The Connecticut Post Editorial Board endorsed Mayor Bill Finch in its Sunday hardcopy edition. The voting members of the editorial board include Publisher John DeAugustine, Editor Tom Baden, Editorial Page Editor Michael Daly, Assistant Editorial Page Editor Hugh Bailey and Photo Editor Catherine Zuraw. Opening paragraph to Post endorsement followed by link to the editorial:
Though his tenure has been far from perfect, Bridgeport Mayor Bil Finch has brought the state’s largest city to a better place than it was in four years ago.
www.ctpost.com/news/article/Bill-Finch-for-mayor-of-Bridgeport-2178111.php
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Shame on you, Michael Daly.
SHAME ON YOU, MIKE DALY!
Shame on you, Mike Daly. Time for you to go back to delivering the paper for tips in your neighborhood. That’s about all you are good for.
Par for the course for the rag it is. I never waste my money on it but going forward, I will not even click on any links to it. I won’t help drive traffic to it.
Thank God! This is the same paper that endorsed Rowland, Ganim and Fabrizi.
Hey! The CT Post is batting three for three now!
It’s the kiss of death.
He could not have read the last couple of months of articles on the doings with Finch, City Hall, Beccaro, etc. in order to write the Ed. Reading it one is astounded at the Ed’s ability to ignore the logic of its own stated facts. Sort of like saying the patient is getting worse, let’s not do anything to make the patient better because the patient still has a pulse?
Shame on them–with all the articles coming out about this administration??? Makes me wonder. I will never buy another paper from them. And thanks Corrupticut, now I won’t look online either. I did look today and the endorsement is noticeably absent from the online home page.
The editorial board at the CT Post never met a Testacrat they didn’t fall in love with. And aside from Keila, not a one of them lives in Bridgeport.
I understand Keila Torres, who’s on the editorial board, does not cast an endorsement vote for races she covers. I wonder if they let Mario vote!
The Post used the wrong premise and so it’s only natural they endorse the wrong candidate.
Are we better off now than four yrs ago? Where’s my $600 tax rebate? B’port hasn’t been this close to bankruptcy (moral and financial) since Mary Moran. Finch’s lack of leadership is why we’re standing on the dock watching the shipyard said away while we’re waiting for the taxi to Pleasure Beach. His cronies try to steal elections they can’t buy. And the paper couldn’t see the forest for the trees they cut down to sell the rag they call journalism.
I have read your endorsement of Bill Finch for a second term. I can’t believe it! What have you been observing for the past four years? I will argue each point you made as to why he should be re-elected.
1. Financial Security. John Marshal Lee and I met with your investigative reporter for more than 2 hours and showed her the budget was in fact underfunded by $60 million dollars. We showed her payments for pension plan A were not made for the past two years. We gave her paperwork from the involved parties that proved what we were saying.
2. Economic Growth. There is not much that can be said about this as it was almost nonexistent. I challenge the editorial board to show where we have grown economically.
3. Safety. Really crime is up, response is down. Many, many calls no one responds. You are given a case number so you can pick up a report at the police headquarters. This happened to me twice. How can you put down safety when you only have 21 patrol officers on duty per shift? These 21 are expected to protect 120,000 people.
4. Education. Another one you are wearing blinders on. We still have a 60% dropout rate. We have a mayor who disbanded the board of education even though they were duly elected. Isn’t this where the mayor said democracy can be set aside for a time as it is not working and the people of Bridgeport are either illegals or can’t vote because they were criminals? This is okay with the editorial board? What planet are you people from?
5. Sustainability. Okay you got me on this one because I don’t know what sustainability means.
The editorial board is out of touch with what’s going on in Bridgeport, this is obvious with this endorsement.
The Post’s endorsement of One Term Bill is online now. I read it. Seems thin, milk and water platitudes from an editorial board attempting to have it both ways.
town committee, those are some good replies but you need to take a break because you are about to explode.
No Ron, I am fine. It’s just I can’t stand stupidity.
