Funds Coming For New Haven To Hartford Rail: Does This Mean They'll Get The Hole In the Train's Roof Fixed?

Measured against the hundreds of millions invested in the 11-mile New Britain-Hartford bus way, a $4 million appropriation to start "preliminary work" on high-speed rail on the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield Amtrak line doesn't seem like much.

The FY 2010 federal appropriation that surfaced last week is, according to Sen. Chris Dodd, a "down payment" toward improving an under-utilized and rickety Amtrak trunk line that charges fares considerably above Metro North's New Haven to Grand Central run.

Testimony abounds on the need for Amtrak upgrades -- even ones that don't have "high speed" attached to them but would make a world of difference. Last summer I had to get back to Hartford from New Haven without an auto. The early afternoon shuttle in New Haven took me north without incident. But the conditions in the train car were a reminder of the investments needed to make a New Haven to Hartford train run a first choice for commuters going to and from two of Connecticut's big cities. It was a hot July day with plenty of thunderstorms. Air conditioning would have been one of the amenities you'd expect for 11 bucks. No luck. I did get cooled off somewhat when the train jolted and a big splash of water came down on the seat next to me from a leak in the roof. Good thing my attache case is waterproof.

My experience says a lot about Amtrak's perpetual financial and service delivery problems -- another area where stimulus bucks would be well spent to rebuild infrastructure. I'd have to look it up but I suspect other industrialized nations are light (rail) years ahead of the U.S. on mass transit. They recognize public subsidies -- not D.C. bean counters looking for a profit - are necessary to keep rail going for enough people to help an economy and save money on fuel. On the rebuilding infrastructure side, Michael Moore's idea to turn idle car factories into bus and rail production is a common sense idea that policy makers should jump on.

My minor complaints aside, the existing rail service on up to Springfield is an unsupported adjunct for every day commuters or travelers wanting to get up to Massachusetts, Vermont and Canada and find easier connections moving down the Northeast corridor to New York and Washington.

So it's a good move to get that New Haven-Hartford-Springfield spike up to scale for fast and more convenient rail.

Let's start a countdown and push for getting it done and hope that the project doesn't get bogged down as much as the local bus way that we're still waiting for 10 years after it was proposed.

The Courant's Rick Green reports The Pioneer Valley Advocates for Commuter Rail are ahead of us on rail advocacy. They're circulating a petition to make a CT to Western MA rail corridor a reality. You can sign at
http://www.springfieldrail.org/NHHS-Petition.php

Photo Credit: www.kinglyheirs.com/

State Rep. O'Brien Poised To Take Mayoral Plunge

State Rep. Tim O’Brien (D-24) is set to make an announcement on his political plans this year at an announcement on July 17th to be held at the Pulaski Democratic Club, 89 Grove Street, from 5:30 to 8 p.m.

O’Brien formed an exploratory committee earlier this year to consider running for Mayor and he has since been meeting with voters and groups to gauge and build support for a possible mayoral run.

According to the Democratic Town Committee (DTC), no other Democrat has expressed an interest in the running for Mayor in the run up to endorsements to be held later this month.

O’Brien, a former councilor at large, was elected to the state House in 2002 and has made clean elections, property tax reform and equitable funding for cities cornerstones of his legislative efforts.

If nominated, O'Brien is expected to take on Republican Timothy Stewart who is expected to seek a fourth two-year term in the heavily Democratic city where Democrats currently dominate the City Council 13 to 2 and hold all state legislative seats. Stewart, a firefighter on leave of absence from his job as fire marshal, defeated Democrat Lucian Pawlak in 2003 riding a wave of anti-tax sentiment when property valuations soared by 40 percent. Stewart has successfully played a "me against them" theme in subsequent elections against Democratic opponents.

O'Brien has been a leading advocate in the legislature of comprehensive property tax reform that would reduce the property tax as a levy to pay for schools and other local services. During his tenure as Vice Chair of the GAE Committee, public financing and clean elections law was finally adopted. A blogger, O'Brien initiated the move by public officials late last year to seek the help of the state Department of Economic Development to save the New Britain Herald when the bankrupt Journal Register Company was ready to shut down the Herald and Bristol Press. In January, publisher Michael Schroeder emerged to revive the local dailies following the DECD's efforts to identify buyers for the local papers.

