Ken Dixon's Blog-O-Rama

Jeff Garfield is finally finishing his double-dipping stint as a retirement-collecting former director of the State Elections Enforcement Commission, back on the state payroll, receiving 70 percent of his pay as, yes, executive director of the SEEC. To be fair (and the Blogster loathes being fair in this case, since Garfield didn’t return a call for a recent newspaper story about retirees who decide to come back for a few months as “temporary workers”), the SEEC had been reeling after a federal court threw out the state’s campaign-finance law. Garfield added some expertise as state officials regrouped. 

But starting October 23,  Albert P. Lenge will be the new executive director and general counsel after 14 years as Garfield’s deputy. “He brings continuity, experience and dedication to his new role and will continue to make significant contributions to the operations of the Commission with the utmost degree of professionalism,” Garfield said in a canned quote from the SEEC.

Coincidentally, there’s a $90-a-head retirement dinner for Jeff within an hour of his final day at work, October 30. The soiree is in the Marriott Hotel Downtown. A reception with open bar and apps is from 6 to 7, followed by dinner and dancing between 7 and 11. The $90 includes a gift. Do you think lobbyists – and maybe even lawmakers like Sen. Joe Crisco, who forged those campaign-finance documents last year and was ruled ineligible for state election funds – will feel they have to go?

STORRS – The Blogster never thought it was a good idea for UConn to go “big time” and turn its football program into a Div. 1-A contender. That kind of program means more out-of-staters getting taxpayer-financed scholarships and takes away opportunities for in-state kids to experience intercollegiate athletics while earning degrees and preparing for the reality of a working life. Now, the Div. i-A status of the team means that coaches can promise every high school senior a chance to fulfill their dreams: if they work hard enough they can play pro football. Wrong, only a tiny fraction of the best become pros. Maybe Jazz Howard would have been good enough. He was smart and lucky enough to escape Miami’s Little Haiti. He was in his fifth semester and listed as an “exploratory” major in today’s Daily Campus newspaper. A witness to the fight that resulted in Howard’s fatal stabbing said it was a violent black-on-black confrontation after a fire alarm in the Student Center emptied hundreds of people attending a dance by the West Indian Cultural Awareness Organization, one of 431 UConn clubs or groups. Jazz Howard, whose interception set up UConn’s victory Saturday afternoon, was cut down on what could have been the greatest night of his life.

The Blogster is mirthful today. Yesterday he got a rather large postcard in the mail from state Sen. Dan Dibecella, R-Shelton, who is not running for re-election next year because he’s seeking the seat held by U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4.
And yet, you can’t tell by this mailing, paid for by you state taxpayers and all quite legal under the franking privileges of incumbents in the General Assembly. Indeed, this postcard is a bit of a collector’s item, since it amounts to a free ad for Debicella’s congressional bid. On the back of the card, under “2009 Wins For Shelton,” there’s a breakdown of federal stimulus money, including the $70 million for the three-year reconstruction project along the Merritt Parkway in Fairfield and Trumbull. That is interesting since none of the work is actually in Shelton, or even the other towns in Dan’s district, which includes Monroe, Seymour and Shelton. Anyway, if Dan were already in Congress, the Blogster doubts he would have voted for the federal stimulus money in the first place.
All in all, it’s amusing politics and we paid for it.

Nancy DiNardo of Trumbull, chairwoman of the Democratic State Central Committee, just held a news conference outside the Capitol Press Room to announce she’s filed a Freedom of Information Act request with Gov. Rell’s office and her Office of Policy and Management to find out more about the controversial $220,000 contract with UConn, whose public policy professor, Ken Dautrich is the eye of the political storm in which Lisa Moody, Gov. Rell’s chief of staff, is the lightning rod. “It has become a concern to me in light of the news reports yesterday that there were e-mails contradicting what the governor has said,” DiNardo told about 10 reporters. “I think it’s unfortunate that we have to do this, but I think it is important seeing how the governor doesn’t seem to be aware of what’s going on.”
It’s also important for Democrats, who haven’t come close to winning the governor’s office since Bill O’Neill left office in January 1991, to keep the pot boiling on the issue of whether Dautrich provided political advice to Rell while on the state clock using state money.

