On Labor Day weekend, Democratic mayoral candidate Mary-Jane Foster has released her ideas to grow the labor force.
“I have a proven record creating jobs for Bridgeport residents,” she states in a news release. “Through my work at the Bridgeport Bluefish, I created two-hundred jobs, ninety-percent of which went to Bridgeport residents. Through my experience working in higher education, I understand the struggles many students face seeking employment after school. We have suffered too long as a city to leave our future in the hands of a corrupt or incompetent administration. We don’t need any more career-politicians. We need a leader who knows how to create jobs, and do it with integrity. Here is my comprehensive plan to retain and attract businesses while creating jobs for residents in our great city:
● I will implement meaningful hiring commitments for Bridgeport residents as part of any development deals going forward with living wage requirements.
● I will give EMTs, firefighters, police officers, and teachers property tax credits if they reside in our city.
● I will bring our community together and that starts by giving those who provide us with services an incentive to live here.
● I will bring vocational training for high school-aged youth with paid apprenticeship programs, counseling and placement.
● I will expand opportunities for young people to enter a community service program with stipends to aid the elderly and help rebuild our community.
● I will organize job fairs for Bridgeport residents to help those older workers seeking employment.
● I will continue to partner with and support re-entry jobs programs such as Project Longevity to ensure a financially stable second-chance for our former offenders and necessary job training.
● I will work to limit the exploitation of immigrant workers and protect their rights.
● I will bring the business community together to develop a jobs initiative that will focus on building our city’s strengths in culture and recreation.
● I will hire a Director of Economic Development with proven experience in redeveloping urban areas.
● I will meet with every developer currently in the city to discuss how the city can best address their needs.
● I will immediately commence the planning and execution of an innovation district in every area of the city.
● I will reclaim and repurpose existing buildings and create entrepreneurial startup opportunities. Bridgeport will once again become the city of innovation and opportunity.
● I will work with the developers of Steelpointe Harbor to bring water-related uses and attractions to the project. The remaining peninsula should include marinas, restaurants, offices, and housing.
● I will work aggressively to retain and recruit new businesses in Bridgeport.
This is what a proven business leader says to stimulate jobs and business opportunities for Bridgeport and its residents. Haven’t we had enough of career politicians who look out for special interests rather than the people and community that elected them to serve?
This what Bridgeport needs and deserves, honesty and vision, someone who truly cares.
Okay, someone is actually looking after the interests of the people of the city of Bridgeport. Bill Finch hasn’t been doing that. At a forum focused on education that includes vocational training and secondary opportunities, all Hizzoner could do was boast about building a water park and a few playgrounds. Pardon my frankness but so what? Big fucking deal. Many of the city’s parks are overrun with drug dealers, street whores, alcoholics and homeless people. Great places to nurture young people in the ways of the world.
Humanity is the city’s most precious resource and the Finch administration is content to squander it because of its class-conscious policies. The political dysfunction of the BOE has crippled the school district rendering it unable to meet the needs of the majority of its students, unable to provide the education necessary to realize their potential. Is it really a wonder so many parents are opting for charter schools? Is it a surprise parents who have the financial means are enrolling their children into private schools?
Virtually all the news media’s coverage of the mayoral election and Democratic primary has focused on Joe Ganim vs. Bill Finch. Neither man is fit for the job. The former is a convicted criminal, a felon who violated the public trust for cash, expensive French wine, custom-tailored clothing, meals in four-star restaurants and all-expenses-paid trips to Manhattan that included high-priced hotels, massages and room service. His greed and avarice cost Bridgeport in unrealized potential.
Bill Finch is a dumb ass, plain and simple; a man who is singularly incapable of holding a job in the private sector. Does anyone honestly believe he is capable of running the city’s affairs? He can’t manage his own. Both he and Joe “mistakes were made” Ganim have been preaching to their respective choirs, saying everything the tenor section wants to hear. It’s all feel-good stuff, a cynical ploy to appeal to the cheap seats. You may choose the lesser of the two evils but the choice would still be evil.
