Lamont for Governor

Opinion

  

    By Reginald Johnson

  

 I can’t really point to anything specific about policy or issues in Connecticut that makes me think Ned Lamont is the best person to be the Democratic nominee for governor.

  But sometimes in these elections you have to go with a gut feeling and my gut feeling tells me that Lamont is a better choice than Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim in the Tuesday primary.  I liked the way Lamont took on powerful incumbent Sen. Joe Lieberman 12 years ago in his unsuccessful bid for the US Senate. He spoke forthrightly about the need for a better foreign-policy and ending the Iraq War and respecting the sovereignty of other countries. Though foreign-policy doesn’t have anything directly to do with being governor, Lamont showed a feistiness and an honesty that I really liked. They are qualities that will help him govern the state very well.

   And on the issue of integrity, I am still bothered by what Joe Ganim did back in the 1990s in Bridgeport. His corruption hurt the city badly, and it’s a hurt that’s not easily forgotten. I didn’t vote for him in his comeback bid in 2015, but once he won re-election, I figured it was time to give him a chance to redeem himself and make up for what he had done.

   To his credit, Ganim has run a clean administration in the 2 ½ years he’s been back. He also brought taxes down for some residents, and I include myself as one of them. So that’s nice. However, I don’t think Joe Ganim has really paid his dues for what he did. I get the distinct impression that within a year or so after he returned to the mayor’s seat, he was plotting his next move, which was to run for governor.  Instead of working hard for the people of Bridgeport, putting his nose to the grindstone and really trying to turn the city around --- and that is clearly a difficult, long-term project --- Ganim was focusing on personal gain: ‘How do I move up?’

    If this was 2022, and Ganim had been back as Bridgeport’s mayor for six years or so, and built up a good record, I would look at a Ganim candidacy for governor a lot more positively. But not now.

  Ganim should stay on as mayor and work to continue to redevelop the city, upgrade the educational system and bring in more affordable housing.

   So here’s hoping Ned Lamont wins the Democratic primary and goes on to be the state’s next chief elected official. I think he has good progressive instincts and he will work for the betterment of Bridgeport and the state’s other struggling urban centers, including Hartford and New Haven.  And helping the urban areas should be a top priority for any new governor.

Journalism and Government Corruption

                           

By Reginald Johnson

                       BRIDGEPORT ---- It was good to see the Connecticut Post recently published a long, front-page story detailing the many crimes of former mayor Joseph P. Ganim during his time running this city in the 1990s, before law enforcement officials finally nailed him and sent him off to prison.

     Ganim --- who was released from jail in 2010 and is now campaigning to be mayor again ---  ran a pay-to-play scheme in City Hall, steering contracts to favored developers, and taking bribes and kickbacks in the process.

  The corruption cost the city dearly, with millions of dollars in public money being either stolen or wasted and opportunities for development and job growth squandered.

 The Ganim years were a big setback for Bridgeport, a one-time industrial powerhouse which has been struggling to remake itself following the exodus of factories like GE, Remington and Westinghouse.

   The Post laid it all out clearly in the October 11^th story, when the corruption began,  who the players were, the amounts of money involved, and what happened to them.

  The article, entitled “Legacy of Greed” was a nice piece, authored by veteran reporter Bill Cummings.

   But what the Post didn’t focus on, and is not likely to, is how the corruption went on for many years unnoticed and unchecked.

  Municipal corruption can take place anywhere, it’s not just limited to Bridgeport.  In New England alone, we’ve seen city corruption cases in Danbury, Waterbury and Providence, R.I. in the past several decades.

   But corruption is more likely to get started and flourish where those institutions that are supposed to be ‘minding the store’ are not doing their job. In Bridgeport, as in most cities, the watchdog role falls on the local legislative body, or city council, and on the local newspaper.

Bridgeport City Hall. Voters in Connecticut's largest city will go to the polls Nov. 3 to determine who will be their next mayor.

