To The Editor: The November election is now 3 months away, but it is not too soon to talk about why we need to re-elect our current leadership team. In the early and most uncertain days of Covid-19, our…
Posted: 02 August 2021 [06:17 PM] Editorials
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Posted: 02 August 2021 [06:17 PM] Recent Headlines
Monday 08/02/2021
Posted: 02 August 2021 [06:16 PM] Consolidation of the banking industry is gaining speed, in part because technology increasingly allows routine retail banking functions to be conducted via the internet and cell phones, reducing the need for branch offices. But there is another reason: Government’s indifference…
Monday 04/05/2021
MAYOR'S CORNER: Getting by with some help from our friends Posted: 05 April 2021 [01:56 PM] Mayor’s Corner There has been a lot of great news for Bristol over the last 30 days. First, Congressman John Larson called…
Friday 03/26/2021
Posted: 26 March 2021 [09:04 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Political correctness and its cancel culture are starting to evoke the second great Red Scare and the tactics of Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. Last week the talented young political journalist Alexi McCammond was pushed out…
Wednesday 03/24/2021
Posted: 24 March 2021 [08:05 PM] By CHRIS POWELL With as much as $4 billion in discretionary largesse about to descend on Connecticut's state and municipal governments and school systems, economizing and improving services to the public will be removed from the agenda for a long…
Monday 03/22/2021
Posted: 22 March 2021 [09:04 PM] By CHRIS POWELL What should the legislation now making another appearance in the General Assembly be called: "aid in dying" or "assisted suicide"? It depends which side you're on. "Aid in dying" makes it sound a lot nicer, just as…
Friday 03/19/2021
Posted: 19 March 2021 [09:13 PM] By CHRIS POWELL As hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants rain down on Connecticut's schools, a potentially decisive experiment in education is beginning. Bright markers should be placed on the current measures of every school system's performance and…
Wednesday 03/17/2021
Posted: 17 March 2021 [10:14 PM] SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS For many years before the covid-19 pandemic, journalists “weren’t there,” to a huge extent, in terms of reporting on the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The controls keeping them…
Posted: 17 March 2021 [10:12 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Democrats in Congress, including Connecticut Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, are excited about the chance of enacting a federal law to require background checks for all gun purchases and transfers. Republicans in the Senate long have…
Monday 03/15/2021
Posted: 15 March 2021 [09:42 PM] By COALITION FOR EQUITY IN LEARNING To The Editor: In 2019, a student could show up to school, sit in their seat for the requisite hours, and go home, and we could have safely said that they had attended school…
Posted: 15 March 2021 [09:39 PM] By CHRIS POWELL New Haven is clamoring at the state Capitol for a bailout, if not as big as Hartford's three years ago. But the leaders of the General Assembly's Democratic majority, including New Haven state Sen. Martin M. Looney,…
Friday 03/12/2021
Posted: 12 March 2021 [08:58 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Congratulations to one of Connecticut's forever members of Congress, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of New Haven, for teaching the country a wonderful political science lesson. Having ascended to the chairmanship of the House Appropriations Committee, DeLauro…
Thursday 03/11/2021
Posted: 11 March 2021 [09:02 PM] By CATHERINE M. CARBONE Dear Bristol Public Schools Family, One year ago today, we made the decision to close all of our schools and programs for eleven days, uncertain of what the future held for us. It is not an…
Tuesday 03/09/2021
Posted: 09 March 2021 [08:57 PM] By PAUL BLUESTEIN To the Editor: On Friday, March 5, 2021, for the first time in 14 attempts spanning a quarter century, the Public Health Committee, by a vote of 24 to 9, moved bill HB6425, An Act Concerning Aid…
Posted: 09 March 2021 [08:53 PM] By JHADY RIOS To the Editor: Life has been far from normal since Connecticut discovered its first case of covid-19 last year. Yet bail bond agencies like 3-D Bail Bonds, Inc. took it upon themselves to continue serving regardless of…
Monday 03/08/2021
Posted: 08 March 2021 [09:02 PM] By JEANINE AUDETTE To the Editor: In a recent article in the Waterbury Republican on Feb. 28, Plymouth’s Mayor Merchant was quoted as saying, “The Terryville Library is by appointment only and there’s no programs.” I am sure he must…
Posted: 08 March 2021 [08:57 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Gambling and intoxicating drugs mainly transfer wealth from the many to the few and the poor to the rich, so it is sad that state government is striving to get into the business of sports betting, internet…
