I read with interest last week’s front-page article, “Jay Corritan volunteers on the road to recovery.” Congratulations to Mr. Corritan for volunteering and working hard on overcoming his physical issues.

Buried in this story, however, was this tidbit: Regarding the ongoing discussions concerning detox and sober home facilities, “This is an area where Corritan has some expertise, and he has volunteered to talk with sober home operators and various groups about such facilities.” Mayor Dickey must be pleased with her new volunteer spokesperson and bless her heart for continuing to try to convince us that we want more commercial addiction facilities in our town.

For the last two years, residents have been telling Mayor Dickey and the Town Council, quite adamantly, that more commercial sober homes in their neighborhoods is not wanted. But stories shared by residents at Town Council meetings about their negative experiences living near sober homes have fallen on deaf ears. Residents even brought her proof of drug paraphernalia found in their neighborhoods where sober homes are located. Mayor Dickey’s response? The wind blew them in. (You are not misreading that.)

Elected officials don’t seem to mind sober homes, as long as they’re not setting up shop next to their homes and negatively impacting their quality of life and property values. During the recent candidate debate, Ms. Couture, a Town Council candidate, smugly quoted the over-used Rolling Stones line, “You can’t always get what you want,” which pretty much signaled to those of us battling this issue for the last two years that she’d also be a rubber stamp for the lucrative detox and sober home industry.

The actions of Mayor Dickey and the current majority Council have motivated me and my family to support and vote for TASK (Toth, Arpaio, Skillicorn, Kalivianakis) in the upcoming election.