Sunday, October 18, 2009

Another nasty remonstrance in New Haven

Today's JG political column included comments from the president of the New Haven city council on the deplorable tactics used by opponents in the Jury Pool signature campaign. Well, what did they expect? The three recent remonstrances carried out in this area- the FWCS, Columbia City and Jury Pool bond issues all caused hard feelings in their respective communities. The amount of money was not the issue in any of the campaigns. The issue was an arrogant group of public officials who used what might have been a legitimate need as a vehicle to get their wish list funded. At the end he said if they don't get their project, close the pool! The remonstrators didn't want the pool closed, they just wanted to spend what was necessary to fix it and keep it open

Will they ever learn? No way. During last year's school board campaign FWCS board member Becky Hill cited the need for officials to know the difference between "needs" and "wants". This comes from someone who signed a yellow petition. Becky Hill doesn't know the difference any more than Steve Corona did. John Pierce led the yellow ribbon effort. The only saving grace is that the next proposal will end up as a ballot referendum. Thanks Mitch.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

As someone who signed "Yellow" two years ago, I welcome the referendum process. The remonstrance process can be very intimidating on both sides of an issue. The secret ballot vote is truly the American way. One thing we can agree on. The people that take the time to go to the polls are the folks that truly care about the issue.

Code Blue Schools said...

Jules-

I still don't understand why they kept the remonstrance process for smaller amounts, except that it allows us to be nickel and dimed because of the amount of effort required to do a petition drive. I actually talked to Senator Kenley, who came up with the remonstrance process, about the difficulties with petitions, especially in a large city. But I'm happy with getting something more reasonable, which, at least for bigger projects, won't end up dividing the community.

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