Friday 03/05/2021
Posted: 05 March 2021 [06:23 PM] By CHRIS POWELL By a 3-2 vote, Connecticut's Commission on Compensation of Elected State Officials has recommended small raises, a bit more than 1%, for state legislators and the top state elected officials - the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general,…
Wednesday 03/03/2021
Posted: 03 March 2021 [08:50 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Legislation can't be right when its premise is wrong, and a big premise of the proposals to legalize recreational marijuana in Connecticut is wrong. That is, the proposals presume that racial minorities deserve special reparations for the…
Monday 03/01/2021
Posted: 01 March 2021 [07:08 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Nice guy that he was, Joseph D. Duffey, who died last week at age 88, was not a terribly adept politician. He was not outgoing or a glad-hander but a soft-spoken Protestant clergyman. But from 1967 to…
Sunday 02/28/2021
MAYOR'S COLUMN: Bristol focusing on business support as covid crisis hits one-year mark Posted: 28 February 2021 [08:47 PM] By ELLEN ZOPPO-SASSU March marks one year of living with covid in communities. So much has happened over the last 12 months…
Friday 02/26/2021
Posted: 26 February 2021 [08:59 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Everyone is entitled to be sick and tired of the virus epidemic, and no one is more entitled than Governor Lamont, whose administration has been consumed by it. Most people were happy with the administration's handling of…
Wednesday 02/24/2021
Posted: 24 February 2021 [04:07 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Connecticut should prohibit pensions for state and municipal government employees, not because they are bad people or especially undeserving but for several solid policy reasons. First, most of the taxpayers who pay for those pensions don't enjoy…
Monday 02/22/2021
Posted: 22 February 2021 [07:49 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Does recognizing that the "war on drugs" is a failure and that people are entitled to be left alone in their personal lives require not just legalizing marijuana and taxing it heavily but also putting state government…
Friday 02/19/2021
Posted: 19 February 2021 [09:11 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Having just gotten big raises amid an economic depression with horrible unemployment in Connecticut, the state employee unions have proclaimed that they won’t consent to Governor Lamont’s budget proposal to freeze state employee salaries for a while.…
Thursday 02/18/2021
Friday Ficks: Why you need a white rabbit now Posted: 18 February 2021 [08:58 PM] One of the most iconic psychedelic rock songs is "White Rabbit," written by Grace Slick and released when she joined Jefferson Airplane…
Wednesday 02/17/2021
Posted: 17 February 2021 [09:22 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Without taking much notice, Connecticut lost a hero of journalism and justice the other day: Donald S. Connery, 94, who lived in Kent for almost 60 years even as he traveled and reported from around the world…
Monday 02/15/2021
Posted: 15 February 2021 [07:46 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Since Governor Lamont mused the other day that he has rather enjoyed being able to rule by decree for the past year without having to bother with the General Assembly, maybe it's not so surprising that most…
Friday 02/12/2021
Posted: 12 February 2021 [09:10 PM] By GARY HENRIKSON To the Editor: The House managers have made a compelling argument in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. Trump’s use of incendiary language and violent imagery to willfully incite the deadly neo-Nazi mob of his minions to storm the…
Posted: 12 February 2021 [09:06 PM] By STEVE WHINFIELD To the Editor: There are bills where unity can be met. Our country is split on many issues and we now have a president who wants to build unity in a time where none exist. I…
Posted: 12 February 2021 [09:04 PM] By MARGARET PEALER To the Editor: I for one am wondering why our illustrious mayor is taking down trees all over Bristol. Then she widened Riverside Avenue then turned around and made the three lanes down to two and put…
Posted: 12 February 2021 [09:02 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Nearly everyone will forever remember some admired or even beloved teachers whose insight, enthusiasm, and caring pointed students in the right direction. Of course there were and are some mediocre, incompetent, and even malicious teachers too, but…
Wednesday 02/10/2021
Posted: 10 February 2021 [09:14 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Democrats ran against Herbert Hoover for 20 years after 1932. Now they seem to be planning to run against Donald Trump for another 20. The Democrats' second attempt to impeach the former president even though he has…
Monday 02/08/2021
