From Forbes Magazine. Just what Mayor Finch needs in an election year. Is the writer Daniel Fisher full of it? If so shouldn’t Finch correct the record? Or is there some truth to the city’s fiscal challenges? Somewhere in the middle?
Cities on the Brink
Are you sure you want to live here?
Most of these cities aren’t in imminent danger of bankruptcy or default, but fiscal irresponsibility, a deteriorating tax base, soaring pension costs or a combination of all three means residents may want to consider moving before they get stuck with the bill.
Bridgeport
Fast Facts:
– City first placed under state oversight in 1988; still places property taxes in trust account for bondholders
– Retirement benefits other than pensions exceed city’s total debt of $685 million
This former industrial powerhouse on the Connecticut coast has been in financial crisis off and on since the 1980s as its factories closed, leaving behind a needy, impoverished population. Moody’s Investors Service notes that poor investment returns have hurt the city’s pension funds, while benefits like health care represent a rising claim on tax revenue.
City Hall Says:
Bridgeport left state oversight in 1995; bond trust is entirely voluntary.
Entire story here.
Do you think it is safe to say Forbes and Moody’s think Bridgeport needs some better leadership? I guess they don’t feel the Mayor is doing an “outstanding” job. Don’t worry Forbes … stay calm Moody’s, new capable leadership is less than a year away!!!
*** Can so many people be wrong? Political writing is on the wall; “CHANGE.” *** HERE WE GO! ***
Political impartiality has yet to enter Mr. Grimaldi’s journalistic lexicon.
Students of today’s fiscal climate know that Moody’s is the same advisory that stamped a AAA rating on bonds/mortgages that were subsequently bailed out by you, the taxpayer.
Forbes’ latest issue punishes Democrats and shows mercy on Republicans. Your first read didn’t detect what I did.
In short, your sources are misleading. You simply copied them verbatim without even a dash of investigative reporting.
It’s obvious Lennie has an ax to grind with Mayor Finch and he never misses a chance to sharpen it.
(wink)
bonus: Forbes’ latest issue is my most recent apostrophe catastrophe moment.
LE, you’re always welcome on OIB to persuade readers what a wonderful job Finch is doing as mayor. OIB … always biased, always fair.
like this–
OIB: always biased, never fair.
Groundhog Day is Tuesday.
Isn’t that the day Local Eyes takes his head out of his ass and if he casts a shadow he moves to Bridgeport?
Time to bring back the Financial Review Board.
In deference to Local Eyes’ deeply developed financial acumen which adds yet another badge of subject matter expertise to his already self-proclaimed (notice the proper use of a hyphen) quiver of baseless bull shit (2 words, Ray. It’s (apostrophe) the way I DO IT), Bridgeport has been on the brink ever since the precursor to calamarians began to self-agendize (hyphen) control of this town as far back as the corrupt practices of Sam Tedesco. Timpanelli and Testo have done absolutely NOTHING to better the economic conditions of this town for much too long. I’m () praying that Gomes and Foster will ride in and mandate the abolition of DTC control as we have endured for so long and implement real programs of economic development so that one day soon we may be on the BRINK of prosperity and pride.
Oxygen, please.
Local Eyes …
You contribute U CAZZ’ (how’s that, Ray?) to this dialogue.
{Ray says: Looking good!}
Hey Ripper!
If Groundhog Day is on Tuesday and Finch doesn’t see his shadow, six more years of taxes.
Bridgeport has been the bullseye of this recession and nowhere on this blog is that fact explained. Mayor Finch has the toughest job in America.
Rest easy Local Eyes, Finch won’t have it much longer.
Oh, I get it. Antitesto can predict the future, eh?
The writing is on the wall. Just ask Feeney and Alanna.
Didn’t see anything in the Forbes excerpt that wasn’t known by the 1970s, or ’80s at the latest.
The city got a reprieve in the 1990s with favorable economic conditions and the political stars lining up in City Hall, Hartford and Washington.
The problems have little to do with a political “machine” with its patronage, although admittedly it doesn’t help at times.
