House Republican Press Release

 

 

 

August 4, 2008

Press Office: 860-240-8700

 

Dog days of August and Another Session

 

By State Representative John J. Ryan

 

So how did it get to be August already? At least I got to take in John Williams Movie Night ( with special guest narrator Steven Spielberg ) at Tanglewood before resuming my status as the only person working away here in town all month, as everyone else escapes to the Vineyard, the south of France, Nantucket, the Cape, etc. And obviously, now I do have a ‘field trip’ for August as we have the news of yet another Special Session at the Capitol later this month! 

 

What’s that? You thought it would be quiet at this time of year in State government? Wrong.

 

- Special Session/Surplus: As a regular reader, you are well aware that we cannot have an extra dime available in State government, without getting into a big argument on how to spend it! News that Gov. Rell’s belt-tightening efforts as we went down the home stretch of the fiscal year that ended on June 30 had apparently yielded a surplus of $22 million (to put this into perspective, I assume you saw the news item that Brad Pitt/A. Jolie got $14 million from People Magazine- another publication I have never read – for photos of their new twins) created a legislative feeding frenzy on how could we spend all that $. (If you guessed that if it had been up to me, I would have socked it away in our Rainy Day Fund, you know your State Rep. pretty well!) Rell, knowing exactly the mindset of the very large majority in the legislature, also decided to spend, but for a purpose that certainly seems quite laudatory – a plan to help Connecticut families with energy needs in the upcoming winter.

 

And as an experienced reader, you know you can check out Gov. Rell’s detailed plans for this energy assistance program at her website www.ct.gov/governorell  and see the Aug. 1 entries. At this point, it looks like Rell will (once again!) get her way and adopting this plan will be the business for the Special Session tentatively scheduled for August 22. (I am still looking for the source of that quote that is something like the definition of leadership is actually accomplishing things, as opposing to talking about what you are going to accomplish…)

 

- Speaking of Spending: you might want to peruse Ken Dixon’s story in the (Monday) August 4 edition of the Connecticut Post “Fiscal woes put ’Genius’ in limbo” which starts that “‘The Genius of Connecticut’ an 18-foot-tall allegorical statue of a benevolent, winged woman protecting the state, has become collateral damage in the state’s budget crisis” and goes on to explain that this $700,000 project for the statue is ‘on hold’ for the time being. (If you guessed that I would opt to have one of Connecticut’s many famous cartoonists invent a suitable cartoon of “governmental genius” suitable for donation to, and display at the State Capitol, and find a corporate sponsor to take the “Genius statue” project off our hands, and spend the nearly ľ million on a charter school program in Hartford instead, you are getting the idea.)

 

 

- And Speaking of Hartford: our last 2 columns mentioned some discouraging City of Hartford items. Unfortunately, we could include a number of these items in every column, but to give you two further bits of the Hartford picture, take a look at the Colin McEnroe ( he does a WTIC Radio talk show ) commentary in the Hartford Courant on July 29 “When the City You Love Starts to Scare You”, and  the news items in the Hartford media around July 29 on the sad conditions existing in Hartford’s historic Old North cemetery, the final resting place of Frederick Law Olmstead, 2 of our governors, and others.

 

- and August is not dull because Tuesday August 12 is Primary Day, and while there is no action in these parts, observers of the State’s political scene will be very interested in what happens in Bridgeport, for instance, where there is a Democrat primary for nearly every position in their General Assembly delegation.

 

And no, I am no going to speculate on how “Manny being Manny” plays in Hollywood.

As always please feel free to contact me with your concerns and issues. As your state representative, it is my job, and my priority to represent you and to make sure that your needs and concerns are addressed at the capitol.  You can write to me at Room 4200, Legislative Office Building, and Hartford, CT 06106-1591, send me e-mail at John.Ryan@housegop.ct.gov or call my office toll-free at 1-800-842-1423.