Political Capitol

At the beginning of the 2009 legislative session lawmakers from both parties were talking about the need to radically restructure how Connecticut government delivers services in the face of the budget crisis.

And a few months later the General Assembly formed a bi-partisan Commission on Enhancing Agency Outcomes charged with studying how to streamline government.

But when the dust from the lengthy budget battle settled in late summer the commission had missed it’s July 1 deadline for issuing recommendations and the biggest reform achieved in the new two-year budget was the elimination of the Office of Property Rights Ombudsman.

But the Commission is not ready to say “uncle” particularly since the budget deficit continues to worsen. Today the group, co-chaired by Sen. Gayle Slossberg, D-Milford and Rep. James Spallone, D-Essex, finally released a preliminary list of recommendations or “areas of focus,” which will be the topic of a Dec. 14 public hearing at the capitol.

And the Commission has new deadlines. The initial report to the General Assembly is now due Feb. 1 – just in time for the start of the short, 2010 legislative session, when lawmakers are expected to dig back into the two-year budget and make necessary changes.

A full report is due no later than December 31, 2010, in time for the 2011 session when a newly elected Governor and General Assembly will craft a budget for fiscal years 2011-12 and 2012-13.

“This is our opportunitiy to create a smarter government and a more efficient government,” Slossberg said in a statement.

That was the same message from Hartford nearly a year ago. Time will tell if they mean it this time. If not, voters may decide to restructure government when they head to the polls next November.

Here’s the story The Advocate carried this past July about the Commission’s missing it’s initial deadline.

July 1 marked the start of Connecticut’s new fiscal year, but it was also an important deadline for a legislative report that was supposed to be a road map for streamlining state government in the face of the budget crisis.
But the bipartisan group of lawmakers and state officials in charge of the project has not met for weeks, and there is some doubt about whether it will ever convene again.
In late February, the Democratic-majority General Assembly passed legislation creating a Commission on Enhancing Agency Outcomes. The group, which met for the first time March 18, was charged with issuing recommendations by the start of this month.
But according to its Web site, members, including state Sen. Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, and state Rep. John Hetherington, R-New Canaan, only convened one more time, on April 24. And while some, particularly William Cibes, former state budget chief under Gov. Lowell Weicker Jr., have submitted their own ideas, no final document was produced.
“There were some subcommittee meetings, but we haven’t had a full meeting in two or three months,” said state Sen. Dan Debicella, R-Shelton, who was appointed to the group.
During the first meeting, co-chairmen state Sen. Gayle Slossberg, D-Milford, and state Rep. James Spallone, D-Essex, said they faced a challenging time frame because of the state budget schedule.
By the time the commission met in March, Democrats were already well along crafting an initial two-year budget proposal in the hopes of reaching a deal with Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell by July 1.
Budget talks were at a standstill for weeks, and two weeks ago, Democrats unveiled and passed a revised version of their April budget, which Rell vetoed July 1. The two sides have since been in negotiations.
Slossberg, who has opposed her party’s budgets for not containing enough savings, on Tuesday blamed the commission’s slow progress on a lack of cooperation from state agencies. She said the group has not received responses to various questions about current operations.
“It’s pretty hard to reorganize when the administration closes off lines of communications,” Slossberg said, pointing a finger at Rell. “Some responses have been trickling in now.”
Jeffrey Beckham, a budget office spokesman, said Tuesday that the administration has cooperated. The commission also included representatives from Rell’s budget staff.
But Beckham said it takes time for agencies to respond to the commission’s inquiries because state employees are busy with their daily workload and are coping with the early retirements of a few thousand staffers.
The commission’s work also faced public apathy. Hearings scheduled for the spring and early summer throughout the state were canceled because of poor turnout.
Cibes said the commission’s ability to meet was also hampered by the rushed final few weeks of the 2009 legislative session, which wrapped up in early June.
“What caused the real delay in anything final happening was that all the members except three of us were entirely committed to legislative work,” Cibes said. “So there were only a few opportunities to get together. “| But I do think there are a lot of fruitful suggestions that could well be further investigated.”
And, Cibes said, Democrats involved with the budget Rell vetoed predicted that with the commission’s help, they could achieve tens of millions of dollars in savings.
But it is unclear whether the commission will met again or simply be allowed to expire.
Slossberg said the legislature’s Government Administration and Elections Committee, which she also co-chairs with Spallone, might prove a better forum for pursuing reform.
She said she believes there remains plenty of time to do the work.
“The reality is while people may be looking for the short-term solution in this year’s budget, the really scary time is two years out, when the federal stimulus money is gone, and all the rainy day fund money is gone, and the one-time revenue sources disappear, and we’re suddenly hanging on a cliff coming out of this recession and have an even bigger (budget) hole,” she said. “That’s when it’s most important for us to have solutions in place, ready to go.”
Debicella said he is skeptical, saying that lawmakers’ shelves are stacked with reports from various commissions on numerous topics that sit gathering dust. Since 1977, there have been eight proposals to restructure Connecticut government in some way.
“Could it have been worthwhile? Could it still be? Yes, if we take some ideas and put them into budget negotiations,” Debicella said of the commission. “But I don’t think it’s been successful as it was originally envisioned.”

