Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations

TAX TALK

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Susan Kniep, fctopresident@ctact.org
Subject: Congratulations to New Britain Tax Group
April 4, 2004

Today the Hartford Courant focused on Ann Mikulak and the state's longest running taxpayer group, CPOA.   As a reminder, Ann and her group were successful in having the Ethics Commission of New Britain rule against union members using their position as elected municipal officials to influence union contracts.   Congratulations to Ann and CPOA!!!

HARTFORD COURANT ARTICLE: NEW BRITAIN -- For decades, a feisty watchdog group has battled city hall on behalf of the little guy. It orchestrated a 1,000-person taxpayer revolt and battled and beat city hall over illegal pay raises. One of its presidents was charged with breach of peace on Election Day. Another scuffled with an alderman at a public meeting. Please visit FCTO website ctact.org for the complete story captioned Aging Watchdog Group Fights to Keep Bite ...Longtime Taxpayer Rebels Seek to Rally Others to Cause.
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Donna McCalla, CTJodi146@al.com
Tax Group: Hebron Dollars and Sense
Website: www.HebronDollarsandSense.com
Subject: Connecticut Education Budgets Spreadsheet Updated 3/29
March 29, 2004

Congratulations, Thank You, Super Job to Donna McCalla who puts her time and effort into compiling valuable information on Education Budgets throughout the State. Please refer to Donna's comments below and the attachment which should be opened in excel.   Susan Kniep

A Message from Donna: The spreadsheet for Education budget proposals and Grand List growth numbers has been updated. As we have consistently seen in the past two months, the numbers are still barely budging: Superintendents are proposing a slightly more than 7.5% budget increase (this number has been confirmed by CABE -- Connecticut Association of Boards of Education), and Boards of Education are approving, on average, about 1% lower than the Superintendent's recommended budget increase. We're not aware of CABE tracking the other data elements you will see in our spreadsheet.

Each week, more and more Funding Authorities (Boards of Finance, Town Councils, Boards of Estimate and Taxation, Representative Town Meetings [RTMs], etc.) are approving budgets, and the trend remains the same: the budget increases ultimately approved by Funding Authorities are about one-half the amount recommended by the Boards of Education, or, on average, 3.69%.

Likewise, Grand List growth remains stagnant at, on average, 1.23%. To put it into another perspective, Funding Authorities are, on average, approving education budgets that are more than double Grand List growth. It's a disturbing trend that has been going on for several years.

Please note that the spreadsheet now sorts by Superintendent's proposed budget increase; Board of Education approved budget increase; Funding Authority approved or recommended increase; and ERG budget increase averages.
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Susan Kniep, fctopresident@ctact.org
Subject: Cable Show
April 4, 2004

This past week I was invited by Martin Gregor to participate in a cable show sponsored by the Republican Town Committee of Barkhamsted and hosted by David Moulton. During this half hour program I spoke to the issue of Binding Arbitration and the need for change. The program reached the households of those living in Barkhamsted, New Hartford, Winsted, Harwinton, West Hartland, and Colebrook.   Twice a month, the Committee keeps the residents of these areas informed on tax related issues.   Thank you Martin and David for inviting me to participate in an exciting and informative discussion. Susan Kniep
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Susan Kniep, fctopresident@ctact.org
Subject: State Republican Leader Works for Change to Eminent Domain
April 4, 2004

As noted on FCTO's website, Robert M. Ward, House Minority Leader, wrote a letter to the Judiciary Committee in an attempt to protect homeowners now threatened by the recent Supreme Court ruling on eminent domain. His letter of March 8, 2004 to The Honorable Robert Farr and all members of the Judiciary Committee follows�

Dear Representative Farr: A person's home is their castle, their refuge, and their slice of the American dream. It is where people can establish roots, raise families, and grow old in the house of their dreams. The recent Connecticut Supreme Court ruling in Kelo v. New London, which greatly expanded the scope and purpose of the laws regarding eminent domain, is a threat to each and every homeowner in this state.   The purpose of the takings laws are that they allow the state, municipalities, or those justly charged to exercise the authority to take private property for public use. When weighed against the value the property provides to the public at large, sometimes a homeowner must bow to that greater good and sacrifice the home that they have made. But such infringement on private property rights should be based upon public exigency and purely for public benefit, not for private development and profit. The Court has expanded the definition of "public good" to include jobs created at a construction site, higher property tax revenue from the new privately owned buildings that will grace the site, and the expected boom to urban revitalization that the project will provide. Virtually any taking is allowable under this broad standard. Although it is past your committee deadline for raising legislation, I respectfully request that you take the opportunity to amend a currently pending bill to include some protection to Connecticut's homeowners.    I would ask that the Judiciary Committee respond to this decision by amending our eminent domain provisions to ensure that a taking of an occupied residence will only be done for a true public purpose and a greater good to all, and that only vacant or unimproved property may be taken for private development. I respectfully urge your action on this matter to provide some protections to Connecticut's homeowners.   I enclose a draft of the proposed amendment for your consideration.   Very truly yours, Robert M. Ward, Minority Leader
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Phil Gosselin, imgoose7@yahoo.com
East Hartford Taxpayers Association
Subject: New York Times Article Operation Iraqi Infoganda
March 28, 2004

