Governor Malloy’s Continued Saga.

After the many town hall meetings the Governor has finally arrived to speak to the New Britain area residents tonight.    After being introduced by Mayor Timothy Stewart The Governor spoke briefly for approximately ten minutes  allowing the balance of one hour allocation of time for questions from the attendees.

Sadly, many of the these individual were there pushing their union’s agenda.

A lottery was pulled that allowed twenty persons to speak and present their questions to Governor Molloy.

Concerns and fear that the Vocational school system may be changed by the State Administration and turned over to the cities.

  Reference to the recent approval of the busway was met with " you are asking us to sacrifice but with this project we have a spending problem."    The high salaries being paid to the governor's appointees with Governor Molly expressing that they are reviewing all management positions and many positions will be eliminated.    And that the appointees were evaluated for their past experiences. The Governor frankly expressed that the school system was operating, during the last administration with Stimulus dollars, and we are currently evaluating how much each city needs without hurting each town's taxpayers. Out of desperation he asked do you want me to discontinue the pilot program? We have to find solutions together.

The local president of the machinist union stated that at the beginning of your comments you have mentioned the increase in taxes would cost $400 per year and that most of the people here tonight cannot afford the increase you propose because they spend all they are able to earn. But the rich would not miss that sum or even more because it is money they do not spend at all.

The Governor with his opening statement, address a need to help the Hospitals, to end early retirements for state employees, asking for state employees to restructure and or renegotiate. He also supports portable housing because it is cheaper for the state to keep the owners in their homes. He is proposing to return the lost stimulus funding to DCS a sum of $271 millions. When asked by a resident if he supports the SustiNet Health care plan his response was "NO".

 He also stated that the average family will experience $470 per year tax increase with the sales tax increase costing $37 per year. Returning the ECS funding formula to keep the towns and cities taxes down. He also stated that Connecticut has not increased jobs within the state for the last 22 years.