http://www.ctlocalpolitics.net/ has an interesting piece today on the possibility that our own Congressman John Larson (D-1st District) could ascend to one of the most powerful jobs in the country - U.S. House speaker (and be third in line for the presidency).
It's looking more and more possible as Speaker Nancy Pelosi gets herself into deeper water over lying about her knowledge of the CIA's use of waterboarding as a torture device.
CLICK HERE for the post.

In the wake of the controversy surrounding the now-aborted Brodie House lease, the New Hartford Board of Finance voted unanimously last week to form a task force to review municipal rental agreements.

Board member Dan Charest proposed the motion to establish the task force. First Selectman Earl MacInnes was publicly criticized after entering into an agreement with municipal employee Donald Birden on March 26. The contract called for the town to lease the municipal property at 550 West Hill Road to Birden and his family for four years at a rate of $400 per month in addition to maintaining the property. Town attorney Charles E. Roraback has since reviewed the contract and declared it invalid per state law.

Board members Ben Witte, Jim Fitzgerald, Mark Heuschkel, Bill Reiger, Tom Klebart and Charest voted in favor of the motion to establish a task force. They discusses the state of the facility and how to renegotiate a new contract.

Connecticut Federation of Republican Women
Media Release
For immediate release
From: Maral Austin Johnson, Corresponding Secretary, 1-860-658-7962 between 6 AM – 11 PM
Re: Sat., May 30th , 12-2 PM Annual Meeting and Luncheon at the Inn in Middletown, CT.
During the weekend after Memorial Day, on Saturday, May 30, the Connecticut Federation of Republican Women will hold its Annual Meeting and Luncheon from 12 - 2 PM at the Inn in Middletown, 70 Main Street, Middletown, Connecticut.
Members, potential members, friends and neighbors from all over Connecticut are encouraged to form companionable carpools to attend. Gentlemen are welcome to congregate with others of like minds, to tender moral support and consider attainment of GOP victories.
Invited guests include: the Hon.M. Jodi Rell, Governor; Republican National Committeewoman Patricia Longo; Republican State Party Chairman Chris Healy; Republican State Party Vice Chairwoman Lisa Carver; the Hon. Christopher Shays; the Hon. Nancy Johnson; the Hon. Rob Simmons; State Senator Toni Boucher; State Representative Lawrence Cafaro; State Representative Marilyn Giuliani; Republican officials and legislators, Guest Speaker David West, author of "Reality Check".
The lunch includes gourmet-prepared chicken or salmon entree, side dishes, salad, dessert, coffee or tea at a charge of $35 per person and a cash bar for those who wish it.
Checks should be made payable to "CFRW" and mailed to Judy Davies, CFRW Treasurer, 332 Joshuatown Rd., Lyme, CT, 06371, specifying entrée choice. Davies may also be reached at (860) 526-9828. Space limitations make early reservations prudent. Dues may also be paid at the door, including those for At-Large memberships. Exit 15 off Route 9 leads to the 70 Main Street destination. Parking spaces are in close proximity to the Inn.
Each club has traditionally brought gifts or favors suitable for door prizes, etc. Any questions about this, or other matters, may be directed to CFRW President Kathleen McCarty at (860) 442-2903 in Waterford, CT.

U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd has his first challenger in the 2010 Democratic primary. It's unlikely to be the last fellow Democrat to declare against the embattled incumbent.

Torrington Mayor Ryan Bingham joined several state and local leaders in Bristol last week to receive grants for environmental protection.

Torrington is slated to receive $1 million in grant money, 60 percent of which will be used as low-interest revolving loans for developers, land owners and property owners. The remaining 40 percent will be used as direct grants that do not have be repaid, Bingham said.

The Environmental Protection Agency is issuing the money with the hope of revitalizing former industrial and commercial sites in several cities from Torrington to Naugatuck to New London.
While the money was announced last week, it will not be available until October, Bingham said.