In considering a run for municipal office, O'Brien is breaking the mold for New Britain Democrats over the last generation. Elected Democrats have often moved from city government to the state legislature but not the other way around.

New Britain Democrats are scheduled to endorse their candidates on July 28th.

State Budget: The Sunset Solution

The July 4th holiday will come and go without a state budget in place for the fiscal year that began last Wednesday. The state House and Senate finally hammered out a plan that didn't muster a veto proof majority in either chamber. A disengaged Governor suddenly got engaged in the last week of the 2009 FY to negotiate. At least the posturing stopped but the word out of the mansion on Prospect Avenue as we went to get our hot dogs for the weekend was "impasse."

The deal breaker still appears to be the Governor's opposition to inching up the state income tax for households making $500,000 or more a year. The irony in all of this is that the Governor less than three years ago came out for $2 billion in tax hikes to fund her education initiatives going considerably beyond current state obligations. State Rep. John Geragosian (D-New Britain), the House appropriations chair and part of the current negotiations, quipped at the time that she sounded like "Franklin Delano Rell." If there is a moral or policy compass to Rell's style of governing it hasn't shown up since she took over from John Rowland.

Good economists, including ones the Governor employs over at UCONN, don't hold much sway with Rell or Moody or Genuario. Their arguments are easily lost in the "no new taxes" mantra but include:

-Connecticut state government is no where near the top tier in spending per capita despite the almost total absence of county or regional taxing authorities;

-the Jim Himes crowd down in Fairfield County is taxed proportionately less than your middle income household in Berlin and New Britain when all local, state and federal taxes are considered.

One possible deal maker -- sunsetting taxes and cuts to meet the crisis -- has barely been mentioned in the back and forths since last April when legislative committees unveiled the first tax and spending plans.

Former state Rep. Astrid Hanzalek, an Enfield Republican, floated the sunset solution in a June 7th Courant Op-Ed article that solicited varying opinions on how to resolve the impasse.

"Cutting programs and raising taxes is the only logical solution," wrote Hanzalek who served in the House for 10 years. "Those draconian measures sound like political suicide. Perhaps that's why the governor and legislators have been in denial."

Hanzalek's suggestion -- increases with a "built-in statutory (and enforceable) sunset provision" -- diffuses the main concern of conservatives that a tax hike will be a license to grow the size of state government. At the same time she argues the cuts could be time limited as well and over time functions and services could be restored to get the state over the hump of the worst economic downtown since the Depression.

Given the depth and severity of the recession sunsets might need to be in place for more than two years, extending into the 2012-2014 period.

If Gov. Rell and her advisors are at all in touch with fiscal reality they know that some combination of tax increases and cuts will be necessary to preserve "core services" the Governor wants to maintain. That has already been acknowledged by legislators in adopting their budget plan.

To solve this crisis both the Governor and the Legislature must "pick their poison" as one lawmaker put it during the budget debate. All the more reason they would do well to heed Hanzalek's advice and turn to a sunset solution.

State Marshals: It's Not What You Know But.......?

A recent Courant story on the hiring of state marshals suggests that a little cronyism and political backscratching may be creeping back into a relatively new system for the hiring of marshals -- the individuals who serve the legal papers on behalf of lawyers and courts.

At issue is whether more reform would be appropriate for a state that uses independent contractors (marshals) not officers of the court to notify the innocent and the guilty of legal proceedings impacting their lives.

If you get to be a marshal and have cultivated a relationship with one or more law firms, the gig can be down right lucrative. Fees can range from picking a nice $25 or $30K a year to supplement the family budget to seven-figure businesses that rival or exceed the pay of senior vice presidents at insurance companies. There's a risk side to all of it. A marshal serving an eviction notice or coming to foreclose on a home doesn't know who's behind the door when they come knocking. And marshals need to run a business that may entail taking on hired hands to keep the records straight.