House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, said Tom Foley of Greenwich called him to talk about Foley’s considering running for Governor instead of U.S. Senate.

Cafero earlier this year launched an exploratory committee for an unspecified statewide office in 2010. Now that Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell has decided not to seek re-election, Cafero is weighing pursuing his party’s nomination for the job.

And he had some advice for Foley about suddenly shifting his focus from Washington D.C. to the Governor’s mansion.

“I said ‘you’re free to do whatever you’d like, but know this – It is a very different race. This is not just a matter of changing your sign, scratching out SENATOR and putting FOR GOVERNOR. The offices are very different. One is federal, the other’s state. One is the legislative branch, the other’s the executive branch. The issues, though parallel, are different’,” Cafero recalled.

Cafero said he will make his own intentions known before year’s end.

UPDATE: It’s “Black Friday” and I just got off of the phone with Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele, who has announced his intention to seek the GOP gubernatorial nomination and plans to officially launch his candidacy in the coming weeks.

I asked Fedele about Foley.

“I haven’t given it much thought,” he said. “Every day I’m reading about somebody else is running for Governor … My sense is we’ve got a good message to put out there … I’m not too concerned about Mr. Foley or anybody else coming into it.”

Just a few hours after issuing her Thanksgiving message, Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell this afternoon issued her latest round of budget cuts.

“One word sums it up – devastating,” said Terry Edelstein, head of the Connecticut Community Providers Association, which represents human services organizations.

Today Tom Foley of Greenwich, who has been eyeing the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd, said he is instead thinking about running for Governor now that Republican incumbent M. Jodi Rell has decided to retire (to the surprise of some).

Also today state Senator Sam Caligiuri, R-Waterbury, who likewise had been looking to unseat Dodd, decided to leave that race and instead pursue the party’s nomination to challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy.

These changes come just weeks after former U.S. Senate candidate Ned Lamont of Greenwich cannonballed into the pool of candidates or potential candidates for the Democratic nomination for Governor and performed quite well in the most recent Quinnipiac University poll, splashing water on the hopes of most of the other potential contenders from his party.

And of course there are the rumors that some Democrats are hoping Dodd, who did not fair so well in that same Quinnipiac poll, decides to voluntarily end his career rather than allow his seat to fall into GOP hands.

So where does “Scooby Doo” come in?

Readers of a certain age will recall how the mystery solving gang from the cartoon often found themselves in bizarre chase sequences, popping in and out of doors and sometimes suddenly, for no reason, swapping places with each other or with the villain that is pursuing them (older readers would say “Scooby” writers were inspired by the late British comedian Benny Hill.)

