After more than seven years of planning for a permanent Sandy Hook Memorial, Newtown residents will have the chance to vote on, and pass, a $3.7 million proposal at the end of April.
A Facebook Live webinar with a panel that included First Selectman Dan Rosenthal, Newtown Public Building & Site Commission Chair Robert Mitchell, Permanent Memorial Commission Chair Daniel Krauss, the memorials designers Daniel Affleck and Ben Waldo, construction manager Michael MacDonald and landscape architect Tara Vincenta, answered questions Monday about the design process, budgeting and the final design idea for residents to consider in the upcoming vote.
“Get a sense of calm, and leave with a sense of joy, I think this perfectly wraps up what the design does,” Mitchell said. “I’ve repeated that to many people and their eyes light up and they all say ‘Yeah you’re right. That’s what I would like, too.’ The designers have done that.”
The memorial, chosen from around 190 designs and at an initial cost of $11 million, was simplified to meet town budgets and will convert parts of a five-acre forest, which was donated to the memorial commission, into different pathways leading to a reflection pool with a sycamore tree in the center.
“The plan emerged from three ideas that me and Ben had, very simple ideas. One was the idea of a circle, which really just brings people together,” Affleck said. “In the center of that circle is a tree, we thought that tree, the sycamore, would be a great metaphor for rebirth and regrowth and that tree would start young then grow into a mature tree. The third concept was the idea of movement and walking on a path, the process of walking is a meditation which allows you to reflect.”
Around the reflecting pool and tree, the names of the 20 children and six school employees who were killed in the school shooting on Dec. 14, 2012 will be engraved.
“We’ve worked with the water feature designer to come up with a way to have the water move from the outside to the inside,” Waldo said. “The idea is that a visitor could place an object, perhaps a candle, a flower, a paper boat, something of that sort, and it would wind around and drift towards the center, allowing visitors to send something across a space that is a space between us and the ones we lost.”
The overall design would represent the healing process, the designers said.
“Memories, grief and these various processes that people take to a space like this, are unique to individuals and we wanted to honor that, and let people choose their own way to the site and take their own pace,” Affleck said. “Whether they take the shortest route to the center, or spend a while winding around these various paths and wait for the right moment to find themselves at the center.”
If accepted, town officials hope to have the memorial unveiled by the tragic event’s 10-year anniversary in 2022.
Newtown taxpayers will also vote on town and school budgets, a $1.5 million gas boiler authorization, LED lighting for Reed Intermediate School and the $5 million remaining balance on an emergency radio upgrade.
Next Monday, The Newtown Bee, which hosted the Facebook Live event, will host another webinar to answer questions about the radio upgrade.
Jessika Harkay can be reached at jharkay@courant.com.