Following the defeat (likely) of 3 incumbents, plus the the 2 incumbents who chose not to seek re-election, Bill Krummel, Doug Sutton. Fred Bondi, Carvin Hilliard and Phylis Bolden are the seasoned council members for the Dems. Which makes the rather odd statements out of Democratic Town Committee Chair Galen Wells and Kevin Poruban seem oblivious to the realities of the election.
“We now have new people on the council, who are going to reevaluate positions on the issues. Now we have a real Democratic majority. I’m pleased that we have a Democratic majority. That doesn’t mean we aren’t going to cooperate (with Republicans) on good things.”
Democrat Kevin M. Poruban, who lost his bid to retain his District C seat on the council, said he is not surprised that Grant spent time among Republicans at The Norwalk Inn Tuesday night.
“He went where he felt most comfortable — with his peeps (Republicans),” Poruban said.
Poruban has been critical of Coffey, Grant and others labeling the Democratic-Republican cooperation during the last two years as “bipartisanship.”
“Bipartisanship is where something is so good for the greater number of people,” Poruban said. “What we had here was not bipartisanship. Various pieces of legislation that we enacted were ineffective. The responsible contractor ordinance … it’s going to be difficult to enforce.”
Poruban expressed confidence in the new Democrats elected to the council.
“We have some very dynamic individuals. I expect good things from them,” Poruban said. “They truly represent working-class families unlike some other council members.”
The Democrats have a bigger problem that Poruban and Wells created. After attempting to force out Fred Bondi at various times this past spring, Bondi is busy jockeying for votes for control of the common council presidency. If he pulls one other of the other “targeted” Democrats, Hilliard or Bolden, he can controls a “swing” block of votes. It will be up to the Republicans to determine what they want in exchange for supporting Bondi or someone else.
It’s interesting that Poruban is quick to go after the responsible contractor ordinance considering the Working Families Party endorsement of him. But then Poruban has always taken a more Republican anti-union stance in much of his voting record. So it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise, except to maybe some Democrats who never bother to check how council members actually vote versus what they say they support.
Until the recounts, now set for next Tuesday, none of the Democratic in-fighting will be set. Bill Krummel only leads fellow Dem Gwen Briggs by 1 vote and trails Republican Conroy by 4. Recounts usually lead to vote total changes. Last year, in another town, the process was to rerun the ballots through the optical scanner. The reality of the election is that the Democratic majority is rather tenuous unless they can all pull together and stop the in-fighting.
Whether Democrats can pull together is one storyline. The other is whether the Republicans can stay together. All the legislative experience lines up on the Republican side, and after years of watching some pretty lame committee chairs stumble through the process of legislation can they stand back and let it continue to happen? Do a few Republicans switch parties to gian chairmanships? The precedent for that happened this past year at the State legislature when Diana Urban switched after being elected as a Republican for her fourth term.
Eventually all will become clear in the next couple of weeks. It would benefit Norwalk that instead of party labels determining leadership positions, experience and capability were used as the main criteria. But that is rather too much if an idealistic position to hold, when the players still shuffle across the political stage thinking all talk is more important than action.
source: The Hour, Some Dems celebrate at Republican headquarters, vow to work together, By ROBERT KOCH, November 8, 2007
— The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum can’t locate or account for tens of thousands of valuable mementos of Reagan’s White House years, according to a published report.
:) 