The city’s lucky to be near some fantastically wealthy areas where the crumbs spill off the table–otherwise things would be much worse. As it is, the same structural difficulties in the municipal budget are largely unchanged for the last 40 years.
Politicians gave labor their contracts. I’m not saying they were unfair contracts, but there is a question whether the city can afford them.
Maybe the town needs to go bust again to get it through to people that a no-holds-barred program to clean out the crap (Housatonic Avenue, Remington, General Electric, Downtown, you name it) and welcome the new. It’s been tried with varied success. I’ll even give everybody props for clearing out Steel Point (as much as I fondly remember Hitchcock’s Marina and the Pequonnock Yacht Club).
That stated, the economy is lousy. And when it is lousy, it is always lousier in Bridgeport.
*** The more things change, the more they stay the same in Bpt. *** Groundhog Day ***
Okay, so what, Bridgeport sucked before the current Mayor. But it doesn’t look like this guy has any game and Bridgeport’s ship is still sinking. Seems to me, in my untrained opinion that 4 years is enough to show if you are going to man up and make changes for the good. This guy hasn’t made anything better, and didn’t he latch on to Lamont hoping to save himself? I know there is some saying about going down with the ship. It also seems the other “rats” are scurrying into some other ship or were tossed overboard. Someone needs to beam up Captain Finch and give the lady from UB a chance.
Abby is it Normal to say give the lady from UB a chance when we haven’t heard word one from her? What do we know besides she has a great rep and boatloads of cash? Does that a mayor make? For all his faults at least Fabrizi was in the trenches with the real hard-working people of Bpt. Gomes is the same, in the trenches and walking the streets meeting the PEOPLE. We need a leader who knows what’s going on in Bpt besides at the yacht club.
You Reep What You Sew! I guess you never bothered to read the vitae on the “lady from UB.”
I think you should change your handle to Grin Reefer!
“… We need a leader who knows what’s going on in Bpt besides at the yacht club.”
Is this an endorsement for Lennie Grimaldi? Lennie knows what’s going On In Bpt. or in Long Island Sound …
“… in my untrained opinion that 4 years is enough to show if you are going to man up and make changes for the good.”
Maybe it’s time to woman-up and make changes for the good.
To Local Eyes, I would be more than willing to bet you $1000 on “Dollar Bill’s” political future but your team has a history of not paying. Personally I would also be willing to make another of my Predictions–Finch will not receive the endorsement from Mario & the Democratic Town Committee.
You just placed a $2000 bet. Local Eyes sees it as $1000 per Eye.
Anti, who gets the endorsement?
Grin, you will hear more from the lady from UB. She knows and has advocated for many people throughout the city for years. She stepped up for them during some of their most difficult times. She shares the same love of city and its people as Fabrizi and Gomes. She is a top-quality candidate. Get to know her. You will be impressed.
www .openculture.com offers downloadable videos, including college courses. yahooy just signed up Ernie Newton.
I want to thank yahooy for being a great friend to Ernest T—Rumors out of his district say he was having major troubles spelling his name and yahooy bailed him out.
OIB Rumor Mill:
SEEN on a T-shirt in downtown Bridgeport:
yahooy is my favorite thpeller.
Just weighing in with my opinion …
Nobody ever heard of Obama … hard work and word of mouth spread like a California wildfire.
I believe this mayoral election will be won in the streets … making the people believe in the word of the candidate and not in the word of the DTC and who it nominates.
This isn’t an election that will be won with lies and I promise this and that like the $600 fiasco … this will be about reaching the people who are hurting and getting them to buy in to a REAL plan of hope … a big name will not be the winner … the honest, hard working, in-touch candidate will be.
