Place Your Bets: Finch’s UB Freakout Meter

Finch freakout
I'm not irrational!

Now that Mary-Jane Foster is exploring a mayoral run, what’s the over/under for the next time Mayor Bill Finch spews a meltdown about the University of Bridgeport?

I say before May, but if not May he’ll more than make up for it this summer if MJ, a UB executive, becomes a candidate. Why? Finch cannot help himself. Composure isn’t his strength. It’s easy to get under his skin. I’m hearing horror story after horror story of Finch’s freakouts from city employees. His obsession with UB, in particular, is just one of several oddities of this administration where mayoral staff tries to work around the chief executive to save himself from himself. How long can Bronco Billy stay on his horse? Yeeha!

Mayoral staff have managed to stick a rag in his mouth the past year since his criminal enterprise declaration and urging organizations not to do business with a university of more than 5000 students which employs hundreds and adds millions in economic impact. On several occasions I’ve visited the communications classroom of Professor Sue Katz to talk to students. They’re good kids, many of them local. Gee, how many of them could vote this year? Finch’s churlish disposition towards UB centers on a wacky preoccupation with an arm of the Unification Church that financed a rescue of the university 20 years ago. (It’s nothing I haven’t told him myself through the years.) UB has made an amazing comeback irrespective of Finch’s narcissism.

I can’t wait for the editorial board of the Connecticut Post to pose a question to hizzoner.

“Mayor, isn’t it best for a chief executive to put aside personal beliefs for the greater good of the city, especially for the economic vibrancy produced by a university?”

“That place should be closed down! They brainwash people?”

“What people?”

“Those people?”

“You mean you’d rather have boarded-up buildings, put hundreds of people out of work, close down top-flight engineering, chiropractic, dental hygiene, communications programs?”

“You don’t understand, these people are irrational!”

“Hmmm, irrational? Sounds familiar. What people?”

“Those people, those people? They control people, they use people, they dictate policy.”

“Oh, like the Democratic Town Committee?”

“Oh, well, gee … I’m the mayor, don’t you understand, I’m the mayor!!!

“Really? Why don’t you start acting like one?”

Weeeeeeeee!

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23 comments

    1. Joel, it’s only a caricature. I have no legal recourse. Those who dare to be noticed have to endure these types of things.

      Thanks for being my ad hoc PR rep.

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    2. That photograph is a poor image of me. Here’s why:

      I never wear purple ties, I have six fingers on my left hand and there’s no halo over my head.

      (wink)

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  1. Mojo I don’t think any mayor is entitled to biased opinions when they can affect the entire city and the city’s welfare. Finch is biased because he got fired from UB.

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    1. *** It’s sarcastic humor TC, don’t take things so seriously. Most Bpt residents like UB & many know about the Mayor’s personal vendetta towards the school in general. Maybe if MJ does run, Bpt’s purple knights will save the kingdom & place her @ the “head” of the round table! (wink) *** HERE WE GO! ***

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  2. The time has come to put all of our tired over-elected politicians out to pasture. It’s time for Finch & Fabrizi to ride off into the sunset. It’s time for Ganim to stay in Easton.
    Let’s have a battle of ideas between John Gomes and Mary-Jane Foster. Let’s have 2 new slates of candidates for the common council and retire this bunch of lemmings that now occupy these offices.
    Last week the DTC of which I am a member although not for much longer voted to endorse Mr. Stallworth for Caruso’s State Rep seat. Why did my district vote to endorse this person? They did so because the people from my district except for Ann Barney & I were called by the mayor and told to vote this way. Why did they all vote this way for a person no one knew? They did so because they are all city employees or their wives work for the city. They all wanted to continue as city employees thus the selling of the seat. Did it benefit the city? NO. Did it benefit the district? NO. Who did it benefit? Well Finch thinks he got a step up with the black ministers by pushing for the Rev Stallworth. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t I don’t know.
    I am positive it’s time to get rid of all these elected officials and replace them with new people with new ideas. The old tired ideas that are marched out every election cycle just don’t work.

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    1. Hmmm … this reminded me of the brawl the Senator had at a UConn bar. I searched for the article … can’t find it on any searches online??? How do you remove something like that? The machine??? No …

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  3. TC, word is out all over city hall that Foster and Gomes are a team. Pics were taken together at a fundraiser. That team will be IMPOSSIBLE to beat. Gomes got the city experience and Foster has the legal experience. Happy days WILL be here again.

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  4. Gee Lennie, your exercise examining the mayor’s personality has left me palpably puzzled and pensive. Or perhaps pensive and puzzled.

