Election Results

I received 471 votes or about 5%. Thank you to all who voted for  me and supported me and congratulations to Ms Cecilia Buck Taylor on her win.

No I can't get your power back.. but

Before I go any further, please do not run your generator in the garage, even with the door open. Get it 20 feet away from the house. As I understand it, by the time you feel the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning, unless some happens to be there to help you, it is too late.
The Green Party cannot get your power back, only the hardworking guys with bucket trucks can do that. What the Green Party can do is ensure that you never lose it in the first place. Evidence suggests that storms like Sandy become more intense as they move over water that is warmer than it was a few decades ago and even if we stopped using all oil, coal and natural gas tomorrow, the sea would continue to warm for another 30 - 40 years. This is serious stuff. The Green Party does not deal in platitudes, it deals in serious solutions to make America and the world a place fit for our children to live in.

Whose Hole is it?

Connecticut has an unfunded pension hole in the region of $40,000,000,000 to $50,000,000,000. This means that pensions have been promised which will have to be paid or the promises broken, yet there is no money in the kitty to pay. Both my competitors say they will fix it, but while they were not there to make the mess, the parties that they represent were, so why do you think the Democrats and Republicans can fix it when it was Democratic legislatures and Republican Governors who made the mess? The Green Party is the prudent party in that we want to look after the Earth since it is the only one we have got (no there isn't another one tucked away in another dimension) and prudence would extend to matters fiscal, so the Green Party would no more make a mess of the state's finances than it would make a mess of the planet. So vote for me on Tuesday and lets start cleaning up the mess and take some new ideas to Hartford

Social Impact Bonds (and guns)

 Last year 102 were killed by gunfire in the state.  I propose that the State sell Social Impact Bonds. These are so new you have probably never heard of them. The way it works is this. Each Pistol Permit holder is invited (not compelled) to buy a $600 bond which will pay off with $3,600 the first year that Connecticut gun homicides are down to 50. The bonds not taken up will then be sold to all comers. The idea is to create a group of people who will get paid $500 million if they can get sensible gun legislation that actually works passed, whether it be in Maine, New Hampshire or wherever there are needlessly lax gun laws which allow guns to fall into the hands of criminals.  Everyone wins, including the state. Remember all this gun violence costs you  $600 per year, getting  it down by 50% is a good start.

Trafficking in Frustration

The problem with traffic in New Milford is stop lights and yet they talk about adding yet  another light.  People forget they are called stop lights for a reason. So eliminate the stop lights. This is done by creating  a one way system  East on Bridge Street, North on East Street, West on Elm Street and Bennitt Street, extend Bennitt Street over the railroad track, to meet a revamped Patriots Way,which will be southbound to Bridge Street again, should work pretty well. Most of the through traffic is Rte 202 to Rte 7 so few will need to travel further. So let us consider a few details. Two lanes of traffic will travel along Elm Street and onto Bennitt Street. If you want to go along Wellesville Avenue or Patriots way North, you edge into the right hand lane, otherwise stay left. If you then want to go towards Rte 7,  you edge into the right hand lane otherwise stay left onto Bridge Street. Bridge Street will have 3 lanes, picking up traffic from Veterans Bridge. Edge right to go down Main St South or Grove Street, center for Rte 67 where there will be the sole stop sign to give priority to traffic from Grove Street, and left to go up the Green or East Street. East Street will have 3 lanes, going down to 2 , right lane coming from  Rte 67, center from Grove Street and left from Bridge Street. For Rte 202 or Elm St Extension, you edge to the right lane and for Elm Street, you edge to the left. So it can be seen traveling through town will be smooth and predictable experience.  Also this will mean that Youngs Field Road will be blocked off at Bridge Street and turned into a parking area, safer for children and everybody. Railroad Street will be blocked off at the North end because of poor sight lines and the need to stop through traffic, provide parking for those on Bennitt Street who might lose it and to encourage the development of Railroad Street as a walkable shopping and entertainment district. Meanwhile on the other side of the bridge a large roundabout would provide for a better flow of traffic. It  just so happens the land to build it on is for sale and raising the level of Rte 7 by two feet as far as Starbucks would be a brilliant idea. Just a note, a roundabout is the official name for a rotary with uniform rules of engagement, that is that you give way to traffic already on the roundabout.

