About NABR
NABR, Inc. is a not-for-profit Connecticut Corporation, designated by the IRS as a tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) organization. We are non-partisan, conservative. We are volunteers. 100% of all donated funds are put to work. We welcome your thoughtful comments; to conveniently convey your comments, please click here, or phone any of us. Our mission is to improve Redding. Make it even better. Redding is a truly fine place to live. Many think " ..if it ain't broken, don't fix it.." But there are some facets of life in Redding, its government and educational opportunities that need improvement. A small group of us listed some of the specific ways in which Redding could or should be improved; after much thoughtful deliberation, we focused on one topic because it is of greatest importance and impact: the education of our children. It also represents the largest (72%) Town budget item. And yes, constraining the rate of growth of our local taxes is high on our list of urgent items which need improvement. So we set out to consider how to improve the educational opportunities in Redding, and concluded that a best way to improve our schools is to establish competition. Improve the quality and cost. We developed a proposal to achieve the desired improvement in the best way we can conceive: providing a significant grant to those parents who send children to private schools while simultaneously and proportionally reducing the Town budget and thus benefiting all taxpayers, including Seniors without children in school. The plan applies to all three Redding schools. Let's use Joel Barlow in an example to illustrate, using very approximate numbers: It now costs us $16,093 to send one student to Joel Barlow for one year. If the student attends a private school instead, the parents receive a $5,364 grant, the Town must reduce its budget by $5,364 and $5,364 remains with Joel Barlow to support fixed overhead costs such as electricity, heating, etc. The resulting benefits are many-fold:
Currently, our chief goal is to educate residents about this proposal. We solicit, we welcome, we urge your support in this endeavor. Members of the leadership team are:David Bohn, President Dr. Lew Andrews, Vice President Frank Scott, Treasurer Lois deMey, Advisor Philip Gagliano, Secretary would you like to help?Our President is David Bohn. David is the President of Preferred Utilities, an established local firm with a long tradition of caring for the community. He grew up and attended school in Redding, and is married with five children. David is Treasurer of Connecticut’s Children Educational Opportunity Foundation, and now serves on its Board of Directors. Our Vice President is Lewis Andrews. Lew is Executive Director of the Yankee Institute for Public Policy Research. He earned a Ph.D. in psychology and is a nationally known lecturer on the connection between values and emotional health. He has two school-aged children and is Chairman of CEO of Connecticut, a charity that raises money to send poor inner-city children to schools of their parents’ choice. Our Treasurer is Frank Scott. Frank is President of Scott American Corporation, a publishing firm. He is a former member of the Region 9 Board of Education. Our Secretary is Phil Gagliano. Phil worked for the NY City Board of Education, Division of School Facilities, for 25 years, retiring when he was Assistant Deputy Director of Engineering and Maintenance. The City's BOE operated eleven hundred buildings. Phil and his wife Vivian have lived in Redding since 1989. Lois deMey, a former teacher, is also an active member of our team. NABR takes care to respect the privacy of its on-line visitors. This website does not collect personal information from on-line visitors. We collect statistical data, such as the number of visitors, when visitors come to the site, and which pages are looked at -- in no way can we identify a visitor's identity. Information that can identify an on-line visitor is collected at www.betterredding.org only when voluntarily offered by the visitor when sending comments or e-mail. This site is paid for by Frank Scott, Treasurer. |