    Is this a kind of a horoscope, or horrorscope for the poor mayor?

    The mayor will blow up by May 1. Or not. Why May 1? Is there an astrological significance? The opening day of fishing season?

    I can picture the poor mayor now, face careworn and creased from the burdens of leadership, escaping the noise and irritations of the Big City for the pastoral Pequonnock River, bubbling joyfully through Beardsley Park before debouching into placid Bunnell Pond. There, the tall, erect and steel-haired environmentalist mayor plots his fly-casting for the rare Pirelli Radial, an elusive bottom-feeder with renowned firm flesh of distinctive taste. The mayor pursues his quarry oblivious to the traffic roaring past Be-Po on its way to Trumbull and the Valley on the Col. Henry Mucci Memorial Highway, that ribbon of concrete that fillets the center of the city.

    A ripple in the water unheard above the highway din of wailing tires presents an inviting target for the mayor’s suggestive fly and hook. The mayor makes a mighty cast, hooking the grill of a Daewoo tractor on the Col. Henry Mucci Memorial Highway, jackknifing the tractor and trailer, causing a 12-vehicle wreck, and destroying the mayor’s pensive reflections on the possible physical elimination of an alderman from the 132nd District.

    Looking over at the wreckage the mayor eyes the Daewoo: It’s South Korean! Moonies! UB! Mary-Jane Foster! The moment of retribution has come! The Cabela-clad mayor marches into his office shouldering the remains of his fishing rod and tackle, calling staff behind him.

    The date: April 1. There is no fishing season for Pirelli Radials. Finch can go fishing anytime.

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    1. *** For me it would take someone like Shays who has experience in government, knows Bpt and is not afraid to work bipartisan with others. Maybe it’s time, no? *** Time will tell ***

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    2. Most importantly, the BPT GOP needs a leader who motivates members; spends lots of time growing and promoting the party; pushes equally for all candidates regardless of race, district, or personal opinions. Be vocal and active–dealing first with those in their own party. Do a heck of a lot better in agreeing to disagree. The Dems eat their own, but at the end of the day, they win.

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  5. This Foster/Gomes marriage is made in heaven for us little people/taxpayers/voters. No ties to the machine, Gomes fluent in many languages and inside experience and small business experience and BOE experience. Mary-Jane with her sterling reputation.

    YES!!!

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  6. Local Eyes … I understand many are not happy with the recent policies of the Republican party. On the other hand, there has not been any policy making by a Republican in Bridgeport in years. I think the Republican message to the City of Bridgeport should be pretty simple; Has the economic state of the city gotten better or worse over the past 20 years? Has the school system served the students of Bridgeport as best as it could over the past 20 years? And have the streets gotten safer or more violent over the past 20 years? The answer to all 3 questions is simply NO. With that being the factual case, why do the people in Bridgeport continue to vote for the same failed leadership year in and year out? I would like to see the voters of this city vote for an alternative to what the Democrats have been producing in recent history. But as you said, it would take very clever marketing.
    Republicans should take a proactive approach to rebranding and not just marketing their “party,” they should market themselves as the answer to fixing the problems of the City of Bridgeport. They need to be the crime fighters who will keep our streets safe, they need to be the motivators who will expect more dedication and production from our students and they should be the developers who put Bridgeport “Back in Business” … Just my thoughts …

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    1. I have an idea–if your vision and policy agenda is truly unrelated to the national GOP goals, why not just dump the baggage and call yourself something else?

      We’ve already seen that a from-out-of-nowhere party like Working Families can swoop in and win minority party seats just on the strength of being called something different than “Republican.”

      Jumping ship would mean your people wouldn’t get to go to GOP conventions and the like–but if you don’t want to be associated with GOP failure, intolerance, and incompetence at the broader level, then that seems like the price of admission.

      Put another way (as a question), now that we have identified the cost of being associated with the national GOP (inability to win any elections in cities like Bridgeport), what benefit do local Republicans derive from being *called* Republicans?

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      1. There isn’t an actual benefit from being called a Republican. I don’t think there is a benefit from being called a Democrat either. It should always boil down to doing the very best job possible in order to represent a given constituency. I don’t necessarily agree everything either national party has done is a failure or a success. Democrats are very good at saying Republicans are “intolerant” if they don’t agree with what the other side is saying. But getting back to Bridgeport Connecticut, the Republicans simply can not be at fault for the failures and shortcomings of this city. They have had 2 city council seats since the early 1990s and the last Republican mayor was during the mid 1980s.

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