From government watchdog Jonathan Pelto:
On Tuesday, thanks to Mayor Bill Finch and his team of advisers and associates, the voters of Bridgeport will be asked to give up their democratic rights to choose the members of Bridgeport’s Board of Education. Instead, the Mayor will take over that task.
A coalition of “education reformers” and corporate executives in Fairfield Country are spending a record amount of money to convince Bridgeport voters that it is in their interest to VOTE YES on Question 1, although they go out of their way to make sure that voters don’t understand that a YES vote on Question #1 actually means the people give up their right to select who should oversee Bridgeport’s schools.
Read more here.
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The hospitals pay no taxes here and should stay out of politics. If the hospitals want to play politics maybe they should start paying taxes here.
*** All non-profits should pay a tax percentage according to their annual incoming revenue if any; with the State and Federal government also contributing a percentage to the hosting town or city. The rest is picked up by the host with limitations on how many new and old non-profits are allowed on a yearly basis, etc. *** PAY YOUR FAIR SHARE! ***
What letter was sent to members of the BRBC and/or other potential donors to the YES campaign? Or was it a phone call? I think each of the executives who made the decision to send a check ought to be asked, don’t you? I wonder how many of them sought Board approval for the action? These organizations are the infrastructure and the donors are theoretically people of broad knowledge of the community. We reference hospitals, utilities, and the wealthy who can dash off checks for $2500 to $15,000 without putting a crimp in their budgets.
So what was the call and the logic in the message? If Aquarion, UI, and the hospitals began a citizen education movement with their monthly mailings and public service budgets, might voter attention and comprehension of issues improve? I think the resources are there to do that. Why did they not think of that? Did they remember David Carson had weighed in on the issue? What did they think of his statement? Is Mayor Bill Finch more credible on political philosophy (“Democracy doesn’t always work!”) than Carson (“let’s keep the ‘public’ in ‘public education'”)? Hope anyone who can will consult OIB and Pelto info on donors and make some inquiries. I do not have Mayor Bloomberg’s phone number so I won’t be calling him. But a City of 8 million is different from a city of 145,000. New Haven and Hartford are showing similar results to Bridgeport on the whole, and therefore Mayoral appointment is not the SILVER BULLET that produces “educational governance reform.” Keep an eye on the Vallas five-year plan. Track the results or metrics. Make sure they are discussed and posted and monitored. We may discover, as many have suspected, the Charter question is merely an opportunity for ALL of the EDUCATIONAL FUNDS to be handled by CITY HALL in that special way that results in ghost positions, phony expenses, reports not prepared, City financial info not fully available electronically and no public discussion encouraged. Checks and balance and internal controls are disabled or on their respective death beds. Chaos, corruption and opportunism often follow in these footsteps. Time will tell.