Ken Dixon's Blog-O-Rama

Connecticut politics is a contact sport

Archive for November, 2008

CHRO Takes Opportunities to Ignore State Rules

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Friday November 28, 2008

A new audit of the state Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities makes the Blogster wonder how they can enforce workplace rules when they have so much trouble following the rules themselves.
For starters, in 2005, 2006 and 2007, only about half of the more than 3,300 complaints were open and closed within the 370-day maximum.
The commission routinely ignored the requirement to file contract-compliance and affirmative-action reports.
It failed to comply with state telecommuting rules. Its Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Commission, which is at least four years old, has NEVER submitted an annual report to the governor, as required annually by state law.
Finally, travel authorization request forms were not on file “for an employee who attended four ‘board meetings’ of a national affirmative action organization, for a total of eight days, during calendar year 2007.”
The commission, in its response to the audit, said the King Holiday Commission has formed a “subcommittee” assigned to prepare a report for the governor; the controls on telecommuting were strengthened; and “staff turnover” was blamed for the failure to meet investigatory guidelines.

Connecticut Arts Council Releases Big Bucks

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Wednesday November 26, 2008

Just in case you’re convinced that Connecticut is tightening its belt, the state Commission on Culture & Tourism just awarded $651,585 in grants to non-profit organizations, municipalities and schools.
Sure the state should invest in the arts, but the Blogster likes the timing of the commission’s release, the day after the special session where the best the General Assembly could come up with was $25 million in spending cuts.
The culture vultures spread the money among about 100 groups. The Cooperative Marketing Grants alone totaled $414,883, “to increase attendance, visitation, overnight stays and leverage theCommission’s marketing and regional tourism district funds.” The money included billboard-advertising programs.
Remember when Gov. Jodi Rell wanted to eliminate billboard advertising in our lifetimes?

U.S. Senate Majority, Unlike Connecticut Dems, Wants Joe Lieberman

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Tuesday November 25, 2008
It’s the lunch hour and Joe Lieberman, John McCain’s not-quite running mate, is staging a news conference in an apparent attempt to rehabilitate himself, even as some state Democrats work to censure him and ask him to leave the party for partisan election-year crimes.
But since it doesn’t look as if there will be 61 Senate Democrats next year, Joe’s not going to be drummed out of the party.
The Blogster just got off the horn with Nancy DiNardo, Democratic state chairwoman, who believes that since Barack Obama has sent the message that Lieberman’s needed in the caucus, Connecticut Dems won’t ask him to leave during the next meeting of state central on December 17th.
“Basically, I am hearing that President-elect Obama wants Joe Lieberman in the caucus, so I think people are feeling that they will be keeping him in the party, but they clearly want him to know they’re not happy with his supporting McCain and criticizing Obama,” DiNardo predicted.
In the committee’s October meeting, there was a movement to censure Lieberman – whose loss to Ned Lamont in the 2006 primary sent him on an orbit closer to Republicans on the war issue and McCain for president – and ask him to resign his party affiliation.
State party members were still smarting over Lieberman’s speech at the GOP National Convention.
DiNardo predicted that during that December 17 meeting, some form of communication may result that will be sent to Lieberman, criticizing his doing business for McCain.

Rell, Having Perfected Her PR Exoskeleton, Calls for Legislative Veterbrae

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Monday night, November 24, 2008

Seconds after the Senate voted final action on the $288-million deficit-reduction package tonight, Gov. Jodi Rell’s vast PR department cranked out a challenge to the spineless Ds, who in their $25.6 million in actual real-live spending cuts, eliminated most of the state Office of Business Advocate Rob Simmons’ office. Rob, for those of you who live west of the Connecticut River, was the three-term GOP congressman from the state’s Third District. Rell rewarded him with a patronage job when he got kicked out by U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney.
Besides that partisan humor, the Ds didn’t really hit a home run against what could be a multi-BILLION-dollar deficit next year.
“The General Assembly took a step in the right direction tonight, but only a step,” Rell said in her statement. “The reality is that the cuts only get more difficult from here on out.
These actions do not bode well for the ability of the Legislature to confront the difficult decisions that will be required to protect Connecticut’s future in the face of $6 billion in budget deficits over the next two years.Much more than tinkering around the edges will be required in the weeks and months to come. Far more rigor – and far more backbone – will be required if we are to truly serve the best interests of the people of Connecticut.”
This from someone who put the bottle-deposit issue into her mitigation proposal as a long-shot way to get to a bottom line of $300 million and who also lacks the interest in facing Capitol reporters on any kind of regular basis for Q and A. But she has a tough outer shell.

