Ken Dixon's Blog-O-Rama

Matt Fritz, Gov. Jodi Rell’s special assistant who has been in charge of sorting out the state’s applications for federal stimulus money, said today that it might have been mistakes on the part of the federal Transportation Department that resulted in Connecticut getting shut out of that TIGER funding last week.

 “We put together very comprehensive applications for the TIGER money,” he said during a couple of interviews. “We covered a wide spectrum of transportation initiatives and we sought $329 million for projects throughout CT. Our applications were well put together. It wasn’t just the work of the (state) DOT. They worked in collaboration with DECD (Dept. of Economic and Community development), with private contractors and consultants to put together and develop the best project applications possible.”

 Among the projects rejected was $37 million for the nearly $400-million reconstruction of the Moses Wheeler Bridge on I-95 over the Housatonic River. The project will go ahead as scheduled, though.

 “I’m not sure where we failed, if we failed at all,” Fritz said. “Certainly it was very competitive. It was only 3 percent of the projects that were awarded. Our applications we thought were strong. We worked pretty hard on them. We’re trying to figure out where we might have fallen short. And we’re looking toward potential funding over the next several months and see what we could do better.”

  He said that conversations with federal officials by members of Congress this week could lead to future awards in upcoming rounds.

 “We took sort of a wide approach with our first applications, hitting on a variety of transportation areas,” Fritz said. “Maybe we have to be more specific. We’ll have to look at that, see what’s worked in the past, learn from those examples and see what we do going forward.”

House Minority Leader Larry Cafero, R-Norwalk, and Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, R-Fairfield, just held a news conference outside the Senate chamber during which they complained that Democratic support for the so-called paid sick days legislation, which has failed in recent years, sends the wrong message to business. Supporters of the bill say that it’s a necessary benefit and will keep people who are contagious from showing up at work.

 ”For God’s sake, our business community needs help,” Cafero said. “Sadly, we’re back to business as usual,” McKinney said, charging that as majority Democrats have adopted the mantra of “jobs,” the law requiring paid sick days sends another signal to businesses that are hurting. “These are businesses that live day-to-day,” McKinney said. “Their doors will close and hundreds of people will lose their jobs.” He asked Democratic leaders for an “unequivocal statement that this bill is dead.”

Veteran state Rep. Terry Backer, D-Stratford, citing a possible conflict, has resigned as chairman of a legislative subcommittee within the budget-setting Appropriations Committee.

 Backer, whose day job is director of the non-profit Soundkeeper Fund, said in an interview Tuesday he quit as leader of the conservation and development subcommittee after receiving “inconclusive” advice from the Office of State Ethics.

 The issue revolves around the Soundkeeper Fund’s management of the boat septic-pumpout program, funded through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Last year it pumped out waste from 2,000 boats that might have ended up in Long Island Sound.

 “They’re saying informally they don’t think I should do it,” Backer said, adding that ethics officials suggested he request a formal opinion. But it’s not worth the time and effort, he said.

 “It’s a subcommittee,” Backer said. “It’s not that important. All you get to do is recommend a budget based on the subcommittee’s work.” He expects to stay on the committee. Backer, who also serves on the Environment Committee and the Energy and Technology Committee, was fist elected in 1992.

The Blogster just checked out the Central CT Bike Alliance legislative reception going on now in the Capitol. There couldn’t have been more than two lawmakers there, though, so it makes you wonder whether their sensible legislative proposal will see the light of day. They want a law, modeled after one in Oregon that has enhanced penalties for motorists who end up guilty of reckless-driving incidents in connection with collisions that that end up killing or injuring people on foot, bicycle or horseback, called “vulnerable users.” The penalties would include a year in prison; $12,500 fines; and mandatory driver’s ed course. The legislation is in attempt to provide some kind of solid penalties for drivers who, while not drunk or intoxicatesd, cause collisions with bicycles, but are too often let off the hook when their cases get to court.

The Blogster thinks the world of GOP State Chairman Chris Healy and very much appreciated his star turn before the Government Administration & Elections Committee, which is trying ever…so…slowly, to fix some of the more-obvious shortcomings in the state’s campaign-finance reforms of 2005 that were thrown out by a federal judget last August.

It was probably Healy’s assessment of the public financing as “taxpayer-subsidized fraud” that prompted committee Co-chairman Rep. James Spallone, D-Essex, to engaged the GOP chairman this morning in some existential politics. Healy called the landmark 2005 law “unfixable” and noted “as much as I hate the admit it” that he supports the ACLU’s opposition to the law as well.

The Citizen’s Election Program, funded by unclaimed property in the state treasurer’s office, could be thrown out in the appeal pending before the Second Circuit and there’s a need to have something in place because there would be only seven days to act before the old campaign-finance system would resume. So what have lawmakers been doing since August? Not much because the House and Senate can’t agree on a compromise.

The truth is, the 2005 law put huge obstacles in front of independent and minor party candidates for the General Assembly and statewide offices including attorney general and governor. And outright bans on political contributions from lobbyists is clearly infringing on first amendment rights of free speech. The Blogster believes that an appropriate fix would be to limit lobbyists and contractors to $100 per candidate, period, like everyone else.

Rep. Chris Caruso of Bridgeport, one of the founding fathers of the state’s 2005 campaign-finance reforms, when he was chairman of the Government Administration & Elections Committee, will revisit his old stomping ground on Monday during a public hearing on the fixes that lawmakers are finally proposing as the entire program is in danger of being terminated in a pending appeal before the US Second Circuit.

The GAE committee will meet at 10 a.m. in Room 2B of the Legislative Office Building to discuss HB 5022 An Act Concerning The Citizens’ Election Program and HB 5021 An Act Implementing The Governor’s Recommendations Concerning The Citizens’ Election Program.

 After months of dickering between House and Senate leaders, the committee bill would amend the Citizens’ Election Program “to reduce grant amounts, eliminate grants for unopposed candidates, make technical changes, and contingent upon a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, to reduce qualifying thresholds for minor party candidates and petitioning candidates and to replace the supplemental grants with a new supplemental grant available only to certain candidates,” according to the legislation.

Here’s the release from Middletown Police

On Friday, February 19, 2010 the Middletown police Department was notified that Kenneth Haskell died as a result of his injuries sustained in the Kleen Energy explosion that occurred on February 7, 2010.Mr. Haskell passed away at Hartford Hospital at 1:36pm today.  He resided in New Durham, New Hampshire and was thirty-seven years old. Mr. Haskell was as Superintendent for Keystone Construction and Maintenance Services.

 The investigation continues as to the cause of this tragic incident. There is no other information at this time.