Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations

Your weekly update on what others are thinking, doing, and planning
Send your comments or questions to me, and
I will include in next week's publication.

Please note that TAX TALK is now on our Website

There are two issues I would like to bring to your attention and ask for your feeback on.

FCTO Statewide Meetings
I would like to finalize within the next two weeks a 2004 calendar for FCTO monthly meetings to be scheduled throughout the state. If you would be willing to host a meeting in your area, please select a month, date and time. Email to me the information and together we will set the Agenda.   I am also continuing to schedule radio and TV shows promoting FCTO.    A sincere thank you to those who have helped to coordinate these shows. The results have been very positive. In fact, I received a tape of the recent cable show I had done with State Rep Dave Labriola. It is a half hour segment which reflects on many state issues and expounds upon FCTO. If you would like to show the tape in your area, please contact me. Otherwise, I would appreciate your assistance in scheduling either a radio or cable show in your area.

Prevailing Wage and Binding Arbitration
Two State mandates which are draining both State and municipal budgets are Prevailing Wage and Binding Arbitration.   I will soon be posting on our website the responses we are receiving to our Resolution on Binding Arbitration. FCTO has been asked to join with several groups concerned for the issue of Prevailing Wage in asking the State to empanel a Blue Ribbon Commission to study this issue. I have established a Prevailing Wage bullet on our website and will be providing further information on this issue.    These are two issues which I would like to address during our monthly statewide meetings.   Please provide me with your feedback on the issue of Prevailing Wage. I will post within the next Tax Talk.
Susan Kniep, President, FCTO
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Jay Halpern,alicorn@adelphia.net
Oxford Taxpayers Association
Subj: Municipal Corruption
Date: November 20, 2003
Back in '98, the personal attorney of Oxford's P&Z Commission chairman represented Arena Capital in their efforts to put a power plant in Oxford. State law requires that under such circumstances the chairman (or any commission member) must recuse himself from the final vote, but it was a tie and he voted to approve the plant. When this issue was raised at the Siting Council and DEP, it was acknowledged but disregarded. Note that the taxpayer will subsidize the purchase of town land because 20 acres was sold to a $300 million project for about $150,000.  Arena Capital, now subsumed under Towantic Energy and - lo and behold! - Calpine, Inc, has already asked the state to subsidize an access road to their site under the guise of developing Oxford's industrial zone. Under the recently-elected administration, the Republican town committee chairman that was intimately involved in the sweetheart deal was elected First Selectman. Arena Capital's attorney is going to be Town Attorney. He is also now the personal attorney for the P&Z vice-chairman. What are the ethical implications and responsibilities regarding the Calpine project, which proceeds apace, and other P&Z considerations? How can ex parte discussions protected under attorney-client privilege be prevented?
Once again, the divisive issue of building our own high school has been used against the town. We have bent and spread and ready to wince, as the Old Guard pirates attack our wallets with renewed vigor. The first time, shame on them. Yes, the second time, shame on us. But if the local improprieties encountered in this debacle had to have been judicially resolved before any of the permitting procedures could have gone forward, we wouldn't be facing further rape. It's imperative, IMHO, that the legislature allow citizens to put the brakes on local projects that stink of local corruption. The fact that licensing agencies are free to disregard such symptoms of corruption only rewards the scoundrels who coopt our resources and laugh at us afterwards. Jay Halpern, Oxford **********************************************************
Tom Durso, TDurso8217
Waterville Taxpayers Association
Subject: Connecticut's Road to Serfdom
November 20, 2003

Op-Ed by Tom Durso which appeared in the Waterbury Republican:

