DDS layoffs to reach 605 as state moves to privatize services

Posted inCT Viewpoints, Talking Transportation

Connecticut’s rail history offers summer day-trip fun

by Jim Cameron | Columnist

If you’re looking for family fun this summer, consider visiting one of Connecticut’s many living museums celebrating our rail heritage… All of these museums are run by volunteers who will appreciate your patronage and support. They love working on the railroad and will tell you why if you express even the slightest interest in their passion.

Posted inCT Viewpoints

Connecticut whittles away at its watchdog agencies

by Daniel J. Klau

In her op-ed in The Connecticut Mirror, State Rep. Mary Mushinsky (D-Wallingford) writes about an unanticipated, end-of-the-legislative-session, 50 percent cut to the personnel budget of the General Assembly’s Office of Program Review and Investigations. She reasonably asks, “How does silencing the state’s efficiency experts help the state adjust to less revenues and a leaner government? And why is this cut far more extensive than other line-item reductions?”

Posted inPolitics

Despite sweltering heat, Trump draws thousands, blasts Malloy

Avatar photo by Kyle Constable

FAIRFIELD – Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump brushed aside skepticism about his decision to campaign in a deep-blue state and drew about 5,000 people to a rally here Saturday on the hottest day of the year. Trump tailored his message to include heavy criticism of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a litany of statistics about the state’s sluggish economy, and the pointed question, “How did you lose General Electric?”

Posted inTransportation

Opponents organizing to derail new route for high-speed trains

Avatar photo by Kyle Constable

OLD LYME — As federal officials near a decision on a railroad proposal residents are calling destructive and wasteful, about 70 people from across the southeastern Connecticut’s shoreline gathered Friday with local, state and federal lawmakers at a forum at Old Lyme Town Hall to find out how they could help stop it “dead in its tracks.”

Posted inCT Viewpoints

Education funding equity must start at the early grades

by Janice M. Gruendel, Ph.D.

As Connecticut awaits the decision by Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher on the educational equity funding lawsuit, let’s not forget that many of the children in Connecticut’s low-income school districts are starting school (that is, kindergarten) way behind in terms of the knowledge, skills and behaviors needed for elementary school and later academic success. Many are also behind in third grade reading and eighth grade math. And too many do not graduate. We have known that for years. If the goal is high school graduation and readiness for work and citizenship, trying to remediate students or the schools in our low-income districts at the end of this trajectory is way too late.

Posted inCT Viewpoints

Connecticut squandering decades of tourism investment

by Stephen Hard

Long before Dannel P. Malloy became governor of Connecticut and invigorated statewide tourism efforts with $15 million in his first budget, the legislature established regional tourism districts. Through budget cut after budget cut and multiple consolidations, these districts have consistently and effectively promoted tourism in Connecticut in ways that the State Office of Tourism does not and cannot.

Posted inNews

Last hope for a shoreline landmark

Avatar photo by Tom Condon

Seaside in Waterford is one of the last great buildings designed by renowned architect Cass Gilbert, famous for the Woolworth Building, the U.S. Supreme Court and New Haven’s Union Station. Built by the sea as a tuberculosis sanitarium and later used as a facility for the intellectually disabled, the grand building is a deteriorating derelict after years of state indecision. Now the state is down to its last chance to save it.

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