There are five other candidates to choose from in November, five beside the two clowns noted above. The Democratic primary is not going to decide the election, not this year. David Daniels, Chris Taylor, Charles Coviello and Howard Gardner are all honorable and decent men who all share one characteristic: not a one of them has the right stuff to take control of the city’s affairs and turn Bridgeport around. Of the remaining candidates only Mary-Jane Foster and Rick Torres have the vision, the skills and the altruism to turn Bridgeport into a great city, make our town greater than the sum of its parts.
Finch did build Agua and the first responder school at Fairchild.
This is what a business leader who has proven her ability to run a franchise into bankruptcy daydreams she can do. She created two-hundred jobs, ninety-percent of which went to Bridgeport residents? She must mean slinging burgers and ice cream or selling beer at the ballpark a few times a month. Not to mention the city paid to build the stadium and bailed it out. Don, are those the jobs you are looking for to make a few extra retirement bucks? Read her wish list and consider a few of these problems: If she reclaims and repurposes existing buildings, won’t that be the city foreclosing on properties? Taking more property off the tax rolls and sticking the city with the cleanup costs. Finch is already working with the developers of Steel Point to bring water-related uses and attractions. The department of labor already works to limit the exploitation of immigrant workers and protect their rights. She can’t bring vocational training to BOE schools. The BOE just closed all those programs opting for college readiness and the mayor is not in charge of the schools. Bridgeport has multiple job fairs every year.
All the items she lists are already being done, would be detrimental to the city’s already stressed tax system or not financially doable. This list makes MJF sound a little clueless.
You sound like you’re brewing the Finch Kool-Aid. I guess you love your taxes going up every year under his “stellar” administration.
I really love a guy who assaults members of the City Council, who can’t hold a job in the private sector, who tried to take away our right to vote for the BOE, and a Mayor who withholds crime statistics during an election year. Great guy!
SMH
OK, but what does that have to do with job creation? The post is about how to create jobs. Not who is the greatest person.
You mean Finch’s job creation for non-Bridgeport residents?
Tell us what items she has talked about that are already done, which ones would be detrimental to our tax base. Who are you to say vocational training can’t be brought back and paid for by an outside source? I will give you and the other dumbasses an example. Caterpillar takes high school student into their apprentice programs. The kids learn a skill and are paid a salary all while attending high school. Cost to that town, zero; even transportation is paid for. You people can’t face the programs put forth by MJF because neither Finch nor Ganim have ever done anything to help our youths get ahead.
The Caterpillar program you are talking about is called tech school. BPT has one of those. Also, why would Cat do this for free in BPT? Caterpillar offers this type of training and you have to pay for it. The training is offered at the college level with a matching cost.
www .caterpillar.com/en/careers/career-areas/dealer-technician/education.html
Do you have any more examples?
You know, you really are dumber than dirt. I never said Caterpillar would come here. I used that as an example of what can be done here. Caterpillar is not running a trade school but it is having high school students learning a trade and they are getting paid. The student pays nothing.
BOE SPY–you commit slander when you say Foster has “proven her ability to run a franchise into bankruptcy.” Suggestion: whoever does your research, fire him or her. Under Foster’s pioneering leadership as co-founder and early CEO, the Bluefish recorded a higher average paid attendance per game than any other subsequent managing partner. Further, during her total four years running the ballclub, not once did the Bluefish seek lease relief from the City. Is your source on this the same as the author of yesterday’s mailer that he’s been “holding the line on taxes while adding millions to the tax rolls?” If so, he’s offering up yet another example of just how difficult it is for him to tell the truth.
BOE SPY–who’s your source on the wild-eyed claim “Foster ran the Bluefish into bankruptcy”? Not even close to the truth. Might your source be the same author of a mailer rec’d two days ago that he’d “held the line on taxes”? Do you know anything about the law of libel and slander? Better brush up.
How many private-sector jobs did Bill Finch and Joe Ganim create before they became mayor?
