Community Conversation With Senators Gomes And Moore

Gomes Moore community conversation

Join State Senators Ed Gomes and Marilyn Moore for a Community Conversation Wednesday 6 to 8 p.m. at Gary Crooks Memorial Center, 301 Bostwick Avenue. The senators will be available to answer questions regarding safety, education, taxes, housing conditions, and any other topics of concern. Everyone is invited and encouraged to attend.

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  1. This is another in a series of visits to neighborhoods to provide information and encourage participation. Got a question? Raise it on Wednesday. There are no “stupid questions” at this point. Stupidity remains where questions are not raised and assumptions that a small group of people have no influence on decision making. Get the info. Get in the know. Get out to vote. Monitor what the winning candidate does across a range of topics. It’s a matter of staying informed.
    Show up and meet the Senators and their staff members. Time will tell.

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  2. Derek what has any white prior to Senators Moore and Gomes done to address industrial contamination in Bridgeport. The fact is that industrial contamination was there decades prior to their election to the state Senate.

    I find it totally amazing how white people try an hold Blacks to a higher standard of excellence than they do other white people and try to justify their racists rants as concern. Let me add this as a side note, neither Senator Moore or Gomes has anything in their background as a politician and prior to being a politician that would suggest or allude to them being thieves or waiting for suitcases of money for anything. Your comment is any affront to their character and their integrity which I find distasteful, disgusting and disingenuous.

    I know you were just joking right? RIGHT!!

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    1. I hold all politicians to the same standard. After living in Bridgeport for seventeen years I have a rather cynical view of politics and politicians. Go figure..

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    2. Day do you see irony in your defense of black politics. A Gomes been a politician for decades. B. who has a politics in their back around before getting into politics? Their politicians now, Senators might tell you.

      but here’s the irony you said black politicians shouldn’t be held to a higher standard in one sentence and then you condemn the part where TBK said Gomes and Moore are waiting for their suitcase of money for their vote like white politicaian,

      This is why under president Obama black gap in American got larger not smaller. You condemn white people for calling out black politician for their lack of effectiveness. Blacks don’t call them out, and generally blacks the Republicans for their communities problems that are for the most part cities run by democrat.

      From what you have been saying Brideport is some where around 70% minority 35% is blacks and our two senators are two black yet the black community doesn’t call the out for not supporting a casino in Bridgeport for its jobs and economic development but the support it for the white East Windor. Just say.

      Ron you sound ask Moore and Gomes how dare they support jobs and economic development for East Windor and not the city they were elected to serve. Just say.

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      1. Black politicians
        A. Gomes
        has politics
        might I tell you
        But here
        the black
        blames the Repubicans
        are blacks
        our two senators are black
        them out
        they support
        Ron you should ask Moore and Gomes.

        #ESL 🙂

        They’ll support a casino when the tide has shifted and they can’t hoodwink their community and Ron and Day call them out supporting jobs and economic development in Bridgeport

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    3. Senators Moore and especially Gomes stand up for the community. Mr. Gomes stood up to Mr. Uri Clinton’s smoke-and-mirrors sales pitch and asked asked some very pointed questions about the proposed casino. So far he is the only elected official to do so. The proposed casino will require land, a lot of land on Seaview Avenue. More than a few people will be displaced, just as happened with Steel Pointe. For what, a casino that is not going to produce the elephant dollars for several years. 

      As far as the environmental contamination it was here long before Moore and Gomes took office. It sounds as though you’re saying “Hey, it’s not their fault do they don’t have to do anything about it.” 

      WRONG. Public officials represent THE PUBLIC. The industrial pollution in Bridgeport affects EVERYONE. City Hall doesn’t do  anything about it until another abandoned building catches fire. Even then it is the least they can get away with. If not two state senators elected to represent the people of the city of Bridgeport then who, Donald? Who? The pollution disproportionately effects minority neighborhoods. Are you going to do anything about it or are you going to wait until the east side is another Love Canal? 

