Foster Enters Race For Mayor

Maya, Foster
Mary-Jane Foster, right, handed over candidate committee paperwork to Town Clerk Alma Maya, left.

University of Bridgeport vice president Mary-Jane Foster, co-founder of the Bridgeport Bluefish baseball team, joined the race for mayor Monday morning filing a candidate committee in the Town Clerk’s Office, her second run for the city’s top post she lost in a Democratic primary to Mayor Bill Finch in 2011.

Foster says she will issue a formal declaration in the coming weeks. She joins a field that includes Finch, Board of Education member Howard Gardner and perennial mayoral candidate Charlie Coviello. Former Mayor Joe Ganim, in an exploratory stage, will soon form a candidate committee as well.

Foster says she has spent the past several weeks building a campaign infrastructure focused on a series of fundraisers. Four years ago she spent roughly $200,000. Finch has already raised more than $400,000 as he seeks a third four-year term. Ganim raised more than $50,000 last Thursday in his first fundraiser in an exploratory phase for mayor with a maximum personal contribution of $375.

Candidate committees can receive a maximum $1000 personal contribution. With Finch, Ganim and Foster all in the race, a projected September Democratic primary could break spending records, perhaps surpassing $1 million. That does not include potential independent expenditures.

Finch has been going about his business leveraging the power of incumbency in news releases, press conferences and development announcements. Ganim, a relentless campaigner, has been knocking on doors reconnecting with voters and schmoozing members of the Democratic Town Committee that will make an endorsement for mayor in July. Finch is the favorite for the endorsement.

It’s hard not to consider the House of Cards factor in this race. Foster and Ganim had a strong relationship that hit the skids prior to the public corruption probe that ended Ganim’s mayoralty in 2003. Foster was a Finch supporter for mayor in 2007, but they too have had a falling-out. The Finch/Ganim relationship was based on politics when Ganim was mayor and Finch served on the City Council and then in State Senate. They were not friends outside of political co-existence.

So now all three are poised to face each other. We don’t call it OIB for nothing.

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38 comments

  1. What exactly does a candidate committee do? What is the money spent for? Wasting money by a mayor is a huge problem for Bpt. Electing a mayor who claims he/she is exploring–exploring for what? The great Bpt hypocrisy marches on with no viable plan for tax revenues or economic opportunities.

    Missing buildings (GE & Harvey Hubbell) means missing taxes from two corporate giants. Tax evasion by Mayor Finch doesn’t seem to bother anybody. Was it rodents or contamination that decided to knock down Longfellow? Who got contaminated?

    What benefit is the return for the money given Finch, Ganim and Foster? No private company will locate here knowing taxes must go higher. Will they locate here because Pleasure Beach is open? I can’t wait to ride on the water taxi. Is the entire city filled with clowns giving away their money to Finch, Ganim and Foster for their exploration committees?

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    1. On Saturday, John Olson walked with Mayor Finch door-to-door in the condominium high-rise in which Howard Gardner is the President, and John Olson is a resident.

      The condominium prohibits any solicitation in the building, and even Howard Gardner doesn’t go door-to-door in the building.

      The biggest issue is Mayor Finch was using the brochure that highlights “Bridgeport is Getting Better Every Day” which is funded by taxpayers as he was campaigning throughout the building. If you recall, the brochure was enclosed in our tax bills and features a photo of Mayor Finch.

      Howard was able to obtain a brochure that was handed to one of his neighbors, and is going to file a formal SEEC complaint.

      Mayor Finch has $400,000 in campaign funds, but has the gall to use taxpayer-funded brochures on his campaign trail.

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      1. That would be pretty pathetic of Howard Gardner to do, Maria. Don’t you agree? I am happy Finch is out there knocking on doors. I remember knocking on doors in that area for Mary Moran. You know Maria, most condominiums if not all have the same rules about solicitation. Don’t you go to Nob Hill and Eastwood? They also have no-solicitation rules. If that is Howard Gardner’s means of getting votes then that is sad and I’d be disappointed. Ganim on the other hand is going to have an uphill battle. I understand Seniors at Embassy, Park Royal and Watermark have been ripping Ganim apart. They have been passing around the book Corruption in Bridgeport with Joseph Ganim’s face on the cover. Mayor Finch or Mary-Jane Foster or Howard Gardher should purchase Mr. Sullivan’s book and pass it out to voters.