    The local council and newspaper are the ones that on a steady basis are in a position to monitor what’s going in city hall, how money is being spent, who’s spending it, whether there’s any irregularities, etc.  A local states attorney or police department may occasionally get involved in municipal corruption investigations, but for the most part, they’ve got their hands full handling property crime, street crime and acts of violence.

   In Bridgeport, both the city council and the Post failed to adequately monitor what was going on in the Ganim administration with respect to contracts and financial expenditures.

    Both institutions, you could say, were asleep at the switch when Ganim and his henchmen were playing their games.

   While some members of the council during the Ganim years tried to raise questions about issues related to multi-million dollar contract proposals that came before them, many of them did not. As a result, things like the sewage treatment contracts for the PSG firm pushed by Ganim got approved in the end.

  Federal officials later investigated those contracts, and found that Ganim had been given kickbacks and bribes as part of the deals.

  But the Post --- and this was the only print media in town --- did even less than the council in watching city government. This writer, who was employed as an editor by the Post during the 1990s, had a pretty good view of what was going on in the newsroom in terms of Bridgeport news coverage.

   To put it simply, there wasn’t much of it. During the mid and late 1990s, there literally were only 1-2 reporters actively covering City Hall. This was in a city of 135,000 people, with operating budgets of $100 to $200 million.

   Basically, city reporters hit the highlights, and that was it. Major announcements, key council actions and commission meetings were covered, but not much else. There wasn’t time to do anything in-depth, because the limited resources wouldn’t allow it.

  So a lot of unanswered questions or subjects that deserved to get a second look, didn’t get it.

   A little background here is in order. There hadn’t always been a shortage of reporters at the Post. In 1989, under the old Post Publishing Company, there were about 15-20 reporters covering the city, working for either the Post or the Telegram, which was the morning paper. But that same year, the family that owned the Post decided to sell out to media giant Thomson Corporation of Canada, reportedly for about $240 million.

   Thomson immediately dispatched a lawyer/hatchet man to the Post to begin downsizing. First there were buyouts, the Telegram was shut down and staff was cut by one-third. Staff numbers were further reduced through attrition --- as people left for other jobs, they weren’t replaced.

  City staffing was weakened again when the new management  --- believing that Bridgeport no longer provided a lucrative circulation or advertising base --- moved reporters into more suburban and regional coverage,

  It wasn’t for lack of money that the Post was short on staffing. When I was there, we were told at an annual meeting in the late ‘90s  that the paper was doing well and had made over $2 million in net profit the previous year. Management had the money to hire more; they just didn’t want to.

  The company’s penny-pinching also meant that top editors didn’t want to encourage time-consuming investigative projects. 

 I think some people still on the city staff and others sensed that something was amiss with the Ganim administration, and wanted to investigate certain areas, but didn't get much backing. It seemed that editors at the time felt there just wasn't the time or the personnel to do city investigations, and Bridgeport was longer the focus.

 So things that should have been gotten dug into, like the PSG contract, the delays on a $1 billion harbor development project and Ganim’s continual favoritism of the United Properties firm as a developer (United Properties was owned by Al Lenoci, Sr. and his son Al Lenoci, Jr, who both were later convicted for their role in city corruption) were never investigated by the Post.

    It took some complaints to the FBI and then a wide-ranging investigation by that agency that finally uncovered the morass of corruption that was going on in Bridgeport. When all was said and done, Ganim and ten of his cohorts were indicted, convicted and sent off to the prison for their crimes. Ganim was found guilty of 16 felony counts and spent seven years in prison.

   There’s an obvious lesson in this story for today. A city council and the local media have to hold municipal officials accountable for the job they’re doing. It’s not enough for a local council to just rubberstamp what a mayor wants without asking questions. And it’s not enough for a paper or television station for that matter to just churn out stories about accidents, shootings, announcements by the mayor and votes by boards together with a few light features. There has to be more.