      There is a long history of politicians in Bridgeport taking bribes. White, black, latino, greed knows no ethnic boundaries. I hold them all to the same  standard of pessimism. 

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      1. If they stood up for the community, where is the fruit of their labor. A the East End Grocery store. SMH If MGM is a smoke and mirror t let them put their money where their mouth is,take the 50 million to the bank are run. Just sayin

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  3. Derek, how dare you to cast aspersions onto State Senators Ed Gomes and Marilyn Moore, it’s one thing not to like their position but to suggest that they are waiting to get a suitcases of cold hard cash is outrageous and you owe State Senators Ed Gomes and Marilyn Moore an apology.

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        1. Ron,
          For years now I thought your calendar was so full that you were unable to name a date and time to sit down and have coffee together? Now, am I reading that a physical challenge perhaps is the way to set you in motion? As in “k.m.a”? How does that elevate the subject matter you inform readers about? How does it swell appreciation for your story, service and experience? Just saying.
          How do we show thought leadership on OIB anyway? A lot of huffing and puffing? Some mention of past history that ‘slags’ the other and pushes buttons? How old is “too old” for such posturing? Time will tell.

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          1. JML, why do you assume my comment is a physical challenge? A little history and advice that I learned from Ed Gomes when he was a union Rep for the Steelworkers, and that was we can discuss things using the King’s English or we can take it to the street and it was up to management to make their choice. Management and the union can negotiate in good faith or we can strike and take it to the street where anything can happen.

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          2. The Bridgeport Kid // Oct 23, 2017 at 5:10 pm
            “As soon as the suitcases of cold hard cash have been delivered.”

            JML, you seem not to have problem with Derek making a statement like that about State Senators Ed Gomes and Marilyn Moore. There is absolutely nothing in either State Senators Ed Gomes and Marilyn Moore to suggest that they are dishonest. One doesn’t have to like their position on a issue is one thing but to cast aspersions is totally not acceptable and I will call anybody out when they make a statement like that.

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  4. Mackey, like Derek who thinks all Black politicians are thieves, that other mofo thinks that all Blacks are violent and your response to Derek could only be of a violent a nature. Those Sambo’s at the NAACP might have bought into his hyperbole, but as socially conscience Black men, We See Bullshit.

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  5. You are both blinded by personal prejudices. Bridgeport politics has been a dirty game, for decades. Joe Ganim went to prison for corruption and racketeering. He went to PRISON, not Bridgeport Community Correctional Center on North Avenue. Ernie Newton, the self proclaimed “Moses of my people,” went to prison for misuse of campaign funds and receiving a bribe. Election fraud is endemic here, usually manifested in the manipulation of absentee ballots. Joe Ganim hustled a couple pieces of business through a favorable City Council before it heads out to pasture next month. 

    I was more than a little cynical about politics well before moving to Bridgeport seventeen years ago (after Watergate who wouldn’t be). So my reference to “suitcases full of cold hard cash” should be taken in that light, as gallows humor. 

    Poor neighborhoods are disproportionately affected by industrial contamination in the ground and air. Many if the residents in the affected neighborhoods are African-American and Latino. The Connecticut Departments of Energy/Environmental Protection and Public Health should commission studies to examine the effects on the health of the people in the effected neighborhoods. Who knows what is the abandoned factory buildings? Whenever one of them burns the sun is blotted out by clouds of thick black smoke.

    I don’t see color here, Mr. Day and Mr. Mackey. I see a lack of green, a lack of economic advantage and a lack of ecology suitable for humanity. Whenever I brought up socioeconomic and environmental concerns, that they ought to be a priority over building a goddamned casino Steven Auerbach would pitch a fit, criticize me for opposing progress.   Now Robert Texiera is doing the same thing. 

    Both of you share a myopic view of life in Bridgeport. 