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        1. What is pathetic is Finch soliciting voters using taxpayer-funded brochures for his reelection campaign. Appears to be an election violation to me, but what do I know?

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      2. Maria, I might also add, if Howard Gardner is not going to his neighbors then he is foolish. I have friends supporting him and he needs to get aggressive. Nobody wants to support a candidate who can’t promote themselves. It is a waste of time and energy.

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  2. It will cost this city $40 a month just to pick up their garbage every week (gas and labor). That’s a cost of $480 per unit per year!

    JHM of Stamford and the Finch cartel think it’s okay for JHM of Stamford to pay only $700 in taxes per unit per year, for the next 40 years!

    And they put Bernie Madoff in jail?

    Thank you Michelle Lyons for standing up for the taxpayers of Bridgeport!

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    1. $40 a month. How much taxes are lost from GE and Harvey Hubbell? To consider voting for Finch after he pulled that is beyond dumb. Ignoring these facts indicates the stupidity of each person reading this blog.

      Are you claiming the owner of the unit will only pay $700 each year?

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  3. Good luck to Mary-Jane Foster.

    I am watching the riots in Baltimore. The looting is unbelievable, totally unbelievable. People waiting in line for their chance to steal. The cops are being murdered and people look like Palestinians throwing rocks at the cops. Close off the town and let the looters kill themselves. These people are animals. These riots have nothing to do with the Gray family, these kids are the product of their trashy upbringing and their total anti-social behavior. Any lives lost during these riots should not be mourned. There is a difference between protests and riots. They would be wise to cancel tonight’s baseball game.

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  4. Back to Mary-Jane Foster. I wish her well and hope to hear her platform. There are two issues I do not want to hear about and that is anti-charter schools or the failed Hennessy Bill. I would like to hear her vision for the future of downtown and Steelepointe. I want to hear everything that is not part of the Finch plan. I was hoping you would have waited four years. So since you are in the game, I wish you well. You will make a fine candidate.

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  5. *** Nice to have another capable candidate throwing in their hat into the upcoming Bpt Mayoral Race; however political news in the Park City right now is not what OIB or any other informational service or news medium should be reporting. The civil unrest in Baltimore, Maryland and what’s brewing across American urban cities etc. is where the focus should be! And as the approaching warm weather prepares to heat up our cities and their restless citizens who continue to see and hear of more and more police brutality that has been caught on webcams and citizens’ camcorders, cell phones, etc. This summer may be quite interesting with smoke-filled urban streets from cop cars, public buildings and anything else that happens to be in the way of a large moving protest group fed up with rogue police tactics and the injury or death toll it has continued to cover up in the past, present and possible near future, if there is no change towards better relations with the public and the police in general. ***

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  6. The media trick tells people the police department does their job protecting us.

    It’s not the police departments that murder black people. It’s specific cops being protected by specific prosecutors. When the prosecutors decide to conspire by protecting the cops, the prosecutors need to be prosecuted too.

    That will end the entire problem. The mayor of Baltimore should speak directly to the cops who arrested the guy and tell the prosecutor to indict those cops or he’ll be going down, too.

    If I were the mayor that crap would stop quick. There wouldn’t be any demonstrations because there would be justice. The cops would have their day in court. If they had a legit defense they would be acquitted.

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  7. Stephen Miller
    To Dwayne Harrison
    CC Tavis Smiley Roland Martin Danny Davis Khalil Muhammad Jessita Usher and 9 more…
    Today at 9:58 PM
    BLACK LEADERS:

    Demand the specific cops who arrested Gray and broke his spinal chord to murder him be arrested and charged for the murder they committed.

    They will have lawyers to defend them in court. The probable cause is simple. Gray got arrested for no charge and was attacked viciously by those cops.

    That’s the only answer. The media keeps white washing each murder and the BLACK LEADERS are clueless and in a DEEP TRANCE.

    Steve Miller

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  8. If that dumb mayor in Baltimore would arrest the cops who murdered Freddie Gray the riot would stop. The hypocrites in America are in a deep trance repeating the same crap.

    Tonight proves the mass trance. Its all now about the riot and they claim they have no idea what caused the riot. Did these people all wake up this morning and decided to have a riot?

    It had nothing to do with Freddie Gray. It had nothing to do with protecting cops that murder black people. We need Kojak to solve this case.