   Cities large and small are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in public money and it’s imperative that that money be used wisely. In Bridgeport alone, between the city budget and Board of Education budget, more than $500 million in public funds are being spent this year. (It should be noted as well, that Bridgeport raises a lot of that money by hitting its residents with one of the highest property tax rates in the nation.)

    There’s a lot of programs and contracts out there and opportunities for not only money to be wasted, but unfortunately, for some money to be stolen.

   A local paper has to hire enough reporters to be able to go out and really follow what municipal officials are up to, how money is being spent, who’s benefiting from contracts and spot any troubling patterns. If red flags pop up, a paper has to respond.

  If they don’t, it’s not journalism.

  I don’t want to hear this talk about how ‘we don’t have money.’ It is true that papers are not as strong as they used to be financially, and some have floundered in recent years. But an awful lot of papers, such as the Post and the Hartford Courant (Tribune Company) are owned by large, diversified corporations. They are making money.

   Hearst Corporation, which now owns the Post, earned $10.3 billion in revenues in 2014, a more than 6 percent advance over the previous year, according to a business article in the New York Post.

  Hearst has the money to hire more reporters and editors at the Connecticut Post. The paper now has --- like the 1990s ---  one or two reporters covering Bridgeport City Hall on a daily basis. That’s not enough, even though the staff that is there is doing a good job. The paper, to its credit, now has an investigative team that from time to time will do regional or Bridgeport stories. But more staff is needed to really follow what’s going on in the city on an active basis.

  Next week Bridgeport will hold municipal elections. Joe Ganim, who now admits his wrongdoing, is trying to make a comeback. He won the Democratic Party nomination in a September primary, and may well win the election. Also running are Republican Enrique Torres and Independents Mary-Jane Foster and Charles Coviello.

  It will be critical that in the years ahead, the local media, principally the Post, closely follow whoever becomes mayor and watch how public money is being spent.

  Bridgeport can’t afford a repeat.

 

 

    

  

    

   .   

      

Ganim Stuns

                                       

By Reginald Johnson

  BRIDGEPORT ---- I’m sorry. This is hard to comprehend.

  Joe Ganim, he of 16 felony convictions for corruption during his time as mayor in the 1990s and an alumni of federal prison, has won the support of a majority of Democrats voting in a primary to be their standard bearer in the general election for mayor in November.

   Huh? Is this incredible or what?

  Ever since Wednesday night when it was becoming apparent that Ganim was going to beat out incumbent Mayor Bill Finch and businesswoman Mary-Jane Foster for the Democratic Party nomination, I’ve been trying to figure this out. It hasn’t been easy.

  I saw the vote totals come up on the board on Channel 12 and I saw Ganim ahead with well over 5,000 votes. Finch also had over 5,000, but was behind by about 200-300. Then I saw the joyous people at the Ganim election party --- at Testo’s Restaurant of course --- people smiling, laughing and hugging Joe Gamin. Ganim had just declared victory.

   I thought, are these people delusional? What are they thinking?

  What is it about Joe Ganim or what did he do or say in his campaign that is so compelling that people would just wipe away his outrageous record as mayor --- being involved in one of the worst municipal corruption scandals in New England history --- and decide to back him?

  I went over in my mind the various possible reasons. Angst over high taxes. Yes, that’s a reason to be upset with the incumbent, though taxes weren’t exactly low during the Ganim years. Another is Finch’s personality.  Finch can be spiteful and sometimes arrogant, which showed during the Board of Education takeover plan. His persona turned a number of people off.

 And then there’s the police union. Police were upset over contract cuts and staffing shortages in the Finch years. OK, those are reasonable complaints, too. That’s a lot of votes there, between union members and their spouses, brothers and sisters.

 But here’s the $64 question. Why, if you’re upset with Finch for those reasons, would you make the leap and go for someone so tarnished by corruption as Ganim, when there’s a viable alternative in the race, in Mary-Jane Foster?

  Foster was a good candidate, no political baggage, and a proven executive and business person.

   Why would so many people just pass her over, and opt for Ganim?

