CHC hosts Brew with a view to benefit NEAT

CHC of Middletown is hosting a home brew tasting/judging event on their rooftop to benefit the North End Action team. Saturday Sept. 26 3-5 pm. CHC roof, Main St.

Buy your tickets here.

From the CHC:

Join us for another fun afternoon with
spectacular views of the Middletown area and a delicious array of home brews!

We'll be outside again and enjoying live music, all to benefit the North End Action Team!!

We'll be on the roof of the CHC of Middletown building again, outside among the beautiful gardens with the stellar views of the CT River and downtown Middletown!!

Neighborhood businesses will again be offering discounts to attendees of the event, our panel of judges will once more feature some real cool cats, and the home brewers lined up to enter their wares have seriously stepped up their game this time. Keep an eye on this event page for updates and details on all of the above as we get closer to the event.

Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the door. Attendees of our past events that bring back their tasting cups will be allowed to enter the event early. Access will not be granted without a valid ID.

Your Daily Spin from the Middletown Mess: Dubious Drewbious

"If your lips are movin', you're lie lie lying."
Today the Mess published an article copy and pasted from a press release from the Drew camp. Aside from a few added lines, its regurgitation of the talking points Drew is using to launch is campaign for a third term. Mayor Daniel Drew received an honor from the progressive organization called the New Deal org.  The New Deal is a "non profit" made of up liberal minded elected officials around the country headed by Governor John Hickenlooper of Colorado. Hickenlooper was co founder of the Community Health Center of Middletown back in his Wesleyan days, you can connect those dots..The Mess, oh so conveniently fails to mention what this group & award are really about. Must be an election year if the paper is already doing its due diligence as local Democrat's personal soapbox.

 Below are a few corrections to the congratulatory accolades Mayor Drew bestowed on himself in his auto- bio. http://www.newdealleaders.org/leader_drew_daniel

So what is the NEWDeal Org?? Basically a PAC founded by liberal democrats to give out fake awards to each other. Is it really news for politicos to give fellow politicos awards for towing the party line? The ND Org seems to be a millennial version of the Democratic Leadership Council, a '80s "non-profit" used to recruit young D's as future politicians & donors. A worth-the-click article explaining what this Democrat bank rolling machine is all about can be found here: http://www.vice.com/read/the-democratic-party-future-dark-money-fracking

"Since becoming mayor of Middletown in 2011, Mayor Drew has closed the $8 million deficit in the city budget and upgraded the city's bond rating with the lowest interest rates in city's history. (FALSE: All municipalities bond ratings have gone down in light of the economy! He created a deficit. Since he has been in office he has proposed & passed budgets increased by $13 million. Today there are more grievances being filed than ever before, 19 from Union 466 workers at the BOE alone, despite his campaigning to end the lawsuits. Also a record number of lawsuits by private citizens are being settled for big bucks instead of being contested, costing us all a lot more than they should. The City recently settled two for $250k and $400k that may have been disproved if they went to trial. But that would be bad publicity for Mayor Drew as the  "make nice" guy)He has also improved the efficiency and efficacy of City government by implementing large-scale re-organizations that will save taxpayers millions.(FALSE: This has never been proven with data presented to the public. In fact you can read here how in reality MORE money is being spent) Mayor Drew has restored highly competent leadership to the police department and added several new officers to the force. (FALSE: 3 officers have lawsuits for wrongful termination. Drew contested one officer's PTSD diagnosis. Since when is Drew an MD?) Several new businesses and manufacturers have opened or are under construction in Middletown. (where?)He has also enacted a senior tax relief program which will significantly aid seniors on a fixed income( most seniors don't qualify) in addition to a prescription drug discount program for Middletown seniors. (FALSE: Drew was against the Senior Center at Eckersley Hall and proposed it be crammed into the Council Chambers. The prescription drug program is independent of the city of Middletown, run by the state only low income seniors qualify for.)

In addition, he has re-negotiated a large energy service contract for the City of Middletown, saving taxpayers $1.4 million. (FALSE: Drew proposed budgets significantly raising the millrate each year he has been in office. NO savings of his attempts to consolidate departments have ever been shown.) Mayor Drew has saved taxpayers $800,000 by reducing pension fund costs. He also merged city and BOE finance operations, substantially increasing transparency. (FALSE: Outside legal costs are are at an all time high. Read it here)Mayor Drew graduated from the University of Connecticut in 2002. He will graduate from Columbia University in 2015 with an MA in social and organizational psychology.(Drew is attending college during work hours and still being paid, not too shabby, and why the hell not taxpayers sent him to CHINA once before)"

The CT Mirror: FBI wonders why Health Clinic is Favored

Originally published below at the The CT Mirror.org
http://www.ctmirror.org/story/2013/03/22/health-clinic-favored-and-fbi-asks-why
 By Mark Pazniokas
Note: This story ran in March of in the Connecticut Mirror in 2013.  The editorial board asks: Where was the local press during the Masselligate issues that are currently taken place in town.  Surely, Middletown Press editor, Viktoria Sunderleftwingquist could have ran some story to let the citizens of Middletown know that the friggin F.B.I. is looking through Masselli's computers and files.  Where are the stories on the Middletown "We hate Landino" Eye about this issue?

It is a mystery that the FBI is trying now to unravel: On the last day of the 2012 session, how did legislators come to create a $15 million pool of bond money exclusively for a chain of non-profit clinics operated by Mark Masselli, a political supporter of then-House Speaker Christopher G. Donovan?
On April 3, the legislature's Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee endorsed a $199 million bond package that included $20 million for a competitive grants program to finance the renovation and expansion of community health centers that serve more than 300,000 patients annually.

Mark Masselli and his vice president, Margaret Flinter. They have a weekly health show on WNPR. (WNPR photo)

But by the last night of the session on May 9, that $20 million pool open to all 14 of the state's community health organizations had morphed into $30 million, divided into equal pools of $15 million. The bond package won final approval minutes before midnight on the final night.
One $15 million pool was open to the 13 members of the Community Health Center Association of Connecticut.
The other was available to Community Health Center Inc., the non-profit that Masselli founded in 1972 with a single clinic in Middletown and developed into a statewide chain with revenues of $66 million.
"We don't know exactly how it happened," said Deb Polun, director of government affairs and media relations for the association.