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  9. There is no excuse for these riots and all the looting and burning going on. These idiots are burning their stores and businesses. These are stores in their neighborhood. Now what?
    Here is a city managed by a black mayor, black police chief and a black fire chief and they can’t get things done. Most of the rioters were high school kids who could not get home because bus service and the subway were shut down.
    Cops were put in harm’s way by this mayor. The score so far 15 cops injured 0 protestors injured. Force needs to be met with force.

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  10. The issues in Baltimore go back to the riots in 1968, those issues and problems have not been addressed. As for the police, it’s not about the black it’s about the blue. There are long lingering problems that have not been addressed. Those who have committed crimes need to be arrested, the police officers who caused the death of a prisoner must be charged and arrested, the killing in North Charleston, SC is the type of action Baltimore didn’t do.

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    1. Often when a bad abusive police officer is finally caught and prosecuted, his fellow officers in private will admit it was well known in the entire force that officer was a bad cop. My question is, why does the police force close ranks and protect known bad cops? Don’t they realize by doing this and allowing the bad cops to continue working, it appears they condone the bad behavior, and this leads to what is going on in Baltimore right now? I do not condone violence and looting. It would appear the most recent participants on the riots are the age of grandchildren of the MLK followers, and their actions seem to say not enough has changed and peaceful protest has not worked fast enough or at all. Understanding that during the MLK years, it was actual laws that allowed for subtle and blatant discrimination, laws that needed to be and were changed, and the most effective way to achieve this and have needed white support was with civil disobedience and peaceful protests. Now it is unwritten policy and unwritten rules of our government that encourages and allows discrimination that is equally vile. I understand for the police it is often very difficult to get known criminals off the street, and I understand the need for 16-year-old kids to have some spending money in their pockets and the lack of jobs, thus turning to selling drugs. There are no easy answers or solutions, but in my humble opinion, EVERYONE must accept their part in this disaster and take steps to clean their own houses, no matter how unpopular and painful, and work together to find common ground and positive solutions to the systemic racial problems that still plague this country.

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      1. Do you really think those riots were about police brutality? They were about looting and burning and just raising hell. The problem is everyone wants the police to fix all our social problems.

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        1. Andy, I think the most recent riots were about both. If someone is living a life of what we would consider hell then all they know is how to behave in a hellish way.
          If there is a problem–and it is social–then we all are responsible for the solution if we live in society. Including the police in admitting and doing something about the active officers who are part of the problem. And the administration (government) cleaning their own house of corruption and coverup of their own, in my humble opinion.

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      2. Jennifer Buchanan, thank you for your comments, it could have been real easy for you not to say anything but you decided to reply and to give your name on a topic that most people would not do. This issue has been addressed in the Kerner Commission Report, there is no need to re-invent the wheel.

        National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (The Kerner Report), 1967, See more at:
        www .blackpast.org/primary/national-advisory-commission-civil-disorders-kerner-report-1967

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  11. Last night I attended the Council Public Hearing in Council Chambers at 6:00 PM, congratulated Sue Brannelly, Budget & Appropriations Co-Chair on her recent engagement, and proved to be the only person to talk to the Council members present.

    When I got home for supper, I received a robo-call from Mayor Bill Finch inviting me to participate in a telephonic Town Hall session. I hung up and had dinner. When I show up at a Brown Bag Mayor’s Lunch and ask a question (whether the Mayor is there or not) I am assured of a response, yet never have received one. So much for dependability, follow-up or caring. More importantly, this year, is the question of who pays for Bill’s call at this time? Is he campaigning as a candidate or posturing as an incumbent? Time will tell.

    In the meantime, you may become concerned about more of the mistakes, errors, inconsistencies and/or misrepresentations that are found in City fiscal reporting of all types. If you are looking for facts to connect to stories that make sense in which you can trust, the City is creating a terrible record, and part of it is because no one proofs what comes out. Because they think no one is reading? Or that no one cares? Or that no one will check on them?
    ********************************************************
    Address to City Council on Monday April 28, 2015 B&A Hearing

    Members of the Budget & Appropriations Committee, I have no certain knowledge of how well you read and digest the several fiscal reports from the City. I can guess from the very small reaction that my comments to you as a City Council two times per month, and the failure to come right out and say to me, “Hey John Lee, what are you saying here? I don’t understand, or I disagree with you, Lee. You are just a troublemaker or …?”

