Mayor Bill Finch, the city’s resident Mr. Green Jeans, proclaims “My administration has set out to make the Park City one of the greenest cities in America and every single day I am committed to making an impact by curbing emissions from transportation and energy use, reducing waste, and encouraging green business and job growth.” The mayor’s reelection campaign will not begin in earnest until next year, but technically everything he’s doing now is to position himself for another four-year term. Does his green initiative move voters? Is it creating something tangible voters can touch and feel as progress and see it register in their wallets? Or is it just policy-wonk fluff that reduces real brick and mortar concerns?
Finch is arguably the city’s first policy-wonk mayor. Gas emissions, carbon footprints, ozone layers, solar panels, poop into energy, chicken farming–you name it, when it comes to gargling about green, the mayor can talk all day and night. Each week, sometimes multiple times a week, mayoral press advisories and releases highlight the city’s environmental initiatives. The latest is an Earth Day Expo that will take place Saturday at 10 a.m. at the Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict High School Campus, the city’s s first new high school in 50 years and the Connecticut’s largest environmental STEM high school.The event is open to the public.
The event, according to a mayoral news release, will include a wide range of exhibitors including the Sierra Club, Trust for Public Land, Groundwork Bridgeport, Nature Conservancy, United Illuminating, Mayor’s Conservation Corps, and one of the newest green businesses to open in Bridgeport–PosiGen. Bridgeport students will also present their school projects relating to the environment. The Expo will also feature hands-on workshops and green activities for children.
“Though every day is Earth Day, I’m excited to bring together local businesses, organizations, students and parents together in one of the greenest schools in the state help educate the Bridgeport community on the benefits of going green,” said Mayor Finch.
So what say you, tangible or fluff?
It’s just so much green bullshit. He is costing the city a fortune with his green gimmicks. Remember the rain barrels? How’s that working out? His park to nowhere and for no neighborhood cost us $8 million.
This dumbass should concentrate on keeping our taxes stable but no, every year he has been mayor our taxes have gone up.
Hey Bill, you are so hot for green, how about your administration that has no women as part of your inner core of advisers plus a few who are scattered around, one in the Health department, one in Finance and one for the seniors. Where are the rest? If you put just 50% of what you put into this green shit into managing this city, we would be a top-flight city.
I am very concerned about our environment and happy our local leadership is also. I’d hate to be a Republican mocking global warming and carbon footprints. Mayor Finch does not have to forsake one ideal to focus on another. I think the Mayor should be commended for his desire to make the Park City one of the greenest cities in the United States. Mocking the Mayor on this topic, Andy, is a huge mistake. It is a generational thing. Ask your grandchildren what they think.
Steve, just stating fact, that’s not mocking. Steve, you may have no problem having your taxes raised every year but I do. I have a problem with spending $8 million on a park located in an industrial neighborhood, maybe you don’t have a problem with that.
Steve, here is one you cant argue with. We are unable to locate any paperwork that shows this former industrial site was cleaned of all toxins. There is no paperwork on file with the state, purchasing shows no payments to a remediation company, no o e in city government can produce one sheet of paper explaining what remediation took place here. I watched this park being built and I saw no remediation taking place. So much for Mr. Green Jeans. Yeah Steve, I know you will say it’s not the mayor’s fault but the buck stops at his office.
Steve,
I agree, working to green Bridgeport is important work and to give credit to Finch. If not original, it is dogged work he’s done on this. The problem is he has dropped the ball on everything else. I’m all for green but not at the expense of growing the grand list, avoiding tax increases, creating economic development, retaining businesses in the city, fomenting total chaos in education and managing a city workforce that is demoralized and battered. He’s been worse than useless in every other area.
OMG–honestly? Worse than useless? A little harsh, no? I think there is more development going on in Bridgeport now than in the past 30 years. I do not think taxes, jobs and development are taking a back seat to greening the City. If we don’t start addressing brownfields and toxic sites now, then when? I do not have to be Finch’s only cheerleader here. I will not allow his efforts to be diminished by disgruntled miserable anti-Finch diatribes. The Mayor does not walk on water. I do not agree with his position on all fronts, my biggest problem is his administration’s support of Marina Village moving downtown. I can’t wait for the front page ground breaking sending a loud message to all potential downtown potential developers and potential visitors to the Arena and Harbor yard. No, I do not appreciate tax increases, etc. etc., but I learned something long ago and if I ever run for office, it will be my credo, “you can’t please all the people all of the time,” to assume you can will be a downfall. Overall, there is not one individual out there who is worthy to take his place at this point. Until there is, I Will acknowledge the positive efforts. This was a great moment for the City. Anyone who does not agree is just an idiot. If I were running against Finch I would still commend him and say anyone who didn’t agree was an idiot. Attacking the Mayor for the good stuff does not diminish his efforts nor will it elevate any other potential candidate. Andy and Bob, you may not like the view through my rose colored optimistic glasses, but I can assure you it is much more appealing than viewing Bridgeport through your shit-stained visual aids. I hope I didn’t offend anybody. If I did, well, you can’t please all the people all of the time, and I am not going to try.
Policy wonk? Don’t you mean B.S.er?
