Okay OIB friends, what’s in your crystal ball for 2012? Are we really living in Zombie Land, as ex-City Councilman big Mojo Ralph Mojica suggests? Or as Mojo calls it, Year of the Rubber Stamp? Or is the state’s largest city poised for better times? Let’s hope so.
We’re ending a year of hurricanes, a border shift with Trumbull for a new regional magnet high school, continued progress at Phil Kuchma’s Bijou Square development downtown, dissolution of an elected Board of Education, a Democratic mayoral primary that required court intervention and reelection of Bill Finch to a new four-year term. As we segue into 2012 will the City Council approve controversial pay raises for 80 city positions? A Charter Revision Commission will look to reform the rulebook with an anticipated emphasis on education. Will voters be asked in November to approve an appointed BOE? Will the Connecticut Supreme Court reverse the BOE’s decision to dissolve itself as an elected body? Will new school super and education reformer Paul Vallas powerwash the school system? What will come of the law enforcement investigation impacting the city’s construction management program? Will the Steel Point redevelopment area make serious progress?
On the political front for 2012 we have a bonanza of races including potential Bridgeport Democratic Town Committee primaries in March, followed by state legislative races and a contest to fill Joe Lieberman’s U.S. Senate seat. Is Barack a lock for another four years? He’ll be on the ballot in November. When Barack shows up in the city or on the ballot incredible things happen.
My prediction: Governor Dannel Malloy steps up the effort to do good for the state’s largest city. How do I know? I don’t. It’s smart politics from a governor who understands cities. He won’t forget the city that helped his election as he gears up for his own reelection in 2014. Will he be as kind as Lowell Weicker? Probably not. But Dannel will do far more than John Rowland and Jodi Rell.
What say you for 2012?
SEEC rules against Finch and Friends PAC and forwards complaint to State Attorney’s office for criminal action. IRS slaps a lien-to on all participants. Supremes rule against Finch and friends on BOE issue by a vote of 7-0. Timpanelli finally sings his swan song, “Time to Say Goodbye!” and DSSD guy, Moore or less, takes over BRBC. Steal Point remains a steal for developers. Tain’t George and Simon says “Konover” says so long to Seaview Plaza project. Bridgeport-Port Jefferson Ferry moves across the harbor spurring development down Seaview Avenue to Pleasure Beach. Seaview Avenue Corridor Project continues to be a sewer pipe dream. Sal DiNardo pulls a train on city on Remington Arms.
Expansion of slot compact ends up being a “Shore” thing!
Here is what I see happening in 2012:
1. Finch drops a heavy tax increase on taxpayers.
2. Council again folds up like an accordion and passes pay raises for the greedy bastards in city hall.
3. Adam Wood loses influence with Finch.
4. Andy Nunn moves up in the pecking order.
5. Mark Anastasi keeps making up shit as he goes along.
6. Bob Curwen gets construction manager’s job “finally”
7. Tom McCarthy will tell us why his raise and the other raises are necessary.
8. Obama picks Hillary Clinton for a running mate.
9. Obama is a one-term president.
10. Local Eyes gets a clue “finally”
11. Steel point goes nowhere.
12. The Ferries for pleasure beach still are not here.
13. Politically connected people get arrested.
Happy New Year to all.
Is the money shown in the photo equal to the raises for the greedy bastards hired by Finch?
July 30, 1965 will be recognized as the date baby boomers started subsidizing their parents. This is the day America started paying people to not work and providing a health benefit nobody earned. It was all paid for by printing money. The Vietnam War will be retold in a way that encourages protest and makes today’s headlines understandable. This date will serve as a touchstone for those dissatisfied with America’s trajectory. The Federal Reserve–celebrating its 99th anniversary–will be seen as the culprit that aided the 1% while punishing the other 99%. Bridgeport CT will make an ideal backdrop when history collides with reality.
*** As in the movie “Groundhog Day,” history will repeat itself over and over again in “ZOMBIELAND!” *** HOPE FOR THE BEST BUT PREPARE FOR THE WORST ***
What awaits Bridgeport in 2012:
Thanks to increased usage and notoriety, a few longshoremen will be hired for the harbor, putting the port back into BridgePORT. Progress is underway in Bridgeport CT USA. Get used to it.
A final word for 2011:
For tc: I think you forgot #14 … 2012 is (1) the year of Mexico (a slowly failing state like Afghanistan, except that it’s next door, not 10,000+ miles away) and (2) the War on Drugs, and (3) your shipmate may have a prayer for US Senate for CT. Just maybe. Side note … Chinese Year of the Dragon … for whatever it’s worth … For Filipinos, it’s the year of Sylvester!
For Lennie: great photo of what $200 million in American $100 bills looks like … another way of picturing it, is this:
Picture the 12 largest cities in CT from Bridgeport, to New Haven, Hartford, Waterbury, and all the way to Torrington and Norwich … that 1% of their combined population is about 10,500 what could be considered the statistical estimate of how many heroin addicts there could be, but let’s say, to be “conservative,” let’s cut that by half at 5,250 … so with about 5,250 heroin addicts floating around CT each year … who spend about $100 a day … that’s about $520,000 a day, or about $3.6 million per week, or about $14.6 million per month or about $175 million per year that leaves the great state of CT each year in $100 dollar bills each year … and goes to a room, as pictured above, somewhere in Mexico or Colombia or Afghanistan … No taxes paid, and all the related police, hospital cost, jail warehousing, neighborhood mayhem and pain and suffering expenses are shouldered and paid by the CT taxpayer … yet one final look at all website pages of every US senate candidate for CT, Democratic or Republican, before the end of 2011 … not a peep on the War on Drugs. Happy New Year!
It’s guys like Sylvester L. Salcedo who give Affirmative Action a bad reputation. He’s never paid taxes; taxes have always paid him; and when that’s not enough, borrowed funds have paid his bills. Now he wants to badmouth the same institution that paid his salary, put him through law school and will provide him with a government-supplied pension. I wonder if he’s ever spent a moment in the private sector of the American economy. He doesn’t have to answer to me. However if he doesn’t abandon his quest for Senator, somebody might make him a national poster boy for an unpopular current trend simmering below the surface. Whoever said there’s no such thing as bad publicity never tried to run for the Senate while misleading his country!