    You see I can deal with that type of response from each of you but when I point out to you at least 20 errors in the latest CAFR, the external audit and none of you are curious, I think it points out a real problem in the City. If the information that is published by the City about finances is in error, fails to be proofed or corrected and the watchdog body stays asleep, who is protecting the public? Do you think that you can defend your failure to respond to these errors?

    When I spoke to you about the CAFR in early February I provided you with citations as to the 20 errors I found and where they were located in the report. Well, I am ready to let you know about more mistakes, inconsistencies and errors. You decide whether you need to do something about them for the public.

    The Library provides an interesting example in that the CAFR indicated on page 98 that the Library had expended $6,576,900 in FY 2014. Your budget book for 2015-16 report the actual 2014 as $6,517,135 which is close enough for government work in my opinion. However when I looked at the February and March 2015 monthly reports I see 2014 Actual listed as $9,427,419 (with a mysterious unbudgeted Line Item 56998 called Special Services Freeze in the amount of $2,910,284 that was actually an expense in 2014). Which report do you trust? And how can unbudgeted expense pop up in some reports and disappear in others when listing Actual 2014 totals? If you know, please tell me. It’s almost $3 Million!

    The Final Monthly Report for June 2014 began by titling the Revenue section containing seven pages as “Expense Report.” Small error especially because fewer than 30 people even saw the report and I am certain that a much smaller number bothered to read the report. But it is another case of failure to proof what is coming from the City to you as material to be trusted.

    What if you have entire departments where revenues are paid by some of those enjoying the services but the Revenue Summary for that department indicates “Not Applicable?” Would you have any concerns? What if you understood that this department purchased services outside of payroll in calendar year 2014 equal twice their City budgeted appropriation? When you make decisions, do you expect to have the entire picture or just assurance that it is OK?

    The budget and financial reporting is not to be trusted. That is a hard truth. Were you to provide me with more than three or five minutes, I think I can prove grounds for you to be concerned and to do something real about it. Why not create such a session? You have to vote soon on a Capital Budget and the public has not been solicited for input. And you have one page listing over 30 items on which to spend $42 Million. Time is getting short. Time will tell.

    John Marshall Lee, April 27, 2015

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  12. As the discussion of the riots in Baltimore go on, here is a little something that might give some insight that was taken from:
    “Politics from Camelot to Watergate,” Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society”

    Lyndon Baines Johnson moved quickly to establish himself in the office of the Presidency. Despite his conservative voting record in the Senate, Johnson soon reacquainted himself with his liberal roots. LBJ sponsored the largest reform agenda since Roosevelt’s New Deal.

    The aftershock of Kennedy’s assassination provided a climate for President Lyndon Baines Johnson to complete the unfinished work of JFK’s New Frontier. He had eleven months before the election of 1964 to prove to American voters that he deserved a chance to be President in his own right.

    Two very important pieces of legislation were passed. First, the Civil Rights Bill that JFK promised to sign was passed into law. The Civil Rights Act banned discrimination based on race and gender in employment and ending segregation in all public facilities.

    Johnson also signed the omnibus Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. The law created the Office of Economic Opportunity aimed at attacking the roots of American poverty. A Job Corps was established to provide valuable vocational training.

    Head Start, a preschool program designed to help disadvantaged students arrive at kindergarten ready to learn was put into place. The Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) was set up as a domestic Peace Corps. Schools in impoverished American regions would now receive volunteer teaching attention. Federal funds were sent to struggling communities to attack unemployment and illiteracy.

    As he campaigned in 1964, Johnson declared a “war on poverty.” He challenged Americans to build a “Great Society” that eliminated the troubles of the poor. Johnson won a decisive victory over his archconservative Republican opponent Barry Goldwater of Arizona.
    The struggle of Lyndon B. Johnson’s time as President. While Johnson dreamed of a “Great Society,” his presidency was haunted by the specter of Vietnam. Much of the funding he hoped to spend on social reforms went towards war in southeast Asia.