These risks and responsibilities, however, are outweighed by the financial rewards. So wouldn't you be outraged if you "aced" the test only to find the Lt. Governor's low-scoring pal got the appointment?

This latest flap over appointments should be a cause for concern. But it can hardly compared with the old. In the bad old days of the county sheriffs, appointments were almost exclusively a patronage domain of the political parties.

The high sheriffs with offices in the county courthouses would be elected every four years. Incumbents had the advantage of shaking down the appointed deputies and deputy wannabes. The high sheriff, who picked the high paying assignments for himself, would also control the judicial court sheriffs who would staff the halls of justice without the union protection afforded all state employees. The only thing high sheriffs had to worry about was securing the endorsement and nomination of their parties for re-election. The sheriffs would continually patronize the local party chairmen and elected officials, and provide no small amount of financial support and election help for the party bosses.

This last vestige of county government was finally vanquished in a 2002 referendum. The state Marshal Commission was set up to replace the county sheriffs, toppling them from their courthouse fiefdoms and ending the pure political patronage upon which serving legal papers had been based.

The new commission under Governor Rowland, working with a small budget and few resources to develop better ways to manage the sheriffs (marshals), instituted the current system of merit exams, qualifications, standards and reporting requirements to regulate the state marshal conduct. The legislation mandating a referendum also allowed for the "grandfathering" of incumbent sheriffs to be appointed marshals with commission approval. Many of those who worked in the old sheriff system are still there, among them a top tier making millions of dollars a year. (I recall this having been a member of the marshal commission in its first two years).

The marshal commission itself is still a politically-driven body with its appointees coming from the Governor, who controls the majority, and the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate. Lt. Governor Fedele should hope that he's covered his tracks in denying he had nothing to do with the appointment of his friend.

The rampant sheriff patronage is gone in 2009 but political favoritism may be making a comeback to influence who gets the badges and the remuneration that goes with them.

Think Globally, Buy Locally: New Movement Says Buy From Local Merchants

What to do about our hard economic times is a part of the national conversation and plenty of federal action in the first five months of the Obama Administration. The media gas bags on cable news won't let us forget it. We rightly expect the solutions to come from Washington (the stimulus) and a more rigorous policing of the charlatans of Wall Street. Madoff is in jail and Bush et al have been vanquished.

But it may also be an ideal time for citizens and small businesses to take some of these matters into their own hands through what might be called micro-economic activism. The macro fixes in the global economy are going to take a while to trickle down, if they trickle down at all to places like New Britain, Connecticut.

That's what makes an upstart movement to encourage ordinary folks to shift a percentage of their spending away from franchises and chains into local and regional businesses one of the few good things to emerge from the baddest recession most of us have ever seen.

Visitors to the "10 percent shift" website are asked to sign the following pledge:

I live in New England and want to preserve our fine heritage, create healthy and sustainable communities, and build a strong New England economy.

I pledge to do an inventory of my annual expenditures and to find ways to shift a minimum of 10% of my annual budget from non locally-owned businesses to locally owned and independent businesses (Local Independents) in the next 12 months.

The "10 percent shifters" are a project of an organization called the New England Local Business Forum (NELBF). The group,with some strong adherents in working-class Somerville outside of Boston and Cambridge, says studies point to significant and positive impacts: "Over the past few years, a growing base of economic research has helped to quantify the Local Multiplier. When dollars are spent at Local Independents, up to three times as much money stays locally, and since Local Independents are much more likely to keep the money circulating in the local economy the economic impact multiplies dramatically. This economic growth resulting from the circulation of dollars within the local economy is the Local Multiplier at work."

In a place like New Britain that lost its retail downtown to the malling of America decades ago, this "10 percent shift" action may seem like tilting against windmills. Is there an independent drug, shoe or hardware store left? But even here we can make some choices that keep dollars in the local economy for that "multiplier effect".

I'll take some of our local restaurants over a franchise any day. I can consciously choose the local optician over Lenscrafters. Maybe there is a regionally-owned gas station where all the dollars for fuel won't be guzzled by ExxonMobil.

Becoming a shifter may be worth a try here in hard hittin' New Britain.

