Today I look at the the so-called Republican agenda. So-called, because the Republicans who ran and won in 2005, did not bind together like little atoms of H and O and generate pools of agenda language. So I had to go back to campaign literature, for a sampling of the actual language, although I’m sure just about everyone here can guess what the Republicans were saying about government.
So here we are, first up Joann Romano:
I want to see everyone’s interests and concerns represented not just a chosen few and special interest groups. Our children are suffering, our seniors are suffering and Norwalk as a whole is suffering from one-way government. Our streets are abominable, our education scores are failing, our taxes are out of control and our senior citizens are finding that in order to live they need to sell their homes and either move out of town or into accommodations that are not where they really want to be. They built this town and should be able to live where they have been most of their lives.
In short, Romano said that property taxes were forcing out seniors, our schools were failing, the streets were bad and she thought that government should be for all the people, not just favored interest groups.
Dick Moccia as a candidate for mayor in a letter to Rowaytonites:
Rowayton’s rural seaside character is a gem in Norwalk’s rich treasure chest. Our Republican candidates are committed to keeping the interests of its residents a priority. Working with village merchants and property owners to follow the spirit of Rowayton Avenue’s village district zoning, calling upon Fedex, UPS and DHL to uphold their agreements not to use local streets as shortcuts, and beautifying the village’s entry gates and bridges; these are concerns our candidates hold dear.
Moccia during his campaign promised to get rid of parking meters on Wall st. and fix the parking woes in SoNo. Gettgin rid of meters was easy, but there was great pains in fixing the SoNo parking issues largely due to bad contracts signed under the previous administration. The parking situation is much improved, reducing the night time fee to $2 and simplifying the meter fees.
Dick Moccia in a newspaper article looking at his first 100 days:
As chairman I was advocating my party,” Moccia said. “I’m now advocating my city and our city. It’s not a Republican city. Obviously if it was I’d have won by more than 176 votes.” Norwalk Advocate, Moccia’s First 100 Days
Doug Hempstead, Kelly Stranitti Campaign Lit:
We think our city government can be smaller and more flexible.
The impact of economic and fiscal pressures has placed Norwalk in
a difficult spot. We all have higher expectations of what our government
should be doing for us, and higher expectations of what our
experiences with our city should be. Simply, we think Norwalk can
provide better services for less money than it is now.
No one likes to pay higher taxes and additional fees. And it’s even
worse without improvements in those services. In the business world,
we’d call that underperformance. At our kitchen tables, we get angry
that our bills keep going up and yet we still worry about crime, and
whether our schools are getting the job done, and if a large condo
development is going to spring up down the street.
So, Hempstead and Stranitti campaigned on getting more bang for the tax dollar.
After spending some time going through my clips of stuff, I realized that I couldn’t piece together a Republican agenda from what I had. I think it’s more likely that there has been no Republican agenda, mostly due to the fact that a 10 person Democratic majority on the council can override a Moccia veto. Meaning, the power in setting the budget, the focusing the various city agencies on agenda items has always resided with the Democrats. None of the Republicans are committee chairs, and there isn’t a single committee that has a Republican majority. I think that forced the Republicans on the council to work harder at presenting convincing arguments during committee work.
Like the fight’n 44 in the legislature, the Republican council and mayor have kept the focus on keeping budget increases form escalating and fighting against tax increases. As a fiscal conservative, I naturally approve of any actions that look at what tax revenues are being spent on, and whether that spending is wise. The only item I’ve found to be questionable was Moccia’s early call for a new firehouse in April of 2006. Then, the Democrats questioned spending tax dollars on that over other infrastructure priorities. The money never was allocated to build a new fire house. Moccia did hire a a person to fill the grant’s coordinator position, another campaign issue.
I think that the Republicans have spent too much time focusing on the redevelopment efforts and not enough on economic assessments of what we have. There’s a tendency to rely of private developers to finance redevelopment over making available city grants and financing to restore buildings that exist. Yet, support for such programs have been in control of the Democratic majority, which has since 2001 failed to do anything along those lines either.
The most important issue facing Norwalk is what to do about financing the city’s infrastructure for the next 20 years. The addition of people, business and housing is something our city leaders need to be focused on. Heading into the elections this fall I hope that we all focus on the future of what Norwalk can become, rather than the past of who did what, when.
As always, the comments are open to what you have to say.
