Urban Oaks Farm Invites You To Harvest Moon Festival October 23

The 225 Oak Street farm -- recognized for heirloom herbs and organic crops -- invites you to its first Harvest Moon Festival on Saturday, October 23rd from noon to 8 pm.

The farm has turned the former Sandelli Florist property into a sustainable enterprise in the heart of the city, improving the neighborhood in the process.

Farmers' market with good food to eat and entertainment.  Admission is free.

www.urbanoaks.org

CT Capital Report polling: Science of push button survey has skeptics

No question political junkies can't get enough of polls in the run up to elections. In 2010, Connecticut is seeing an extraordinary amount of polling because of the high stakes U.S. Senate race and an open seat for Governor.

In addition to the well-established Quinnipiac Poll, national outfits such as Rasmussen are measuring voter sentiment in the Nutmeg state in a big way.  These have more than made up for the loss of the Courant/UCONN poll that was Connecticut's authoritative opinion survey for a long time.

Last week  the news and opinion aggregation site, CT Capitol Report, entered the handicapping for this year's "horse races" and immediately gave pundits more material to analyze and write about. We can all take heart that the polling is home grown from www.merrimanriver.com.  But do we need more info on the horse races or journalistic attention focused on issues and how candidates are responding to them?

I was among the CT residents phoned by the CT Capitol's survey that called about the Governor's race, which the poll ultimately found to be a "dead heat."  This was a push-button poll wherein a recorded voice asked me a series of questions on my choice for governor and got the vitals on my political identity.  As I dutifully gave the answers of a liberal Democrat I wondered about the efficacy of a survey that did not involve a back and forth with another human being, just required whoever answered the phone to punch in answers if there was enough patience to stay on the line for five minutes or so.

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza discusses the pros and cons of the CT Capitol Report survey methodology in this recent story from the Washington Post's "The Fix".

Cillizza suggests voters take CT Capitol Report's and other automated polls with a grain of salt:

In a standard telephone poll, the interviewer may seek to add another layer of randomness by asking to speak for a specific person in a household, such as whoever most recently celebrated a birthday. Automated polls do not attempt to do that. Establishment pollsters argue that by stripping a level of randomness from the polling process, auto-dial pollsters must more heavily weight their samples to achieve demographic diversity --- rendering the results almost meaningless.

The CT Capitol Report polling also told us that the 5th Congressional District is the most anti-Obama and trending Republican of any of CT's five districts. Too bad towns like New Britain and Meriden will skew these results.


It's kind of ironic that in the age of dying newspapers and diminished journalism voters--the online ones anyway -- may be getting Too Much Information (TMI) that focuses less on the issues and how candidates will address them.


Sources:


 http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/parsing-the-polls/parsing-the-polls-of-auto-dial.html

http://www.ctcapitolreport.com/

GOP "Common Sense" Plan: Hypocrisy Thy Name Is Republican

A key phrase from a new state government agenda from Republicans is: "Borrow only what you can afford to pay back". Minority Leader Larry Cafero and the crafters of this "common sense" plan conveniently forget to mention that a Republican has held the Governor's office for 20 years. The Governor has sole and exclusive control over state borrowing. Blaming the Democratic majority for all state budget problems strains credulity.  The executive branch is a co-equal and some would argue more powerful branch when it comes to the public purse.


There is nary a word about changing the tax structure to ease the burden on the property tax to pay for education. That real reform would offend corporate special interests and the folks who have the long driveways in the tony towns of the Nutmeg state who don't want the tax burden made fairer. Working and middle class taxpaying families get no comfort or relief from the drivel in this platform.  Hypocrisy thy name is Republican.


Take a look yourself at www.commonsensecommitment.com

An Over-Reliance On Police Station For Downtown Revival?

New Britain's Stalinesque and worn out police station cries out for a replacement. The men and women of the force deserve better to carry out their public safety duties.  The point is non-debatable. It's past time to put shovel to ground.

The matter is apparently settled according to an August 18  Herald story. The options are down to two and the site is locked into the corner of Chestnut and Main across from Trinity-on-Main performing arts center.  The Stewart administration, not exactly a paragon of inclusive discussion or citizen input, is moving full speed ahead.

Proponents of the final plans point to a development strategy that makes a fortress-like structure the catalyst to commercial, tax-paying expansion.  They point to Middletown and the siting of its station as an example of how a new public safety facility can be helpful to retail revival.

It's mandatory these days to use public investment for economic development. There is no firm private investment as of yet to fill non-police space either. And the possible bus way or rail link -- an important means of bringing downtown back -- are still years away. It's not surprising that city officials and downtown interests would want to press ahead now with building a station just to get development moving.

Voices have and will be raised, however, that giving the station such a dominant footprint on Main Street is not the last and best use. That's where retail/commercial/cultural uses may be more appropriate over the long term, according to comments made while the project was open for debate.  For some,  a third option -- which admittedly would take longer  -- is siting the police facility at the former Herald Building two doors down. It's close enough to Main Street's open lot but leaves prime space in the central business district for tax-producing development.  Inhabitants and visitors of downtown don't necessarily need a police building as much as a police presence to reassure the public and increase social and economic activity in the central business district.

The merits of building a new police station are unquestioned. What is in question is whether the Main Street model can spur private development with much of the primary space taken away. It's expecting too much. Other factors such as public transit, developing cultural assets and a much higher profile for CCSU downtown will have an equal or greater impact than the imposing police station model.

