How is it that two neighboring towns can have such widely different standards for their elected officials.
Recently a West Hartford Councilperson announced that he would be teaching law classes in Jamaica for several months as well as being involved with some charitable organizations while he was there. The repercussions were quick to come and the message from his fellow councilmembers was clear.
Essentially, his fellow councilmembers called for his resignation immediately because he was not properly serving the people of West Hartford.
Yet a little bit to the east in the hot bed of corruption known as Hartford, a very different scenario involving elected officials was taking place. A councilmember in Hartford who was involved in the Perez Grand Jury investigation and who was eventually arrested and is now on probation for her involvement, was able to hit the mute button on her fellow councilpeople.
Why is the standard and responsibility for holding public office apparently so much higher in West Hartford? As opposed to the calls for resignation in West Hartford, no conversation has even taken place about the future of Hartford's corrupt Councilperson Veronica Airey-Wilson.
No calls for her resignation, no discussion of her violations of the public trust not even a mention of her violations of the City of Hartford's ethics code. Does this say that Hartford's silence condones corruption? Apparently so if nothing happens.
I know we might not have some of the cleanest hands sitting on the Council when it comes to payoffs and dirty deals, but there are a couple of respectable people still sitting there and saying nothing. How does any Councilmember with integrity sit there alongside Airey-Wilson knowing what she has done and yet they don't say a word?
Why does the West Hartford Town Council obviously understand the awesome responsibility elected officials take on yet Hartford seems as though they could care less? The people of Hartford deserve better from our elected officials.
Those that have been elected by us owe it to us to speak out and set the tone that criminals in City Government are not an acceptable Hartford value.
10 comments:
Kevin..you are not going to get "better" from the Council...they are mostly an incompetant and self-serving lot who dont care as long as their dirty deal or special deal for a friend or ally goes thru or friend of theirs gets an appointment.
Rumor has it that the ethics commission, all three of its members, will take it up at next meeting.
Unless I'm mistaken, council-critters should be ashamed.
In West Hartford you have the Democratic members of the Caucus basically telling one of their own to step down. It's kinda obvious that the Republicans would want any Dem to step down.
In Hartford where there is only one Republican on the Council, me thinks it's on the GOP town committee to make that call.
A call from council for Ms. Airey-Wilson to resign is as useless as Peter's Brush.
A call from council for Ms. Airey-Wilson to resign is as useless as Peter's Brush.
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Incorrect. Brush in no position of authority. Individuals on Council should speak out on Airey-Wilson, and the Council as a whole should use its charter power to investigate, make a judgment, and remove her. Republican Town Committee should speak out,perhaps, but it can't remove her. When time comes for nominating candidates (spring?), the RTC should decline to nominate her.
Heard though the grapevine that there will not be a next time. Chances are the councilwoman will take advantage of the city's early retirement incentive program before the end of the year. Look for her nephew Atty. Brinson to be tapped next in line.
"Brush in no position of authority" = Hillarious
If she'd been convicted or had copped a plea she'd be ineligible to vote or to hold office. Perhaps litigation would determine that accelerated rehab equivalent for purposes of state law. But, presumably, if she were convicted the council would have to remove her.
But, in the present circumstances the council may investigate her taking of graft and apply a suitable punishment according to its standards.
It has a moral obligation, it seems to me, to break its silence on the question.
hmmm, a "moral obligation" to deal with Veronica Airey-Wilson. Is there a similar obligation in dealing with the law abiding residents of this City who are undocumented? Am interested to know where one's sense of "Moral Obligation" begins and ends.
Given the prolification of criminals,corrupt and incompetant's in the Hartford political scene in both major parties and according to Hartford political Standards, a AR plea or a conviction now would be an appropriate accomplishment to obtain an endorsement of office by either major party.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/11/bridgeports_missing_republican.html
Bridgeport is certainly not the sort of idyllic Norman Rockwell town found throughout most of Connecticut. It has long endured political corruption and patronage, high rates of poverty and crime, a shrinking economy, a declining population, and more recently, an infestation of radical progressive groups such as ACORN, AFL-CIO, WFP, and SEIU. Bridgeport did not earn the nickname "Chicago of the East" for nothing...
...Also, it is important to acknowledge there has been a perceptible shift to the left in Connecticut over the last decade, and registered Democrats now outnumber Republicans nearly two to one. The Democrat party controls both houses of the Connecticut General Assembly with overwhelming majorities. Democrats also hold all five U.S. congressional districts and both U.S. Senate seats.
This is truly a deep-blue liberal state, and it is has the enormous budget deficit and sanctuary cities to prove it. Connecticut has the "highest tax-supported debt" of any state in the nation and suffered the embarrassment of having its bond rating lowered earlier this year.
Only recently one of the most powerful members of Congress, Rangel was reduced to pleading in vain for colleagues to give him time to raise money for a lawyer before taking up the charges. The 80-year-old congressman left even before they said no, and the rare proceeding — only the second for this type of hearing in two decades — went on without him.
An ethics committee panel of four Democrats and four Republicans was sitting as a jury in the case late Monday. The official acting as prosecutor said the facts were so clear there was no need to call witnesses, and panel members agreed.
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City council on Airey-Wilson? Crickets.
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