East Hartford Legislative Delegation Responds
I received a letter yesterday dated March 9th from our Reps. Larson, Genga & Rojas and Senator LeBeau in response to the letter I sent them on Feb. 25th requesting emergency legislation providing an exemption for East Hartford from Minimum Budget Requirements and binding arbitration awards.
According to the letter they are working on it but can’t gt it done in time. I disagree, if they wanted to do it it would be introduced by now. Incidentally the MORE commission presentation on the first round of recommendations does not indicate at all that there is any intention of suspending binding arbitration or Minimum Budget Requirements now or in the future. There is however plenty of reference to the commission being significantly behind new and increased taxes at the state level. They call them “revenue streams”. See for yourself. http://housedems.ct.gov/more/More3_3_10.pdf
Make no mistake, because of inaction by our legislative delegation our taxes in this newly adopted budget are almost $200 per year higher than they would otherwise be if we were free to set our Board of Education budget at reasonable levels.
If they continue to not act on these issues our taxes will increase another $400 next year.
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Letter to East Hartford Legislators: HELP
I sent the following letter to our East Hartford legislative delegation.
As you are no doubt aware East Hartford is in a budgetary crisis. Mayor Currey has proposed an increase in property taxes of 9.2%, an increase the residents and taxpayers of East Hartford, you included, cannot bear.
With your past experience in our Town government you can no doubt relate to the Mayor’s plight and understand the difficulty she and the Town Council face in this time of economic hardship. It can be no light task to balance the runaway costs facing a local government such as ours and maintain community affordability.
We need your help as both a neighbor in our community and our representative in Hartford. East Hartford families already face a local tax burden exceeding 11% of their gross income, far more than their State and Federal burden combined. If this tax increase is implemented, the hardest hit will be those who can afford it least.
According to December CT Department of Labor data greater than 10% of East Hartford workers are currently unemployed. Yet, if implemented, this increase will impose non-negotiable increases in the cost of living for all East Hartford residents. For example, a homeowner on Chapman Street can expect an increase in their mortgage escrow of $40 per month. Their neighbor who rents in a multi-family will see a rent increase of $20 per month.
There is not often a lot that a State Representative can do for a municipality in these situations but there is something you can do. East Hartford is being brutalized by two well meaning State mandates; Minimum Expenditure Requirements and Binding Arbitration. These State laws share a common flaw in that they fail to provide a municipality with adequate room to make the difficult decisions required in hard economic times.
East Hartford’s schools are experiencing lower enrollment and the hard reality that we simply do not have the same level of spending ability today that we did yesterday or the day before. Yet, due to MER, East Hartford cannot realign its education budget without sacrificing two State dollars for every Town dollar in realigns. This is unfair and counterproductive for elected officials, taxpayers and students alike. East Hartford must have the freedom to set an education budget that serves the students and taxpayers, not State statutes.
East Hartford is also struggling with the reality of contractual labor cost increases. While East Hartford’s grand list has continued to decline and private sector workers have had to forego raises and in many cases accept permanent wage reductions and schedule cutbacks these same workers are required by past practice of municipal contract negotiators to carry the cost of raises for municipal employees. In some cases, these employees contractually receive multiple raises per year.
In order for East Hartford to achieve control over its budget, the Town must have the ability to negotiate labor contracts that are reasonable and in line with private sector compensation, free from the burdens of poor past negotiation choices. While we appreciate the work our municipal employees do, we are faced with the reality that although we may desire to provide Cadillac compensation, we cannot afford it at this time.
I ask you, along with the remainder of East Hartford’s legislative delegation, to consider introducing as new bills, or amendments to existing bills, two emergency measures to pull East Hartford from the brink. First, an appropriate amendment to Chapter 172 of the Connecticut General Statutes providing an exemption for East Hartford from Minimum Budget Requirements and Minimum Expenditure Requirements. Second, an appropriate amendment to Chapters 113 and 166 of the Connecticut General Statutes providing an exemption for East Hartford from binding arbitration awards.