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  6. Derek, we have a nearsighted view of life in Bridgeport, are you kidding me? I moved to Bridgeport in 1968, owned two homes here and raised three and a half children here and in the Bridgeport school system. My first job was in Bridgeport as was my last job, the BFD. I’ve worked for thirty years to bring Blacks and Latinos into the fire service and once there helped them reach elevated ranks. No one in the history of the BFD has done it better than Mackey and I, No One.

    We did this because we have a genuine love for our people and this city. I lived on the East End for 25 years, raising my children and living my life so what in that scenario would suggest that I have a myopic view of life in Bridgeport. You say you view politicians out of the same lens yet I’ve never heard you insinuate, intimate or accuse any white politician other than Ganim of being a thief. Why is that? It appears as if you have a myopic view of white politicians in Bridgeport.

    You asked what are we doing about the industrial contamination that is prevalent around my people yet the same question can be asked of you as a Bridgeport resident for the last 17 years or is just calling attention to the obvious your idea of caring about the condition of Blacks and Latinos?

    Finally, I knew you would make reference of your comment as a joke because although I’ve never met you I’ve known you my whole life, different person same ideology. Being a Black man in America I’ve been conditioned to see color ever day of my life and over the Last 66 years I’ve learned not to trust anyone that says they don’t see color because that means you are invisible to them and what you have in those that don’t are liars, pure and simple. Colorblindness was a ploy to refuse to acknowledge race, but racism is as plain as it’s ever been.

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    1. You see wolves in every stain, Donald, the black man versus the white devil. The racist  rhetoric is at or near the surface all the time. I applaud your service to the community  but hanging a photo of Louis Farrakhan on the living room wall just isn’t cutting it anymore. 

      All lives matter, Donald. ALL LIVES. The only way change will be effected in Bridgeport is if all us work together. 

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      1. Derek, when did black lives start to matter?

        1857: In Dred Scott v. Sanford, Dred Scott, a slave in Missouri, sued for his freedom on the grounds that he had lived for a time in a “free” territory. The Court ruled against him, saying that under the Constitution, he was his master’s property. At the same time, the Court also ruled that the Missouri Compromise (1821) — under which Missouri was admitted to the union as a slave state, Maine as a free state and slavery prohibited in the territory that later became Kansas and Nebraska — was unconstitutional because it deprived slaveowners of their property.

        1873: In the first case to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court narrowly interpreted the newly passed amendment and its privileges and immunities clause, as only applying to a very limited number of federal rights of citizenship, such as the right to travel between states or use navigable waterways. The Fourteenth Amendment, the Court held, did not protect the much broader range of rights granted by the individual states.
        1883: In a series of cases known as the Civil Rights Cases, the Supreme Court held that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was not constitutional under the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Court established the state-action doctrine, thereby allowing segregation and discrimination by private actors.

        1896: In Plessy v. Ferguson, the Court upheld a Louisiana law requiring restaurants, hotels, hospitals, and other public places to serve African Americans in separate, but ostensibly equal, accommodations. In establishing the separate but equal” doctrine, the Court said that segregation is “universally recognized as within the competency of states in the exercise of their police powers.” In the sole dissent, Justice John Marshall Harlan — a former slaveowner — said the ruling would “stimulate aggressions, more or less brutal, upon the admitted rights of colored citizens.”

        1954: In Brown v. Board of Education, Chief Justice Earl Warren, reading his first major opinion from the bench, said: “We conclude, unanimously, that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

        1955: In Brown v. Board II, the Supreme Court held that school systems must abolish their racially dual systems, but could do so “with all deliberate speed.”

        1956: The Supreme Court, without comment, affirmed a lower court ruling declaring segregation of the Montgomery bus system illegal, giving a major victory to Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the thousands of anonymous African Americans who had sustained the bus boycott in the face of violence and intimidation.

        1964: The Supreme Court upheld the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a valid exercise of Congressional power under the Commerce Clause in Heart of Atlanta Motel Inc. v. U.S. and Katzenbach v. McClung, thereby prohibiting private discrimination in public accommodations, such as motels and restaurants.

