FRANKSMITHSAYSNB EDITORIAL:
State Senator DeFronzo's position on the New Britain Busway is Disheartening!
The story that appeared in Thursday's Hartford Courant quotes our Senator as saying that this project needs a second look, appearing to be his attempt to derail it and destroy any progress to New Britain's downtown plans.
According to this article, he is now joined by Rep. David McClusky, a former New Britain Resident (and fellow arrestee of Rep. Tercyak's--arrested during the same radical protest as Tercyak). These 2 are also joined by the Nicastro brothers of Bristol in their opposition to the Busway, in favor of replacing it with a train to Bristol.
This is not a new position for the Senator, which leaves one to question what sort of political deal was struck with the Bristol boys to get the Senator to forget who elected him to represent New Britain's interest.
Don is not what we want to represent us at the capitol! Your allegiance should be to the towns you represent not Bristol and their pie in the sky wishes. Sometimes as an elected official you just have to swallow WHAT YOUR COMMUNITY WANTS and stop playing politics with everytrhing. This poor excuse for a representative thinks of himself before the people he represents first and always! Hope he gets a job with Malloy and goes away for good!
ReplyDeleteWould DeFronzo be an asset or liability to the Malloy administration? That would be one way for DeFronzo to stop being our state senator. Who would be the best candidate to replace him? Rumor has it that Dr. Frank Gerratana is considering replacing DeFronzo. That would be a loss to the medical profession, Dr. Gerratana is a popular physician in his field...Mayor Stewart may be the best candidate, but who would replace him for the rest of his Mayoral term? With Michael Trueworthy being Mayor pro-tem would we want him to finish Mayor Stewart's term as mayor? PUH-LEEZE!! :Looks to me that Mark Bernacki would be the one to finish either DeFronzo's position, or take over the Mayor's term...
ReplyDelete" Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteI saw this article in today's Courant. What is it going to take for the people of New Britain to get the message that " Don DeFronzo doesn't give a
Rat's A#*" about New Britain. He cares more about Bristol and the Nicastro boys.
Don only cares about what's in it for him, in this case, getting the job at DOT from Dan Malloy. Malloy is looking for ways to cut state spending. If he appoints Don to DOT and tanks the Busway, the only thing he will cut in the long run is his nose to spite his face; he will lose upwards in the way of 1000 jobs for CT and $millions that have to be returned to the government, but Don will have taken care of himself once again."
Who cares? He is out soon anyways. Free James Brown and give me my Government cheese
ReplyDeleteOnly in Connecticut can you refuse to serve your country in a wartime draft and end up with 2 lifetime pensions from the very state you refused to honor with your service in the first place.
ReplyDeleteConnecticut has already spent $60 million on the New Britain busway, including about $48 million in federal funds. CT Transportation Commissioner Joseph Marie warned last year that the state might have to repay the federal money if it scraps the New Britain busway.
ReplyDeleteThe DOT projects that 15,000 people a day will use the busway, alleviating some of the rush-hour congestion on I-84 between West Hartford and Hartford. After this year's delays, the DOT's new timetable is to begin construction next year and start daily service in Augut of 2014.
It's a pipe dream. Stossel did an entire show recently about the commuter railroads in several American cities that the federal government (we the people) spent hundreds of millions of dollars building, and continue to pay millions each year to keep them running empty.
ReplyDeleteHe road them at 5PM and in most cases, he and his cameraman were the only passengers on the entire train. In one city, he actually found one passenger riding it during rush hour!!!!!!
The official position of the DOT was that whether they are running empty or not, it is a way to use our money to create jobs.
Is that really the best use of our money to pay for people to drive empty buses or trains back and forth all day?
Gov Christie just bagged the tunnel to Manhattan. The Feds are now billing NJ for over $250 million for monies already spent. Where is Sen. DeFronzo coming up with the $60 M already spent on the busway? The Feds will be asking for the money back probably to give to the next project in line. And NO it isn't Bristol CT. Probably in Wyoming or Utah or Nevada.
ReplyDeleteIf this project gets canned PLEASE bill Bristol CT for the money.
That kind of stuff already happens here in Connecticut. I know of a bus driver who works overtime on holidays like Christmas getting paid double triple quadruple time to drive a CT Transit bus back and forth to the mall. The only problem is the mall is closed on that day, so there is no one riding and even if they did, the mall is closed, so they would be let off at an empty building that is locked up tight. I'm sure if you looked into it, there must be other examples of such ridiculous waist by the DOT.
ReplyDeleteThe bus company is a private transportation company located locally, but the attitude of the government overseers apparently is that it doesn't cost the bus company anything because the state reimburses our local bus company for operating these buses, so it is free money.
Just once example of how once you get government's hand into running anything, it destroys
any common sense imaginable.
What do you expect in a city that would elect a draft dodger to the mayor's office?
ReplyDelete