Mayor Joe Ganim has officially filed the paperwork to seek another four-year term as chief executive of Connecticut’s largest city in advance of the 2023 reelection.
Ganim is putting the finishing touches on the budget he will submit by early next week to the City Council absent tax increase while advancing additional tax breaks for senior citizens for the fiscal year starting July 1.
With the paperwork filed Ganim will work in earnest to build a campaign treasury via an upcoming fundraiser. Ganim’s donor base has received a much-needed breather after his failed 2018 run governor and 2019 mayoral reelection in which he survived a primary scare from State Senator Marilyn Moore who will likely breeze through reelection this year with an eye on another mayoral run.
If Moore gets in, they could have company in State Rep. Charlie Stallworth and retired Superior Court Judge Carmen Lopez who would no doubt become a compelling candidate given her activism, background and nose for reform. There’s a long way to the dance but the puzzle pieces must align to take out a well-financed incumbent.
Ganim’s in better shape today than four years ago following a befuddling run for governor he needed to get out of his system after his star ascended in the 1990s thwarted by his 2003 conviction on federal corruption charges. He made a remarkable comeback to the mayoralty in 2015 defeating incumbent Bill Finch in a primary.
Economic development is poised to pop with the 6,000 seat amphitheater, Downtown housing advancements, Cherry Street Lofts project in the West End, Steelpointe Harbor progress, groundbreaking for new North End boys and girls club, Honey Locust Square development in the East End.
Still, storm warnings are apparent, particularly in public safety, and he must pay attention to business. And that starts with the budget, the search for a new police chief and crafting a message that resonates with the electorate to award him another four-year contract.
Ganim is Bridgeport’s second-longest serving mayor after Socialist Jasper McLevy, 1933-57.
Maybe if Bridgeport were located at a latitude proximal to the Tropic of Cancer and had a particular cultural ambience and allure that could impart a “destination” status to its reputation, there might be a realistic aspect to the notion of a Bridgeport reincarnation/renaissance defined in terms of, a small, unthemed conglomeration of dining and “entertainment” venues, such as we have created and/or promoted in the face of the continuing socioeconomic collapse of the city — but such a renaissance isn’t going to happen in the troubled, temperate-zone place that is still known as the “drug supermarket off of I-95” (per a 1995, “National Geographic” article). Without a casino-type “magnet”, Bridgeport’s entertainment sector will forever be a Bridgeport Bluefish-Ball Park/”Groundhog Day” effort that bears only negative municipal-revenue fruit, even as it discourages real tax-base and local-jobs growth.
We shouldn’t forget that once upon a time, Bridgeport was a real entertainment destination — the result of having a huge, industrial tax-base defined by 100,000 well-paying manufacturing jobs and a prosperous population with the disposable income to support such a storied entertainment sector. The present Bridgeport, defined by underemployment and poverty/borderline poverty, cannot sustain the environment upon which to create a significant, self-sustaining (non-municipally-/state-subsidized) entertainment sector — much less help to launch and sustain such a sector…
City Hall is playing an image game with the future of Bridgeport. It knows that “build it and they will come” is not a real-life redevelopment strategy for a city such as Bridgeport, and rather than do some real planning and hard work to bring real prosperity and tax-relief for Bridgeport residents, they (Bridgeport elected/appointed leadership) are playing on deceptive perception-manipulation to feather their political and financial nests even as they sell off Bridgeport assets to sustain that false perception of a nascent Bridgeport renaissance…
Ganim City Hall is nothing but a den of state-sanctioned snake-oil salesmen… Any 2023 Bridgeport mayoral candidate with a real economic-development plan and reasonable war chest can certainly beat the failed candidate that is running on the fumes of what he has been promoting (for 30 years!) as the “nascent” renaissance of Bridgeport. (Hey, Joe; What happened to Bridgeport professional baseball and those 10,000 jobs at Steal Point?!)
Let’s get real in 2023 in Bridgeport! (Candidate Ganim might find that his “snake-oil” redevelopment strategy has become a slippery slope, indeed!)
What a joke. If we elect this clown again, we deserve what we get. Anyone interested in the concept of grassroots organizing with the intent of finding a supportable candidate for mayor of Bridgeport, please contact me on Facebook messenger and leave your phone number.
This city gets exactly what it deserves as it elected him 3 times. Just move out. The corruption is so deeply rooted and it’s taking the FBI too long.