Ron, how many did Mary-Jane create sans husband?
???
200 at the ball park.
Okay, what I meant was on her own without husband, a solas, alone in her own business. By the way, what business was that?
Hector, come on man, get real. Let’s try this again. How many private-sector jobs did Bill Finch and his wife create and how many private-sector jobs did Joe Ganim and his wife create before they were the mayor of Bridgeport?
RON, I DON’T KNOW? NOW, MY question “aside from businesses involving her spouse, first were there any? How many people did she hire? An estimate would be fine.
She has been married to Jack for a long time so to make you and other nitpickers happy, let’s say 100 jobs each.
I’d also allow those police officers living within the City to take home their cruisers.
And that’s why you aren’t running for mayor
Frank, you have any idea what “cabana boy” means to me?
No; however, I do know electing a felon-mayor will stifle our funding from Hartford.
Here is nothing new here. I have to agree with BOE SPY, 200 jobs were not minimum-wage jobs flipping burgers and cleaning bathrooms and beer bottles out of the stands. Donald Day and Ron Mackey, these are the living-wage jobs you are fighting for? Without the city of Bridgeport infusing funds, the Bluefish stadium would have gone under sooner. As much as we try to promote the stadium, it remains mostly empty. Of course, the downtown revitalization under Finch will remedy that.
How many times will we regurgitate the incentive plan for cops, firemen and teachers? Why should they get tax breaks to live here? Let them live where they want but give Bridgeport taxpayers priority for these jobs. I guess a new train station and relocation of the Ferry including eight major projects on Steelpointe is just a laughable little forgettable project? Job fairs? For what? Older employees can go to Workforce downtown, Carbone is government-subsidized for job seekers over 50. I think their success rate is only in the people they hire. The city already has innovation centers running successfully and Black Rock, the North End and Brooklawn can do without it. Mayor Finch’s Economic Development Director has successfully launched Steelpointe, a West End project for 336 units of housing, Charter school, and grocery store, 224 units of housing proposed for the waterfront at UB, a new Train Station to revitalize the East End, changing the Lafayette circle grid to stimulate downtown development, and finally the city attracts the little retailer franchises like Taco Bell, Starbucks and Popeyes. A new grocery store Farmers Market Food Bazaar by Treeland, I think David Kooris has proved himself to be professional and knowledgeable as well as supportive to ideas for growth. I think he shares the Mayor’s vision for the future of our city, which is grandiose and inclusive for all neighborhoods. He understands the importance of parks and green areas for stimulating economic development, he shares the mayor’s vision of creating a waterfront master plan which includes the gorgeous Knowlton Park and the derelict buildings across the Pequonock that would make awesome housing on the water. I think David Kooris has proven himself equal to or better than any economic development director this city has had in decades.
I would have liked to have heard Mary-Jane’s vision for development that her director will follow.
What is it she will work with Steelpointe that is not already in the works, residential, retail, office and marinas or are you just saying you will continue with the mayor’s vision even though your staunch supporters cry every day about how pathetic it is?
I suppose it is a step better than the Joe Ganim plan for sidewalks as his cornerstone for development, but then again you supported that and yet it is not in your plan.
The problem is there is not one item on this list that has not been tried or implemented.
I was hoping for something a little more substantial including specifics for the remaining GE parcel that will be part of the new Harding High or Obama High or Harriet Tubman High School. That is a huge parcel of land. You could have shared your vision for the 450 acres lining the entire East Side known as Remington Woods. These two parcels are the City of Bridgeport’s largest areas of contiguous acreage for development, perfect for Research and Development Parks and market-rate highrise housing as well as your plan for the Seaview Avenue corridor.
These are the projects that will bring in the money, business and economic growth that will eventually alleviate the burden of the taxpayer. We know none of the projects will move forward with Ganim as he has no relationship with Hartford and Washington as well as any developer who would want to invest in a city with corrupt leadership.
