Machine Loses Its Grip

You know, for all of his opinionated vlogs and past articles with a definitive anti machine flavor, it would have been nice had my ward neighbor, paul bass, actually spoken out about the 25th election. and now that i see contributor rodriguez - reyes standing by, and smiling with mcgrath, i'm confused, and now questioning my interest in the independent.
paul are you in or are you out with the silverman-mcgrath-destefano clique? come clean man.

Way to go!!!!!!!!Nelson first time out nice showing!!!!!!!! almost got it.

King James: My take was that the wrong side won in Ward 25 -- the side representing raw power, patronage, business as usual, contempt for opposing points of view and closed government, over democracy and accountability.

That said, I respect individuals on all sides of these primaries. I think primaries are great for the city, and people who run for local offices or work on campaigns tend to be volunteers who give a lot of time to the community. Even if I despise their political outlook and tactics.

Ward 25 challengers Tim Holahan and Mary Faulkner should regroup and run again. They only lost by a few dozen votes. A few well placed lawn signs and a little more exposure might have made up that difference.

Veteran party vote-pullers Brian McGrath and Norma Rodriguez-Reyes were out early at Edgewood School Tuesday trying to help beat back the populist challenge.


What did Brian use this time, a baseball bat?

There's New Haven politics for you: the Ward that complains the most about property taxes in this City just elected two members of and strong proponents of the municipal union most responsible for wasting taxpayer dollars.

With our voting habits, our whiny Mayor and do-nothing Governor, we're all screwed. Get it together people.

It is a nice thing to see people starting to come back to what the Democratic party really is...

In the dictionary definition, democracy "is government by the people in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system." In the phrase of Abraham Lincoln, democracy is a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people."

With that said BRAVO to all who ran! All who took the time out of there lives to make a difference in all of our lives!

Gee this comment was a very diplomatic one! :)

Rumor has it one of our Federal Legislators who is not a resident of Ward 25 felt compelled to lend support to the machine encumbents with phone calls urging voters to support the machine. The calls were attributed to "loyalty." Everyone certainly has a right to an opinion and to get involved, but it makes me wonder... what is behind this and why? This is not the first time... Disappointing, isn't it...

Response to "Seriously"
What an ignorant comment. I'll take the firefighters anytime. They are there when you call, they get the job done, i.e., save your life and on top of it they agreed to straight time for thier overtime pay. Aleast I know with them that I get what I pay for. I wish that my high tax dollars would be used as effectively in other departments. Also, I don't think that the union is in charge of the budget. Sounds like someone on the losing end has some misdirected anger because the insider machine was beat. Thank God! To bad they want to try to demean such valiant men and women.

PAUL BASS | MARCH 4, 2008 11:02 PM
King James: My take was that the wrong side won in Ward 25 -- the side representing raw power, patronage, business as usual, contempt for opposing points of view and closed government, over democracy and accountability.-

I'm glad Paul has given up any pretense of professionalism and impartiality. The Independent has become nothing but a forum for the disgruntled, with very one sided reporting, and now I can see why. No wonder most of the people who make decisions in this city have stopped reading it.
At one time this project had real promise.I'm sorry to say that I'm deleting my bookmark to this rag.

<strong>Pure un-biased reporting is pure fiction. An impossibility.</strong> There is a movement to encourage professional journalists to state their opinions so you can have a frame for understanding the news being reported. No one is unbiased. EVER. We all bring to situations our past experience, opinions, family values, religious, educational, etc... influences to how we see things.

The question should be is the reporting fair and accurate. It seems to me to be fair and accurate and that is an important standard. If anyone thinks they are getting pure facts from WTNH, the Register, the Advocate, CT Post, Courant, NYTimes, Wall Street Journal or Fox news, they are living in an illusion.

The best we, as consumers of media, can do is to read from a variety of sources, do our best to understand their biases, and draw our own conclusions.

I think what Paul disclosed helps us have a more accurate understanding of the news, and how he approaches it. I thank The NHI for being a great community resource that allows us to have these debates and better involvement in our community. I agree that there seems to be an insular community who posts here. I encourage everyone who is reading this to tell one person a day for the rest of the week that the NHI exists. With more readership, we can get more involvement and community learning.

Bravo Jeffrey I always tell people about the NHI and email storys to them. I do wish that more people that read it would feel free to become part of the comment area. Ya see that again is why we all come here and read it if we do not like the reports side we can say we do not like it.

Watchdog makes a good point some people do not relize that firemen gave up OT pay. they do not get it.
And as far as them running for the co chair they did it as life time residents of New Haven. That remember what comminity was and have a dream to see it that way again.

Watchdog:

What exactly is it that you're watching? Because it's not your wallet.

We will not overcome our City's budgetary issues unless we figure out health care costs and fixed benefit pensions. They may be heroes when it comes to burning buildings, but the firefighters have no interest in our City's fiscal well-being. Minimum staffing requirements, out-of-control pension costs, keeping firehouses open without analyzing the necessity and the benefits, just look at the percentage of calls handled by (our very expensive) firefighters that could be handled more cheaply . . . these are incredibly expensive choices.

To all you "budget watchdogs": Talk about armoires (what a stupid thing for the Mayor's office to do, by the way). Cut $25K here and there all you want. Heck, cut off your nose to spite your face by cutting off Tweed. But there are serious systemic problems here. We're certainly not going to solve them by rushing to the defense of firefighters, police officers, and civil servants every time someone has the courage to say, let's look at the big picture here.