And here’s another one Andy: supposedly we’re the “greenest” city around. Yet every week, garbage trucks spew a witches brew of stinking, undoubtedly toxic waste in front of every single house they stop at in the city, because there are no seals keeping the liquid waste inside the trucks. Walk any street in the city on pickup day and the stench is overpowering, and nothing is done about it. Depending on the weather, the slop can sit there for up to a week, in time for the next load. How can this be legal? Don’t DEP regs apply here? Yet we have money to paint arrows on the street for a supposed “bike path” that links Black Rock to Seaside, as if it were that hard to find one’s way without them. Sheesh.
The “bike path” is a cookie for the yuppies living south of Fairfield Avenue in Black Rock. (Who in his or her right mind would want to ride an expensive bicycle down Wordin Avenue at any time of day?)
It’s ironic one of the Post’s bloggers endorses Foster while the editorial board can’t seem to get the phlegm out of their collective throat to offer an unqualified endorsement of either Democratic candidate.
In 2007, the CT Post’s City Hall Reporter Bill Cummings wrote an article detailing the Democratic Town Committee membership:
www .postroad.com/news/2007/20070215-bridgeport-democratic-town-committee-members.html
There have been two elections since then and not much has really changed; about 70% of the DTC members or someone from their immediate family get a city or board of ed paycheck; some are also councilpersons.
The Editorial Board missed the critical reform issue that is at stake with this primary election. If Mary-Jane Foster wins, she breaks the hold the DTC has over the elected and appointed positions in City Government. That is real reform; a capable, strong ethical leader who will govern independent of the DTC. Shame on the Editorial Board. They don’t read their own articles. They sided with the status quo; the conflicted status quo.
A Foster victory on 9/27/11 is only one battle. Don’t be surprised if Joe Ganim comes out of “retirement” to run as an independent spoiler candidate.
It’s too late for Ganim, the time period has closed. He cannot run as an independent.
Ganim has no beef with Mary-Jane. It’s Finch he hates.
He hates Finch because the latter hasn’t been indicted yet.
www .myleftnutmeg.com/diary/2395/
They endorsed Lieberman in 2006. You expected miracles?
Note to Mike Daly, please retire. I am tired of reading about Ireland, your kids and the rest of the bullshit you write about. As a reporter you have lost it. The city is going to hell in a handbasket and you are writing about bullshit.
tc,
You forgot about his tennis games. Why would you expect Mike Daly to care about the City anyway? He pays taxes in Fairfield, not on the family home he tells us about on occasion. Misty eyed memories can be held simultaneous with economic reality as long as the tax bill is coming from a AAA-rated community rather than Bridgeport that Fitch rates an A, the lowest rating for any of the 30 CT cities or towns they rated.
The CT Post did not bother to have a reporter at the City Council meeting tonight. Not enough going on I guess. Back in the City Charter of 1888 City notices had to be posted in at least two City newspapers. See how things change! The Financial Times carried a feature article on a 60-year-old immigrant from Mainland China who started freebie papers he could use to promote the “quick response” technology. Entrepreneurs are everywhere and he tried to speak truth to power until they took his former company branches in China away from him. Now he is pursuing truth in a different format.
I am kind of partial to his “What I did for my Summer Vacation!” seasonal sojourn column.
Bridgeport Kid, I am one of those people who live South of Fairfield Ave. in Black Rock and I am no yuppie, and neither are most of my neighbors. FYI, it’s not a bike path since there is no designated space for the bikes; it is merely a marking in the street to show the way. It’s a complete waste of taxpayers funds!
Shame on the CT Post for its endorsement of Finch. The editorial board should have read its own copy before printing it. They said Finch’s tenure has been “far from perfect,” “some of his methods raise questions,” he should “purge himself of his personal animosity” towards the University of Bridgeport, and the secrecy with which the plan to disband the elected BOE was executed “flies in the face of grand claims of transparency.” DUH!!!
They’re calling it a bike path. The directions were published the other day. Reads more like a scavenger hunt.
To the editorial board,
It is more than appalling the Connecticut Post endorsed Mayor Bill Finch for a second term. His administration is the shadiest to grace City Hall in twenty years. Finch and Adam Wood, his major domo and personal S.O.B., have used fear and intimidation to control the ranks of municipal employees, quelling dissenting opinion with threats of termination and disciplinary review. The decision to dissolve the BOE was a step taken unilaterally, a backroom deal negotiated in secrecy after consulting with an employee of a Greenwich billionaire who has no short- or long-term business in Bridgeport. Mr. Finch defended his actions by claiming “Democracy doesn’t work … in all cases” because so many of the parents of Bridgeport’s school children are illegal immigrants or criminals. (Need I remind the mayor John Rowland, himself a convicted criminal, signed into law a bill that restored voting rights to convicted felons upon completion of their sentences? I’m sure Mr. Rowland availed himself of the law.) The editorial board of the Post conveniently overlooked this poor choice of words.