On the other hand your other option is someone who demonizes law enforcement and pushes criminal activists into leadership roles.
Bridgeport slowly becoming Portland.
Get out while the market is hot.
As Lenny introduced the subject of Ganim2 looking to add another term to his “Second longest in City history” skein in the CT Post this morning courtesy of Brian Lockhart, we must remember that it is April 1, a day replete with foolishness we have heard before, and are asked to buy into today. But, apparently, this preparation for running again is for real.
Lockhart tells us that the filing was completed “without any public fanfare and without notifying the media.” Saving money for the campaign or nothing worth saying?
“So we’re starting,” Ganim said in a phone interview Thursday. “I think there’s some good stuff going on and I want to see it continue.” Is this statement an admission that he is a viewer rather than a player? After his many years in office, where is his passion as an elected leader, where are the sound bites giving the public a sense of where he wishes to guide us, and where is the momentum taking us from his activities as Ganim2? What if the number of registered voters in Bridgeport who vote every four years for President, began to vote their local interests, for candidates who actually cared about them, their families, and aspirations? Time will tell.
Mayor Ganim where is your plan for fully funding the 21,000 plus public-school students, you have a dysfunctional police department with no plan to make change and no police chief and the Personnel Office Director, David Dunn was found guilty in federal court for wire fraud in cheating on the police exam, were there others in that office who knew about the corruption in that office or were they involve?
Jo, maybe Ed is just doing his job well. Is he still employed by the city? Not sure who the other option is that’s demonizing law enforcement and pushes criminal activity. However, It’s not demonization for wanting a stronger, better, more accountable law enforcement to curvy their abusive actions/behavior.
While I agree with you, law enforcement has been demonized in the media and in this political realm of racial identity politics. But it doesn’t mean law enforcement is without fault. There have been many substantial incidences of their abuse of power towards blacks in America, as well as Whites and Latinos, that go relativity silent by the media who conjures up that demon. To be fair, blacks too, when Democrats, Biden’s, in office. Things that make you go Hmmm!
That’s the political one-sided game for better or worse.
John, you know I have to do some deconstructing in the best ESL class ever, right? 🙂 It’s not that you’re wrong, per se, It’s the one-sidedness of the demonization questions of white people, “white supremacy”, or CRT and its anti-Americanism that I consider and chew on. I do so in the search for your Open, Honest, and Transparency in hopes time will tell.
Take the slap heard around the world. While I still consider it to be a staged event that generated the demonization of Will Smith. It has opened many topics of discussion, from physical health to mental. health, and behavior.
Before the slap, Chris Rock went on the Howard Stern Show, which has been generating renewed interest. Chris openly talked about his mental status and trauma that required therapy from his experiences growing up. He attended an all-white school and was constantly bullied and beaten, even assaulted sexually-ish. However, he was saying this to a man, Howard Stern, who is white, and went to an all-black school where he was constantly bullied and beaten by the black student body.
You talk about the inequality between suburban towns in the Port, like water safety skills. What about public safety? You never opined on the inequalities between the Port’s police department and suburban white departments. You never agreed, questioned, or advocated to Jo’s, claim for more funding so the Port’s department can rival their white counterpart departments with higher pay, better pension, vacation, personal benefit, etc. Or speak out about the Port’s defunding movement that will harm the black and brown officers within the department? You may have said something regarding overtime tied to pension benefits, but you posed no questions for the community to consider and chew on about the effects on the communities or the black and brown officers within the department regarding defunding its police department, BPD.
Ron, we always get the generic talking point of more funding fro education, but what does that mean? Take the flip side of what I forementioned above. Outside of Jo, the consensus has been that the Port’s city administration has been generously allocating funds from the city budget to public safety, the BPD. Does that generous funding mean we have a better-qualified/quality police department?
What specifics are the Port’s students lacking in comparison to its counterparts, white suburbanite students i.e. a recreational club without a pool? I would rather be more interested in the specific answers of things the Port’s students are lacking or being deprived of compared to its counterparts, white suburbanites students than generic taking port in the political educational advocacy world.