The Blogster just got off the phone with Jim Amann of Milford, the former speaker of the House who’s running for the Democratic nomiantion for governor, while Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy and Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz continue to “explore” the possibility.
So they both have alot more money than Amann, he says. So he only has around $4,000 in the bank. “I’ve collected 25 percent of what I need for public financing and there’s eight months left to qualify,” Amann said from a Morris factory that he was visiting this afternoon. “They keep on saying I’m running third, but I’m the only announced candidate and I’m having a ball,” he said. “I’m getting endorsements from all over the state. I’m paying bills at the headquarters like electricity and cable. The money’s coming in and going out.”
Meanwhile, Malloy and Bysiewicz’s war chests are in the six figures.

Goes to the guy in the Honda Pilot in Canton, where the Blogster was driving on the way back to Hartford from an event in Torrington in which a handful of Capitol reporters questioned Gov. Jodi Rell on the $220,000 contract her budget office has with a UConn professor who, among other things, ran a focus group that may have explored issues for Rell’s exploratory campaign for re-election. The uproar today and yesterday was causeed by Ted Mann’s reporting in The Day newspaper of New London.

 Anyway, Rell called the reaction “politics at its worst,” (see the Connecticut Post’s web page) but the story’s not likely to go away. The Blogster thinks that it has legs and may haunt the governor if she decides to run for re-election.
Anyway, back to the guy in the Pilot. The bumper sticker read: “Politicians are like diapers and they need to be changed for the same reason.”

The Capitol is abuzz today with reports from The Day of New London that Gov. Jodi Rell used taxpayer money to help hone her political message this year of no-new-taxes. Democrats are cackling and Nancy DiNardo of Trumbull, the Democratic State Central Committee chairwoman fairly looked like the cat who ate the canary outside the Capitol Press Room a few minutes ago.
Here is the link for the first-day story from today’s Day:

http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=79d5bb9b-d328-4461-9151-15d5dda26ee3

And the second-day story just posted on The Day’s web page:

http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=d46199c0-adef-490f-894c-fc7f9e0220db

And here’s the governor’s question-begging comment just released from her Capitol office:

Statement by Governor M. Jodi Rell on
UConn Professor Dr. Kenneth Dautrich
Governor M. Jodi Rell today issued the following statement concerning University of Connecticut Professor Kenneth Dautrich’s assistance in preparing the Administration’s two-year budget proposal:
“I am very pleased with the work that Ken Dautrich did to define issues for reducing state spending, working with agency commissioners to identify areas where savings could be achieved, and providing insight and new ideas as we struggled – and continue to struggle – with the most difficult budget situation in modern memory. We worked very hard to ensure that the work he did and the questions he asked were policy-based, dealing with budget, spending and taxing issues.
“Along with numerous other efforts to gather input – including a public comment page on my office Web site – Ken provided a critically important sense of how the people of Connecticut wanted to see the state budget unfold. Ken’s work was invaluable and he helped us to determine ways to save taxpayers money. He has my sincere appreciation for his hard work.”

Capitol reporters like the Blogster are aggressive passivists. When asked for ID while checking into the National Guard Armory next to the Legislative Office Building, we are generally sarcastic about the need for rings of security, especially when all it takes to get inside the “smoking allowed” Officers’ Club next door is an autograph in the sign-up book and some cash for the bar.

 But at least the security cordon is toned down a notch these days. The Blogster can remember a time not that long ago when National Guard troops in desert camo with rifles were stationed in front of the armory entrance. Anyway, the drill these days for media covering events there – usually news conferences held by the governor – is to check in at the front desk, trade your photo ID for a “visitor” badge, then wait for security personnel to walk you the 60 yards or so to the Emergency Management nerve center. Well, not quite the nerve center, but the clean, well-lighted media room where all lights are focused on the podium with the governor’s seal on it.
On Monday, after Gov. Jodi Rell briefed reporters on this year’s holiday-season fundraising effort for state troops, walking away from the safest place in the armory, she took a Gerry Ford-like header after catching a heel on a shield for one of the audio lines that went along the floor and up to her microphone.
Hint to the Connecticut National Guard: In that next round of multi-million-dollar Homeland Security money, why not invest in some wireless microphones?l