 patients receive the transplant they need.

Please, take the first step. Join the registry, which currently totals 9 million, 28 percent of which are of diverse and ethnic heritage. "Because blood types are inherited, patients are most likely to match someone of their own race or ethnicity. Registry members of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds are especially needed, so that every patient has the chance of a cure."

Locally here in Norwalk, 7-year-old Sebastian Hernandez, a first-grader at Marvin Elementary School, has been battling leukemia since 2009. Although a matching bone marrow donor has not yet been found for him, let us give him and others hope by taking the first step -- joining the National Bone Marrow Be the Match registry. Why not join today?

Terry M. Fontaine

Norwalk