State Representative Jack Hennessy is inviting all Bridgeport residents to speak on the Conflict of Interest House Bill #5886 that impacts Bridgeport and the state. The public hearing will take place Monday, March 9th at 5:30 p.m. in the first-floor meeting hall in the Bridgeport Public Library, 925 Broad Street, Downtown.
Hennessy urges everyone interested in this bill to come to the hearing and submit testimony. Signup sheets will be available. Speakers will be allowed three minutes of testimony.
For questions concerning the public hearing contact Mary-Jane Foster at foster.maryjane@gmail.com.
The Bridgeport City Charter approved by voters prohibits city employees from serving on the City Council. State law bars public employees from serving on municipal boards of finance. The Bridgeport City Council, however, serves as a board of finance. The bill proposed seeks to extend state law to prohibit municipal employees from serving on any government body that has budget authority.
The bill is before the General Assembly’s Planning and Development Committee. A near majority of Bridgeport’s state legislative delegation supports the bill that faces stiff opposition from segments of organized labor that supports bargaining unit employees approving their own wages and benefits.
The campaigns of many Democrats in the General Assembly are financed by organized labor.
Some Democrats with sturdy labor credentials such as Ed Gomes support the bill, acknowledging the inherent conflicts that prevents checks and balances in city government.
Connecticut Secretary of the State Denise Merrill Friday afternoon will administer the oath of office to Gomes who won Tuesday’s special election for State Senate.
Someone’s gotta be first … If the sole purpose of this meeting is to support HB 5886, I’d be wise to not attend.
The meeting sounds like a rally and not a debate. After all, it’s being hosted by the bill’s authors … sounds like a crossfire to me. I’d be standing in the line of fire, so, go ahead, make it fair, invite me.
In closing, if HB 5886 were a train, it would be lost on its own tracks.
It’s just like an NFL challenge. You need overwhelming evidence to overrule the referee’s call on the field, i.e. change the current law. That means the replay must show criminal acts committed by current CC members. None exist. Result: the crowd goes wild.
I think the meeting is about a concentration of interests and not a conflict of interests because 100% of the attendees will be fans of HB 5886.
Don’t be surprised to find me outside on the street squinting under the spotlight.
LE,
It appears you are having to dare to be first to post, and then first and second to respond/explain/tap dance or squint under the street light?
In fact the weight of conflicted interests on the part of City Council members who work directly for the City and yet at the same time are expected to provide evenhanded legislative decision making is so absolute, the structure and framework of governance has melted away during the Finch years. And what about the added several CC members who only have cousins or in-laws or spouses earning their daily bread from municipal funds (not even subject to this law) but certainly subject to an appearance of conflict, occasionally?
As to subject matter, can we look at Council stipends, payments taken by some of the CC members? No, the taxpayer cannot. FOI is the route, a long route. The CC does not raise the issue and uses an administrative process to deliver tax-free income without verifiable business purpose through a debit card advance system that is at odds with the existing Ordinance. Have one or more participants taken more than $9,000 in a given year in recent time? Illegal? Law or Ordinance says what? People behave in different manner with public money and look for IRS advantage?
Fifteen of 20 sitting Council persons appropriated taxpayer funds intended to be spent on Other Services (for the City or the Council) and request Purchasing to make out about $30,000 of checks to 55 local charitable causes before a primary and election in 2013. No recorded CC meeting, no agenda, and no minutes. Just the memory of CC President Tom McCarthy explaining the opportunity for aggrandizement at the expense of taxpayers. Illegal? Let the Sheriff decide.
Elimination of Internal Auditor on staff? Elimination of all assistance to City Council members? Failure of City to post important City meetings of certain Boards and Commissions on City website or make minutes with all exhibits available to public in a timely manner? Examples too numerous to record, but start with School Building Committee handling hundreds of millions. CC keeping fiscal reporting lengthy and convoluted so that they have to trust things are OK, just like citizens, but CC should be able to quickly and readily verify. Is absence of verification illegal?
The City Council is a necessary part of our governance per the Charter but an administratively weak Mayor has eviscerated the legislative body in terms of review, monitoring, and district representation. And current Council members have not spoken up or used the knowledge of better practices (learned on junkets and exploration into how New Haven or Hartford handle matters)to act as an independent, responsible steward of City affairs. Can that status quo be changed with a bill like 5886? Time will tell.
So far, two emails from Jack Hennessy about this, and a Facebook post. From my Senator Moore (who defeated Musto on this issue) nothing about this event; plenty about everything else she is doing, and nothing from Stafstrom (no big surprise here). With the complete lack of chatter about this, wondering if anyone else questions how much these elected officials really believe in and are working to pass this bill.
When the world began, cavemen started fighting over cliff dwellings, which lead to the original conflict of interest. In other countries, conflicts are decided by a dictator or a one-sided communist party. In America, we recognize them and stick ’em right into our system. Politics is the story of who gets what. That’s what legislators do.
Bonus: Greylight Campfire was great at Fire Engine Pizza in Black Rock as part of www .BlackRockRocks.com.
Yes, early man attempted for the most part to occupy the higher ground as it was easier to defend. Same is true of principles and values frequently.
Politics is the practical application of Who gets What, When, How and at What Expense. Legislators have an important role in that process unless they roll over pretty completely for a few coins or other consideration and abdicate their elected and expected role as community representatives.
With Martin Luther King holiday in January and this month, February, Black History Month, it is interesting to reflect on what much of the activity 50 years ago focused upon: VOTING RIGHTS and REGISTRATION. So that was accomplished for many but when people are registered is there any staying power reminding them why their vote is critical to the process? The power to vote someone in is one thing to consider, but if you know very little and assume you have very little at risk, perhaps you neglect your power as perhaps 80% of Bridgeport does routinely.
How about the power to vote someone out? When you know someone is not up to the task, is failing in honesty and communication, and also neglects to be a good steward of community resources, what about the power to remove someone peacefully from office? Time will tell.
An amendment should be proposed and added to HB 5886 that would prohibit elected officials of municipalities in Connecticut from serving in economic development policy/economic development origination positions in any Connecticut municipality (possibly even in bordering states).
As we all know, there is competition for development among Connecticut municipalities, e.g., Stamford vs. Bridgeport. Why do we have an elected official from Stamford serving as Bridgeport’s economic development director?
I suppose there’s no conflict of interest there! (I suspect this type of situation might even hurt us more than the situation of Bridgeport elected officials also serving as city employees.)
If we’re cleaning house and protecting our interests, let’s be thorough.
Also, each and every department director in Bridgeport should have to own and live in a home in Bridgeport during their entire tenure in their position as the chief executive of that department.
The Charter, backed up by state law should disallow elected officials from serving as municipal department heads in any Connecticut town, and should also require all municipal department heads live in the town in which they serve as a department head. The economic and quality-of-life interests of department heads should be one and the same as the towns in which they serve. That can’t happen if they don’t live and own property where they serve.
We have way too many high-paid carpetbaggers living off the taxpayers of Bridgeport even as they subvert our long-term interests.
Does anyone know the towns of residence of all of our department heads? I would like to see such a list–and I bet the rest of the OIB readership would probably also be interested.
Let’s push for an amendment to address this in 5886 and also push for appropriate Bridgeport Charter change in this regard.
In the meantime, “Better-every-day-la-la-la” David Kooris should be replaced and sent packing back to Stamford. He is worse than useless here. (Let him take his fuel-cell plants back to Stamford with him–and send Charter Communications up to Bridgeport.)