Mr. Finch promised a $600 tax rebate prior to his primary victory over then-state representative Christopher Caruso in 2007. He was informed a rebate would require an amendment to the city charter, a move that required legislative approval. It didn’t matter, he responded. He just wanted to say it. So that means he is a liar.
Mr. Finch “donated” more than $46,000 in campaign funds left over from the ’07 primary campaign, donated it to a political action committee, the ironically named People for Excellence in Government. The money was paid out to Mr. Finch, Mr. Wood and their respective wives as “reimbursements” for shopping trips to Barnes & Noble, Waldenbooks, TJ Maxx, the Big Y, and travel expenses incurred by the mayor’s attendance at the Democratic National Convention in ’08 and the Obama inauguration in early ’09. (There’s plenty of free food and liquor at political events sponsored by national party committees; how much money did Mr. Finch really spend on grog and victuals?) Mrs. Finch’s PAC received reimbursement for “political consulting.” Only problem is, her PAC has been in a moribund state since ’07. Bill Beccaro, the attorney and treasurer of People for Excellence in Government, listed his octogenarian mother as the chair of the PAC and has paid her cell phone bill out of committee funds. There are a couple of problems with that, as MariAn Gail Brown discovered. Mrs. Beccaro, a retired nurse, doesn’t have a cell phone. Nor did she know she was chairwoman of the PAC until informed by Ms. Brown. This is a fairly strong indication Mr. Becaro’s efforts at excellence in government are really a front to launder money. This, if proven, would mean Mr. Finch is a crook, the latest in a long line of crooks to occupy the mayor’s office. The PAC is being investigated by the State Elections Enforcement Commission. If the allegations are proven it could lead to Mr. Finch resigning in disgrace if he wins the primary and general election.
We are endorsing Bill Finch because unlike his two predecessors, he has yet to be indicted.
Now that’s a strong argument.
If I were Bill Finch, I’d be super pissed. They make him look like an idiot. It’s a double-agent endorsement!
Hey Bpt Kid you’re registered as a Dem now, correct?
According to this Post story published last May, three members of the City Council owed back taxes:
www .ctpost.com/default/article/City-councilman-owes-nearly-4-000-in-taxes-1383788.php
But wait, it gets better. City Councilman Anderson Ayala had his car booted on 5/6/11. He asked City Tax Collector Anne Kelly-Lenz to hand-deliver his cash payment to the towing company:
www .ctpost.com/default/article/City-tax-collector-hand-delivers-councilman-s-1383956.php
It should be no surprise the three Councilmen who attempted to cheat the taxman also endorsed Bill Finch for a second term, another four years to fuck up the city’s finances and add more of his friends to the municipal payroll. Ain’t politics great?
The editorial gives Finch credit for Bijou Square: WRONG! The Post should do some research on who provided the financing, who had the guts to do it to make this project a reality. It was NOT Finch!
Other projects Finch is taking credit for: Read’s Artspace and Washington Park: he was not the “Visionary” there either. The Post had the audacity recently to give some former Bridgeport politician who now lives in Monroe headlines for knocking MJ for her taking justifiable credit for the stadium and the Arena stating HE was the visionary. How Bad! Furthermore, Finch gets to say he was the “Visionary” on Bijou, Reads and Washington Park. FALSE! I have it on good authority and I still live in Bridgeport. The Post allows these untruths to persist. Lack of budget to hire competent reporters? Lazy? You Bet! They should not be allowed to comment at all on Bridgeport since they don’t really live here and … don’t forget, changed their name from the Bridgeport Post to the Connecticut Post like they don’t have the guts to say they are located here. Whew! The Post has been as big a bane to our existence over the years as has the DTC. Certainly the Post likes the status quo with their lukewarm, pathetic endorsement of Finch. They are endorsing, once again, “The Machine.”