Ear, nose and throat doctors will be busy — judging from the octaves that pulsed a public hearing Thursday night over Governor Jodi Rell’s proposal to plant a juvenile detention center for girls on the Upper East Side.
State Rep. Chris Caruso, leading the jihad against the $15 million project, summed up just about every one’s feeling when he walked into the Carousel Building on the grounds of Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo, location of the public hearing, with a placard: Brookfield, not Bridgeport. Jodi lives in Brookfield.
And Mayor Bill Finch had the crowd of approximately 250 cackling at state bureaucrats when he said you know the state’s in trouble when he and Caruso, a political nemesis, agree on something.
Instead of a new facility for girls why not create a new wing at the (tax exempt) juvenile facility for boys that fronts Bridgeport’s waterfront downtown? And, hey, how about this for a novel idea: take the $15 million and invest it in an economic development project in Bridgeport that will actually generate tax revenue.
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Lennie, I was there last night. You didn’t mention that Musto, who championed this $15Million fiasco, changed his mind under political pressure from the constituents who attended. Not to mention that Ed Gomes stuttered his way through his form of agreement despite the presence of the union flies from out of Bridgeport who stand to lose another payday that exempts Bridgeport residents from work.
It was the stupidest dog and pony show presented by the proponents of this misguided attempt at foisting a correctional facility in a stable neighborhood.