Getting Mad With The Courage To Do Something About It

One thing about retired city firefighter Andy Fardy, he doesn’t operate with a weak hose. He tells you exactly how he feels. He’s hoping anger in the city will lead to a political powerwashing on March 4. But that takes will and organizational efforts, as he points out in this commentary. Fardy’s wife Pat, a former zoning commissioner, is part of a slate in the city’s Upper East Side seeking to throw out the political establishment.

Courage: This is not a word you see used very often in this city. We never hear about the courage that is exhibited by the single parents in this city. We never hear about how tough it is to start every day knowing you will have to face the same problems you faced yesterday. The courage shown by the single parents and the working people of this city is forgotten and only mentioned at election time.

Do the politicians from the Federal level to the city level know what it’s like living in this country’s inner cities? No they don’t. They go home to their suburban homes and mansions without a care in the world. Locally our mayor and council president live in the city and the rest of the mayor’s advisers live in the suburbs. Do they know what the single parents and the working poor go through every day wondering if they will have enough money to buy food, pay the rent and pay their taxes. No, they don’t.

It is time for the people of Bridgeport to rise up and say HELL NO I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE. How do we do that? We do that by banding together and finding people who truly care and putting them in office. This in a small way is happening with the Town Committee primaries but it has to continue. If in these groups there are people with their own agendas then they must be weeded out.

It’s time for the powerbrokers in Bridgeport like the ministers and business people to wake up and think about the working poor and the single parents, giving it lip service like they have been doing is not going to cut it anymore.

Do we need a new high school? Yes we do. Will a new high school help our kids? Yes, to a small degree. Without changes in curriculum throughout the school system, we are not helping the single parents or the working poor. Ask any single parent or working poor family and they will tell you their #1 priority is worrying about what is going to happen to their children when they grow up. We need to make sure these kids have a chance so I say before the new High School is built let’s have a curriculum in place so kids of the poor and the single0parent kids have a chance to enter the working world with step up and with self confidence.

Is their funding for all of this? Yes, there is. It’s hidden in the mayor’s past budgets that have been passed by uncaring politicians. This is where our banding together and getting rid of these puppets puts us on the right track for all of the people living and working here.