Mount Trashmore, Ganim’s Déjà Vu Moment In East End

In the week since his resounding primary defeat for governor, Mayor Joe Ganim hasn’t gone to political sleep, or travel to parts unknown, perhaps a nod to those urging him to pay attention to home cooking with his reelection poised in 2019. In recent days he’s appeared for back-to-school events, economic development announcements as well as a nostalgic moment where he earned his stripes as a candidate for mayor in 1991, a promise to clean up the mountainous demolition-debris disgrace Mount Trashmore in the East End that wreaked environmental havoc on the neighborhood. All these decades later Ganim on Tuesday returned to the scene of his political youth with a promise of something better for that very same remedial location.

When a 32-year-old Joe Ganim became mayor in 1991, he had a governor sensitive to his urban challenges. Lowell Weicker said you help me and I’ll help you. For Weicker it meant one thing: Ganim must withdraw the bankruptcy appeal his Republican predecessor Mary Moran had placed in federal court. Bridgeport, as a child of the state, scalded the credit worthiness of Connecticut. So Weicker said I’ll do this, this and this to Ganim. Weicker was true to his word. The “this” included $500,000 to help clean up Mount Trashmore. Ganim kicked in about half that amount in city funds and the deed was done, that rat-infested nightmare was carted away. But not developed.

On Tuesday Ganim returned with a new declaration, a city councilman who remembers those days, Ernie Newton, at his side. Newton, then a state representative, pushed for the state money to clean up the site.

From Mike Mayko, CT Post:
“I expect by late autumn we’ll be ready to issue a request for proposals. We’ll be looking to the community leaders, the religious leaders and the East End residents for suggestions on what they want to see here.”

Full story here.