Here’s a live action “Scooby” spoof to the Benny Hill theme I found on the Internet. Substitute Foley, Caligiuri, Lamont, Dodd, Rell and anyone else you think might be appropriate, and have a bit of a laugh at the absurdity of it all as we spend the next few months watching candidates popping out of doors, jockeying for position in the 2010 races.

UPDATE: Here’s another “Scooby” chase spoof. I think the first one is the best but this DOES use the official cartoon theme.

UPDATE 2: And fellow reporter Greg Hladky has some creative fun with the ever-changing political landscape using an old Abbott and Costello comedy routine.

Reporters today received copies of the most recent study by the Yankee Institute of Public Policy, a think tank founded in the early 1980s by Bernard Zimmern, “a French entrepreneur who had set up shop in Norwalk to market his improved compressor technology.”

The report took a look at the licensing and other fees associated with dog ownership reported to the state Department of Agriculture during fiscal year 2008.

“For all the joy man’s best friends give us, you’d think dogs might be tax-exempt,” states the report. “In fact, Connecticut dog owners pay almost $2.5 million in dog-related licenses and fees a year. Dogs that live to be 12-years-old rack up more than $100 in taxes over their lifetimes.”

In a phone interview Fergus Cullen, the Yankee Institute’s Executive Director, said: “It’s not the most hard-hitting public policy paper you’re ever going to read. Part of it is, we believe, people should be confronted with the taxes they pay. They shouldn’t be hidden and they shouldn’t be nickel-and-dimed.”

There’s a lot of interesting data to be found in the analysis. For example, Stamford was in 2008 only one of three municipalities that turned a profit when the costs for animal control were subtracted from assorted dog-related fees. (Look for that little nugget to show up in outgoing Stamford Mayor/Potential Gubernatorial Candidate Dannel Malloy’s literature in the near future).

East Lyme earned $7,236, Stamford earned $6,162 and Beacon Falls earned $134.

“There’s a lot of variations between the towns in terms of how good they are at administering things like dog taxes,” Cullen said. “Does anyone really think Hartford only has 363 dogs? Of course not. It showed people aren’t registering their dogs and no one’s coming after them when they don’t and there’s probably a little less ‘cultural pressure’ if you will between neighbors (to register).”

The report might be viewed by some as anti-canine propaganda, although I guess it might also lead to less dogs being adopted and abandoned during tough financial times if those who read the results realize they can’t afford a pet.

“We’re for equity in taxation policy, regardless. Part of what we discovered is non-dog owners are subsidizing dog owners. If dog taxes are meant to offset animal control costs in most towns they’re not doing that. Milford stood out, Norwalk stood out,” Cullen said.

He also admitted he does not own a dog.

Rep. John Hetherington, R-New Canaan, today publicly criticized the decision by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to try the suspects in the 9-11 attacks in New York City.

“This will require towns like New Canaan and Wilton to bear the stress of increased preparedness to deal with another possible attack in our backyard,” Hetherington said. “It is not just New York City that will be affected.”

Hetherington also said: “I am disappointed at the insensitivity of making those in our towns who lost family and friends at the World Trade Center relive the experience.”

According to The Advocate’s files, 60 individuals with close ties to lower Fairfield County lost their lives in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Hetherington, whose district also includes a portion of Wilton, lost eight constituents: Joseph Coppo, 47; Edward Fergus, 40; Bradley Fetchet, 24; Peter Fry, 36; James Douglas Halvorson, 56; John Iskyan, 41; Eamon McEneaney, 46; and Edward Phillip York, 45.

“The decision to hold the trials in New York is not even logical,” Hetherington said. “If the point is to show the world the fairness of the American justice system, the point fails. An ordinary defendant certainly would be entitled to a change of venue, not a trial in the very place where jurors are most likely to convict due to their terrible experiences on 9/11.”

