“Only in Bridgeport”

Aug 26

jonpeltoBridgeport, Ethics, Malloy, Mayor Bill Finch , , , 16 Comments

Only in Bridgeport is the name of a blog written by Lennie Grimaldi.  It is also the name of his first book.  Grimaldi, a journalist turned public relations expert, writes about “how things REALLY work” in the Park City (aka Bridgeport).  For many Connecticut politicians, his phrase, “only in Bridgeport,” has come to represent a style of politics from a by-gone era, and era in which patronage was alive and well and “the end justified the means.”

The “Bridgeport Machine’s” present power grab to change the City’s charter by eliminating a democratically elected board of education, and replacing it with one appointed by the mayor, is a tribute to the recognition that if you want to control most of the public funds and jobs,  you need to “own” the school board and the administrators who report to that board.

If the goal is power and the control of resources, real democracy has a tendency to get in the way.

As noted before, since taking office, Mayor Bill Finch, a subset of Democrats and members of the Bridgeport business community have been angling to get rid of Bridgeport’s requirement that the Board of Education by elected by the people.

What they want is to get the voters of Bridgeport to pass a charter change that allows Bridgeport’s Mayor to appoint the members of the Bridgeport Board of Education.

It is a simple enough question, if asked honestly, but of course, the goal is winning and honesty may very well be an impediment.

So the Bridgeport Charter Revision Commission, a group appointed and controlled by the Mayor and City Council, worked over the last year to develop the exact wording to put before the voters.

Their solution is to put the following question before the voters of Bridgeport in the November election;

“Shall the city of Bridgeport approve and adopt the charter changes as recommended by the Charter Revision Commission and approved by the City Council, including education governance reforms?”

In George Orwell’s book 1984, Ray Bradbury’ Fahrenheit 451, or Franz Kafka’s The Trial, the people might very well know that the phrase “educational governance reforms” actually means the government is seeking to strip the citizens of Bridgeport their American, Constitutional, and Democratic Rights of Self-Governance.

But this fall, just to be sure, the Mayor, his inner circle, and the members of his Charter Revision Commission have made it clear that they are going with a ballot question that is totally and completely incoherent.

A clear, concise and fair vote on the subject isn’t as important to the Bridgeport Machine as is winning, and thus the voters won’t be voting on whether the Mayor should appoint the schools board, they will be voting on whether Bridgeport should “adopt the charter changes as recommended by the Charter Revision Commission and approved by the City council, including education governance reforms.”

Considering Connecticut’s Attorney General, Secretary of the State, and Governor, all ran on a platform of protecting people’s legal and democratic rights, it would be nice to think that they would intervene with a law suit saying that the Bridgeport Machine is unfairly and illegally taking away people’s constitutionally guaranteed right to know what they are voting for.  But, then again, if the “end justifies the means,” and silence leads to future machine support for these statewide officials, silence and a lack of action may very well rule the day.

For additional information check out these two editorials from the Connecticut Post.  Friday’s CT Post editorial:  Read more: http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Change-wording-on-charter-revision-3813430.php#ixzz24fGNxnwT and Sunday’s Commentary Piece by Michael Daley, CT Post’s editorial page editor:  http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Michael-J-Daly-Voters-will-make-the-ultimate-3813428.php

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  • Allie

    The mayor of Chicago has appointed the CPS School Board for decades now, and the inequities and improprieties are numerous. This is where Vallas began his career in education, and it might be useful to come by and see how things have worked out.

  • Linda174

    I can’t take credit for this quote I read on the Ravitch blog, but it aptly applies here. All of this reform nonsense it to empower children and parents is bull. So how can politiicans and slick privateers promote an agenda “which is ostensibly about empowering parents, when in reality, the privatizers and their politicians continue to use dirty tricks to run roughshod over enlightened and empowered parents?”

  • buygoldandprosper

    It makes sense that prior to running for statewide office,Mayor Dan Malloy spent an inordinate amount of time in restaurants up in Bridgeport . Learning the ropes perhaps?
    Seeing how he is doing in office now,I can only guess that he got pretty good tutorials over the steak and red wine.

    • Linda174

      I now wonder if they really “ran out” of ballots?

  • http://www.facebook.com/threefifths.tes1 Threefifths Tes

    Where is the BLACK AND HISPANIC CAUCUS of Hartford on this.

    • jonpelto

      Silent or supportive. One of them recently got a job in the Team Vallas operation.

      Sent from my BlackBerry please excuss typos

    • brutus2011

      I agree. I have recently begun to wonder where the Caucus really stands or just how much compromising is going on–or as some might say, selling out.

    • http://www.facebook.com/melanie.savage.1610 Melanie Savage

      Read the link provided above. Here it is again: http://truth-out.org/opinion/i…
      I suspect it pretty well explains why the black and puerto rican causus has been silent.

  • brutus2011

    “Only in Bridgeport” is an incomplete title.

    New Haven should be added as well.

    In fact, you really should be focusing on New Haven because the DeStefano-BOE-Mayo education cartel is much slicker than the Finch-BOE-Valla ed cartel.

    And DeStefano is running for mayor yet again!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Rich-White/100000066062155 Rich White

    Only in America would vochers be denied and taxpayers required to send their kids to union schools.
    Restore freedom of choice: vouchers! The oligarchies and monopolies must go.

    • guest

      When in American public education history have we had vouchers? Restore? Goatboy you’re still a douche!

      • Linda174

        Free the goats! Poor things :(

  • Lorenzo

    http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/9043-why-isnt-closing-40-philadelphia-public-schools-national-news#.T-aAP3ww55U.email

    Another article about Vallas that shines light on the consequences of his agenda. He’s a one man hurricane.

    • guest

      That’s really great but utterly depressing.
      Steven Adamowski is preparing the ground for closing whatever he can in Windham, then New London, most likely.
      He is arranging for 10-11 students per year to take their “portable funding” of $11,020 out of Windham High School and pay Norwich Free Academy (a school almost 4 times as large, which is declining in local student numbers). Eventually this will be 11 students per year (44), meaning $440,000. If the students don’t behave, or can’t get a ride (parents transport), the student will end up back in Windham, but, like most of these arrangements, the money stays behind. In a school as large as NFA, they don’t even have to add one aide to accomodate these students.
      And, get this–Adamowski plans to reveal 3 more deals like this to create more “choices” for parents with cars and the ability to rearrange their work schedules–costing nearly 2 million dollars in a school district that can’t even do basic maintenance to school buildings. Adamowski has thus far made these offers in a secretive way, hand-picking the families to leave the district.
      The portable funding is a fictitious sum that is beloved of reformers and privatizers to bleed public money out of maining impoverished districts.