The morning after…
The voters have spoken and have certainly brought change, though only of one type.
Massachusetts voters blocked a ban on the income tax by a wide margin while Connecticut residents blocked a constitutional convention which proponents hoped would lead to term limits, initiative and referendum. Apparently these items were not change that the voters could believe in.
What voters did believe in was purging the republican party from office. Locally we remain totally democrat controlled with Jason Rojas winning over Clif Thompson in the 9th while Tim Larson and Henry Genga walked into their seats unopposed. LeBeau remains our State Senator also unopposed and John Larson easily defended his seat against Visconti with Visconti only receiving the normal baseline vote.
Our state congressional seats are now 100% democrat as well with the loss by Shays in the 4th, though that may not be a bad thing with Shays being the poster boy for two sided politics.
How did this happen? The driving force, Barack Obama, swept CT leaving a wake of change in public office. Reports indicate record turnouts inspired by Obama which will probably exceed 75% on average.
With the election over and the novelty of election promises soon to wear off here are some changes which are likely coming to CT and the nation as a whole under the new D president and D state and Federal Legislatures.
Universal Healthcare
Carbon Cap & Trade
Fossil Fuel Taxes
New International Environmental Standards
Reversal of Bush Tax Cuts
Increase in Capital Gains Rates
Further Monetary Debasement
Expansion of Social Security
Make Work Programs
To be quite honest, I feel bad for Barack. He has won a historic victory but he’s done so in the worst possible economic times. The monetary system is collapsing as has been predicted by Austrian Economists for decades and those in charge of the system are following the same system which caused the Great Depression. Along with the nationalization of private entities I expect we’ll see bank holidays to thwart runs on deposits and a federal mandate halting foreclosures. JP Morgan, immune to the economic woes as federal reserve owner, has already implemented a voluntary foreclosure freeze to set the stage. Despite what the Obama presidency achieves, good or bad, it is his misfortune that his presidency may be marked by the most desperate economic times in the living history of the American People.
While we make something happen others are busy wasting.
Thanks.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to yesterday’s successful fundraiser. With your help we will make something happen in East Hartford and Connecticut as a whole.
We have a long road ahead of us before we, caring citizens and taxpayers of all affiliations, will be able to reverse the damage of years of reactionary policy making.
Preemptive waste
In East Hartford we have 3 candidates running unopposed. Henry Genga (D) in the 10th House, Tim Larson (D) in the 11th House and Gary LeBeau (D) in the 3rd Senatorial district.
Being unopposed you would think that these candidates would opt not to run a campaign, or at least not with our tax dollars. What I’ve found is that 2 of these candidates decided it would be a prudent and responsible choice for them to use our hard earned and easily stolen tax dollars to campaign against nobody. Where is the conscience in these candidates? Where is the sense of fiscal responsibility? The desire to help the electors in the district? I can’t think of a more clear example of the spend it because you can mindset that is destroying this town, this state and this nation.
Shame on Henry Genga
Shame on Gary LeBeau
These two representatives were there when the law was written to allow unopposed candidates to fleece the taxpayers by receiving campaign grants and it’s now clear why they didn’t change it.
I find it insulting that both these candidates are triple dipping into our pockets without remorse. First they created taxpayer funded careers for themselves in the East Hartford School District, then they decided they needed taxpayer funded representative salaries and now they are grabbing at taxpayer dollars to further their own personal political aspirations. There is truly no better definition of an ‘establishment candidate’ at the state and local level than these two.
We know based on the vast evidence of recent history that these two excel at creating and utilizing government waste, but how are they at doing what they were elected to do, responsibly represent their constituents? It’s time for you, Mr. Genga and Mr. LeBeau, to step up and return the money you took from the Citizen’s Election Program today. Our wallets are not your personal bank accounts.
Did you see?
Jason Rojas received the endorsement of Margaret Hacket, the chair of the Manchester BOE, in the JI. Her reasoning?