My sense of a policy wonk is it’s someone who (1) knows a great deal about a subject, (2) can speak about this subject to lay, policy maker, or academic audiences with a studied and analytical mastery of the current evidence in clear and compelling language, and (3) is considered an expert by respected experts in the field.
In his latest state-of-the-city speech (as I read it), he refers to 1,000 solar panels; but wait, 9,000 solar panels were approved according to the multiple reports in the news channels (including this one). That’s just one big whopper.
Is it because Finch is so catastrophically lame as a mayor … you’d like to be generous in trying to pass off his basic incompetence and serial prevarication as due to his attention-deficit-inducing passion for fighting climate change? That’s darned nice of you.
Now if I’m wrong and he’s truly a policy master, then why doesn’t Finch lecture at a university, join the faculty, or join the UN? Oh right, because such institutions require credentials and real expertise. They’d boot him out in a minute. We should too … 2015 will be here before you know it.
In the meantime, perhaps the mayor should put a sticker on his cycling helmet that reads: “Honk if I’m a wonk.”
“basic incompetence and serial prevarication.” Funny. No Spain, no gain!
Pete Spain hits it out of the park again! Thanks Pete. You are awesome!
I’m glad to get in the middle of this one. Just because it rhymes doesn’t mean it makes sense.
Great ideas poorly executed. Recycle–bins are half the size of garbage cans picked up half as often. Gave up the much-used Seaside Park to solar panels to save the little-used Pleasure Beach. Making public parks on a toxic waste dump, Knowlton Park, for over 8 million dollars, and more $$$ in the pipeline for this project, yet no one can produce the toxic waste remediation paperwork for this park, oh, I am sure there is more …
Most of this green stuff is nonsense. We get rain barrels to save the rain and then they tell us to get rid of standing water for West Nile. Electric cars do not use gas but the electricity comes from a coal plant. It is the same amount of power to move the car. You are just moving where the pollution is. The hydrogen to power cars is made out of oil. It takes more than a gallon of gas to make a gallon of ethanol out of corn. You can make ethanol out of a lot of things. Corn happens to be one of the worst choices. Solar panels just don’t make that much electricity, among other problems that make them ineffective. They are like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon. The same people who are installing the panels and complaining we do not have enough electricity are upgrading your house to 400-amp service. Recycling paper does not save trees. Those trees are planted and re-planted to be used to make paper. They cut down the ‘same’ trees over and over. The only thing recycling saves is space in the landfills. That is a good thing but it is about the only savings you will see. Not using the stuff in the first place would have saved more.
Finch just got suckered into believing the hype. Remember, like most elected officials, he does not have any certifications that make him qualified to do anything. These green initiatives are all in an effort to try to get something for nothing and avoid the fact we, simply, have to use less. The only effective way to encourage people to reduce and re-use is to raise the price and that is the inevitability we are trying to avoid.
DOES ANYONE KNOW WHERE THE REMEDIATION PAPERWORK IS FOR THE NEW PARK ON KNOWLTON ST.?
I have looked everywhere I can think of and had people looking for me, all to no avail.
DOES THAT MEAN THIS PARK WAS CONSTRUCTED WITHOUT PROPER REMEDIATION? IS THAT TRUE, MR. MAYOR?
I know the property across the street from the park underwent remediation. This property and the property where the park is being built were occupied by the same industrial company, Acme.
It is good to check things out “where the rubber meets the road,” as is often said. This morning that opportunity presented itself as I left home. I saw a City pickup in front of a row of green and blue bins next door. An ORANGE warning notice was being placed in one green bin with a statement that recycling protocol had not been followed.
I asked the City worker what had happened and he pointed out the Green Bin had been left with its mix of recyclables and non-recyclables as the homeowner had not separated as required.
I told him providing education to the homeowner with a warning was a good idea. I also told him about the tip earlier in the week from Only In Bridgeport: tip of the straw hat to Captain David Hawley for providing this link on Bridgeport’s standing in CT relative to the “reduce, reuse and recycle” initiatives monitored by CT DEEP.
www .ct.gov/deep/lib/deep/reduce_reuse_recycle/data/summary
The supervisor indicated his job was to carry out the Green initiatives and he assumed reporting by those higher up would be part of the process. I thanked him for carrying out his job as part of the Green Machine in the City, but we both had a laugh at how results could be frustrated by someone not paying attention to the paperwork.
Andy Fardy, regarding Knowlton Park, is it possible someone overlooked the remediation effort oblivious to the contamination contained on the site? Keep looking for that answer. Clean often goes with Green, but not necessarily. If this Green initiative proves to be “unclean” with the funds invested already, the Green Machine may prove mean. Time will tell.
John, the one thing I know about the properties formerly owned by Acme is the lot across from the park was remediated as that property is owned by Snapple or at the very least occupied by Snapple. Someone paid for the remediation and the new fencing. Seeing remediation on one section of the property, I would assume the rest of the Acme property was remediated. NOT SO, at no time was there a remediation company on the site of the Knowlton St. Park.
Why isn’t Osborne wearing a helmet like his buddy Bill?
Only some of the people on the short bus have to wear a helmet.