Caption Contest: State Senator Dante Bartolomeo (Add yours to the comment section)

"Check this out, my opponent State Senator Lenny Suzio wanted to cut gas taxes and keep violent criminals in jail. You know what? The people voted for me, a candidate that wants and will raise the taxes and support Malloy with early release program. Hahahah" 

City Government Re-Org - Part I

The Insider staff has been reading over Mayor Drew’s Report on Government Re-Organization put together by his Task Force on Government Efficiency aka a bunch of buddies he meets with at night at city hall. 

The objective of the task force appears to contain a predetermined remedy for what were yet-to-be discovered problems. Translation: The task force already has the answers to the questions and issues they are investigating.  Imagine that you are not qualified for a city job, but the city, due to favors that it owes to your uncle, who happens to be on the common council member, votes to change the job description to suit your needs.   Typical Dem response: "That never happens in Middletown, or the infamous keep my mouth shut and don't comment on the situation because I may get something for own personal 'political career' later down the road.

A.      IT Dept. The issue is mainly with regard to the lack of a strategic plan and no advisory committee. The reason the City IT Dept. is the way it is because of it lacks any sort of plan or vision.  Imagine if they had a mission statement or kept track of their monthly goals rather than just get through every day?

The whole creation of the IT Dept. was another "remedy in search of a problem" process. Mayor Thornton and the Council commissioned a study that concluded: " a separate IT department was needed, without first determining what the City's needs were, what functions would be best enhanced by existing or emerging technologies or how to implement them." Just form a department and then we'll figure out what it's going to do was the philosophy they adopted.  Reminds one Nancy Pelosi's attitude toward Obamacare: "Just get the votes in and we can figure it out later." 
 

Reader, if you have a chance, ask Gerry Daley about Bauer's TAC proposal, you may a good holiday story over that one. If the powers that be were to merge the IT department with, let's say the Finance and Revenue Department would this impact the efficiency of the existing issues with IT or would it allow the department time to organically work out the problems. This blog has no quarrel with the concept of the creation of a political Technology Advisory Committee, but why now? When Councilman David Bauer (R) proposed this concept to the Common Council three years ago, the noise and level of frustration by those council members made King Kong look lame by comparison.    What this recommendation fails to address is the fact that EVERY department utilizes IT in its operation. Another strange thing that wasn't considered in the plan was the fact nobody outside of Nostradamus can see the future with regard to the IT department. With technological advances happening at a rapid pace, one would assume that the need for IT services by all departments in Middletown would be something that would build into the master plan.  We guess that would hard since no master plan exists.  

B.     Grant Writer. Mayor Seb Giuliano proposed hiring a grant coordinator two years ago and the Council removed it from the budget. (Quick Lesson: The Middletown Common Council controls the votes. With their 2/3 Democratic majority they have lots of power. This has been happening to your town since 1991). The individual department directors are all grant "writers"; what the City needs is coordination of grants, so the directors can maximize the benefits. Another positive attribute about hiring a city wide grant writer would be the fact that this position would be much better positioned to assess objectively what the town commitments with regard to acceptance of particular grants would require.

to be continued...

When Village People Fight: $Bianco$ vs. The Village

A large majority of the folks who are against the new Washington Street Wesleyan bookstore/Starbuck proposal are part of a local sub-society collectively known as The Village District (People). These Village People are quite affluent around Middletown and have their thumbs in most political pies.  They aren’t poor either people! In fact some of them use federal, state and local tax monies to fund their pet projects while giving themselves a six-figure salary.   While you and everyone else you know hustles at work, these folks are taking advantage of the government grants and suspension of taxes to make their money.  There’s a lot of money to made in liberalism folks.   Here’s where it gets interesting:  A huge supporter of the Village District is a man named Jeff Bianco, a local architect and veteran chairman of Middletown’s Historic Preservation and Design Review Committee whose job is to mainly preserve cool and ancient stuff in town.  (I.e. Nice old building, let’s protest so the town won’t knock it down).