Photo: Amato's Store Hartford Courant

Revenue Gap Threatens New Britain Municipal Budget

It's a year when local and state governments are struggling with falling tax revenues and a severe economic downturn. New Britain is facing all of those struggles plus one more potential hole that could break the city budget in the new fiscal year.

The problem? Mayor Stewart's proposed $216.3 million estimate, now getting scrutiny by the Common Council, has added millions of dollars of revenue that may not exist at all.

The Mayor's numbers for the sale of real property includes a $3.5 million line item, an increase of $3 million over the Board of Finance's $500,000 estimate. The source of the $3 million has been reported to be the city's sale of the former Pinnacle Heights public housing project to Centerplan development company.

Back in March Mayor Stewart told the Herald: "It’s still up in the air but it’s because of the major change in the economy. Unfortunately, that’s something none of us can control. However, we can work to make sure the deal goes through eventually.”

(Democrats questions Pinnacle Heights...)

At issue is whether the $3 million in property revenue and perhaps millions more booked by the city's finance department for the sale of property in previous years are for real, or based on any solid promises to give by the buyers.

The Common Council, in addition to its line by line review of the budget with department heads, needs to ascertain the status of the Mayor's revenue estimates, particularly with regard to sale of property, for a true picture of the city's finances. As the June budget deadline approaches, there are millions of dollars being used to balance the city budget with nothing so far to back it up.

Time is running short on adopting a municipal budget by mid June. It's time for the Mayor to lead, not mislead the public on whether those property sale revenues can be counted on before June 30th.

No one can blame anyone at City Hall for a bad economy but City Hall has an obligation to tell the truth -- even if that truth is bad news.

Thinking Globally Today: Buy Fair Trade

If you're shopping this weekend for Mother's Day, looking for a graduation gift or just want a latte, there are ways to strike a blow for economic justice and sustainable development.

Saturday May 9th is Fair Trade Day around the globe. It's a weekend filled with all sorts of events -- more in Canada and Great Britain than the U.S.-- that celebrates alternative consumption wherein consumers of the developed countries pay more for coffee, chocolate and other commodities and goods than they would in the mass consumer market.

Buying "fair trade" chocolate or another certified fair trade product ensures that the producers (small farmers and artisans) in under developed and impoverished countries receive a living wage and fair return. In the case of chocolate, it gives you assurance that child slaves didn't harvest the cacao beans that find their way into mass market candy bars. Yes. The practice goes on in strife-torn Cote 'd Ivorie to this day.

My own interest in the subject stems from an unfinished thesis -- "The Market Potential of Fair Trade Cocoa" -- that assesses how the fair trade movement can make a difference in a new era of globalization when the gap between rich and poor still grows.

During the 1990s a movement of religious, civil society groups and environmental and human rights activists spawned and supported these alternative structures that attempt to end the inequities of the market for hundreds of thousands of small to medium-sized farmers. The movement which first gained notoriety in the ubiquitous coffee industry has accelerated into chocolate, bananas and other commodities of value from less developed countries.

The unequal exchange, of course, is nothing new. Colonialism is one long chain of exploitation over several centuries. The more you look into it, the more you realize that the new globalization aptly described by the New York Times' Tom Friedman in his books hasn't ended the exploitation and may be extending it into the 21st century. The transfers between the small producers of tropical crops and the end users in developed countries can be as as inequitable and exploitative as ever.

One of the good resources for this movement may be found at Equal Exchange. While fair trade sales have grown exponentially over the last decade, their percentages as measured against the mass market are in the single digits. But the movement, however limited, does show a way to reduce poverty and provide living wages one farmer and one coop at a time.

So if you are feeling sufficiently guilty, or just want to strike a small blow for economic justice, here are three ways to help on Fair Trade Day locally:

* Get your mother a woven bag from Peru or a necklace from Sri Lanka at Ten Thousand Villages (there's a store in West Hartford)

* Pick up a box of fair trade certified chocolate or coffee at an organic food store or even the supermarket where they can be found now that corporations are finding there are some profits to be made from niche markets.

* Get a latte or cappuccino at Dunkin Donuts which uses fair-trade coffee for all of its brews that aren't just a cup of joe.