Connecticut's Road to Serfdom

"Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford will sell the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem,all of its rural churches, schools,and other real estate holdings in Litchfield County and invest the proceeds in the 'distressed   areas' of Hartford, New Britain and Waterbury ." You'll never read a news story like that before the Second Coming, but that is the flavor of the Archdiocese' and its co-planners'   recipe, as presented during  a recent UCONN Law School Gallivan Conference titled "Tax and Grow".  It seems to our socialistic friends that too many of us are escaping the urban liberal plantations and taking refuge in the state's smaller municipalities, the land of budget referendums   and lower property taxes.     A few years ago the state legislature passed Special Act 02-13, "An Act Concerning a Blue Ribbon Commission on Property Tax Burdens and Smart Growth Incentives" . The purpose of the Commission's report , issued in October 2003,  is to "encourage debate on the fiscal and land-use public policy challenges facing Connecticut. The recommendations will undoubtedly require a significant , and in many cases controversial (my emphasis) , redistribution of state and local taxes." Contributors to the Report include the Church, the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, the Ct. Council of Small Towns, the CBIA, the Ct. AFL-CIO and various local elected leaders and land-use authorities. Their point is that only the legislature and other state-level "experts" know the wise and proper use of  local taxpayers' land and money. The Commission's Cassandra-like "Problem Statement" warns "We are well on our way to becoming wall to wall suburb... the central urban core has become increasingly distressed...small municipalities may no longer be able to independently compete on the necessary state, national and global scale...how do we reduce socio-economic inequality ... how do we keep livable communities?" Prozac anyone?    The terms federalism or home-rule were never mentioned during the Gallivan meeting; no taxpayers groups were included as members of the "Blue Ribbon Commission"; and not a syllable was uttered about Connecticut's elephantine government supported by strangling taxes .    The thrust of the gab-fest was the collectivization of our local taxes and land-use policy. One came away with the impression that Connecticut's deep-thinking public policy makers  persist in their denial of economic and political reality as the Southern states continue to gain relative economic and political power. The meeting's menu was sprinkled with terms such as "living wage", "affordable housing" and "regionalization". One goal which really caught my ear was the need to " reduce competition for tax base" among the municipalities. What a strange idea since investors usually choose the best deal when deciding in which town or city to move or build a business. Our communal leaders would rather reduce all of Connecticut to the lowest common demoninator so as to eliminate the need for municipalities to stay trim and lure commerce. The principle of federalism is for competing states or towns to be "laboratories of democracy" where new ideas are tried and the best ones prevail. Even former Soviet nations and China are learning the benefits of lean government and competition to find out who is best. "Americans favor local governance as efficient providers of the most important public services ; plus, local governments promote democratic ideals since citizens are much more able to influence change locally than at the state or federal level" writes The Urban Institute's David Brunori in his book Local Tax Policy: A Federalist Perspective. Our "Blue Ribbon" panel would rather see "Berlin Walls" erected around Connecticut's troubled inner cities in a hopeless effort to prevent  progressive families and investors from pursuing their interests.
If Connecticut's   state Republican Party is ever resuscitated to the point of actually effecting any substantial change in the legislature, there awaits a golden opportunity for the liberation of the state's productive sector. In concert with the burgeoning taxpayer movement led by Susan Kniep of the Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations (FCTO) , the GOP could easily win the hearts and minds of Democrats and Republicans who fear the abridgment of freedom and the economic future of Connecticut. Why can't the Republicans proclaim that market economics and low taxes is the best medicine to fight poverty? Are they biologically capable of acknowledging that minimum wage laws dry up entry level jobs for the poor?  Will the CT-GOP mutter the fact that only the private sector can generate real jobs and that "living wage laws" are a sham since workers are paid according to their productivity; we get nothing for nothing since the fall of Adam.      There is a ray of hope for the state's taxpayers however. Before the municipal elections, Watertown's GOP Town Council leadership spoke of convening a meeting with Northwest Connecticut's municipal chief executives to form a united front against state mandates which are usurping local control of our finances. Further, newly minted State Representative Sean Williams , R-68, who ran on a pro-taxpayer platform, has vowed to lobby his colleagues to return the power of spending and taxing to us locals who know our needs best. Also, during a break in the Gallivan conference, the Watertown-Oakville Taxpayers Association's   Jack Walton, Rep. Williams and myself spoke with Mr. Fred V. Carstensen,Director of UCONN's Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis, where the loquacious Mr. Carstensen agreed that municipalities should retain ultimate control of their finances. I would suggest the GOP add the power of citizen initiative and referendum (I&R) to their legislative platform in 2004. Recently Secretary of State Susan Bysciewicz (D) was tickled to announce that some polls indicated the people would, if enabled, recall Governor Rowland (R) because of the deficit, as they did with Gray Davis (D) in California. Ms. Bysciewicz was silent, however, on what voters would do with her or Connecticut's career tax- and -spend legislators if we had the power of I&R and enacted term limits as voters did in 23 other states including California.    Economist and Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek's book "The Road to Serfdom"  warns of  the dangers of central economic planning . He wrote " Prosperity depends on tapping vast amounts of information about what people want and how best to supply it. The information is dispersed among millions of people and is constantly changing, which dooms central planning to failure." He added that central planning necessarily requires increasing government coercion "as officials gain power and decide what work people must do; which kinds of cars, pens, apples, and everything else must be produced and who should get them." If Dr. Hayek were alive today he'd probably be warning us about the Blue Ribbon Commission's plans for control of our local tax money and real estate.     The Archdiocese of Hartford's Office of Urban Affairs created the CenterEdge Coalition, chaired by the Most Reverend Peter Rosazza ,to promote public education about Connecticut's economic disparities and land-use issues in accord with the Blue Ribbon Commission  . Bishop Rosazza's boss Pope John Paul II wrote an encyclical ,Centesimus Annus (1991), which states "the welfare state has so many malfunctions and defects that it threatens both economic and civil freedom." The pope promoted the "subsidiarity principle" which means if individuals, neighborhoods , churches and local communities can
care for the poor ,central government should not intervene. This particular pontiff knows whereof he speaks when it comes to tyranny. As a young Polish seminarian and priest in the 1930's and 40's he fought National Socialism (Nazism) and in the early 1980's as pope he helped a young Gdansk, Poland shipyard Solidarity union electrician named Lech Walesa stand down the Soviet-Russian bear which, with the help of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher,  led to the collapse of The Evil Empire.   Tyranny of course is a matter of degree and Connecticut is not Poland of the Nazi or Communist era. However if voter/taxpayers forget the story of the frog in the gradually boiling water and the GOP continues to cede the battle of ideas to the central planners ,we may someday be looking for our own "Lech Walesa" .   Thomas P. Durso
Member, Watertown Town Council Finance sub-committee 1997-99.
Member, Watertown Police Commission, GOP Town Committee VP Greater Waterbury Chamber of Commerce ,1984-85. Advises national employers on payroll tax issues
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Susan Kniep, katzrus50e@aol.com
East Hartford Taxpayers Association
Subj: Rowland Cottage Subject of Subpoenas
Date: Dec 1, 2003

As the Feds continue their investigation into corruption in Connecticut, the most recent revelation can be found on our website, ctact.org, under Hall of Shame. The following is an excerpt of that article....

Federal investigators have contacted several contractors who renovated Gov. John G. Rowland's Litchfield cottage - and at least three of them have been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury to answer questions about what they did at the lakeside home, how much they were paid, and by whom.

The moves by the FBI and federal prosecutors are the first public indication that U.S. authorities are focusing on a matter involving the governor personally - in this case, work done directly for Rowland on his private vacation residence. Refer to website, ctact.org, Hall of Shame for continuation of article....