Posted: 08 February 2021 [09:06 PM] By CHRIS POWELL With Governor Lamont discouraging "broad-based" tax increases, many fellow Democrats in the General Assembly are planning to raise taxes around the edges. Most industrious may be Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney of New Haven. Looney…
Friday 02/05/2021
Posted: 05 February 2021 [09:14 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Maybe Connecticut should be grateful to the Desegregate CT organization for having just provided a map detailing how local zoning regulations make it almost impossible to build multifamily housing in most of the state. But didn't nearly…
Wednesday 02/03/2021
Posted: 03 February 2021 [08:55 PM] By CHRIS POWELL From the legislation they have placed before the General Assembly's Education Committee, you might think that state Reps. Jeffrey A. Currey, D-East Hartford, Jillian Gilchrest, D-West Hartford, and Nicole Klarides-Ditria, R-Seymour, just awoke from long comas. Their…
Monday 02/01/2021
Posted: 01 February 2021 [08:24 PM] By CHRIS POWELL President Biden's new education secretary, Miguel Cardona, lately Connecticut's education commissioner, says he will give priority to the issue of college loan debt. About 45 million U.S. residents, nearly 14 percent of the population, owe an estimated…
Sunday 01/31/2021
MAYOR'S COLUMN: Taking a look ahead in Bristol for 2021 Posted: 31 January 2021 [08:33 PM] By ELLEN ZOPPO-SASSU While the pandemic dominated 2020, the city had many success stories. Community partners like the CERT team, Bristol Hospital,…
Wednesday 01/27/2021
Posted: 27 January 2021 [08:57 PM] By JOHN DUBE To the Editor: We hear a lot from Chris Powell (usually without identification) these days in the Opinion section of the Bristol Press. But I’m puzzled as to why that is after reading his cavalier dismissal…
Posted: 27 January 2021 [08:53 PM] By RICHARD BARANOWSKI To the Editor: Federal and state Democrats will be meeting soon to raise your taxes. Do you really understand how much money in taxes you are currently paying? Let me help with a little math. Start…
Posted: 27 January 2021 [08:51 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Nearly everyone in Connecticut knows that its capital city, Hartford, is a mess, and that its largest city, Bridgeport, is too. Yet for saying so about Hartford in an essay in The Wall Street Journal on New…
Monday 01/25/2021
Posted: 25 January 2021 [05:14 PM] By CHRIS POWELL At least President Biden has some sense of his high office, knows how to behave in public, and unlike his predecessor, Donald Trump, is not likely to become a cosmic embarrassment on account of his demeanor. No,…
Tuesday 01/19/2021
Posted: 19 January 2021 [07:33 PM] By CHRIS POWELL As he skips the inauguration of his successor and shuffles off to his resort in Florida, has Donald Trump destroyed the Republican Party? Some political observers think so and of course Democrats hope so. Trump's petulant and…
Monday 01/18/2021
Posted: 18 January 2021 [08:46 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Last week this column examined the government pension racket in Connecticut through the example of the "retirement" of New Haven Police Chief Tony Reyes, who is only 49 and is giving up his city salary of $170,000…
Sunday 01/17/2021
Posted: 17 January 2021 [09:02 PM] By DANTE TAGARIELLO To the Editor: Just last week, two Democratic state senators from Fairfield County, Sens. Will Haskell (Wilton) and Alex Kasser (Greenwich), have once again proposed a bill to support highway tolling. Both senators have proposed the…
Posted: 17 January 2021 [09:01 PM] THE BRISTOL HISTORICAL SOCIETY To the Editor: The Bristol Historical Society, as other organizations, had to curtail programming and was unable to open during the covid-19 pandemic. This certainly impacted finances and the ability of BHS to raise the revenues…
Wednesday 01/13/2021
Posted: 13 January 2021 [08:49 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Everyone agrees that Tony Reyes has been a great police chief in New Haven, having been appointed in March 2019 after nearly two decades of rising through the ranks of the police department. But the city will…
Monday 01/11/2021
Posted: 11 January 2021 [04:30 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Does any state do more posturing against racism than Connecticut does only to get such meager results? A week ago West Haven's City Council joined the 19 other municipalities in the state that have declared racism a…
Wednesday 01/06/2021
Posted: 06 January 2021 [08:46 PM] By CHRIS POWELL When Bob Stefanowski was the Republican nominee for governor two years ago, he was mocked by Democrats for being light on the issues - for advocating repeal of the state income tax without specifying how to reduce…
Monday 01/04/2021
Posted: 04 January 2021 [09:04 PM] By KATE MCOMBER To the Editor: The arts are essential and they need our help. In March, the City of Hartford asked the Greater Hartford Arts Council to survey a number of local arts organizations about how they were…