Rojas understands that we need more funding for education
Wow. I wonder how Manchester taxpayers feel about that assertion. East Hartford spends about 4-5 times as much per student than the average area private school tuition. Manchester spends about the same with an average expenditure of $13,400 per student in the 07/08 budget. Will more money or yet another backer of big education finally fix the system?
Let’s take a look at the current representatives who have had their hands in the East Hartford School District.
John Larson – Current U.S. Congressman
Gary LeBeau – Current State Senator
Henry Genga – Current State House Representative
Michael Christ – Current State House Representative
Consider, we have a congressman, a state senator and two state house reps who represent the education industrial complex and East Hartford’s education system is still broken. East Hartford’s education costs are increasing at a record pace and performance is stagnant at best. Why haven’t these politicians performed on their election promises and fixed the educational system? How many times have these officials campaigned on education?
Jason Rojas’ major campaign issue, according to his candidate bio in the latest iTowns section, is reforming the property tax system. Intrigued, I read on. Sadly it appears his motivation to reform property taxes is to ensure that the educational complex is free to grow unconstrained by the ability of local taxpayers to shoulder the bill. East Hartford’s educational costs are a crushing burden on this town which are driving business and residents away. Jason’s answer? Push the burden of East Hartford’s broken system onto all the state residents through the income tax. While we spread the impact of our broken system we in turn would have to shoulder the cost of other far more expensive broken systems such as Hartford, New Haven, Waterbury and others. I suspect that in the long run everyone but those supporting the largest and worst run systems would be better off leaving education financing local.
East Hartford has been electing champions of the educational status quo, which Rojas unarguably is, for decades to all levels of government with naught but negative results election after election. Maybe it’s time for a new direction. Or as Obama might say, “Change we can believe in”.
New LTE Published
I recently had another letter to the editor published. Here is the content for those who won’t get to see it in the paper.
I believe it was George Orwell who said “myths which are believed in tend to become true”.
I like Jason Rojas. He’s a nice guy and no doubt a great father. Certainly he doesn’t lack passion or drive. I can’t sit idle however and watch the propagation of myths.
As much as I like Mr. Rojas I just can’t bring myself to support him in legislating my life and taxes as a representative for the 9th House Seat. You see, Mr. Rojas believes he represents fiscal restraint but his record on the East Hartford Town Council disputes that claim.
It was Mr. Rojas who introduced and voted for a measure to increase the town’s electric costs by up to 28% in the name of “being green”. It was also Mr. Rojas who aggressively defended and voted for a raise in the Mayor’s already generous executive salary. Both of these in a time when according to Mr. Rojas himself families are struggling financially to meet their own burdens, forget dealing with the increasing taxes he has consistently voted for. Sadly, it gets worse from there.
During this year’s budget process Mr. Rojas clearly demonstrated his disconnect from the rest of us when he suggested that our property tax burden, roughly $383 per month for the average household, isn’t a large factor in foreclosures in this town and is somehow an acceptable burden.
He followed up nicely by heralding the arrival of the “foreclosure assistance” bill along with Mayor Currey and Senator LeBeau. The bill is more appropriately called the “citizen shakedown” bill since it provides for the state, also known as you and I, to pay the mortgages on McMansions for up to 5 years with few requirements for qualification. Whether Mr. Rojas supports the fleecing of the taxpayer in this manner, or simply didn’t read the bill he was lauding I don’t know. Either way, it’s not the way I want a state representative to govern.
Would I have coffee with Mr. Rojas? Yes. Would I vote for him? No.
I was inspired to submit this letter after reading a letter from Jason which was published in the Journal Inquirer titled “Economic leadership needed”. Jason’s letter can be viewed here: September 27-38 Letters
In other news, I’m proud to announce that the 6th District Republicans are hosting the first annual Make Something Happen Day on Saturday, October 25th. This fundraiser is an opportunity for Republicans to come together and discuss the future of our town as well as our party and hear from our candidates, including Joe Visconti.
I also expect the East Hartford Republicans to be announcing a tax reform strategy before too much more time passes.