NEW YORK TIMES: Operation Iraqi Infoganda by Frank Rich

Real journalism may be reeling, but faux journalism rocks. As an
entertainment category in the cultural marketplace, it may soon rival reality TV and porn. Television is increasingly awash in fake anchors delivering fake news, some of them far more trenchant than real anchors delivering real news. Even CNBC, a financial news network, is chasing after the success of Jon Stewart; its new nightly fake newscast, presided over by a formerly funny "Saturday Night Live" fake anchor, Dennis Miller, is being promoted with far more zeal than was ever lavished on CNBC's real "News With Brian Williams." Turn on real news shows like "Dateline NBC" and "Larry King Live," meanwhile, and you're all too likely to find Jayson Blair, the lying former reporter of The New York Times, continuing to play a reporter on TV as he fabricates earnest blather about his concern for journalistic standards. Elsewhere on the dial
you'll learn that a fake news show ("The Daily Show") has been in a booking war with a real news show ("Hardball") over who would first be able to interview the real (I think) Desmond Tutu. At such absurd moments, and they are countless these days in our 24/7 information miasma, real journalism and its evil twin merge into a mind-bending mutant that would defy a polygraph's ability to sort out the lies from the truth. This phenomenon has been good news for the Bush administration, which has responded to the growing national appetite for fictionalized news by producing a steady supply of its own. Of late it has gone so far as to field its own pair of Jayson Blairs, hired at taxpayers' expense: Karen Ryan and Alberto Garcia, the "reporters" who appeared in TV "news" videos distributed by the Department of Health and Human Services to local news shows around the country. The point of these spots - which were broadcast whole or in part as actual news by more than 50 stations in 40 states - was to hype the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit as an unalloyed Godsend to elderly voters. They are part of a
year-plus p.r. campaign, which, with its $124 million budget, would dwarf in size most actual news organizations. When one real reporter, Robert Pear of The Times, blew the whistle on these TV "news" stories this month, a government spokesman defended them with pure Orwell-speak: "Anyone who has questions about this practice needs to do some
research on modern public information tools."   Go to FCTO's website at ctact.org for the full story�
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Marvin Edelman, eunice01@earthlink.net
Windham Taxpayers Association
Subject: Commentary written for the Chronicle by Marvin Edelman on Eminent Domain
March 25, 2004

Dear Susan: This was published in The Chronicle in Willimantic the other day. We are still battling for the expansion of citizen-initiated petitions. Marvin

The Chronicle (3/13/04) quite correctly declared dismay that the Connecticut Supreme Court has approved the abuse of the power of eminent domain by the New London Development Corporation so that in the name of economic development it can seize and destroy private homes at Fort Trumbull and turn them over to private developers who promise that they will dramatically revitalize and revolutionize New London' commercial health. The courts have been wrong before. They are wrong now. The citizens and state legislature can overrule this threat to private property by legislation and constitutional amendment, if they have the courage and determination to do so. The editors have readily available a local example of the worth of such economic development promises. Despite the lofty assurances made by its proponents, the Windham Mills Development Corporation has been an abject and bankrupt failure to make a success of the ATC Partnership property in Willimantic following the seizure of the property by eminent domain ten years ago. Needless to say, neither the Supreme Court, the NLDC nor the private developers volunteer and guarantee how they will compensate the taxpayers of New London and the state, whose tax abatements are expected to underwrite financially much of the enterprise, if the grand scheme fails to bring economic prosperity to New London. It is hoped that The Chronicle editors may see the connection between citizen abhorrence at the expansionist view of the power of eminent domain wielded by municipal government and the state courts and citizen interest in securing broader access to the initiation of petitions for referendum. The editors voice the fear that citizens with the power to petition will initiate so many petitions that it "would paralyze the operation of the town" and that the town will become "a government by referendum." (3/12/04). With a little research in their newspaper files, the editors will discover that in the 312 years in the history of the town of Windham there has been a spectacular dearth of citizen-initiated petitions. The fear they raise is a disservice to the spirit of an evolving democratic society if they concur with the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln's remarks at Gettysburg which support the proposition that American governance shall be subject to the will of the people, by the people and for the people. Should there come to pass petition abuse in the future, the people always have the prerogative to amend their local town charter and correct the situation. The members of the Charter Revision Commission discussed at great length and with much seriousness before they compromised on requiring an increase to 500 signatures on a petition from the 200 signatures currently required in the Town Charter. The editors say that the 500 signature threshold is too low, implying that petitions are easily mounted and secured. They might undertake a petition-experiment on their own to discover for themselves what a time-consuming enterprise it is and that citizens do not readily offer their signatures on a petition unless they are informed and in favor of the particular issue. If the citizens of Windham had had the authority to initiate a petition, and not been limited only to matters of ordinances as they are under the current charter, their collective common sense might have prevented the Board of Selectmen from engineering the seizure of the ATC Partnership property by eminent domain and the subsequent $2.75 million bond to bail out the Windham Mills from bankruptcy. The gift did not save the WMDC but the town incurred a $4 million debt which it certainly cannot afford. A citizen-initiated petition might have deterred the board of selectmen from granting, without public input, a massive 17-year tax abatement to Artspace. A citizen-initiated petition might have challenged the board of selectmen from dallying for years over a decision to repair and sell the Tin Tsin property until there was no alternative but demolition when the building became a health and safety hazard. More than a century ago, even Theodore Roosevelt, hardly the best national role model for promoting and expanding civil liberties, came to realize the need for citizen-initiated petitions for referendum. "I believe," he said, "in the initiative and referendum which should be used not to destroy representative government but to correct it whenever it becomes misrepresentative." The fundamental issue in both situations is that the founders of this country had the wisdom to place explicit limits on the powers of officers and agencies of government. It is unseemly for elected representatives to place obstacles in the path of the people's access to petition and referendum rights. Marvin Edelman