Guns and Money Part 2

First off most of the problem is handguns or pistols, since these are the murderers favorite weapon since it is easily concealed. In any case, many would argue that a shotgun is better for home defence. An assault rifle is good too, since as the military will tell you ,overwhelming fire power is the rule of the game but it might be tough to convince a jury  of that. For these reasons only pistols should be considered. There are about 140,000 pistol licenses in Connecticut and if the $2 billion bill were spread among them equally it would be about $14,000 each. That is in effect the annual cost to society of the existence of that gun, however that  would be a bit steep since a lot of the guns come from out of state anyway and even if a gun is stolen, it is not the same as actually murdering someone.
You always hear there are 25,000 gun laws already, they just have to be enforced. Maybe 12,832 of them need to be rewritten to make them more easily enforceable. But which ones? Your head begins to hurt, but it needn't since you know the power of money or the threat of its loss will fix the problem one way or the other. Of course the effect would be limited until other states passed similar legislation, but where better to start than in the most intelligent town in the most intelligent state in the union?
 It would be a huge improvement  if only 10 people were killed by guns in Connecticut each year, think of maybe 90 lives saved,

Guns and Money

Studies have shown that each murder causes a $20,000,000 hit to the local economy. $5,000,000 is spent by the government in crime investigation, prosecution and incarceration and the balance is the hit the economy takes because a lot of crime causes businesses to flee or not set up shop in the first place. So with about 100 gun homicides last year in Connecticut, it is fair to say the economy took a $2 billion hit. Look around you, things maybe improving marginally, but do you see an economy that needs to take a $2 billion hit every year, like about 20,000 jobs that would otherwise exist. I dont think so, so at whose door should this bill be laid? You could argue with perfect logic, the murderer, but probably Michael Skakel would be the only murderer in recent history who had a spare $20,000,000 floating around. Should it be everybody like it is now? I don't have a gun, it is nothing to do with me, so why should I pay?  Should it be gun owners? Most will say my gun is in my night stand, no one has taken it and used it to kill anybody, so why should I pay? But clearly with no gun owners and thus no guns, this problem would not exist, so the bill should at least partially be laid at the feet of gun owners in some way shape or form.

Third Parties and Third Rails

A great advantage of being a third party candidate is that I can talk freely about third rail issues without committing political suicide no matter what I say.
A doozy of a third rail issue that I will return to is guns. Let us approach the issue by noting that approximately 10,000 people are killed each year by gunfire. The first question is while zero is the only acceptable number, what number can we tolerate given the realities of human existence?
Looking for guidance in Syria, 30,000 people have been killed over the last year and a half and many call for military intervention to stop it. This however is not hugely more than the number who have been killed in this country over the same period. Against this Syria is a country less than one tenth of the size of the US, but in the US the killings have been going on for decades as opposed to months.
Next we have to avoid Stalinist thinking. You know Stalin famously said if one person dies, that is a tragedy, if a million people die that is a statistic. We may be seeing this in the response to the Aurora shooting where 12 people tragically died, which did nothing more than bump the total shot dead for that day up to 42 from 30, but caused an international sensation and much soul searching about gun control. So it can be inferred when we banish Stalin from our minds, that 10,000 people shot each year is intolerable. Then we remember we are Americans, we dont just go around wringing our hands we do something about it.
Pretty quickly we will start talking about money.

Off Year Issues

Last year I posted some entries about new sources of energy. A year away from the election is a good time to look at more long range issues. This is still a serious issue and since state governments have to a certain extent pick winners and losers when facilitating or financing new companies with a view to improving the state's economy over the long term, you need legislators who can keep track of emerging technology. Giving credit where credit is due, it has been the Republican Senate Minority leader of the Massachusetts State House who has been doing this and even Mitt Romney has alluded to it. Meanwhile locally, companies in Maine Massachusetts and New Jersey are hard at work on these types of  new energy technologies. But we have an election in six weeks, so I must now add to what I would like to set in motion as you state legislator starting next year.