NEWINGTON - Less than 24 hours before Newington residents went to the polls to decide the fate of a $30.3 million proposal to renovate the existing town hall and move the Mortensen Community Center to a new building on the Willard Avenue side of Mill Pond Park, opponents of the plan made one last appeal to their fellow voters to �"vote ‘no’” through a rush hour rally held at the corner of Cedar and Main streets last Tuesday from 4 to 6 p.m.

       It was the fourth rally that the Save Millpond Park Group, which has a Facebook presence of more than 1,500 members, has had in the two weeks leading up to the failed Sept. 9 referendum. They have switched between the Cedar and Main corner and Mill Pond Park itself in staging the rallies, which have highlighted concerns pertaining to the preservation of open space, as well as the project’s cost.

       â€�"I want to keep Newington not the city,” said Jeannie Sinkiewicz, a third generation Newington resident and school crossing guard. â€�"We’ve lost too much open space as it is.”

       According to the 2020 Plan--the advisory document for development and land use that has been cited by opponents of the proposal in the series of discussions that have taken place at Town Council meetings over the course of the past few months--91 percent of the town is either developed or pegged for other uses.

       â€�"I think it goes much deeper,” said John Vallera, a resident who attended the rally. â€�"The town of Newington is fed up with development.”

       The Mill Pond Park space, currently two soccer fields, slated as the new Mortensen Community Center’s footprint, is 1.6 acres. That’s 0.12 percent of the open space--a 2020 Plan reported 726 acres of dedicated open space, 433 acres of uncommitted open space, and 173 acres of managed open space--in Newington, said Deputy Mayor and Project Building Committee Chair Clarke Castelle.

       But even that much, some residents say, is too much.

       â€�"We have such little open space available, that every little percent counts,” said Newington resident Gary Byron, who is running for state representative of the 27th Assembly District this November. â€�"For me, this is all about open space. I’m not out here has a candidate today-this issue is important to me.”

       For Byron, the issue is not even whether or not to build a new recreation center, but where?

       â€�"There are a lot of people voting ‘no’ that want a rec center,” Byron said.

       Byron said that he would like to see the new building put somewhere else. Where, exactly, can be determined after residents decide whether or not one is needed, he said.

       â€�"Any place that’s not open space,” Byron said. â€�"I don’t mean to sound redundant, but for me, that’s what this is about.”

       That’s what it was about for Dayna Havens, another Newington resident, but now she says that the costs of the project are a greater concern.

       â€�"What started me was the open space, but the more I researched it, the more the costs took over,” Havens said at the rally.

       Bonding of the $30 million cost will prevent the project from raising taxes-due to a financial formula that caps the combined debt service and pay as you go expenditures at $6.3 million--proponents of the proposal have said, but residents want to know what expenses will come after that. Many have pointed to maintenance costs, which Castelle says would be minimum to nonexistent due to manufacturer warranties on new equipment, but a comprehensive site plan that includes relocating the park’s pool and grading the land to replace the two soccer fields will be on the radar as well, Havens said.

       â€�"This [the proposed project] won’t cost us more money, but what will the other phases cost?” she said.