In his quest to regain the mayoralty, Joe Ganim also had a goal to secure more than 50 percent of the vote so no one could claim a spoiler role. He did that.
Unofficial results for mayor: Ganim 11,198; Mary-Jane Foster 6,029; Rick Torres 2,838; David Daniels 504; Charlie Coviello 72; Chris Taylor 61; Tony Barr 24. So Ganim more than doubled up the totals of his opponents combined. While finishing a distant third for mayor, Republican Torres also lost his City Council seat. Democrats Kate Bukovsky and Scott Burns will represent the 130th District on the council.
Roughly one-third of eligible voters participated in the general election.
Election results here.
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What were the results out of Black Rock? I forgot Torres was running for city council. I voted for Lee and his running mate.
When petition candidates can even beat Republicans then something is obviously wrong here.
Joe Ganim should call for an FBI Forensic Accountant audit of the city Finance and Tax department, before taking one step into the office of Mayor.
Jim, if he doesn’t do that it will be a big mistake.
Excellent.
AGREED.
Would that include Federal Grant $?
Right down to CBGF’s, Mr. G!
Or he could save the huge expense of a forensic audit and use this.
opengov.com/
Hey Jen, why I like the FBI guys.
Forensic accountants are located in every FBI field office. Larger offices might have one or more forensic accountant squads composed of both forensic accountants and financial analysts, while smaller offices might just have one or two forensic accountants. Then there’s our Forensic Accountant Support Team (think SWAT for accountants), based out of our Washington, D.C. Headquarters, that responds quickly–either in person or often electronically–to significant, high-profile investigations anywhere in the country involving large amounts of financial data.
And they don’t do this work for free. A friend of mine paid about $12 million for an FBI audit of his home computer network. Just open the books, put them on line in real time–hard to hide anything when that is done. Audit the past all you wish to, going forward is what is important now.
Not only did Torres ask to lose his council seat in his closing statement at the Forum for the City Council in the 130th (part 5), the atrocious body language throughout the debate begged for it.
www .youtube.com/watch?v=urobj58y4aY&list=PL02WIV0YXfxmpcHjWcGNqUSVyPajnEPKg&index=5
LOL. Of course it mattered. When you run a lousy campaign, you lose.
Who cars? Yesterday’s news. It didn’t matter yesterday, it matters less today.
So without Torres, is the Council back to 100% Democrats? Should be great for checks and balances.
Where have you been, Michael Smith? Some of us on OIB are the checks and balances. Who said you have to be elected to be involved in checks and balances?
You’re delusional, Joel.
Winners and Losers: Joe Ganim with his overwhelming victory. The City of Bridgeport, with its big large victory for Ganim now makes the Democratic candidates for governor and Governor Malloy to recognize Bridgeport will be the major power in the next election. Mario Testa for supporting Ganim. Danny Roach for running Ganim’s campaign and for his sister’s victory to help take Rick Torres’ council seat, a double victory over Torres for Danny. Rev. Stallworth for setting up Ganim’s comeback speech on New Years day at his church. Losers: Governor Malloy for sitting on the sidelines as Ganim won without his endorsement even though Ganim won the Democratic primary. Rick Torres losing the mayor and city council seat. The Republican Party statewide and in Bridgeport for such a terrible showing. Bill Finch goes out a real loser.
LET’S NOT FORGET THE CONNECTICUT POST EDITORIAL BOARD. While the paper is sure to sell many papers in the next few days, they proved themselves not to be the people’s paper with the way they handled this election.
Hector, you are so right but we all know the Post is a wannabe statewide newspaper and they do little or no local reporting on Bridgeport. The Post made money during Ganim trouble times and now they look to make money off of Joe Ganim’s victory.
Ron,
Alert the media. For once I am in total agreement with you.
We ought to get together, have a couple beers and shoot some pool. Just don’t talk about politics or professional sports.
Next step must be to get at least a ball park (no pun intended) figure of the real budget condition. Before a City Council and council committee leadership is chosen, we must know what the finances are. If the numbers aren’t in the black (pun intended), we must not allow the council and council committee leadership to be held by anyone who has failed us during their past leadership terms.
Joel,
You were on the CC weren’t you? Where is the ‘people power’ suggested by your words: “we must not allow the council and council committee leadership to be held by anyone who has failed us during their past leadership terms”?
The swearing-in will go forward, new members will be seated, discussions as to committee assignments and leadership roles will be dealt with and there will be announcements along the way. What role will you have in that, Joel? Will someone seek your opinion? What criteria were used to arrange this “game board” anyway? For instance, who are the seven elected members with a basic understanding of City finances to serve on Budget and Appropriations and will they be selected for that role? Speaking of criteria, are there any criteria used by either Town Committee for selecting candidates for office? Do they publish them?
Joel, I am playing devil’s advocate with you to reveal the layers and depth of the difficulties we face in getting to an improved state of ‘checks and balances.’ Perhaps it may be more productive to ask how Council people may fail their public over the next two years.
A few questions I will pose: Are they OPEN in their activity encouraging the public to come to meetings of all kinds and learn how municipal governance works? Are they ACCOUNTABLE in a timely manner by reviewing all fiscal reporting in depth and making sure they understand results as well as how and why they differ from projections? Will they hold up voting until they have all the information requested that is necessary to make a decision? Are they TRANSPARENT in their process and work, attempting to simplify and record the basis for every decision they are called to make? Are they scrupulously HONEST in making sure the ‘talk’ they promised to the voters is the ‘walk’ they follow while in office? And where are the City dashboards, showing progress towards City goals, in all departments that will relieve taxpayers of paying for one or more public relations personnel?
I believe there are many more Bridgeporters with a driver’s license who operate motor vehicles and are used to the visual displays of information in operating their autos, than people who voted earlier this week. Why not post the dashboards on City critical information? Isn’t that the real City report card we seek as residents, taxpayers and voters? Won’t that show where we need to mend, change direction, speed up, apply more attention? Time will tell.