        1968: In Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., the Court held that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 bans racial discrimination in housing by private, as well as governmental, housing providers.

        1971: In Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, the Court ruled busing was an appropriate legal tool for addressing illegal segregation of the schools.

        1971: In Griggs v. Duke Power Co., the Supreme Court ruled that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits not only intentional job discrimination, but also employer practices that have a discriminatory effect on minorities and women. The Court held that tests and other employment practices that disproportionately screened out African American applicants for jobs at the Duke Power Company were prohibited when the tests were not shown to be job-related.

        Derek, again, when did black lives matter?

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      2. Interesting take on Donald Day Kid, not how I would describe the man at all. And I’ve actually met him. Is he assertive when he sees racism? Absolutely. Is that rhetoric or truth in his world view? Yes, we all need to work together, until blacks in America are treated equally under the law how do you expect any of us to work together. what exactly do you propose we all work together for if not the goal of everyone equal under the law?

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  7. Don we both were addressing Derek about his comment concerning Senator Moore or Gomes has anything in their background as a politician and prior to being a politician that would suggest or allude to them being thieves or waiting for suitcases of money for anything. Your comment is any affront to their character and their integrity which I find distasteful, disgusting and disingenuous.

    Also as far as what Derek had to about Senators Moore and Gomes and what they have done to address industrial contamination in Bridgeport. The fact is that industrial contamination was there decades prior to their election to the state Senate. We have always spoken out about “environmental racism” especially in Bridgeport where there were attempts to build two asphalt plants, one on the East End at the foot of the Pleasure Beach and the other plant on South Ave in the South End right in my back yard and Mount Trashmore, the state’s largest illegal dump, is a 35-foot-high mountain of rubble on a lot in the city’s East End from the late 1980s to 1993. I was deeply involved with fighting against the two asphalt plants, including marches and demonstrations against then Mayor Joe Ganim and O&G. It was then State Representative Chris Caruso who was the leader in helping to against those  asphalt plants and Caruso was NOT our State Representative but he had a deep concern about the health and welfare of those lived in the East End and the South End.

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    1. The industrial pollution was there long before Gomes, Moore, even  Ganim took office. As public officials elected to represent the people of the city of Bridgeport all of them and the City Council and the rest of the legislative delegation are obligated to do something about it. I will venture a guess that none of the donors to Joe Ganim’s various political campaigns owns an environmental clean up business. No one connected to City Hall is able to make money from it. 

      If the DEEP sent a few crews down here to test the soil and the air quality (we already know the harbor is one of the filthiest this side of Eastern Europe) who knows what they will find. Will they discover rusting barrels of chemicals buried under the ground of abandoned factories? That’s what was discovered at Love Canal. 

      There is environmental discrimination in Bridgeport but it isn’t racist as much as it is economic. The have-nots have to live with it because they cannot afford to live elsewhere. 

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  8. Oh boy here we go Derek with that all lives matter bullshit. The real issue is that, while strictly true, “All Lives Matter” is a tone-deaf slogan that distracts from the real problems black people in America face.

    Imagine that you’re sitting down to dinner with your family, and while everyone else gets a serving of the meal, you don’t get any. So you say “I should get my fair share.” And as a direct response to this, your dad corrects you, saying, “everyone should get their fair share.” Now, that’s a wonderful sentiment — indeed, everyone should, and that was kinda your point in the first place: that you should be a part of everyone, and you should get your fair share also. However, dad’s smart-ass comment just dismissed you and didn’t solve the problem that you still haven’t gotten any!

    The problem is that the statement “I should get my fair share” had an implicit “too” at the end: “I should get my fair share, too, just like everyone else.” But your dad’s response treated your statement as though you meant “only I should get my fair share”, which clearly was not your intention. As a result, his statement that “everyone should get their fair share,” while true, only served to ignore the problem you were trying to point out.