The mayor said he will join Rose Ponte, economic development director, and his Assistant Stephen Nocera in attending classes on how to administer the grant.

By RONALD DEROSA/Register Citizen Staff

HARTFORD — Gov. M. Jodi Rell signed a bill Friday that will allow municipalities to delay the implementation of their property revaluations until 2011.

The S.B. 997, which passed the State House of Representatives this week and the State Senate last week, was co-sponsored by two Torrington-area legislators, state Sen. Kevin Witkos, R-8, and state Rep. Michelle Cook, D-65. Torrington was one of a few cities in the state — along with Washington, Woodbury and Monroe — that has received an overwhelming amount of complaints against Waterbury-based Total Valuation, who completed the full physical revaluation as required by law this year. The towns have been seeking a way to delay having to hand the results in to the state.

"I’m glad the governor moved on it as quickly as she did," Cook said.
With the passing of the legislation — titled An Act Concerning A Municipal Option To Delay Revaluation — the city has the option to completely delay implementing the revaluation until 2011, beginning July 1. The move gives Torrington the option to throw out the 2008 data collected by Total Valuation, instead relying on figures from the 2007 computer-based revaluation, said Mayor Ryan Bingham.

"We’re clearly going to have to redo it, sooner than later," Cook said. "But I think that’s for (the city) to work out at the city level. They know more about which would be best to go."
From the Torrington perspective, the city still is withholding $100,000 from Total Valuation as sanction for not meeting deadlines, and the Board of Assessment Appeals is still going through some 1,400 appeals filed in recent months.

The city is now having Corporation Counsel Ernestine Weaver review the new legislation due to an amendment added that allows for regionalizing, Bingham said. Also, the city still waits formal notification from the state Office of Policy and Management regarding a request for a one-year postponement, the mayor said.

If OPM allows for the postponement, then the city can get through all the necessary appeals and use all of the information gathered in 2008 for 2009’s Grand List, Bingham said.
The vote comes down, however, to City Council on how it wants proceed, he said. Should the council decide it does not want to use the 2008 numbers at all, then the city can wait until 2011 to do the process all over again, Bingham said.

"We would have to notify OPM as a courtesy because they would have to put our municipality on the list for 2011," the mayor said. "They would keep track of when our revaluations are due. We wouldn’t need their permission to throw at the numbers, now that S.B. 997 is passed and signed by the governor."

The Republican Town Committee and Torrington Mayor Ryan Bingham hosted a reception for former state legislator and the mayor' mom, Anne Ruwet, at the Yankee Pedlar Inn in Torrington on Friday evening.

The State Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill allowing municipalities to delay the implementation of revaluation of property until 2011.

If passed by the House, the bill does not mandate towns to delay the implementation of the most recent revaluation, but rather gives towns the option to do so, state Sen. Kevin Witkos, R-8, said.

“I think people have great difficulties with their revaluations,” Witkos said. “Torrington has had an unprecedented number of appeals.”

The State Senate passed An Act Concerning a Municipal Option to Delay Revaluations on Thursday by a vote of 31-3. Witkos, R-8, and state Sen. Andrew Roraback, R-30, voted for the bill.

The State House of Representatives is expected to vote on the bill soon.

Mayor Ryan Bingham hailed the Senate’s passage of the bill. He noted that the economic recession is devaluating the cost of homes.

“We want to see home values stabilize and then increase so that home values are more in line with real values,” Bingham said. “This is definitely a bill that I support. ... A lot of people in Torrington support it because of the situation with revaluation.”

The Republican Town Committee in New Hartford voted Thursday night to ask for the resignation of the first selectman. Read full story here.

U.S. Sen Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, will convene a hearing today titled “Regulating and Resolving Institutions Considered ‘Too Big to Fail’.” This hearing is part of a series of hearings, briefings and meetings that Dodd is convening as the Banking Committee works to modernize our financial regulatory system.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Dodd will hear testimony about lessons learned from the current crisis and recommendations for the regulation, supervision, and resolution of institutions considered essential to the financial system and often deemed “too big to fail.”