9th District Primary Results – Completed with 6 of 6 Districts Reporting
Commentary – 10:45PM – It appears based on preliminary SoTS data that the East Hartford Democrats had a 21% turnout rate and the Republicans a 17% turnout rate.
Commentary – 9:27PM – The voter turnout is looking as low as expected. Worth noting is that each of the Democratic contenders received more votes individually than all three Republican contenders combined. If the Republicans want to have any hope of winning the general they need to figure out how to get their voters to show up at the polls. I’m awaiting the SoTS data which will provide turnout data for each town.
Update – 09:22PM – All 6 precincts are in for the 9th. It’s Rojas with 54% and Thompson with 51%. Congratulation to both candidates.
| State House – District 9 – GOP Primary | |
| 6 of 6 Precincts Reporting – 100% |
|
| State House – District 9 – Dem Primary | |
| 6 of 6 Precincts Reporting – 100% |
| Name | Party | Votes | Vote % | |
| Rojas, Jason | Dem | 647 | 54% | |
| Hachey, Joseph | Dem | 554 | 46% |
Update – 09:15PM – With 3 districts reporting the margin has narrowed significantly for Rojas from 82% in favor to 53% in favor. Thompson has also lost a bit of his lead to Brenner and Crockett. The SOTS results data seems to be funky so I won’t share that at this time.
| State House – District 9 – GOP Primary | |
| 3 of 6 Precincts Reporting – 50% |
|
| State House – District 9 – Dem Primary | |
| 3 of 6 Precincts Reporting – 50% |
| Name | Party | Votes | Vote % | |
| Rojas, Jason | Dem | 470 | 53% | |
| Hachey, Joseph | Dem | 421 | 47% |
Update – 08:45PM – The 9th District primary results are trickling in. So far it’s Rojas Vs. Thompson for the general.
From the Courant:
| State House – District 9 – GOP Primary | |
| 1 of 6 Precincts Reporting – 17% |
|
| State House – District 9 – Dem Primary | |
| 1 of 6 Precincts Reporting – 17% |
| Name | Party | Votes | Vote % | |
| Rojas, Jason | Dem | 356 | 82% | |
| Hachey, Joseph | Dem | 78 | 18% |
East Hartford hosts foreclosure flop announcement.
CT News Junkie is reporting an announcement made by our local democratic leaders including Senator LeBeau, Mayor Currey and Councilman (and current house candidate) Rojas.
The team gathered to announce the impending salvation of, or at least lip service to, foreclosure assistance. As you may or may not know the legislature passed a foreclosure relief bill which was subsequently signed by the governor. Here are some highlights:
- The state through CHFA will use our tax dollars to buy foreclosed properties to resell at discount to targeted buyers or use for public housing.
- The state through CHFA will make mortgage payments on behalf of approved persons experiencing a “financial hardship” despite the fact that such hardship insurance is and has been privately available to these persons and they declined to purchase it. The state may pay an approved person’s mortgage for as long as FIVE YEARS.
(7) “Financial hardship due to circumstances beyond the mortgagor’s control” means: A significant reduction of at least twenty-five per cent of aggregate family household income which reasonably cannot be or could not have been alleviated by the liquidation of assets by the mortgagor, including, but not limited to, a reduction resulting from (i) unemployment or underemployment of one or more of the mortgagors; (ii) a loss, reduction or delay in receipt of such federal, state or municipal benefits as Social Security, supplemental security income, public assistance and government pensions; (iii) a loss, reduction or delay in receipt of such private benefits as pension, disability, annuity or retirement benefits; (iv) divorce or a loss of support payments; (v) disability, illness or death of a mortgagor; (vi) uninsured damage to the mortgaged property which affects liveability and necessitates costly repairs; or (vii) expenses related to the disability, illness or death of a member of the mortgagor’s family, but is not related to accumulation of installment debt incurred for recreational or nonessential items prior to the occurrence of the alleged circumstances beyond the mortgagor’s control in an amount that would have caused the mortgagor’s total debt service to exceed sixty per cent of aggregate family income at that time; or (B) a significant increase in the dollar amount of the periodic payments required by the mortgage;
- The state will spend 2.5 MILLION dollars on job training programs for persons in foreclosure to the exclusion of those needing job training who don’t happen to be delinquent on a mortgage.