    That’s the situation of the “black lives matter” movement. Culture, laws, the arts, religion, and everyone else repeatedly suggest that all lives should matter. Clearly, that message already abounds in our society.

    But responding to this by saying “all lives matter” is willfully going back to ignoring the problem. It’s a way of dismissing the statement by falsely suggesting that it means “only black lives matter,” when that is obviously not the case. And so saying “all lives matter” as a direct response to “black lives matter” is essentially saying that we should just go back to ignoring the problem.

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    1. The BLM movement, like Antifa, has been stained by militancy and vitriol. That’s wrong. Violence begets violence and shouting matches too often end in brawls.

      The point that I have been making is this: We all live in Bridgeport. What affects ine community should affect us all. Arguing about semantics is rather stupid. It obscures what I have been and will continue to say. Virtually everyone living in Bridgeport has been fucked over by corrupt politics. High taxes, crime, pollution, poverty, it all goes round and round like a circle of demons dancing around a flame.

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      1. America has no moral leadership with 45.

        In an interview with columnist Cal Thomas, Trump was asked, “You have said you never felt the need to ask for God’s forgiveness, and yet repentance for one’s sins is a precondition to salvation. I ask you the question Jesus asked of Peter: Who do you say He is?”

        “I will be asking for forgiveness, but hopefully I won’t have to be asking for much forgiveness. As you know, I am Presbyterian and Protestant. I’ve had great relationships and developed even greater relationships with ministers. We have tremendous support from the clergy.”

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  9. Derek what has any black prior to Senators Moore and Gomes done to address industrial contamination in Bridgeport. The fact is that industrial contamination was there decades prior to their election to the state Senate.

    I find it totally amazing how black people try an hold whites to a higher standard of excellence than they do other white people and try to justify their racists rants as concern. Let me add this as a side note, neither Senator Moore or Gomes has anything in their background as a politician and prior to being a politician that would suggest or allude to them being thieves or waiting for suitcases of money for anything. Your comment is any affront to their character and their integrity which I find distasteful, disgusting and disingenuous.

    I know you were just joking right? RIGHT!!

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  10. Wow Andy that’s the most articulate, intelligent and cogent thing you have ever written on OIB since its inception. My hat’s off to you because all this time I thought you were an illiterate moron with nothing substantial to say. My bad. My guess is that someone kinda sharp wrote that for you. Just saying…

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    1. Mr. Trump has provided tacit encouragement for skinheads, neo Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and every other so-called “white nationalist” fraternity to commit acts of violence against African-Americans, Latinos, Middle Easterners and every other ethnic group that is not a part of “the master race.”  Donald Trump tempered his pseudo condemnation of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, by saying “there were some very nice people, nice guys” among the brown shirts that marched to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee from a city park. 

      Trump’s contempt for the Spanish speaking world is evident from his desire to build a wall along the border with Mexico. He claims it is to secure the homeland but we all know it is to stem the tide of legal and illegal migration from Central and South America. His lackluster response to the devastation on the island of Puerto Rico is another sign. The current administration heavy on wealthy white men, short on minorities  and women in positions of authority. Most of the African-Americans in the Whitehouse on any given day are employees. 

      Back to the environmental issues… If none of the city’s elected officials are going to do anything about it, who you gonna call, Ghostbusters?

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  11. Just trying to show you what the bullshit you write looks like. I though I would just substitute a few works to show how ridiculous and how racial it is . You can call me all the names you want but you will never be as smart as I am and you have not achieved what I have achieved by my self in spite of Judge Daly . You cant say the same because without judge Daly you probably would not be a firefighter and for sure would not have made captain. Just saying

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    1. Judge Daly made it real easy for white Lieutenants to be made “Provisional Captains” for 120 days even though they had not passed a Captain exam and a number of those Provisional Captains were allowed to retire as Provisional Captains and to receive their pension as a Captain for the rest of their life and they NEVER passed a Captain exam, thank you Judge Daly is what those white fire Lieutenants owe Judge Daly.