As JML likes to express. It has no data that we can call upon to evaluate critically the inequalities being assessed. If it’s anything like Jo’s, claims about funding within the Port’s police departments, or lack of, to its white suburban PDs. Without specifics, the comparison of white suburban students’ funding over Port’s student’s funding of its inequality may lay in the benefit to staff personnel , i.e pay, pension, health, etc. and not the student body
Jeff, I couldn’t destruct what you said even if I wanted to, and I do. Your use of too many big words. However, I assume it is a slight to G2 and the GoldCoast/Stamford. 🤣
P.S I think Chris and Will should do a Bad Boys movie together where Martin retires and Chris becomes Will’s new partner, In the movie, Chris gets to slap Will as he slapped him at the Oscars. I believe it would be good therapy for them both, and the world. Woosh. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwYYqJVnFaM
P.S as always, I depart with teh prophet Eminem. 😀
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=341431191344406
RT
While you are helping all of OIB to understand the context you consider between your ESL class, life experiences, and various media resources, perhaps including books, perhaps you will consider, EVIL GENIUSES by Kurt Anderson, published in 2021 that attempts to provide historical background on conservative activity to combat political effort on the left. The creation of more funding and foundations in the 70’s to 90’s has provided financing of challenge to cultural change, anti-democratic electoral legislation in the states, carelessness with story lines that depend on “big lies”, and lack of caring about trends that divide and separate citizens from each other. You may find it a resource along with Eminem in future presentations. “Critical race theory” popped up as a subject from the right, one they object to, and a theory which most traditional Republicans are neither familiar with or able to describe. Neither can most white folks on the right or the left, know enough American history (that, of course, includes Black history, the facts reported in story form and taught in schools from the earliest grades through high school and beyond) to be familiar with what CRT is trying to indicate about our capitalist system and the way we are organized for self-governance.
You mention municipal public safety, along with “funding”, and local defunding efforts that I am unfamiliar with. Where are we today with an Acting Chief, a Police Commission that essentially is unknown to the taxpaying public for any standard of quality, a currently low number of active certified officers, an uncontrolled overtime practice and though recently published policy is on their website, where are the attempts to communicate the essence of quality practice that may be expected?
Time will tell.
https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Sacred-Heart-buys-Bridgeport-apartment-complex-17049428.php?t=3a06137dc5&src=rdctpdensecp
The article details the slavish accommodation of Sacred Heart’s wishes (and betrayal of Bridgeport’s neighborhoods) by Ganim and Company — per the blatantly broken promise of Joe Ganim to protect the neighborhoods from SHU abuse… [And, per the reference in the article; SHU takes much more from the city than it gives back… Calculate the $train that SHU places on Bridgeport services (particularly BPD) and infrastructure, as well as its tax-exempt status, and it will be realized that SHU is a big $negative$ for Bridgeport taxpayers…]
JML, why in the world are you having a conversation with this guy. It’s just like having one with Stephanie Thompson.
Comrade Ron, if you don’t want to engage in conversation, it’s your liberty to do so. But why are you concerned with others who do?
While JM prefers conversation in a private setting, i.e, in-person over coffee. He is a follower of Philosophy, a by-product of rational thought. He poses questions like Socrates. He asks questions, challenging people to think, consider, chew on, and ponder to draw out answers, that attain knowledge through the practice of conversation. What good is a question if it’s not going to be thought about or answered?
Socrates said, “The highest form of human excellence is to question oneself and others.” But it does not mean you have to disagree or not find an agreement.
“Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weaker minds discuss people” ~Socrates. 5000
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkfvg1j1yg8
Cool song, cool movies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIXp9F9BVW0&t=2s
RT and Ron…..thank you for posing a question or two and response that allows other readers to see my practice and purpose as clearly as any have set it out on OIB over the years.
I enjoy developing relationships with others who live in and observe the “public square” that includes governance, politics and economic development as well as education, healthcare, and services for the people in the community. That is done in person, over coffee or a light meal, and is continued at future dates as a relationship develops. There are a few in the community with whom respected ties, enjoyed for the opportunity to learn about subjects with which I am less familiar, are observed. The ties are strengthened over time by conversation and observation from varied perspectives.
RT understands the words of Socrates: the major dynamic of a blog focuses on people and their dramas, events, especially of historic nature are the topics of a few providing texture and facts for consideration; and others with curiosity and patience and broad perspective pursue ideas with humility, questions, and a desire to learn more and better for the benefit of all. Coffee, tea, and ideas to make all free? 203-259-9642 . Time will tell.
John, I’m not helping OIB understand anything. If they want to chew on what’s being expressed by me, you, Ron, or anybody else, so be it. Am I doing anything on OIB that you aren’t when opining on topics of discussion?
If anything, this media resource, OIB, is helping me as the best ESL class. It has become part of my life experiences, as well as yours.
