CHRIS POWELL Connecticut's 5th Congressional District, encompassing the northwest part of the state, running from Danbury north to Waterbury with eastward extensions to New Britain and Meriden, is generally considered the state's most politically competitive. So one might think…
Posted: 30 May 2022 [02:53 PM] Posted: 27 May 2022 [08:54 PM] CHRIS POWELL As recently as 50 years ago Connecticut politics still had traces of the old ethnic, racial, and religious resentments and rivalries that had arisen through the state's long history, resentments and rivalries that political party state tickets…
Posted: 20 May 2022 [08:31 PM] CHRIS POWELL Four months after the now internationally infamous "pizza sex" assignment was given to eighth-graders at Kennedy Middle School in Enfield, the town's Board of Education has not yet figured out how it happened. Instead the board purportedly…
Posted: 16 May 2022 [02:16 PM] CHRIS POWELL Both political parties in Congress want to sustain the immigration controversy for partisan purposes more than they want a compromise that could resolve the controversy's two major components -- securing the borders while providing a path to…
HEALTHY LIVING: Jill Bertolini Symposium helps breast cancer patients Posted: 06 May 2022 [01:11 PM] The statistic is startling – according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), breast cancer is the most…
Posted: 26 April 2022 [03:10 PM] Berlin Democratic Town Committee April 25, 2022 – Members of the Berlin Democratic Town Committee are urging all Berlin residents to cast a “Yes” vote in the…
Posted: 26 April 2022 [10:03 AM] Joanie Wedler, Chuck Lewis and Franck Facchini Local public access TV, or public, educational and government access (“PEG”), has been in Connecticut for more than 40 years providing residents, municipalities, schools and community organizations with hyper-local programming…
Posted: 25 April 2022 [01:44 PM] YOUR VIEW: From John Kisluk I am asking and urging all Plainville tax payers to come out on April 26 between the hours of 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. at the Plainville Firehouse and vote no…
Posted: 15 April 2022 [07:53 PM] Someday, if the governor and state legislators ever tire of coddling the state employee unions and if the president and Congress ever tire of coddling investment banks and military contractors, maybe they should note what happened recently at Silver Lane…
Posted: 08 April 2022 [09:06 PM] Legislators of both parties in the General Assembly are congratulating themselves on the bipartisan juvenile justice bill that has come out of the Judiciary Committee, and well they should. For the legislation will do no more than provide the illusion…
Posted: 04 April 2022 [08:45 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Connecticut may be paying the Sikorsky helicopter division of military contractor Lockheed Martin as much as $250 million to keep its facilities in the state for the next 20 years -- an average of…
Posted: 01 April 2022 [09:19 PM] Everybody in state government seems to love this tax-cutting stuff -- first the temporary suspension of Connecticut's 25-cents-per-gallon gasoline tax, and then a week of lifting the sales tax on most clothing purchases. The public will love it too. But…
Posted: 25 March 2022 [01:16 PM] By Jodie Maro Bristol To the Editor: Bristol, Plainville and Southington, you need to use your voices. FACT: Many residents have signed the petition against the burning of medical waste at the Bristol incinerator. The City of Bristol…
Posted: 14 March 2022 [08:49 PM] To the Editor: Congratulations! to Mayor Erin Stewart of New Britain on her 9th annual inspiring State of the Union message to our citizens. Mayor Stewart, with your dynamic leadership and the cooperation of the Common Council, you…
Posted: 14 March 2022 [08:41 PM] As a constituent of the 77th district I am disgusted by the actions of our former State Representative Cara Pavalock-D’Amato [“Address in question,” The Bristol Press/New Britain Herald, March 11]. I use the term “former” because in my…
Posted: 14 March 2022 [08:27 PM] To the Editor: Re: Opinion by Jennifer Rubin. She is wrong on all points. From Day One of the Biden administration when the Keystone and oil exploration was killed. Soon afterwards gas prices began to rise and rise.…
Posted: 14 March 2022 [01:22 PM] Baseball at last. And please Mr. Commissioner, don’t bother apologizing to us fans. We want to watch ballgames, not union and management spokesmen explaining the still-unresolved international draft rules. To think that the owners actually threatened to…