  I don’t know for sure, but I think there probably two key factors.  First is, a lot of the people going for Ganim were angry over having lost something during the Finch years, something they had in the Ganim years. A job, a position, a title, a program that was lost. A good number of people are in this category and some of them had legitimate beefs. It looks as if these folks were willing to set aside the memory of Ganim’s corruption, because Joe was the guy that was going to make things right, because he did it before, not Foster. This was the guy that was going to float their ship.

  The other thing at work, I believe, was that Ganim pandered successfully to the black community, making lots of promises and glossing over his record. He got a lot of votes from the African-American community. He demagogically played on the public safety issue, blaming Finch for crime in black neighborhoods, when actually crime rates in the city are down. Ganim of course conveniently didn’t tell people that violent crime rates were much worse during his years as mayor. (Remember the “Phoenix Barriers”?)

  He also wasn’t about to tell people that his record on affordable housing  --- another issue very important to many blacks --- was terrible. In the Ganim years, hundreds of units of housing were torn down, with minimal replacement.

    Many blacks were apparently sympathetic to Ganim’s plea for redemption. ‘I did wrong, I served my time, now I want a second chance.’ I think blacks related to that because possibly they knew someone who went to jail, and then came out, and needed a second chance to right themselves. During interviews I did around the city, I heard “he deserves a second chance” several times from black residents.

   There may be other reasons that factored in the primary result, some possibly that could come out from investigations. We’ll just have to see.

  In meantime, it’s shaping up for the general election as Joe Ganim, Democrat, versus Rick Torres, Republican, and Bill Finch, who said he will stick it out and run on a third party ticket, and possibly Foster and others on independent tickets as well.

   Ganim, now the Democratic nominee, has to be favored in this city which usually elects the Democratic Party nominee for mayor.

   Whatever Finch’s flaws, I think the city was basically headed in the right direction the last few years. What happened yesterday was a step backwards.


MEDIA NOTES

   A few thoughts on media coverage of the primary race. Basically, it wasn’t very good.

  The Connecticut Post, the main vehicle for coverage, did a fairly good job with breaking news on the campaign. Brian Lockhart is a good reporter, though he tends to over featurize his stories. Everything reads like a column. But overall, not a bad job on regular campaign news.

   My chief complaint is where the paper placed stories related to the campaign and Finch’s administration, and not doing some larger stories on the race. I don’t know whether the paper was bending over backwards to look impartial, or whether they were just teed off at Finch over transparency issues, but they wound up underplaying some news stories that happened to make Finch look good.

  

Recently, the Hampton Inn chain announced they were going to build a Hampton Inn at Steel Point. This is a major development. A top hotel coming to town --- the first in about 30 years --- well, that’s a big story. It deserves Page 1. But instead it was placed inside the paper. Why?

Downtown developer Phil Kuchma also had a major announcement recently that he was beginning a Phase II in his downtown development. That’s also big. But the Post ran it inside.

 I didn’t get every single paper over the last six months, so maybe I missed this. But there should have been a large, blow-out piece on Joe Ganim. He was mayor for 12 years, and so much happened in this period. The Post should have detailed what he did, both legally and illegally, both the good and the bad. The controversial zoning cases, the demolitions, the fight over the Juvenile Detention Center, the construction of the Bluefish stadium and the Arena, the secrecy of his administration, and finally the corruption cases themselves.

 People who weren’t around needed to be informed, and others needed to be reminded.

But as far as I know, no such a piece ever appeared.

  Also, the Post created the feeling in this race that the real battle was just between Finch and Ganim. Foster got second fiddle. There should have been more equal coverage all the way around.

  Finally, the Post should have dug into some of the claims of irregularities going on during the campaign --- issues about questionable petition signatures, absentee ballots, and so on. The Post, owned by the huge Hearst Newspapers Corporation, could have put the resources into play to do this, but they didn’t. Instead, they left it to state investigators to probe the complaints, and there will be no results for months. When results are announced, the election will have come and gone, and the issue will be a moot point for most voters.