Mary-Jane Foster, you know the city and it is sad you have not identified one project that you the visionary would like to see. The list is redundant and generic. I think you are a fine candidate but this list was a little too Mickey Mouse for me and I think for most people who have eyes to see and ears to hear.
I will say again, it sure beats a fence, sidewalks and substations but misses the mark on most important issues across the city and neighborhoods. I think the NRZs have done a tremendous job as well as David Kooris. If there were a conflict of interest, you sure would never know it!
Steve–who’s your source regarding “the Bluefish would have gone under sooner?” If it’s a researcher, fire him or her. First, the Bluefish have never gone under. Second, Bluefish average paid attendance per game under Foster was higher than has been the case with subsequent managing partners. And third, the Bluefish under Foster never once sought, or received, lease relief from the City.
Hey Steve, how many of those construction workers are Bridgeport residents at your beloved Steelpointe?
One–and that guy makes more than the combined salaries of all the burger boys at the ballpark.
I will say this Steve, you and that other Finch Piss Boy BOE SPY should get a room together. Your ideas are bullshit and pie in the sky. Remington Woods on the Bridgeport side is still undergoing remediation. What kind of jobs do you expect to be at a ball field? Brain Surgeon, non-credentialed teaching, just what kind of jobs do you two idiots expect? BOE SPY, there was no bankruptcy of the Bluefish while owned by MJF and her husband. Slander can get you in trouble, dumb ass.
So the ballfield jobs are not as good as the Steel Point jobs Finch created?
Steve, Finch and the economic developer had nothing to do with that market coming here to the 138th.
Omg–scratch that mega project, who did? I love their other store for fish, bread and desserts!
Steve–please share with us, instead of your relentless verbiage as Finch’s cheerleader, just how much has the City’s tax base grown in his eight years. His mailer of yesterday, after lying about “holding the line on taxes,” went on to claim he’s “added millions to the tax rolls.” Really? And yet you repeatedly ask us to believe him!
Come Back Bridgeport, I need not do anything else but be Finch’s cheerleader. I love Mary-Jane Foster and I like Joe Ganim. My goal is to get Bill Finch reelected. Every development proposal is fact. Your candidate had an opportunity to be bold with her initiatives. If her goal is to support all of Mayor Finch’s projects, then why change? Because we deserve better? Better what? New schools? New parks? New roads? New train station? New housing? New hotel? New destination retailers? Green technology? New hydroplanes to New York? Look, Foster’s advisers and strategists have guided her down the wrong path. Although I appreciate Foster thinks Finch is incompetent, I am happy and pleased Mayor Finch and Mayor Ganim have at least been gentlemen enough to leave personal assaults of Mary-Jane on the table. Mary-Jane is an asset to the community and I am sure many appreciate her activism. She was an actress, a short-lived career as an attorney and VP of UB student relations. Was the competition tough for that job? Many applicants? How many companies give an individual months off to run for Mayor in a four-year timeframe? If my list of Finch and Kooris accomplishments seem silly let’s see Foster’s agenda with Moore, Walsh and Gomes as her advisers. Honest to G-d I realize we are two weeks to an election and we are all supporting our candidates. But if you cannot acknowledge the many accomplishments of this administration then you have no right running for office!
I am not asking you to believe him, Ganim or Foster. I am asking you to vote for the future of the city and economic prosperity. I am asking you to vote for Mayor Finch since you can offer no reason to vote for anyone else.
I am listening, go!
Steve–relentless cheerleading, but no response to my very direct challenge to you to defend Finch’s recent mailer statement he’s “holding the line on taxes and adding millions to the tax rolls.” OIB do we seem to have elected CEOs without much regard for the truth.
Come Back Bridgeport, I am not running for mayor. Okay, not that anyone voting for Mmyor is interested in the Bluefish stadium any more today than they were four years ago. Please break down the jobs and salaries.
I gave you so many reasons to vote for Bill Finch. I identified specific projects. Do not look for a reason not to vote for him when there are so many reasons we must.