Amann Has a Prediction for the 2010 Races

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Monday night November 24, 2008

It’s almost 9 o’clock and the average lawmaker has been here for 11 hours. Finally, at 6:30 the House and Senate began debate on the two bills that will help the state address the $300-million hole in the current budget.
Speaker of the House Jim Amann, D-Milford, was sitting back in the chair atop the House podium, as House Minority Leader Larry Cafero, the best orator in the chamber, painted a grim picture of multi-billion-dollar deficits in next year’s budget.
Amann was grinning as he scribbled large letters on a legal pad, before lifting it to show the right side of the House, where the heart of the Democratic caucus sat. “10 in 2010″ the note to the caucus said. That was Amann’s prediction that the current 44-member GOP caucus, cut to 37 in the recent election, would be reduced to in the next General Assembly election.
Speaking of 37, the Blogster notes that the way the House seating areas are divided, there are exactly 36 seats on the far left side of the chamber where Republicans currently have most of their membership. So in the session that starts January 7, one Republican will have to sit across the aisle in Democratic territory.
Who shall it be? The Blogster says veteran Rep. T.R. Rowe, R-Trumbull, should go across the aisle to win new friends and influence people.

The Aptly Named Escheats Will Continue to Be Windfall For Beverage Industry

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Monday November 24, 2008

Too bad they didn’t schedule the special session of the General Assembly for Wednesday instead of today. Then the lame-duck session could be the lame-turkey confab of the House and Senate.
Speaking of turkeys, the unredeemed nickel deposits called escheats by wonks like the Blogster, will not be part of the deficit-mitigation plan. Sure, Jodi Rell just tossed it out there as a way to get another $25 million (or $10 million if you listen to the soda and beer distributors)but sooner or later, the state’s gonna retrieve that money.
“It’s unclaimed property and we should take it for the people,” Senate Minority Leader John McKinney just told a couple of reporters. “Every governor from Lowell Weicker has proposed it.” McKinney said that 30 years ago, the deposit law was passed as a recycling-and-litter strategy and that no one anticipated the possibility of people paying the deposit at the purchase point, then failing to redeem the empties.
“It should be a slam dunk,” said McKinney, noting that the state’s landmark campaign-finance reforms should have prevented lobbyist influence and yet clearly the beverage industry is winning this one, today.

Blogster Offers Free Advice For Venture Capitalists

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Friday November 21, 2008

Attorney General Dick Blumenthal’s announcement to sue the owner of the Hamden Plains Cemetery for improper financial gain and failure to properly mark graves, has inspired Connecticut Blog-o-rama to come up with a potentially lucrative brainstorm.
Unfortunately, those most likely to reap the rewards are undertakers who want to be called funeral directors in honor of the exorbitant costs they charge bereaved families.
Anyway, the cemetery allegedly misplaced the deceased, mismarking graves and the like. While there’s no proof that the dead are disturbed by this, the folks they have left behind are justificably upset.
Here’s the Blogster’s simple solution: GPS transmitters attached to the coffins. As Elvis would say: “Thank you….thank you very much…”

Unions to Rell: What Do You Mean WE Have to Tighten Our Belts?

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Thursday, November 20, 2008

Gov. Jodi Rell wants the state-employee unions to sign off, which is a big IF, but she wants to take $14.5 million from their pension fund and use it to offset some of the burgeoning Connecticut budget deficit.
Dan Livingston, the chief negotiator for the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC), said this morning that they’ll listen to her pitch, but the pension and retiree healthcare plans are underfunded.
“Our bigger concern is that the state government must recognize wha tthe incoming Obama administration already recognizes,” Livingston said. “The current problems must be understood not as budget problem for the state, but as a jobs, services, and quality of life problem for Connecticut’s people.”
In an interview, Livingston offered the union position on any possible layoffs down the line, when majority Democrats realize a $6 billion deficit is gonna take alot more than a tax amnesty plan ($40 million) to pay off.
The SEBAC coalition represents about 45,000 state employees.
“We’re willing to sit down and talk about how to make progress on the big issue,” Livingston said. “The budget problems are a symptom, not a cause. We’re willing to be part of a solution to the economic crisis,but to be part of that solution you have to realize during a downturn in the economy, people have more need for public services.”

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