  That's too bad, because voters should get critical information about verified wrongdoing before an election, not after.

Ganim over Finch? Really?

   Opinion           

   

    By Reginald Johnson

      

   BRIDGEPORT --- It’s a sad commentary on the state of affairs in this city that a lot of people are so dismayed with incumbent Mayor Bill Finch that they are supporting ex-mayor and ex-con Joe Ganim to become the city’s next chief elected official.

     A Monday article in the Connecticut Post said that the contest for the endorsement from the Democratic Town Committee for the Democratic mayoral nomination was now a “dead heat” between Finch and Ganim. The DTC holds its endorsement session Tuesday night.

   This is incredible. The idea that Joe Ganim could secure the Democratic nomination and then be the odds-on pick to be elected as mayor of Connecticut’s largest city (due to the overwhelming Democratic Party edge in enrollment in Bridgeport) is mind-boggling.

  Let’s be blunt. Joe Ganim cheated this city, badly.  In the 1990s, he ran a sickening “pay to play” scheme in City Hall, was convicted for his crimes, and spent seven years in prison as a result.

  Contrary to a widely-held view that, despite the corruption, Ganim got the city moving again with the construction of the Bluefish stadium and the arena, Ganim actually held the city back. Because of his conniving, favoring certain developers and turning off others, a lot of development that could have taken place, did not.

  Remember that the 1990s, unlike now, was a much better time economically. There was more money available from the state, and more money to leverage with banks for different projects. A lot of that potential was squandered.

   Ganim also ran an administration that ran roughshod over people in the neighborhoods. Public housing was torn down in the South End --- worsening the city’s affordable housing stock --- to make way for the stadium and arena. The plans for those projects were rushed through and the public had little input.

  Going businesses were rudely forced out of their downtown locations, in the name of some future development, development that never came.

   Zoning principles were violated in the North End, when an application by favored developer Al Lenoci to construct a Stop and Shop in the middle of a residential neighborhood, was rammed through the planning and zoning commission. (That store is now closed, and sits as an empty hulk off Madison Avenue).

  I could go on, but you get the point. There’s a lot on the negative side of the ledger when it comes to Joe Ganim as mayor.

  If  Joe Ganim has “found religion” since his incarceration, I’m not aware of it. I am not even sure if he apologized for his crimes, if he ever showed contrition. If he did, I missed it.

 This is not to back-handedly paint Bill Finch as some kind of saint. He’s not. He also has a sensitivity issue, not listening to people and turning on those who oppose him with a vengeance.  

  

 His drive for mayoral control of the school board was a sorry chapter and I think turned a lot of people off. That plan, plus the support for more charter schools, is bad educational policy. But it should be noted that the idea of overhauling public schools and moving to more charters is something that is being pushed nationally by the leaders of the Democratic Party. Finch didn’t cook up this idea on his own.

    Finch has done some good things environmentally, such as supporting fuel cell development in the city. But there’s the bad, too. Community gardens --- which are thriving in cities like New Haven --- are languishing here, due to lack of funding and lack of direction.(By way of disclosure, I am a member of one of the gardens).

  Finch this year brought in a firm from Westport to oversee the gardens, but not much is happening. It was a slap in the face to Bridgeporters that an out-of-town group had to be brought in to tell us how to manage gardens. The head of the Westport firm reportedly gave a donation to Finch’s campaign.

   It’s clear that Finch has some real issues as mayor, and I don’t blame people for being upset for different reasons.

  But to be so upset to the point of backing someone who cheated the citizens of this city, engaged in illegal acts and hurt Bridgeport badly, I don’t get it.

  Joe Ganim? Come on.

 This may be one of those years, and they don’t come along very often in Bridgeport,  when a Republican should get a look for mayor. While I have little use for GOP policies nationwide, sometimes a local Republican can do a good job here. Leonard Paoletta, who ran the city very well in the 1980s, comes to mind.

  Enrique Torres anyone?