 Guess what? While his friends are publicly serving as activists and blogging against the proposed new bookstore-Mr. Bianco stands to gain if the project goes forward. Why? He is the architect on the project and stands to make good money if one day you are able to pull up and buy a coffee-mocha.chocolate-creamladunno-jejune from the Seattle owned franchise. Then it’s official Mr. Blanco’s pockets have been lined with the Benjamins and has scoffed at his Village friends and Historic Committee.

The Chairman of Middletown Design
Review & Historic Preservation,
architect Jeff Bianco defended
the  Pearl Street
development & tear down
of historic property
 by saying "We don't live in Venice." *

Hypocrisy 1: Mr. Bianco serves on the Historic Preservation and Design Review Committee in Middletown, but I guess it’s okay to build and destroy on Washington Street as long as you get your beak wet.

Hypocrisy 2:  As of this writing, Mr. Bianco’s name has yet to be mentioned by any of the other blogs or papers in Middletown except for Wesleying.org where he is featured presenting the project.  This is very strange, these blogs have taken strong stances against the development on Washington Street, but none are critical of Mr. Bianco and/or Mr. Drew.  Why is that? Simple, they don’t want to put their necks out there too much and burn bridges within their own party and network.  I wonder if Mr. Bianco and Mr. Drew were Republicans, would they be vilified in the blogs?  You bet your ass on it.

Prediction: The other blogs will get upset that we mentioned Mr. Drew and Mr. Bianco.. 

* http://wesleying.org/2012/11/27/liveblogging-the-bookstore-relocation-open-forum/

Election Results & Conclusion

      Middletown residents voted overwhelmingly across the board yesterday for Democrats proving party affiliation matters most in this City. It can also be surmised that national party identification translates to local voting tendencies as well. This does not surprise the Insider that many locals cannot make this jump. Many individuals say they vote for the candidate and not that party, but in reality do not. 


    We have received numerous sentiments supporting Republican candidates, but, asking that we do not publicly acknowledge them because they do not want their neighbors or liberal friends to know they have crossed party lines. 
     Sadly, as a result of the contentious presidential election, this  fear of peer pressure and persecution from both sides against friends and family with rivaling views was illustrated in heated arguments on social media sites through out the country. Have you expressed your political persuasion at all this year and gotten an ear full from a "friend" on your facebook wall? Have you felt the need to put your two cents in when someone you know shows who their picks are on their wall? Our case in point; free speech resulting in unsolicited advice on both sides was rampant!
     It does no good to claim one supports a candidate but do so privately! This election proved this point.
       City residents chose to re-seat two decade plus long incumbents (Serra, DeLauro) proving the "new blood" adage irrelevant. 84% of eligible voters came out for the presidential election. To say the Democrats were the only party to advocate for women and minorities was a falsehood that stuck around all through this election. Democrats exploited this exaggerated myth to their advantage. 
    The walking contradictions to the lie spread by Democrats that conservatives don't care about women, family, and minorities being Republican candidates  Len Suzio, Wayne Winsley, Deborah Kleckowski, Callie Grippo.  Winsley, a minority, unfortunately could not overcome the DeLauro machine, which campaigned heavily this cycle in minority communities. Delauro campaigned in   Middletown churches with predominately minority parishioners for example, specifically under the guise of " explaining Obamacare to women" as we reported earlier this year. We hope Winsley stays in the game and his plan of economic reform & development don't end with this bid for office.

      The surprise of the night was the dent the new face on the block Republican Callie Grippo put in the cult like following of 22 year incumbent Joe Serra's tally. The Insider hopes to see Grippo back in two years to finish the job!

     Kleckowski held steady over Lesser; the Insider feels and had this not have been such a contentious presidential election year, she could have easily over taken Lesser for the 100th Distric.t Again, Wesleyan (of which ironically Kleckowski is a graduate of, but we are doubtful students know that, and Lesser a drop out of), with the aide of the Middletown Democratic Town Committee, provided pizza and buses to to get students to the polls.