We can discuss over dinner, I prefer my lobsters boiled. If you win it will be my pleasure.
The reasons you give us to vote for Finch are straight from that little gnome who manages his campaign and basically they are bullshit.
Andy, seriously, I take full responsibility for the content of my posts. I wish the Finch campaign would brag about his accomplishments the way I do. I do not think these accomplishments are bullshit and I know you do not either.
And from whence will the jobs come, Mary-Jane? What companies did you say were coming here? What jobs? How many?
Not much of a plan here. Sounds like idle musings of someone thinking about running for office in Bridgeport someday.
Sorry, but we need to hear a lot more than that to pique our interest. And Bridgeport is running out of somedays.
Jeff, Ganim has a plan that’s better?
The only jobs plan Ganim had and cares about is him getting his old job as mayor back. Then maybe he will be ready to truthfully testify about getting his law license back.
Jeff, what is Ganim’s job creation plan? I must have missed it.
Steve–you’re really looking for reasons to vote for anyone other than Finch? How about honesty, success in the private sector, the energy, intelligence, and respect sufficient to grow the tax base. And not a failure in public office or in the private sector. A winner, not a loser. More than enough for me.
Come Back Bridgeport. Let’s be honest. You need to take the success in the private sector off the table. What experience does Mary-Jane have working in government? Has she ever been elected to the council? The Senate? Mayor? Does she have a working relationship with the Governor or the President? Her ties to Moore and Gomes are solid and neither are known for major economic projects in the city. Even I know politics makes strange bedfellows. Mayor Finch has the contacts to bring prosperity back to Bridgeport. Ganim has the ability to Bring Bridgeport back to the Dark Ages and Mary-Jane Foster is a wonderful person who should have waited at least four more years. I have been singing that song tirelessly since before she announced.
Finch has zero experience. He got his degree in agricultural economics. Last I checked he supported a marijuana farm in Bridgeport in 2012. That still doesn’t explain how he can’t balance a budget and has raised our property taxes upwards of 40%.
Finch will only “hold the line on taxes” in an election year. The people of Bridgeport aren’t falling for these games anymore.
Run Joe, run–back to Easton, and drop Bill off in Trumbull.
I did not know Finch supported a marijuana farm. So again, he is ahead of the curve. Marijuana will be legal here in a few short years and Colorado is making millions!!!
Since you’re in cheerleading mode, please tell me how Finch plans on growing the tax base?
You realize Finch will lie 24/7 just to hold on to the best job he’s EVER had. Still waiting on my $600 tax rebate from ’07.
Frank the Cabana Boy and Come Back Bridgeport, I know you guys are passionate and feeling desperate in this last week. You are not voting for Mayor Finch. It would be a waste of my time and cheerleading efforts to regurgitate everything I have said about economic development.I have been posting this for years and all you do is criticize the mayor. You cannot convince anyone to vote for your candidate so you attempt to stifle my cheerleading. My optimism is priceless and your vain attempts to have me switch by picking one negative out of many positives. I have tried to be respectful to Foster in light of all the negative posts I have gotten for supporting Finch. I will support the man you call incompetent and you can support the woman who created 200 jobs at the Bluefish stadium. How many of those construction jobs are from Bridgeport? I don’t know. How many Bridgeporters work in Stamford and New York, Hartford and New Haven? Your arguments are sophomoric. The future of our city is in the hands of Bill Finch and obviously his supporters who remain optimistic.
Wait, so how will he grow the tax base?
What is MJF’s degree in? She has a Associate’s Degree from Bennett College and a BS from Charter Oak State College, but what are those degrees in?
BOE SPY,
Mary-Jane Foster has a law degree from Quinnipiac if I am not mistaken. She is definitely a qualified candidate.
.
She also has a law degree, dumbass.
Yeah, so did Joe.
The fact is any job plan must begin with a balanced budget, shrink the size of government, reduce taxes and limit job-crushing regulations. The only candidate who is pushing those is Rick Torres.