I could give two hoots about who the ward chairs are, by the way (maybe three if I had gotten mroe than 5 hours of sleep last night). But I care a whole lot about what my property taxes will be this year (and the next and the next) and it's not pretty.

To Seriously:
FYI: Ward committees nominate Alderpeople AND the Mayor AND the State Reps, etc. They participate in party conventions. This is a positive way to make a change- it may be too little too late---but until each citizen concerned about property taxes and other issues shows up at hearings and mobilizes 5 others who in turn mobilize 5 others(etc.), to do the same, the machine will not listen. I think we've got their attention... a positive step forward...

As one of the candidates in the 25th Ward race, I want to thank the Independent for its excellent and mostly un-editorialized reporting on the Ward Chair races. The seriously inaccurate story in yesterday's Register only highlights the quality of the Independent's coverage.

However, after working hard and losing what I feel was a free and fair election, I think using the term "machine" to describe what Mary and I were up against is not accurate. Barbara Segaloff and Tony Wallace may subscribe to a top-down, "go along to get along" style of Party leadership and government that differs from our vision of a participatory and deliberative Democratic Party, but we weren't beaten by Brian McGrath or coercive vote-pulling techniques. I don't believe any of that was going on -- I kept an eye on the other team, as I had promised elsewhere, and I didn't see anything to provoke the least concern. We were beaten by people who worked hard to turn out their friends and supporters, of which they have a remarkable number. If we'd had another week to work, Mary and I might have gotten the 28 extra votes we needed to get one of us elected, but we didn't.

Critics of "the machine" or of our Ward should look at the numbers. On the losing side, Mary and I each got far more votes than the winners of the other races. Westville is exceptional in its engagement and enthusiasm for the political process. I'm proud of the race we ran, and of the way democracy worked in our ward.

"Seriously"
I do not disagree that healthcare, pensions, etc. cost large amounts of money. Believe me, I am choking on these taxes too. I don't know what facts you rely on to state that we have to many firehouses in our City or that services that they perform could be done by someone else more cheaply. I do know that 2 years ago when my father had a heart attack the fireman were there in about 3 or 4 minutes and saved his life. The private ambulance company that came on the same call took about 10 minutes to get there. If we had to rely on them only, I think it was AMR, he would have died. So if that means having the FD handle it with thier much faster respone because of the number of firehouses I will gladly pay for that. To state that the firefighters have no interest in the City's fiscal well being and that the Ward that complains the most about property taxes in this City just elected two members of and strong proponents of the municipal union most responsible for wasting taxpayer dollars I think is a little off base. As I said the fireman gave up time and a half overtime. I don't think anybody else works for straight time overtime in the city. That also makes a difference on thier pension. If you read the New Haven Register a couple of weeks ago out of the top 50 civil servants 30 where cops and most of the rest where Board of Ed making $120,000 to $174,000 a year plus getting huge pensions(Billy White). They also seem to be the 2 departments that people complain the most about as far as getting the job done. So all I was saying was that your comment regarding the fireman was over the top. Out of all the departments at least they are there when you need them and they get the job done!!

MONAB:

You're absolutely right. These races are important and I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. I think they're important and apparently the firefighters union thinks so, too. I was reacting to Watchdog's suggestion that my original comment was motivated by "misdirected anger" as a result of having some interest in the machine, etc. I'm not motivated by personal interest in these races, just an interest in the well-being and success of our City.

That said, if it isn't clear already, I think the results in Ward 10 are terrible for folks concerned about property taxes. This isn't just about "beating the machine" -- it's about crafting good urban policy at the local and neighborhood levels and demanding the same of our state and federal governments.

Seriously?
What ward are you from?

Tim,

What a remarkably honest and forthright comment. Too often here there is mud thrown around with limited information. Your acting to decisively disarm that mindset in this case without giving up on your conviction that a change would have been appropriate, speaks admirably to the kind of elected town chair you might have been.

Where there is vote fraud, we should point it out. When we lose an election but don't see any fraud we should appreciate democracy and move on. Your posted comment accomplishes that. And lots (if not most) people lose their first elections. But losses often raise important issues in the public's mind -- to wit Abraham Lincoln's loss to Buster Douglas -- or am I confusing Old Abe with Tyson?

Paul has always expressed his opinions in his vlogs and, in this case, on this page because he was directly confronted to do so. He acknowledges his slant, which helps readers judge the coverage. Obviously, editorial decisions on what to cover or what not to cover reflect his biases, also, but that coverage has been usually been excellent.

My seventh grade history teacher, Mrs. Seybold (what a crush I had on her!) taught us about "slant" in journalism or even history texts, that NO reporting remains unaffected by the writers', editors' and, most tellingly, the owners' opinions and self-interests.

It is great news about the firefighters and, by that I mean their eschewing time and a half overtime pay. Talk about public service. As far as the individuals elected, I am confident that they were elected to serve their constituents, not the fire department or the unions though, as with journalists, we might guess that they will have their biases. We all do.

Tim, that was a fine analysis of your race and your loss. While I may be sharp tongued at times, I do understand that many of those in local politics with whom I have disagreements about public policy are hardworking, sincere servants of what they perceive as the public good (e.g. what I wrote about Mrs. Sorrentino in the Turkey discussion).

Still, the democrats in the Democratic Party had a pretty good day and, hopefully, it will benefit all our citizens. Influence from the top down (national and state party leaders) sure hasn't done the trick.