Political news seldom held any interest for me until Kennedy became President in 1960. Local politics held even less interest until 1964 when my wife and I bought property in New Britain where we still live today.
In the years since then, much has changed: loss of our industrial base, demographics and especially, the local political scene with its ever increasing partisan political party acrimony and just plain nastiness. Parties vying for complete political control of city hall using shameful tactics, e.g., character assassination, false accusation tactics, threatening, nepotism, muzzling of city employees, and a never ending list of violations of freedoms guaranteed by our U.S. Constitution, threaten the City.
In my opinion, never has it been as bad as it is now since Mayor O’Brien took office in November of 2011. In six months, O’Brien has: ordered a hiring freeze , hired a communications director elevated him to assistant chief of staff and gave him a $15K raise, hired another office staffer; pledged to hire 37 new police officers and flip flopped on that 3 times, lost a fire chief and elevated a deputy chief to take his place, fired the finance director, lost the Director of Municipal Development (as of 4/20/12), announced deficits if $11.5 M and then, $30 M, said he will consolidate 21 departments into 6 but has not shown anybody a plan, added $180K to the Mayor’s office budget, promised millions for schools and gave them $500K, etc., etc. In addition, there are rumors that the Mayor’s budget contains no money for the Parks and Recreation Dept. The Mayor’s answer as put forward by him by his so-called spokespeople - we don’t know what all the answers are as yet - IT’S TOO SOON TO TELL!!!
To the taxpayers: ARE YOU FEELING CONFIDENT? Would you buy a used car from this Mayor? How about all his “Chiefs/Chieftesses” of Staff? Are you happy about contributing for July 4th Fireworks and a Memorial Day Parade? Stay tuned, more “good news” is on the way.
Lou Salvio
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
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...and to think, with these socialists, the nonsense is just beginning!
NEW BRITAIN - Unions Stunned By Contract Talk,
Mayor Wants Concessions, Possible Layoffs In Effort To Close $30 Million Budget Gap.
Municipal unions campaigned to elect Tim O'Brien as mayor last fall, but now they've run into a hard surprise: He's talking seriously about contract concessions. O'Brien stunned several hundred city workers last week with a warning that as many as 130 of them might be laid off this summer. Just two days later, he asked leaders of all city unions for an massive package of contract concessions.
O'Brien proposes that city workers pay half the cost of their medical insurance starting July 1, have their salaries frozen for the next two years and take 20 furlough days, according to copies of his proposal obtained by the Courant. O'Brien hasn't publicly disclosed the terms of his request, and hasn't said how much it could save taxpayers. O'Brien said the city faces a $30 million deficit next year, and has pointedly ruled out the option of raising property taxes.
From park maintainers and firefighters to street crews and police, the city's workers have been surprised — in some cases shocked — by the developments. The unions were accustomed to years of bare-knuckled negotiations with conservative Republican Mayor Timothy Stewart, but had counted on better times with O'Brien, a liberal Democrat. O'Brien has kept his tone soft and conciliatory, a sharp contrast to Stewart's confrontational style. O'Brien repeated throughout his budget address that city workers don't deserve to pay for a budget crisis they didn't cause. But ultimately the city has to balance its books, his administration said.
"The deficit facing us next year is profound," Sherwood said. "The mayor is looking for options to close it without layoffs and service cutbacks." In a letter to workers last week, O'Brien said "I am heartsick, because I know that this deep "Structural Budget Deficit" was not created by you, our city workers, but that, still, a solution cannot be found that does not significantly affect you and your co-workers."
Union leaders asked him how to prevent layoffs. He replied with a call for givebacks. It would eliminate contractual pay raises and longevity bonuses from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2014, and let the city assign 10 furlough days each year. Each bargaining unit got a different proposal, but O'Brien wants answers from all of them by May 1, 2012. At least for some, O'Brien proposes a major hit in insurance benefits. Workers would pay half their premiums and pay more for doctor visits, hospitalizations, prescriptions and emergency room treatments. Insurance would stop covering gastric bypass surgery.
O'Brien has said that since taking office in November , he's learned the city has a deep imbalance between revenue and spending — and it's growing worse. City unions have called for a forensic audit of how money was collected and spent during the last years of the Stewart administration, and Sherwood said O'Brien is committed to hiring an independent auditor soon. The city has a little more than 50 days to set its new budget, so staffing and payroll decisions must be made quickly.
Sherwood said that the mayor wants to talk soon with union leaders about exactly what they want the auditor to examine. O'Brien ordered an audit of the current year's books when he took office, but that was directed only at finding savings. This would be more in-depth, Sherwood said.
NEW BRITAIN - Online Petition Seeks To Rescind Raise For New Britain Mayor's Aide.
The latest venue for the city's relentless political battling is Facebook, where the Republican town leader has posted an online petition to rescind the pay raise for newly promoted Democratic mayoral aide Phil Sherwood.
The "Economic Justice Petition" posted last by Dwight Blint slams the mayor and Sherwood for planning a salary raise amid what they're calling the city's worst budget crisis in memory. "Mayor Tim O'Brien has the audacity to give a $15,000 raise to Phil Sherwood, his part-time communications director," Blint writes in the petition. "The mayor should be using this money to save the job of an employee who will be terminated."
Sherwood dismissed the petition as a partisan distraction. "The mayor hired me to a job, and I'll focus on that. We invite Mr. Blint and the Republicans to be part of the solution rather than engage in personal attacks," Sherwood said.
In the petition posted at http://www.change.org, Blint, who heads the city's Republican Town Committee, accurately states that Sherwood is getting a $15,000 raise. But the petition doesn't mention that Sherwood's job duties and hours are being increased, as well.
Sherwood, 34, was hired at $45,000 as the part-time communications aide; the promotion put him in a full-time, $60,000-a-year post of deputy chief of staff. Republicans have criticized O'Brien for paying Sherwood more in the same month he announced the threat of up to 130 layoffs of city workers this summer. Sherwood countered that this new job is part of a reorganization at city hall aimed at consolidating departments and reducing the payroll.
Sherwood riled Republicans during his tenure as majority leader on the common council, and frequently clashed with Stewart. At one point, Sherwood led a drive for the council to sue Stewart for freezing them out of the budget-setting process and overstepping his authority; Stewart blocked the move by refusing to release city money to pay their lawyer.
" STRUCTURAL BUDGET DEFICIT " is a virus/pathogen- created by government & politicians & lawyers on the local, state and national level's.
isn't the actual virus called Democratitus?
" STRUCTURAL BUDGET DEFICIT " is an actual virus/pathogen- imbalance between revenue and spending created by governmental public servants at local, state, national levels of Democratitus?
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