- The state through the judicial branch will hire 13 loan mediators at a price tag of over 150 THOUSAND DOLLARS EACH per year. These mediators are intended to renegotiate repayment terms with borrowers and lenders. Connecticut experienced 23,470 foreclosures last year according to Realty Trac which would have provided a workload of 1,805 foreclosures per mediator. It’s clear that this was poorly thought out and is doomed to fail from the start. The mediators are grossly overpaid, overloaded and replacing a service that already exists in the private market.
- A non-prime lender may not refinance a person out of a “special” mortgage unless the borrower attends counseling. This is a ridiculous overstepping into the borrowers private financial life and an unacceptable imposition.
“special mortgage” means a loan originated, subsidized or guaranteed by or through a state, federal, tribal or local government, or nonprofit organization.
- A non-prime lender is not permitted to include a pre-payment penalty on a loan or any provision which increases the interest rate on default. I’ve never seen the latter except in my credit card agreements, but disallowing pre-payment penalties will result in a direct increase in the interest rate to compensate. Borrowers have been able to waive pre-payment on most loans all along at the cost of a higher rate. The only difference now is that the higher rate will be the only rate.
The biggest thing to note in this long law is the total absence of any form of relief from the impositions the government places on homeowners. They have placed the burden of foreclosure relief solely on the lenders, brokers and banks as well as the taxpayers of Connecticut.
The state has failed to do anything about burdensome property taxes which at least here in East Hartford account for a full 3-4 months of mortgage payments each year. They have done nothing about income taxes or car taxes. They have done nothing about job creation. What they have created are new bureaucracies which will feed on taxpayer dollars and in turn further increase the crushing tax load which is pushing many into foreclosure.
As proud as I’m sure our representatives were to announce their excitement at having finally cracked the foreclosure problem open, I’d rather they had read this bill, found real solutions and sat this press conference out.
9th Assembly District Democratic Convention
Last Tuesday was the Democratic Convention for the 9th Assembly district candidate. It’s about time I posted the video up here. As you probably already know East Hartford’s Jason Rojas, a current councilman, received the party nod to the displeasure of his opponent Manchester’s Joseph Hachey.
As you’ll see in Hachey’s speech in the last video he vowed to force a primary.
I’m disappointed to hear that Rojas and Hachey had a debate not too long ago that I didn’t know about. I would liked to have heard it.
Chris Stone started off the night with a short speech to mark the end of his career as the 9th District incumbent.
Stone Speech
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7748438741276118587&hl=en]
Rojas Nomination
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4500399637069983702&hl=en]
Hachey Nomination
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6196746000254677636&hl=en]
Roll Call Vote
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4211671405458851960&hl=en]
Rojas Speech
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6529104310400829275&hl=en]
Hachey Speech
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4509229249557183308&hl=en]
9th goes to Thompson, 11th Unrepresented
The 9th House District Republican delegates met at 8PM tonight for candidate selections. As expected there were three candidates, Cliff Thompson, Michael Crockett, and Dennis Brenner, nominated.
Video will follow but Thompson won with an easy majority. Delegates attending reported hearing Crockett hint at a primary.
As it stands Thompson will be facing either Jason Rojas, an East Hartford Councilman, or Joseph Hachey who is a previous Town Director and current resident of Manchester. The 9th district Democrats meet Tuesday at 7PM at the Glastonbury headquarters located at 2341 Main Street (which is oddly next door to the Republican headquarters at 2333 Main Street).
The 11th house district Republican delegates also met tonight at 8PM. I have no video of this event, since it was over before I got there from the 9th District convention, which is just as well because no candidate was selected to face the expected Democratic nominee Tim Larson.
Also, the Republican 3rd Senate District delegates met Tuesday night for candidate nominations to face incumbent Gary Lebeau but none were nominated. A vacancy committee is actively seeking candidates.