He will make a fine candidate.
Steve–any chance you’ll get around to defending your boy Finch’s recent statement about taxes and tax rolls? I didn’t think so. OIB.
Come Back Bridgeport, I will not but I suggest you take that show on the road. You have only one week to make your case. I understand Finch votes are solid, you may want to go after that other candidate. 🙂
Steve–does that mean you cannot defend the latest Finch lie? I didn’t think so.
Come Back Bridgeport, honestly, can you find a better argument? The problem is not Finch’s mailer in a political campaign. The problem is your campaign has failed to go after Ganim and now you get what you deserve.
Steve, why can’t you defend the mayor’s record on taxes? It is a simple question. Just answer it and stop dancing around the issue.
.
Bridgeport Kid, I am not a spokeperson for the Finch campaign. It is not my place to answer questions specific to the Finch campaign. Like you, I only give my time, my free time to address anything I find interesting. I appreciate everyone is asking me questions, I have invited you to walk with me, Kid. You can hear first hand how I address any questions the voter may have. Like Ron Mackey, you refused to take me up on my offer. When I run for Mayor, I will be happy and feel obligated to engage in a conversation that serves your purpose more than mine. Until then, like you, I will discuss every and any topic that serves my purpose and in this case to get Mayor Finch elected as that is my primary goal. And it’s looking real good!
www .ctpost.com/news/article/Bridgeport-grand-list-tops-7-billion-4329152.php
$7 billion list of taxable property up 0.9%. 0.9% 0f 7 billion is 63 million. March 6, 2013
Mil rate history
mil rate current fiscal year 2014-2015: 42.198
mil rate fiscal year 2013-2014: 41.855
mil rate fiscal year 2012-2013: 41.11
mil rate fiscal year 2011-2012: 39.64
mil rate fiscal year 2010-2011: 39.64
mil rate fiscal year 2009-2010: 38.73
mil rate fiscal year 2008-2009: 44.58
mil rate fiscal year 2007-2008: 41.28
mil rate fiscal year 2006-2007: 42.28
mil rate fiscal year 2005-2006: 40.32
There you go, confusing us with facts again! The question I ask, did the taxable property increase because home values were so very high the last reval or was real value added by new business and construction? If home values increased across the board 10%, then the increase in taxable property was appraised value only–or am I missing something?
That is a good question. That would be difficult to determine. I could not find a grand list history in non re-val years.
Steve and Quentin: Yes, you both must have missed it. It is complete, detailed, and much better than anything presented for Bridgeport voters’ consumption in decades. Keep your eyes and ears open, I’m sure you’ll hear much more about it in the coming days.
Jeff, you will not be able to convince one new voter with a sidewalk platform. Everyone knows economic development and Joe Ganim do not mix.
If it’s coming out in the coming days, how did we miss it?
Joe Ganim intentionally missed the debate in the South End and spent the evening shaking hands at Stop & Shop. The buzz in the community he was banking on is not very complimentary. Joe Ganim and economic development do not mix. Any plan is just a delusion. If Ganim wins, Bridgeport loses. That’s a huge price to pay.
Quentin–you and Steve would seem to be the ones who are the most in the dark about this one, so we’ll assume “we” means you and Steve. But in any event, the Ganim economic development plan has been out there for some weeks. You have to learn to pay attention to what the candidates are saying. It’s OK to be critical of candidates, but at least do so with some awareness of their platforms.
Steve: “Any plan is delusion.” That would explain the rationale for the Finch Administration’s failure to create and execute any sort of economic development plan. But keep in mind “Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.”
Jeff, could you possibly be that blind?
Frank the Cabana Boy: You were being facetious about the “stifle our funding from Hartford” comment, weren’t you?! Good Lord; who knows where we’d be without Hartford’s overwhelming concern and generosity toward Bridgeport! It makes you feel sorry for New Haven, and Hartford, and especially STAMFORD, to think of how lopsided the funding for Bridgeport is in comparison to those “overlooked” cities.