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  12. Wow. The topic if this thread went from “Community Conversations With Senators Gomes And Moore” to an argument over semantics to a terse debate about the Bridgeport Fire Department’s hiring practices.

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  13. Andy, you’re right I will never be as smart as you, but I’m sure as hell more intelligent than you’ll ever be or have ever been. See that’s how smart you are that you haven’t learned the difference between intellect and smarts. One other thing that you are more than me, ignorant.

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  14. Andy, you’re a clown. You were a clown when you were a firefighter, you’re a clown on OIB and you’re a clown as a man. You need to quit blaming your failures as a firefighter on Judge Daly and take charge of your own inadequacies. Judge Daly didn’t go in the room with me and take the engineer’s, the lieutenants or the captains exams, that was all me. I was never given a position like you were given the inspectors position. I did mine the old fashion way, I earned mine.

    That firefighters exam was 40 years ago so you need to try and move on with your pathetic little life because you have more yesterdays than tomorrow’s so get over it clown. I bet that you could grow and inch or two if you get this stuff off your back you little drunk shit.

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    1. Don is it tough knowing that it took banding for you to gain your so called promotions. While I am at it tell us why you left the fire department/ Now you are an old black man with no training in anything else to bad/I know you wish you had my back ground but you are not smart enough. The firefighters exam only effected the promotional exams which were not held for 19 years. First because there were no minorities to take the exam. Second when the written promotional exams were given only the late Earl Pettway passed. The rest of you dumb asses failed. Then a third exam was given with an oral portion thats how you passed the scores were manipulated to meet the needs. BTW Judge daly may not have been in the test room with you but his rulings were with you. here is on thing a punk like you dont understand a person that does not drink is not a drunk Don you are a punk and always will be a punk. I just wish I was on the line when you came on.

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      1. Andy, do you remember how you were given the position of Provisional Lieutenant without passing a Lieutenant exam? Do you remember how long you got those benefits and pay without passing a exam and in fact every promotional position was held by white males and 90% never took a promotional exam for the position they were in and in fact a lot of those white firefighters retire and they got a higher pension because they were given a higher position and they never past a exam. There white firefighters who were in provisional positions for well over 10 years. That’s what you call “affirmative action” for white males firefighters.

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        1. We want to thank you and yours for that. It got so bad that at one point there were 3 bonafide officers left Schmedlin, Moran,nichole. There may have been a few more but I doubt it. Believe it or not someone has to be in charge.You kept going to court because you could not pass the exams thus extending our time as provisionals. BTW most of the provisionals passed promotional exams when they were finally fiven. Mackey I was given provisional because I was the senior member of Squad 5 on A shift.You and yours slowed up the promotional process so stop asking the same dumb questions.

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          1. Andy, it was okay for white firefighters to act in a higher position without even taking a exam for that position but blacks and Hispanics and passed their exams and got on and became firefighters then pass their promotional exams are some how inferior. That’s what you call “white privilege,” blacks pass the exam that was given and white firefighters are given promotions and never pass the exam for the their position, that’s call “affirmative action” for white males.

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  15. Andy, you’ve never passed any exam in your miserable little life. You were given two positions, white boy affirmative action. I may not be as smart as you, but I know background is one word not two. How far did you go in college or did you just ride by one? I’m doing alright Andy, my home in the suburbs was paid off last year and I’m the owner of two Mercedes Benz, went to Italy last year and put two kids through college. Not bad for a dumb ass. I guess its better to be a dumb ass than an asshole, huh?

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    1. You cover both bases there and I can tell you that you did not do what you describe on your own. I am sure your wife is and was the major bread winner not you. Suburbs??? Ansonia give me a freaking break.What 2 positions was I given. I passed the LT’s test and was 24th or 40th on the list. You just wish you had what I had.

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