Tribute To Bart Fisher, the Herald's Historian-In-Residence

Herald sportswriter Bart Fisher, who died last week at age 68, touched many, many people with his coverage of sports, "encyclopedic" knowledge of athletics and community and informative pieces about the city's history.  Invariably a Bart Fisher column would reveal little known but important aspects of New Britain's past that gave us a deeper understanding and appreciation of where we live.

Dennis Buden, a former Herald writer, gave one of the tributes to his mentor:

Bart’s Hardware City History column in The Herald offered a weekly chance for nostalgic readers like me to fondly recall the New Britain of a kinder, gentler time. His Around Town column highlighted the special people and places in our community, and always brought a smile. His reporting and countless columns as Herald sports editor, chronicling the exploits of New Britain’s athletes over the last 40 years, preserve a permanent and poetic record of New Britain lore as only Bart could tell it.

Link to tribute:

The New Britain Herald : New Britain, Conn., and surrounding areas (newbritainherald.com)

Community Journalism Gone Bad

The New Britain City Journal, once a promising venture in community journalism, has plunged into a tabloid gutter of innuendo, rumor and personal attack over the issue of regulating non-owner occupied housing and paying for code enforcement in the city.  

The City Journal, violating basic rules of journalism with all kinds of unsubstantiated accusations, has taken sides and cast its lot with out-of-town landlords, particularly their loudest voice,  New Yorker Sam Zherka, the owner of Farmington Hills apartments (formerly Ledgecrest Village) and publisher of The Westchester Guardian. 

Yellow Journalism In New Britain

Every week now scurrilous stories and anonymous advertising of questionable legality are hammering the O'Brien administration and members of the Common Council. 

The latest "news story" in the January 25th edition, offers readers a $25,000 reward for information leading to "the arrest and conviction" of Mayor O'Brien and Aide Phil Sherwood to "clean up city (sic) of a corrupt and dirty administration."  The Journal, at Zherka's behest, is relying on readers to come up with the "dirt and corruption" to bring down Mayor O'Brien. 

Wrote City Journal Editor and Publisher Robin Vinci: "Anyone who has any information is asked to send it to: The New Britain City Journal....and it will be forwarded to 'Taxpayers and Associates affiliated with Farmington Hills."  

The situation at the New Britain City Journal is akin to what occurred at Zherka's Westchester paper in 2010.   In his column, "The 'Zherkus' is back in town," Phil Reisman of  The Gannett-owned Journal News wrote a story on the resignation of the Guardian's editor in chief, Sam Abady: 

"The falling-out was caused by the Sept. 16 issue, which featured a cover story about Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone titled,'Rumours (sic) Of Impending Indictment?' The piece by Hezi Aris, who succeeded Abady as editor, is all over the map in its criticism of the Mayor, but it never says exactly why Amicone is supposedly in hot water. It is overwrought, rife with tortured metaphorical references to the battle of Gallipoli, Shakespeare and 'Waiting for Godot' -- and thick with innuendo and winking, read-between the lines suggestions of criminality. Nothing is substantiated. But the most damning piece is that Aris all but admits he didn't have the only metaphor that matters -- the smoking gun. The self incriminating sentence is as follows: 'The rumor mill has been spewing out tidbits of information accepted as 'facts' by some, yet is unsubstantiated to date." 

In that 2010 column Reisman reported that Zherka, the organizer of a Tea Party demonstration in White Plains (confirming his right-wing, extremist views),  had won a 1st amendment lawsuit when the Yonkers Mayor overstepped his bounds during a longstanding feud and ordered removal of newspaper dispensing boxes.  

"Besides owning a topless bar in New York City and publishing a vanity newspaper filled with political conspiracy theories, Zherka is known for being a self-styled 'player' with a flare for attracting attention," wrote Reisman, "Zherka is also notorious for filing lawsuits against public officials he believes have crossed him. There are many who fall into this category --- and many have also been the subject of sensational attack stories in The Guardian since it was started in 2006."

When the City Journal began in October 2009 it was the subject of a laudatory post by NB Politicus. Then known as the Hardware City Journal, the grassroots, free-circulation paper was praised on this blog:

New Britain's "October surprise" has nothing to do with the upcoming municipal election and everything to do with what may be a revival of community journalism in town.
The first edition of Hardware City Journal (HCJ), a 16-page free circulation paper, began circulating Friday (Oct. 16th) packed full of local news and information. The paper, with only a handful of ads upon which free circulation newspapers usually depend, is similar in content and appearance to the Berlin Citizen weekly next door. The upstart HCJ appears to be the brainchild of Robin Vinci, a former Herald reporter who covered Berlin and a native of New Britain. Vinci's love for her native city comes through in an opening letter on the editorial page. She is a journalist who knows the town she is writing about past and present, a factor which can count for a lot in delivering news you may not find elsewhere.

