A Saturday afternoon rally organized by city Republicans protests Mayor Bill Finch’s budget proposal that calls for a 2.7 mil increase including $7 million more for city schools. The tax hit, if approved by the City Council, represents an increase of more than $400 for the average homeowner. The city’s legislative body will vote on the mayor’s budget Monday night.
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Thank you to everyone who attended the “Stop the Tax” Rally this afternoon at City Hall Annex. With a showing of just over 50 people, we took an important step in telling the City Council to “Vote No” on Monday for Mayor Finch’s proposed tax increase.
I encourage everyone to keep the pressure on by continuing to call their City Council representatives (contact information can be found on www .stopthetaxincreases.com) as well as urging their family, friends and neighbors to do so as well.
I also urge everyone to attend the City Council meeting Monday May 7th, 2012 at 6:00PM at the City Council Chambers, 45 Lyon Terrace where this tax increase will be brought before the council for a vote.
Let’s bring our concerns straight to the meeting this Monday night and tell them we cannot afford this increase! I will be there this Monday and hope to have the opportunity to meet all of you.
John Slater
Chairman, Bridgeport Republican Town Committee
*** Out of “145,000-plus” people in the city of Bpt. only about 50 people attended on a Saturday afternoon to show their displeasure concerning a possible tax increase! This is exactly the reason why Bpt. city government gets away with their B/S and taxpayers end up paying the price year after year. *** ZOMBIELAND, USA ***
Mojo, what you have called “a possible tax increase” is understood as a tax increase. The public in general has been kept too far from the City fiscal process for too long so they don’t see their role as they would with a sitting Finance Board that meets 12 months per year and keeps a focused sight and strong memory about public finances. The Budget and Appropriations Committee for all of their long hours spent annually in a team-bonding endeavor has no overall sense of what they are about, other than to be seen favorably by the minority of City registered who vote. They have learned to ignore those who complain 364 days per year and stay home on voting day.
Actually the 50 who showed, not all of them Republicans by the way, were not a bad showing when you consider a group of Bridgeport activists went to Hartford to support the Senate voting on the two quality-of-life issues supported by the General Assembly already.
Taxpayers will need to keep their eyes on what the City Council cuts out of the Mayor’s budget and what they keep. We know what the Mayor supported publicly–education, retirement funding and Lighthouse–but he never addressed the other items that made the bulk of the $24 Million increase. And he never held his fourth meeting! Surprised? (Perhaps he held the meeting but it was not made public widely in advance or the date was changed or the location was locked at meeting time? Confusions B&A meetings suffered at least once this year … external to the meetings themselves.)
When the dust settles and the ADOPTED BUDGET is for real, and taxpayers adjust to new payments on July 1, 2012, there will be time to compare what “work” was done by B&A and the handful of CC who also were in attendance to view the “work.” We can compare the ADOPTED to the PROPOSED and see how conflicts of interest, information blindfolds of important data like actual number of employees who receive compensation for City services from all sources, and lack of preparation for this critical City process place Bridgeport at further disadvantage every year.
The Charter Revision Commission will be reporting soon. They are focused on the Mayor’s assignment of giving him more educational power (because, he says, he is an accountable leader). They are missing the unaccountable fiscal leadership that fails to follow Charter language, that rids itself of unwanted and unused internal audit functions, that will not share external auditor Management Letters and City responses even with FOI requests. They will ignore the subject of a Finance Board. And will we get any closer to OPEN, ACCOUNTABLE and TRANSPARENT governance than before? Time will tell.
There were 50 Bridgeport residents in attendance, which was good to see on a Saturday afternoon. What was particularly impressive is the protesters represented a definite cross-section of the city, which means once again it is not only Black Rockers who are angry at the tax increase.
The event was organized by the Republican Town Committee, but also attended by many Democrats, including at least one member of the Democratic Town Committee. Very nice to see.
*** 50 out of 145,000 residents; wow, big deal! *** PATHETIC ***
Fifty people is a lot to come out on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. I think it’s pathetic there was no media coverage.