Posted: 11 March 2022 [04:23 PM] To the Editor: In light of the recent developments that have exacerbated stability, peace and sovereignty in Ukraine, I decided to express my views through the language of poetry and to share this sentiment with others in our community. These…
Posted: 11 March 2022 [04:08 PM] Journal Inquirer Announcing goodies for various municipalities and organizations lately, Governor Lamont has been using government money to win support for his re-election campaign, as any incumbent would. But all the goodies awarded so far don't come close to…
STEWART: The state of the city is stronger than it has ever been Posted: 11 March 2022 [01:38 PM] Mayor of New Britain I recently stood before members of the Common Council, elected officials, department leaders, city employees, and my…
Posted: 10 March 2022 [02:11 PM] D-Newington To the Editor: The children’s mental health system in Connecticut needs additional support, resources and structural changes as a rise in depression, anxiety, self-harm and other forms of distress evident before the pandemic have been exacerbated during…
Posted: 22 February 2022 [04:15 PM] Republican state legislators around the country are proposing to require public schools to post all curriculum materials on the internet as an accountability measure, and the other day they got powerful if inadvertent support from Enfield’s school system. Enfield’s school…
Posted: 13 December 2021 [04:31 PM] To the Editor: I witnessed two separate random acts of kindness at the New Britain Post Office. One day recently, the line was long and a young lady in the queue wanted to buy just one stamp. She asked…
Posted: 13 December 2021 [04:31 PM] To the Editor: The House has passed the Build Back Better Bill. Now it is time for the Senate to follow suit. This legislation encompasses a variety of issues that are critical for our nation to move in a…
Posted: 12 August 2021 [07:02 PM] To the Editor: This election cycle, residents of New Britain will have the opportunity to elect a mayor who puts the interests and values of working-class people first, State Representative Bobby Sanchez. From our city’s poor performance regarding vaccination rates…
Posted: 10 August 2021 [07:14 PM] To the Editor: I, like former New Britain Democratic Town Committee (NBDTC) member Alicia Strong, believe that the people of New Britain should select their candidates for mayor and common council. I respect that Ms. Strong and her colleagues…
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…
MAYOR'S COLUMN: Time to celebrate. It's summertime! Posted: 31 May 2021 [07:18 PM] New Britain It is finally summer time here in New Britain, and if you have lived in this city for any extended…
Posted: 28 April 2021 [11:48 AM] At the Greater New Britain Chamber of Commerce, our mission is to “Promote the economic, industrial, professional, cultural, commercial, educational, and civic welfare of Greater New Britain.” In order to follow through on that mission statement, it is…
Posted: 26 March 2021 [09:05 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…
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…
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…
Posted: 19 March 2021 [09:14 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…
FRIDAY FICKS: It's about seeing the unseen Posted: 18 March 2021 [08:06 PM] By CARL R. FICKS JR. The mind can play tricks, preventing you from seeing what is, or always has been, right in…
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…
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,…
Posted: 12 March 2021 [09:00 PM] By NICHOLAS MERCIER At the recent meeting of the New Britain Common Council, a resolution was proposed by Alderman Salerno and Alderwoman Beloin-Saavedra. The stated purpose of this resolution was to "clarify" the roles and responsibilities of the School…
Posted: 12 March 2021 [08:59 PM] By ROSEANN BUCHIERE To the Editor: Mayor Erin Stewart, New Britain schools need to do better - and not with more money. It’s time to stop throwing more money into a failing system. Put the blame on the teachers…
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…
MAYOR'S COLUMN: New Britain Recovers aims to save lives Posted: 09 March 2021 [09:15 PM] The month of March signifies the end of a cold winter and the beginning of spring. We begin to get…
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…
Posted: 08 March 2021 [08:59 PM] By ROGER BAKER To the Editor: The new meter parking on Arch Street seems a little discriminatory. Funny how the meters STOP directly after the Five Churches Brewery. My wife and I travel 45 miles from southeastern Connecticut to support…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