Robin Vinci denies that anything has changed at the City Journal or that it has become Sam Zherka's "vanity newspaper" in New Britain.   She maintains the out-of-town landlord's money and influence are not a part of her publication. It's hard to believe, however, that print and online ads  in a 16 page tabloid alone are paying for mailings of the paper into 23,000 households and for the addition of  "writers" and ad reps who may be imported by Zherka himself.  

Whatever the Vinci-Zherka relationship,  the tone and content of Ms. Vinci's stories over the past few months calls into question her credibility as a reporter.  Her tirades without facts about the O'Brien administration sound more like a propagandist  beholden to special interests, the Republican Party or both.  

The City Journal has  abandoned the mission that you can still find on its online masthead: "We will not publish accusations or hurtful comments. We feel New Britain is a great city and want to focus on the brighter, positive aspects of it."

This is not the same City Journal that won praise here three and a half years ago.  The promise of "honest, straight-forward reporting" has given way to the strident and sensational and an agenda that is not in the public interest.

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Sunshine On State Budget: Lembo Launches Open Connecticut

Score one for State Comptroller Kevin Lembo on the government and transparency front to start 2013. .

Lembo has launched a new website for the public to get an unabridged and politically neutral one-stop source for where state government spends its money, gets its income and borrows. If there are inefficiencies or redundancies to root out as CT faces billion dollar budget deficits this is the place to find it. "Sunshine," the Justice Louis Brandeis famously said, "is the best disinfectant."

Open Connecticut is more comprehensive than the website served up by the Yankee Institute -- a right wing think tank -- that paints state employees with a broad brush whether they are earning their keep or notand uses data to tear down government  

According to Lembo's office Open Connecticut -- www.osc.ct.gov/openct --centralizes state financial data and simplifies access to important information about the state budget and its financial future.


Here's more from the Comptroller's Office:

"It’s your money, and you have a right to know," Lembo said. 'That’s the simple message behind Open Connecticut. 'Pockets of state financial information have long been available, but scattered across state agencies. Those who actually have the time to locate information often discover the next difficult step - understanding the information. 'Through Open Connecticut we want to accomplish at least two things - we want to end the scavenger hunt for taxpayers by creating a centralized warehouse for financial information, and we want to help explain and break down the state’s financial processes as simply as possible. 'We want to help answer basic questions that the public may have - and deserves to know - about state government. For example, what exactly is in the state budget? Where did our deficits or surpluses come from? How much did we spend on a particular vendor or program? And what should we expect in future years?" Open Connecticut is currently organized into seven sections: STATE BUDGET: Provides access to the state budgets for current and previous years, annual end-of-year financial reports, deficit mitigation plans and results-based accountability (RBA) reports that serve as report cards on how state money was spent on certain projects. STATE INCOME: Features monthly reports by the Department of Revenue Services on the amount of state revenue received, as well as reports on income tax collected by bracket and by town. STATE BORROWING:  Provides access to the state’s Bond Allocation Database, which contains information about projects approved by the State Bond Commission. This section also features background about the State Bond Commission, its members and how the bond authorization and allocation process works.  FUTURE COST OBLIGATIONS:  Provides background and links to actuarial reports on the state’s various retirement systems and retiree health care (known as the Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB) report). FOLLOW THE MONEY:  Features links to transparency.ct.gov, an existing searchable website maintained by the Office of Fiscal Analysis (OFA) that already provides information (from the Office of the State Comptroller (OSC)) about employee salaries, vendor payments, retiree pensions and other detailed information about state spending. FINANCIAL FORECAST:  Includes links to monthly independent financial forecast reports by the OSC, OFA and Office of Policy and Management, as well as links to fiscal accountability reports and consensus revenue projections.  TAX BREAKS & EXEMPTIONS: Provides links to reports by OFA and Department of Economic and Community Development on the cost of tax expenditures and evaluations on certain tax credit and abatement programs. Open Connecticut also features brief tutorials on issues such as Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), the state spending cap and consensus revenue. "This site is by no means a finished product - but a starting point towards greater transparency and connectivity between the public and state government," Lembo said. "My goal is to see this site evolve and expand to include more information as it becomes available. I encourage state residents to use the site, to better understand their government - and to let us know if they have ideas to improve the site going forward." Lembo, as state comptroller, is the state's chief fiscal guardian. In that capacity he monitors state finances and issues monthly and annual financial reports. Elected in 2010, Lembo previously served as the state's Health Care advocate..

 

The Herald: Putting Absentee Landlord Policy In Perspective

 The Herald's Lisa Backus provides a thorough examination of the city's landlord license and issues related to regulating non-owner occupied housing in a December 2nd story.