     Probably the most unfortunate results of the evening were that of the close race between one term incumbent Suzio and Bartolomeo who eeked ahead with 450 votes. Suzio championed the cause to end the early release program of violent criminals such as sex offenders, rapists, and murders. He also lead the fight to suspend the crippling gasoline tax. The week before the mayor's of both Middletown and Meriden, orchestrated by Bartolomeo, held a press conference on false charges of push polling by the Suzio campaign. During the press conference, both mayor's admitted that there was no evidence to prove the allegation. Suzio also used his position to advocate and vote for spending cuts at the state and vowed not to raise taxes, something which no Connecticut Democrat in office has stated on record to date.

     The Insider surmises (because Suzio's messages were SO clear) that Middletown and other 13th District residents enjoy the gas tax, higher taxes all around, and are ok with the release of violent offenders into our community! Hey, maybe they are relatives, you never know. We hope Suzio makes a come back and sticks around to keep the vital messages he put forth out there.

      Our own blogger SteadyJohn pointed out that National commentator Bill O'Reiley summarized the presidential election as this:

"It's about FREE STUFF, at least half of the nation's folks want FREE STUFF! The murders of four Americans at Benghazi mean nothing to the drones and leeches. Only the military can save us now. Until now the generals have been quiet lap dogs in uniforms licking the master's boots. The usurpation in our highest office continues unopposed; it's the end of America the Beautiful."

     While one theory out there is that the increased dependency on government aide attached with larger government, caused voting strictly across party lines in favor of the Democrats who advocate this dependency; hope should not be lost for our country or Middletown community.

     An Anonymous commenter left a statement on our previous post this morning saying: ""Haha you lost completely across the board. Be nice and respect people you disagree with, it may come to help you in the future." 

     Staff at the Insider unanimously agree that this is something we should never do, nor should readers. NEVER stop questioning your government. Elected officials are not deities to be feared, worshiped, and "respected" without fault.  NEVER suck up to get favors. Its that simple. To disagree civilly is what the Constitution is based on. The First Amendment allows for this blog to exist and allows for us to examine our government and force transparency; something  we owe ourselves to do. 

Working together does not mean blind acceptance of status quo in federal government or on even the small scale locally right here in Middletown. The "favor system" of who knows who can end if we want it to.
(Of course when the same faces who hurt the system are voted in over & over, this can't happen... )

     The Insider would like to congratulate all the victors of the election no matter what party! We sincerely hope that the Democrats this time around take steps to actively stop the persecution of conservatives, work across the aisle for once, and over all stop bleeding tax payers dry! Working families are hurting, education is hurting; that hurt is something that surpasses party divisions, races, ethnic groups, sexes, sexual orientations, religions etc. -it is a universal hurt.  Time to move forward.

The complete precinct by precinct results from the City Clerk are here:https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1OYjxtLEgUwOHBtRnUtVlZnOW8

Question #1, $37M appropriation and bond for connection to the Mattabassett Regional Sewer Project

YES: 11,003

NO: 4,942

Question #2, $4.85M appropriation and bond for Senior Community Center at Eckersley Hall

YES: 10,881

NO: 5,259

State Assembly District 33

Joe Serra(D): 6,349

Callie Grippo(R): 2,519

State Assembly District 100

Matt Lesser (D): 6,673 

Deb Kleckowski (R): 3,055

State Senate District 9

Paul Doyle (D): 8,871

Joe Dinunzio(R): 3,024

State Senate District 13

Danté Bartolomeo (D): 3,886

Len Suzio (R): 2,704

U.S. House District 3

Rosa DeLauro (D): 12,833

Wayne Winsley (R): 3,802

U.S. House District 1

John Larson (D): 1,493

John Decker: 599

Michael DeRose: 43

Matthew Cora: 10

U.S. Senate

Chris Murphy (D): 12,487

Linda McMahon (R): 6,470

Paul Passarelli: 396

President

Barack Obama (D): 13,830

Mitt Romney (R): 6,105

Johnson: 206

Anderson: 76

Jill Stein: 31

Tom Hoefling: 2

Larry Eckhardt 'The Flagman'

Please take a look at this beautiful video that shows how Americans honor those that have fallen.