MA communities get big time savings from health insurance pooling

Connecticut's efforts to establish a health insurance pooling option for cities and towns have been thwarted by the vetoes of Republican Governor Jodi Rell over the last two years.

House Speaker Chris Donovan has estimated that New Britain would save $900,000 or more if the city could opt in to a state health care pool, reducing the higher insurance premiums it now pays on its own.  Pooling, now in effect in close to 20 states, doesn't spend a dime of tax money but re-structures the system to reduce costs.

With a squeeze on municipal revenues expected to worsen in FY 2012, the fate of CT health care pooling will rest with who is elected Governor.  The Democrats in the race are for pooling. It's likely the GOP candidates will agree with Rell allowing the private market to escalate costs for local government, small businesses and taxpayers.

A new study reported in The Boston Globe finds that MA communities are reaping fiscal benefits of pooling in the Bay State.

Here's the link

14 communities save more than $30m in health costs - Melrose - Budget Blues - Boston.com

U.S. Sets Poor Example With Too Much Money in Politics

Connecticut's relatively new public campaign system has run afoul of some courts and is causing no small amount of confusion in the run up to the August 10th Primary.

The July 13th circuit court ruling upheld some provisions and threw out others leading the General Assembly into special session on July 30th to fix it.

No matter how the new law settles into practice, the court has found a ban on lobbyists giving donations to candidates and committees is unconstitutional. The judges saved the Rowland-inspired change, however, by upholding the ban on contractors who do business with the state.   The only thing certain in this "money is the mother's milk of politics" saga is that the final judicial and legislative action on the Connecticut law may not be resolved in this election cycle.

Columnist and former Norwalk Mayor Bill Collins observes  in a recent column that giving the very wealthy, lobbyists and corporations unfettered influence in the process doesn't make the US a shining example of how democracy should work

We seem to feel that the American system is above reproach because that's essentially what we learned in school. But the rest of the world is not so easily deluded. There's widespread understanding that money rules Congress, both by promoting specific candidates and by fawning over them when they win. That's why a few enlightened lands have imposed strict contribution limits and much shorter campaigns. They view our experience with horror.

Here's a link to Bill's column. http://www.otherwords.org/articles/it_takes_too_much_money_to_run

A Newspaper War in New Britain?

Two years ago New Britain was on the brink of losing its only daily newspaper, The New Britain Herald. The last days of print journalism in town appeared certain as the Courant steadily withdrew resources and the Herald's parent, the Journal Register Company, was getting ready to lock the doors at One Herald Square for good.

But the Herald and its sister paper, The Bristol Press,  soldier on with Publisher Michael Schroeder having retained and recruited experienced editors and reporters.  Schroeder is also contending with  keeping  the hometown dailies going commercially despite a bad economy and the tendency of many post-Baby Boomers to get their information from everything but newsprint. Not so easy but the investment continues.

Out of nowhere the revival of The Herald has been followed over the last nine months by not one but two free community weeklies that can be found side by side each week in shops, bars and other establishments around town.

Make no mistake.  These free papers don't represent a threat to the mainstream and commercial Herald that sells for 75 cents on the newstands and has an online edition. The freebies pursue advertising but appear to be no more than labors of love for now.

The Hardware City Journal (HCJ), launched last fall, has re-surfaced after a brief hiatus following the abrupt departure of the paper's editor, Robin Vinci. Vinci,  an even-handed journalist who covered Berlin for the Herald, bolted to start a new paper, The New Britain City Journal (NBCJ), that replicates much of what Vinci was doing at HCJ.  A May 12th Herald story took note of Vinci's exit from HCJ and plans for the City Journal.

With both now hitting the streets,  the June 18th issues of each free paper contain healthy doses of human interest and coverage of the budget woes and cuts on education from City Hall.  Neither paper betrays any editorial bent in favor or liberals or conservatives or Republicans and Democrats.  Not yet anyway.

The one difference appears to be that NBCJ  reveals more about who is behind the enterprise.  The Publisher is R2 Online Consignment with Vinci listed as the editor. The HCJ, while it has bylines with recognizable names (Editor: John O'Dell), says nothing about ownership or publisher and provides just  a P.O. box, phone number and e-mail in the editorial page box. The hand of Vinci in NBCJ shows a tighter and more professional approach than the HCJ, which inflates itself to 20  pages by including  almost a page of City Hall department number boilerplate on the inside and a full back page of Mayor Stewart's budget veto message (insults and all) and his accompanying press release about why it's necessary to spend more in the municipal budget but spend less for education than the Common Council plan.

There's no clear word on what caused a splintering of the people who are gamely trying to make free community newspapers work in New Britain. Nick Paonessa, a past Republican candidate for several offices and as strongly opinionated a conservative as you can meet in New Britain, was involved in the HCJ with Vinci. He's still about town delivering and talking up the HCJ, but still prefers to maintain the lowest of profiles, letting a staple of byliners take all the credit or responsibility for the Hardware City Journal.

Given the near death of the city's daily in January 2009, it sounds improbable that New Britain residents are on the reading end of three different sources  of community news in 2010. But that's what they'll get as they pick up that quart of milk or lottery ticket at the corner store or go to the neighborhood tavern every week.

Let's enjoy the competition while it lasts.