Accurate and balanced information like this is the best way to combat the propaganda and misinformation coming from elsewhere, including the landlord lobby that has used political grandstanding and redbaiting instead of engaging in constructive dialogue.

NEW BRITAIN - Just days after an estimated crowd of 500 marched on City Hall to demand a repeal of two new ordinances aimed at imposing “hot spot” and licensing fees on out-of-town landlords, city detectives with a police shooting team were knocking on the door of 80 Clark St. to serve an arrest warrant on a home invasion suspect.

It wasn’t the first time city police had been at the address. According to dispatch records, since January 2011, officers had been at 80 Clark St. 50 times to deal with all manner of criminal and nuisance activity including the arrest of a man charged with attempted murder in the shooting of another Clark Street resident over owed drug money, a report of shots fired and six illegal drug investigations.

 Link to Herald story...

The New Britain Herald : New Britain, Conn., and surrounding areas (newbritainherald.com)

Lessons from California for New Britain, Hartford and Washington

Elected officials  at all levels can learn something from Governor Jerry Brown and the victory of Proposition 30 in California this month as they contend with "fiscal cliffs" and budget holes.

What Brown says and did points to a way forward for those who serve us at New Britain City Hall, the State Capitol and the U.S. Capitol.

Well-financed anti-tax referenda in California have often prevailed. But Proposition 30 passed with a 54% majority.  The measure called the School Protection and Safety Act by proponents hikes the sales tax from 7.25% to 7.5% and raises income taxes progressively on high income individuals (above $250,000) for seven years.  Approval brings close to $7 billion averting what Brown promised would be draconian cuts and hardships for working and middle income people.

"It sold itself. The core reason it brought people together was a belief in schools and universities and the capacity of government to make wise investments that benefit all of us," Brown said on election night.
Prop 30 proponents such as California's American Federation of Teachers made the identical argument  President Obama and Congressional Democrats now must use to restore federal tax rates on the wealthiest Americans to pre-Bush levels: 

Prop 30 asks no one but the wealthy to pay more in income taxes.  This income tax affects no one below $250,000/year. The top one percent of income earners has doubled its share of total state income over the past twenty years (from 12% to over 20%), while income for the rest of us has stagnated. Meanwhile, the top tier tax rates (state and federal) are lower than they used to be.  20 years ago the highest tax rate in California was 11% of income; today it is 10.3%.  When Congress extended Bush’s federal tax cuts for the rich in 2010, the top one percent in California received a windfall of nine to fourteen billion dollars per year—nearly equal to the entire state budget deficit.  The people who would be affected by this income tax can afford to, and should, invest more in their state.

Brown, 74,  is a  former Oakland Mayor, Attorney General, Secretary of the State, two-term Governor and Presidential candidate. The son of former CA Governor Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, Brown took over from "The Gubernator" after the 2010 election; stepping into the biggest economic crisis since 1930s, massive layoffs and disinvestments  and a gridlocked Legislature that needs two-thirds consent to get budgets done.

In his second coming as Governor,  Brown's modus operandi (he's fond of Latin phrases from his seminarian days and Jesuit training) has been, he says,  telling the unvarnished truth about the state budget and never using one-time revenue fixes and gimmicks that make matters worse in CA and everywhere.

Pragmatic progressive Brown will entertain plenty of cuts and austerity, but through Prop 30 he's now got a firewall against a Paul Ryan-style decimation of basic government services, especially to education.

In referendum-crazy California, Brown pledged not to raise any more taxes unless citizens approved them via the ballot initiative.  The tax cutters got beat at their own game. At the same time, Brown campaigned vigorously for a plan that gives  K-12 schools, community colleges and California's higher education system a new lease on life and keeps the books balanced.


Brown, according to the LA Times, says Prop 30 signals a national movement of taxpayer support for public investments and tax dollars spent prudently.  He draws a parallel to the famous Prop 13 of 1978 property tax revolt that cut regressive local taxes and Prop 30 that will raise taxes progressively.

Said Brown: "I was here in 1978, when Howard Jarvis beat the entire establishment, Republican and Democrat, because the property taxes had just gotten out of control. Now the cutting, the cutting and the deficits are out of control.”

Mayor Issues Storm Safety Message for "Sandy"

An Important Safety Message from Mayor Tim O’Brien 

 Dear New Britain resident,

Ø  Hurricane Sandy is approaching Connecticut. This is a large, dangerous storm that will impact New Britain, for a period of 24 to 36 hours beginning Monday.

Please be advised of the following:

Ø   New Britain, is expecting high winds of 40 - 60 MPH and heavy rain.

Ø   Downed trees, power outages and flooding are expected with this storm.

New Information

·         Due to this storm, all public and private schools will be closed on Monday and Tuesday.   

·         There will be no trash or recycling collection for Tuesday morning pick-up.