I should have said woman. She is smart, charitable, understands business, and she is a lawyer too even though she doesn’t work as one. There are plenty of women in this city who would be glad to get rid of a Mayor who is a woman hater. He is so creepy when he meets women, he acts like they should fall at his feet, but from what I learned on OIB he fires strong woman or they leave because of the unfriendly atmosphere. I seem to remember I used to think he was cool because he said he was going to set up a daycare center at City Hall but he never did. He never did anything to help the mood of City Workers except throw expensive parties that only pissed people off. I’d rather have a job than a party. I want someone who knows how to be people person. Someone who knows people will sacrifice and work together if they feel appreciated and part of the solution. That would be more like democracy than dictatorship. My friend works at City Hall and she says people feel like they will get their head knocked off if they look at the top guys cross-eyed. The Mayor’s people can try to scare workers into supporting him, but they can’t walk into a voting booth with us. I don’t know anything about Gomes, but he seems smart too. Nothing against him, but I would like a woman to run things for a while. Corruption happens far less often when a woman is charge. I worked for Hilary Clinton, but supported Obama when she lost. I am glad she is our Secretary of State. Rell wasn’t a leader, but at least she wasn’t involved in scandals. I looked this up, In Bridgeport:
People 18 years and over = 71.57% of the population. Of them:
Male 33.16%
Female 38.41%
I am not great a math but I know that at least 51% are women. It’s time women get together and elect one of our own.
Lennie, I haven’t had much time these past few days to keep up with your webzine. On Jan. 26, you posted an alleged press release from John Gomes titled: Gomes: Flush Sewer Proposal. Based on the response I got to one of my comments from carolanne curry (see below), you must seriously consider verifying the source of press releases sent to OIB. Please re-post the press release with the headline or title: Curry: Flush Sewer Proposal
“Statement from John M. Gomes …”
Lennie who did you say this statement was from?
carolanne curry // Jan 27, 2011 at 3:38 pm
Joel Gonzalez // Jan 27, 2011 at 11:33 am
“To your posting
Alright Joel,
Let me rephrase. My original statement …”
Newsworthy News:
General Electric has chosen Norwalk CT to launch their new battery-charging operation for electric cars–opening tomorrow!
www .ctpost.com/news/article/Electric-car-charging-stations-opening-in-Norwalk-985523.php
No Joel, this won’t work with your electric pogo stick. And tc, it won’t make your tinfoil helmet glow in the dark. But yahooy, this will re-charge your U CAZZ’ and enable you to operate-for a limited time–on a level that makes you the envy of this blog.
No one should ignore the Forbes article or dismiss it as old news revisited.
Perceptions and reputation count. Publicity like this doesn’t attract developers, businesses or homebuyers; it deters them. Confidence in Bridgeport’s future is replaced by skepticism, that whatever potential exists might be almost impossible to achieve.
Regardless of how it’s measured (pick your metric), meaningful economic progress has bypassed the city for years. We seem to be stuck in a chronic municipal malaise.
Where we are today (the state of the city) is the cumulative result of the decisions made by past and present elected officials. It’s not a glowing report card, even acknowledging the challenges of a recent recession.
Any hope for the future depends on electing people with the ability to do more than just remediate problems. We need officials with the brains, judgment, vision and independence to reinvent the way this city is run. That’ll require a different caliber of candidate than usually faces Bridgeport voters.
So here’s the question: Who has the stature and credibility to accelerate this kind of change? Is it Foster, Gomes, Fabrizi, Finch … or someone yet to be heard?
I didn’t come down with the last drop of rain.
My OIB training might be incomplete but Hubler’s post sounds like someone who is inching their way toward a formal announcement.
However, July 30, 1965 was the day Bridgeport’s future was pegged for trouble. That was the day America chose deficit spending over taxation to finance Vietnam and Medicare/MedicAid. The debt-fueled ’60s soon followed. Inflation was slow to start but quick to ruin Bridgeport’s manufacturing base. We literally priced ourselves out of our own markets. Our appetite for manufactured goods never stopped. Those inequities linger today.
Neither political party in Bridgeport has been able to overcome that obstacle.
Can Democrats for Hubler be far behind?
“AbbyNormal,” you said “There are plenty of women in this city who would be glad to get rid of a Mayor who is a womanizing woman hater.” That is a very serious charge against the mayor, are you able to support and backup what you wrote? Making claims like this is dangerous.
Ron, it gave me the impression she was anti-men.
Great post, Bruce. To answer your question, it is Foster!!!