Teens experience distracted driving as part of AAA safety By Ashley Kus The Citizen
By Ashley Kus The Citizen
McKenna Naughton drives at a AAA safety event at the high school on Wednesday, Oct. 11.
manager for the AAA driving school. “They’re going through the courses to see what it’s like to text and drive.” The AAA driving school program recently partnered up with the high school in the spring to promote safe
driving. Wednesday’s event was the first in Berlin. “It’s a population of inexperienced drivers,” said Steven Kostka, school resource police officer. He said there is about one crash a month in the school See Driving, A4
Pay-to-participate talk heads to committee for review By Ashley Kus The Citizen
Mayoral candidates talk budget, business new board of finance
reviewed and researched by an educational resources committee with a report The concept of student due to the education board athletes paying to partici- by January. pate in school sports will be “With every town in Con-
necticut struggling with the budget, we’re looking at all avenues,” said Matthew Tencza, chair of the board See Sports, A2
For the first time in Berlin, the mayor will be elected and not appointed as previously done by the council. Republican incumbent Mark Kaczynski, 61, will be running for a second term while Democrat Richard Paskiewicz, 74, will be campaigning for the first time. Kaczynski and Paskiewicz recently sat down with the Citizen to talk about their views on several town topics.
Economic development
Paskiewicz
in Berlin in the last year and a half...We’re very active...I want to continue with that. I think when word gets out that we’ve been very successful these last two years I think we can attract some more businesses.
Board of Finance
Paskiewicz: You’ve got to have businesses that will want local people to support them...You have to grocery shop in town and building box stores, while it looks good in tax revenue, it kills the local stores. I think we need to make our approval regulations more streamline so it doesn’t take as long to get approval to build. Kaczynski: We got to continue down the road we’ve been on, I mean we had 40 businesses that either moved, expanded or started
THE FuTuRE oF CHILDCARE AND PRESCHooL IS HERE!
Kaczynski
Paskiewicz: My strength is numbers, I’m good at numbers. I opposed the creation of the board of finance in the manner in which it was created because it’s been created three-three. So I’m not sure anyone knows how it’s going to operate, but one of my strengths has been working with people and they know me. I’m not going to say one thing and do the opposite. See Candidates, A3
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Teens at Berlin High School learned the impact of texting and driving Wednesday afternoon during a AAA safe driving event. “It was kind of hard around the curves because I couldn’t really use two hands to turn,” said McKenna Naughton, a junior at Berlin High School. The high schooler drove with a AAA driving school instructor while attempting to text. She ran over a cone in the parking lot while looking at a text from her friend in the back seat. “We’re trying to point out the distractions in the cars,” said Chuck Wusterbarth,
Thursday, October 19, 2017
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Volume 21, Number 35