·         The Senior Citizen Center on Pearl St. will open Monday morning at 8 am as a shelter.

Please do these things today:

•       Bring inside all lawn furniture, cooking grills and trash bins.

•       Be prepared to be self-sufficient in your home for 72 hours.

•       Have food, water, flashlights and a battery operated radio available.

•       Charge all cell phones.

•       Check on elderly and at risk neighbors and relatives.

•       Stay informed, listen to storm information, and please take action now.

      Please remember these things for your families’ safety: 

•       Do not use candles for lighting, use flashlights.

•       Do not use propane or charcoal grills indoors for any reason.

•       Stay away from downed power lines.

•       Call 860-826-3000, to report fallen trees, fallen wires and flooding.

•       Call 9-1-1 for police, fire and medical emergencies.

Updates will continue to be available at www.newbritainct.gov as the city continues our work for you during the storm.

Posted at Mayor Tim O'Brien's Blog

Absentee Landlord Licenses, Fees Exist In Many Communities

Updated November 21, 2012: Legitimate concerns about the city’s licensing of absentee landlords (all owner-occupied dwellings are excluded) have been drowned out by a phony anti-government coalition fueled by out-of-town interests and a failed GOP leadership seeking once again to use divisiveness for political gain.   The well-publicized and well-financed campaign of distortion is  now replete with paid protestors, intimidation of tenants and outrageous lies about the ordinance and who would be affected by it.

The absentee landlord lobby frets and whines that if this happens in New Britain, it will spread to other communities.  What they don’t want you to know is licensing and fees for absentee owners and investment properties exist from the Redwood forests to the New York highlands as a means of maintaining housing stock and improving landlord and tenant relations.  As the following post from NB Politicus noted in early October  the absentee landlord law suit flies in the face of similar ordinances in Connecticut and around the country, including laws that go far beyond what has been proposed for New Britain.

On October 4th, New Britain's Common Council adopted new fee ordinances on landlords owning non-owner occupied, multi-unit apartments  --  policies designed to raise an alternative source of revenue as well as to strengthen anti-blight enforcement in multi-unit housing.

The $150 per unit flat fee represented a compromise over an earlier proposal that the Council's Planning and Development committee left on the table. It will raise an estimated $1 million on rental properties with absentee owners.

A second ordinance known as a "hot-spot fee" would charge landlords $500 when emergency and public safety personnel are called to an apartment house five or more times in a year.  It is expected to generate another $1 million.

The combined measures can avert some service cuts and improve the anti-blight efforts as Mayor O'Brien and the Council seek to fill a $4 million hole growing out of  the structural deficits identified in the last fiscal year when O'Brien took office.  Clearly, they are not a panacea for the budget woes that stem from nearly a decade of gimmickry and one-short revenues of prior administrations. The license fee  is part of a strategy to avoid regressive taxation in tough fiscal times: raising the property tax  always falls disproportionately on homeowners and those least able to afford it.

The Common Council's actions occurred amid a raucous and at times churlish crowd of opponents prominently led by the statewide landlord lobbying group which opposes the fees and previously opposed tougher anti-blight measures that the O'Brien Administration has adopted.

According to press reports, Bob De Cosmo, president of the Waterbury-based Connecticut Property Owners, said his group will file a class-action lawsuit against the city.  In an effort to bully and intimidate city councillors DeCosmo was quoted as saying "we will be looking into suing each individual council member that voted for this illegal tax."

The hollow threat of a legal fight over the modest New Britain flat fee flies in the face of policies and fees that are found in many other  communities throughout the country and that have been on the books for a good long time.

In Connecticut, for example, Stamford has an annual fee structure on multi-family units tied to housing code enforcement: a $60 fee and $30 per additional unit for three to nine apartments; $75 and $40 per additional unit for 10 to 39 apartments, and; $200 fee and $60 per unit for 40 or more apartments. Sounds doubtful absentee landlords will dump their New Britain properties to go buy dwellings downstate.  Nor will they pull up stakes and go to places like Gainesville, FL, North Chicago IL, Burlington, NJ, Cedar Rapids IA, Salt Lake City UT, Minneapolis, MN (and many more). They'll find landlord fees and licenses and charges for rental units in all of them.

One other thing municipalities here in Connecticut and elsewhere have as a sensible part of housing policy is a Certificate of Occupancy ordinance. That was lost to New Britain in the 1980s when Tom Bozek was the Council majority leader.  It would be a feather in the cap to Mayor O'Brien and the Council to restore the CO ordinance, not just for fees but to fairly handle the rights and responsibilities of landlords and tenants.

The Mayor and Common Council clearly didn't deserve the insults and push back at the Council meeting from some of the attendees, particularly absentee landlords who need to learn a lesson in shared sacrifice without diminishing a return on their investments. They need to be responsible members of this community whether they live here or not.