By DAN IVERS

State Sen. Kevin Witkos, R-8, is voicing his opposition to legislation moving through the Capitol that would prohibit minors from handling firearms under any circumstances.

The bill, which would bar anyone from letting a minor handle a gun even if it is not functional or placed in a locked container, was crafted in response to the death of an 8-year-old Ashford boy who lost control of a machine gun at a Massachusetts gun show last fall, causing the gun to discharge and killing the boy.

Witkos said the bill, which passed the State Senate Thursday by a count of 35-2, is a kneejerk reaction to an isolated incident, and won’t do anything to prevent similar accidents.

“We had one incident in the entire country. What about all the school shootings? We don’t react to that, but this because it’s in our back door?” he said. “What happened in Massachusetts was an accident and this legislation will not prevent accidents from happening.”

Only Witkos and state Sen. Tony Gugliemo, R-35, opposed the bill, which will now head to the House of Representatives and, if passed there, to the governor’s desk for approval. The bill would impose penalties ranging from a fine to 10 years in prison for a child under 16 and their parents if one was found to have handled a firearm, which Witkos said is excessive.

Advocates say the bill is just common sense and would prevent children from even handling guns, which is how accidents occur.

“It is unclear under current law whether children are strictly prohibited from possessing assault weapons and machine guns and this legislation would leave no doubt that Connecticut will protect its youth from this obvious danger,” said Sen. Martin Looney, D-11, in a Thursday press release.

New Hartford First Selectman Earl MacInnes has admitted he made a mistake in signing contracts with town employees Donald G. Birden and Daniel B. LeGeyt without first talking to the other two selectmen.

The contracts were both voided by the Board of Selectmen on Friday after a town attorney had said they were not legal.

In November 2008, LeGeyt, who is the town’s highway department supervisor, signed a contract with MacInnes guaranteeing generous vacation and overtime pay-out provisions subsequently valued by Town Treasurer Blake Hall at $28,000.

On March 26, Birden signed into a long term rental agreement with MacInnes to lease the town-owned Brodie House property at 550 West Hill Road at what was later described by a number of officials as well below market rate.The contracts, which went undisclosed until April, touched off a political controversy among town officials and voters.

“I’m sorry that I made an error in judgement," MacInnes said. "I apologize to the town for that, to the board of selectmen, and to the people displaced in the agreements.”

MacInnes said he hopes New Hartford’s voters understood that he made a mistake.
“We’re always learning,” he said.

In a meeting with Winsted Democrats this weekend, former candidate for the 63rd House District William Riiska noted that there may be an issue on getting all town Democrats together to agree on things. Riiska described things in the Democratic Party in general as “like trying to herd cats.”

Residents of New Hartford, Barkhamsted, Norfolk and Colebrook will vote at referendum Tuesday on their respective piece of the Region 7 school district’s proposed total budget of $17,602,371 for fiscal year 2009-10.

New Hartford residents will vote Tuesday between6 a.m. and 8 p.m. on a proposed budget of $7,692,332 to fund an estimated enrollment of 534 New Hartford students at Region 7 next fiscal year.

Barkhamsted residents will vote Tuesday between noon and 8 p.m. on a proposed budget of $4,593,988 to fund an estimated enrollment of 319 Barkhamsted students at Region 7 next fiscal year.

Colebrook residents will vote Tuesday between noon and 8 p.m. on a proposed budget of $1,901,829 to fund an estimated enrollment of 132 Colebrook students at Region 7 next fiscal year.

Norfolk residents will vote Tuesday between noon and 8 p.m. on a proposed budget of $1,555,469 to fund an estimated enrolment of 108 Norfolk students at Region 7 next fiscal year.

The Region 7 Board of Education has already approved the proposed total budget of $17,602,371, which is the same as the current fiscal year budget.