Every other week, John J. Ryan, Darien and Rowayton’s former Republican state representative, and Hersam Acorn Newspapers editor Joshua Fisher share their back-and-forth about news going on around the state, among other items of interest, that affect our corner of the state.
Fisher: The annual legislative session at the State Capitol is finally over; at least the politicians are not in Hartford this summer. And when the politicians aren’t in Hartford, Connecticut is a better place to be.
Other than that, there seems to be nothing but bad news in the Nutmeg State these days. It would be a lot more fun to be talking baseball.
Ryan: Imagine if the state had a competent baseball man in charge — such as Darienite Brian Cashman — who could actually accomplish positive results despite a litany of challenging problems?
Fisher: Mr. Cashman is too smart to get into politics.
There is one thing that state government excells at: Not keeping promises. Remember the governor told us there weren’t going to be any tax increases this year? And so many of our local politicians campaigned last year on how they were going to change Connecticut’s backwards affordable housing laws. How did that go, John?
Ryan: Where do you want to start? Because the gas tax increased and I never saw any changes to the affordable housing law.
There is also the ludicrous, such as the state’s in-process “busway boondoogle” possibly not even being a one-time debacle. See “Second Busway? Transportation options under consideration in rail study” (BristolPress.com, July 6).
Or an old nightmare possibly returning. See “Tribal Recognition Battle May Restart” (courant.com, July 6).
Fisher: It’s not possible for us to be that unlucky, is it? A Bridgeport casino after all and more traffic nightmares along southern Connecticut?
Ryan: Speaking of traffic nightmares, our astute readers surely know that our record highest gas (unleaded and diesel) taxes are not actually going to their supposed use. See “Another bypass: Latest gas tax hike won’t help roads, rail, bridges” (CTMirror.org, June 28).
Fisher: First Hartford raised the train ticket rates and spent that money on anything but rail service. Now they want to use the gas tax to pay for other unneeded spendings in the bloated state budget. Unfortunatley this has become the typical of the Malloy administration, which is always happy to blame the previous administration. But he never mentions that his party, the Democrats, have controlled the state legislator for nearly three decades.
But so long as the taxpayers don’t notice, the politicians will keep on this track.