According to several well placed sources, the answer is yes. According to sources, a meeting will be held tomorrow night between Hartford's Mayor Luke Bronin and representatives of Hartford's Legislative delegation. The apparent intent of the meeting is to begin drafting legislation to move toward a State takeover of Hartford's troubled finances.
More accurately, the proposed legislation will form an "oversight board" comprised of Connecticut's Treasurer Denise Nappier, the Governor's OPM Director Ben Barnes, Hartford's Treasurer Adam Cloud and other Hartford business people. This board should not be, and can not be a group of political hacks. We already have that with the Stadium Authority, and look where that has gotten us,over $10 million more in debt This board has to be able to make decisions to get our City back on track without worrying about political ramifications
This is a drastic step for the City to take because much of the local control of City government, especially financial, will be relinquished to the oversight board.
Throughout last years campaign, Bob Killian and others repeatedly said that Hartford was broke. This action now apparently proves that. The incumbent, Pedro Segarra chose to ignore the problem and committed Hartford to an ill conceived baseball stadium deal that plunged us further into debt. And let's not forget the Dillon Stadium deal that plunged us into a Federal Grand Jury investigation
Luke Bronin has repeatedly been telling residents that tough decisions were going to have to be made in relation to Hartford's budget and upcoming deficits and this is probably the most difficult decision Bronin has had to make in his short tenure. This is why we elect competent leaders, to clean up after the incompetent ones we vote out of office. This move should in no way reflect on Bronin, other than commending him to do what is needed at a very difficult time.
But, it has to be noted that this is the mess that Luke Bronin inherited when he assumed Office January 1, 2016. It is also the price Hartford is now being forced to pay for years of incompetence by Mayor Segarra( and his predecessors) and a Council who preferred to bury their heads in the sand, instead continuing to kick the can down the road and hoping things would work out.
The only way to fix a problem is to first admit you have a problem, and this seems to be the first step to getting Hartford back on a solid financial footing.
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