The New York Times last week printed an interesting article about how divided New York lawmakers are on the matter. While Democratic Governor David Paterson criticized the decision, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg called it “fitting.”

And here’s a story by my colleague Martin Cassidy interviewing local families, including Mary Fetchet, mother of Bradley and founder of New Canaan-based Voices of Sept. 11.

By Martin B. Cassidy
STAFF WRITER
Ralph Sabbag, 70, said he is angered that alleged Sept. 11 attacks mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is set to face trial in New York City. There, Sabbag said, Mohammed is likely to hold forth with unapologetic, anti-American speeches likely to trigger grief and unpleasant feelings in relatives of those killed.
The Old Greenwich resident lost his son, Jason Sabbag, that day in 2001, when the 26-year-old was working at Fiduciary Trust Co. at 1 World Trade Center.
Most galling for Sabbag is that Mohammed’s trial will be held less than a mile from ground zero, where 2,606 people died in the collapse of the World Trade Center. Sabbag said the men deserve to be tried before a military tribunal as enemy combatants, a less-open process that would spare families some of the pain of reliving the catastrophe.
“This is exactly what the terrorists are looking for: publicity and attention,” Sabbag said. “By having it in New York, they are giving this guy the opportunity to say, ‘This is what we did, and we are happy we did it.’ He will become a martyr for sure after that.”
Relatives of area residents killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were among those who expressed a split reaction to news that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder had decided to try Mohammed and four other alleged co-conspirators in a federal district court in New York City rather than before military tribunals.
“There isn’t a consensus,” said Mary Fetchet, founder of the New Canaan-based Voices of Sept. 11. “There are families that believed that the trials should have remained in the tribunals and others who wanted more transparency and ability to participate and observe.”
Fetchet, who lost her 24-year-old son in the attacks. She said the Voices group, which provides counseling for those affected by the attacks, is concerned about the security and safety of survivors taking part in the trial. It is also worried about the effect media coverage will have on their privacy during the proceedings.
The trial is also likely to have a psychological effect on those not directly affected by the loss of a loved one, Fetchet said.
“One thing there is consensus on is that they want a swift trial, and if they are found guilty, they are brought to justice,” Fetchet said about group members. “As this moves forward, we’re finding that the needs of those impacted are evolving, and there is a broader group of people living and working in Manhattan who, in my view, are probably going to be very impacted.”
In his announcement Friday, in which he also designated five terrorism detainees to face trial by military tribunal, Holder said assigning the case to the New York jurisdiction was an appropriate choice.
“They deserve the opportunity to see the alleged plotters of those attacks held accountable in court, an opportunity that has been too long delayed,” Holder said of area residents.
The more public trial of Mohammed and the other conspirators will be controversial and difficult, and it will also be an opportunity for the United States to use its justice system properly on a world stage, said U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-Greenwich, a former banker for Goldman Sachs who witnessed the attacks firsthand.
Himes said that military tribunals also have a place during war, particularly when evidence involves classified materials.
“Personally, I’m a little torn in as much as I’m thrilled to see these monsters finally brought to justice, I also understand the concerns that this will open wounds for those who are in any way connected with lower Manhattan,” Himes said. “I lean to using the courts, because it makes a statement about how much better we are than these monsters and that we abide by due process even for the worst of the worst.”
Susan Fisher, the widow of Bennett Fisher, a Stamford businessman killed in the attacks, also said the trial’s location is less important than the ability to resolve the charges against the men in a democratic way.
“I guess the trial has to be somewhere,” the 67-year-old Fisher said. “I don’t think it is going to be pleasant, and it brings up a lot of thoughts for people like me. My emotional reaction is it doesn’t really matter where.”
Eight years after the attacks, Kathy Callahan has a personal concern about more grief for herself and other relatives of those killed.
Callahan, 46, of Greenwich, is the older sister of Thomas Edward Galvin, a senior vice president and bond broker for Cantor Fitzgerald who was killed in the attacks. He would have been 41 later this month.
“It is very painful to the families already, and bringing it back here opens up wounds for the families,” Callahan said. “Obviously, New York City is one of the most targeted places in the world for terrorism, and I don’t understand why they would think to do this.”
Although Mohammed has confessed while detained in Guantanamo Bay to orchestrating the attacks, Callahan said she fears those statements could be inadmissible if the court finds interrogation techniques used by U.S. intelligence violated Mohammed’s rights.
“It is very disturbing and difficult, and the biggest nightmare for me is the idea that he walks free,” she said of the prospects of a Manhattan trial. “I don’t understand what the rationale is to do this.  I think it will be a big mistake.”
Fisher said allowing Mohammed and the conspirators a trial will help familiarize and remind Americans about how, over time, the United States’ policies in the Middle East have provoked hostility.
“It’s important that justice is done, and at the same time, I think there is a lot we can learn,” Fisher said. “Perhaps it will bring peace to some people, and perhaps it will disturb others, but openness is not a bad thing.”

Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell today announced that the state has “entered into a sweeping, long-term concession agreement to transform all 23 (highway) service plazas with more restaurant choices and stores and upgraded comfort facilities.”

The state Department of Transportation struck the 35-year deal with Doctors Associates/Paul Landino (DAI) which represent the Subway sandwich chain.

Subway will rest control of many of Connecticut’s rest stops from McDonald’s, which has serviced travelers since 1985 – the year McDonald’s added salads to its menu, four years after the McRib was sold nationwide and six years after the introduction of the chicken nugget. Yes, it’s been a loooooong time.

And now residents and those passing through the state can look forward to eating Subway sandwiches for 35 years.

Just imagine. It’s the year 2044. You’re flying your solar-powered ship into one of these Subways, ordering a futuristic meatball grinder in pill form from a holographic employee and heading back to the hover lot, passing a man who looks like an aged Subway spokesman Jared Fogel who keeps shouting “It’s people. It’s made out of peoooople!!!”

And yes, I-95 in lower Fairfield County will still be a commuter’s nightmare.

For a couple of years now Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz has been driving around Connecticut conducting ceremonies to honor the state’s World War II veterans.

The practice, as I wrote about in today’s Advocate,  is coming under fire now that Bysiewicz is exploring a bid for Governor. Critics argue her office has nothing to do with veterans issues and she created this program to boost her own political future.

Bysiewicz counters it’s her job as the person who oversees elections to encourage civic involvement and World War II veterans are the best role models.

She also argues taxpayers are not footing the bill because the money comes from a non-profit linked to her office. This Connecticut Citizenship Fund, Inc. accepts corporate donations. Chester-based Whelen Engineering is paying to honor the fine men and women who served in World War II.

Today Bysiewicz’s staff were kind enough to fax me further background on the fund, including a certificate of incorporation. As she stated in my story, the organization was founded in 1992 – on Feb. 6, to be exact – by former Secretary of the State Pauline Keezer.

Accompanying the certificate were the policies/guidelines established for acceptance and approval of projects by the fund’s board, and it specifies very clearly the money may be used to:

1. Support and promote civics education in Connecticut schools

2. Promote programs that increase and improve citizen participation in elections

3. Promote programs that increase citizen interest and participation in government, in particular state and local government

4. To provide non-partisan information on voter registration and elections

5. To increase awareness of the importance of voting, expecially among the 18 to 35 year old age group

Nothing about veterans. In fact, there is nothing in there about handing out awards to anyone, including the volunteer firefighters, the uniformed firefighters and volunteer coaches Bysiewicz told me she honored in past years.

No one wants to make a case against honoring veterans or anyone who gives of themselves, but, based on the above, it seems to me that using the Connecticut Citizenship Fund, Inc. for these ceremonies could be construed as a broad interpretation of the rules. It certainly will seem that way to Bysiewicz’s critics.