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  13. We are seeing rioting in Baltimore and we will have seen it in other cities in America. We will see rioting in other cities in the future. Who is to blame for this unrest and with the anger in the minority communities? There really is no difficult answer to this problem, THAT’S RIGHT THERE IS NO DIFFICULT ANSWER.
    The politicians we send to Washington are to blame for these riots. People living in poverty have no hope of escaping it as long as they can’t find a job. Washington has allowed and is allowing American companies to move from the USA to foreign countries where they hire cheap labor. There are more cars built in Mexico than in the USA. GE which has 37 acres here in Bridgeport is building a billion dollar factory in a foreign country. The list of companies goes on and on. These are factory jobs that should go to Americans first. Please don’t start up about isolationism, that’s bullshit the politicians want us to believe.
    Who among us would not like a manufacturing job that pays a living wage? The politicians from both parties want to let the jobs go overseas because their rich friends get richer.
    We have had Democratic rule in this city for about 50 years out of 56 years and where are we? We are hoping for a development that has been in the works for 30 years.
    We have had a Democratic governor except for two brief periods and what have they done to bring jobs to Connecticut? Nothing. They have taxed us to death and driven jobs out.
    I don’t know about anyone else but I am tired of robo calls from foreigners selling American products or services.

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    1. Excellent points, Andy. While I am not sure it is the responsibility of the government to create jobs, it is certainly their job to make it both easy and possible for jobs to be created and brought to this country by policy. Dismal failure in this country unless you work for Wall Street or the government.

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      1. It’s the government’s job to insure OUR economy is doing well. It is not our government’s job to allow almost all major companies to build plants in foreign countries and pay the workers peanuts while our people can’t find jobs.

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        1. asafm.army.mil/Documents/OfficeDocuments/Budget/BudgetMaterials/FY14/OCO/aif.pdf

          Overview of Operations and Results to Date: The Afghanistan Infrastructure Fund (AIF) has been an invaluable resource in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). Initiated in FY 2011, the AIF funds infrastructure projects in Afghanistan that are a key feature of the counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy and the Civil-Military Strategic framework endorsed by the Commander, U.S. Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A) to lock in security gains and maintain stability by providing basic, essential infrastructure to the people of Afghanistan. The projects are jointly formulated and approved by the Secretary of State and include, but are not limited to, water, power, transportation projects, and related maintenance and sustainment costs. All proposed FY 2014 projects are jointly developed with the Embassy, Kabul and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and focus on completion and sustainability of ongoing large-scale infrastructure funded through the FY 2011-13 program.

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  14. The riots in Baltimore are a tragic event, but one that will play out in more cities as the “Land of Opportunity” is nothing more than a dream and not the reality we believe it to be. Read the prophetic words of the C.O.O. of the Baltimore Orioles.

    Orioles COO John Angelos puts baseball, civil rights and protests in perspective
    Craig Calcaterra Apr 27, 2015, 1:08 PM EDT

    John Angelos

    So often when there are protests or disruptions or strife in or around professional sports, we revert to thinking of how it impacts professional sports and don’t go much farther. Even if we do and offer the “hey, this really puts sports in perspective” it’s more lip service. Maybe well-meaning lip service that we truly believe at the time, but our thoughts, prayers and everything else we may give to such issues and causes usually don’t last. We turn back to the sports pretty darn quickly.

    Over the weekend we saw protests in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray, who was mortally injured while in police custody, turn violent. The protests reached the gates of Camden Yards, where the Orioles and Red Sox played. As is normally the case, the world of sports thought about it and talked about it. As is usually the case, our attention will likely wane some going forward.

    But Orioles COO John Angelos did not offer the usual cliches and platitudes in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray and the subsequent disruption. He dropped the sort of statement that one does not normally hear from someone in Angelos’ position. Via USA Today’s FTW, which assembled Angelos’ Twitter replies to a local radio host into a more easily readable statement:

    Brett, speaking only for myself, I agree with your point that the principle of peaceful, non-violent protest and the observance of the rule of law is of utmost importance in any society. MLK, Gandhi, Mandela and all great opposition leaders throughout history have always preached this precept. Further, it is critical that in any democracy, investigation must be completed and due process must be honored before any government or police members are judged responsible.

    That said, my greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy beyond this particular case is focused neither upon one night’s property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships like China and others, plunged tens of millions of good, hard-working Americans into economic devastation, and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state.

    The innocent working families of all backgrounds whose lives and dreams have been cut short by excessive violence, surveillance, and other abuses of the Bill of Rights by government pay the true price, and ultimate price, and one that far exceeds the importances of any kids’ game played tonight, or ever, at Camden Yards. We need to keep in mind people are suffering and dying around the U.S., and while we are thankful no one was injured at Camden Yards, there is a far bigger picture for poor Americans in Baltimore and everywhere who don’t have jobs and are losing economic civil and legal rights, and this makes inconvenience at a ballgame irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.

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