I will not rehash my presentation of life experiences, as well as Eminem’s future, CRT, Liberalism/Socialism or Conservatism/Capitalism, Black American History or White American History, and the culture war among them.
I am unfamiliar with Kurt Anderson’s book called the Evil Geniuses. While you made the claim Andreson’s book, Evil Geniuses, is an attempt to provide historical background on conservative activity to combat political efforts on the left. Can the insertion be made this book is an attempt to combat the political efforts of the political right, conservatives? The keyword here is “POlITICAL” He demonizes and portrayed political conservatism as Evil, just within the title of his book
However, conservatively speaking, on the topic of transgenderism in sports. Is it Evil to hold a conservative political view that male-born humans who are transgender to female, like Lia Thomas, have an unfair advantage over natural-born females in their collective sports?
Culturally speaking, swimming is an individual sport with no physical contact that most people are unfamiliar with it and don’t really care much about it. But let a born male on the echelon (that word is for you Jeff. 🙂 ) of the athlete sport of basketball who transgender to female and play on to a top-ranking women’s NCAA team, say someone like Dukes Devils, Paola Banchero. How do you think culturally the conversion would be during March Madness?
John, the people are just spectators cheering for their side, reading their books, being recruited, be it, Democrat, Republican, Liberalism, Conservatism. There is no more or less carelessness within storylines that depend on “big lies” or the lack of caring about trends that divide and separate citizens from each other. What is UConn’s Woman’s basketball team without South Carolina in today’s match?
You opine with effort about democracy often on OIB. It’s a form of majority rule, not totalitarian consensus. Have you ever questioned yourself, Kurt Anderson? What makes the left political righteous and moral, devoid of any Evil, the truth? But let’s not forget. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NTkXIidCU0
“There is nothing so delightful as the hearing, or the speaking of truth. For this reason, there is no conversation so agreeable as that of the man of integrity, who hears without any intention to betray and speaks without any intention to deceive.” ~Plato
Where does the truth ends in the lies begin, in the carelessness of storylines of the left or right?
While it wasn’t dubbed a BLM protest. The protesters for Justice for Jayson camped out for days in front of the BPD. They also protested in front of Port’s city council president’s home. I am shocked that someone who speaks regularly at city council meetings and who seems very interested and familiar with BPD issues would be unfamiliar with local efforts by Justice for Jayson. They had a host of demands, including the firing of the officer who shot and killed Jayson, the removal of AJ, and various changes within the BPD. Defunding the BPD was one of them. I even went to a community outreach meeting at the downtown library where two retired Port cops discussed the issue following the shooting and death of Jayson.
http://onlyinbridgeport.com/wordpress/following-civil-unrest-budget-committee-examines-reallocation-of-police-funds/
You always say time will till. Do you not think time is going to tell of Port’s next police chief? One doesn’t need coffee or tea to exchange ideas. I have my liberal view, as well as conservative. Perhaps one day we will meet at one of Lennies, OIB (best ESL Class) parties. I did attend one of Beardsley Zoo’s. BYT Beijing, still waiting on those Pandas. 🐼🐼🤣
As always I depart with the prophet Eminem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul-b1-ar0p0
BTW, John, you discuss/questions of history for OIB, its readers, and Port communities so they chew on and ponder, but what deeps of questions are explored in human history? As a member of the NAACP, National Association Advancement of Colored People, what does it mean, historically, to be a person of color?
https://www.facebook.com/Movie-best-moments-109988170497706/videos/277706847866606/
Or an “Indentured Servant” after England invade Ireland, slaughtered its people, giving them the choice of life or death, froced for the homeland, deeming “Indentured Servant” when exploring the history of slavery in the New World. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzgPElOJZ-U
What does it mean, historically, to be a slave or the slave system that flourished throughout human history, through war, conquest, or for-profit? So much so it’s ingrained in the holiest of books, the Bible, Old Testament, the Quran, even Jesus to an extent Luke 17:7 though more of a servant of God, than of man.
Even so, the historical system of slavery wasn’t eradicated until 1981 in Mauritania, as the last country on planet Earth to abolish it. However, it wasn’t criminalized until 2007, and it still exists and is practiced in parts of Asia and Africa.
Something to chew on and ponder we gear up to celebrate Passover, Easter, and Ramada?
Keeping with the theme of presentations, history, and time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGxFvWu12dA&t=54s