Join “Team SFCYD” on Sunday!

By ARIELLE REICH

This Sunday is going to be a beautiful day, so come outside and join the Southern Fairfield County Young Dems as we participate for the second year in a row in the Bennett Cancer Center Walk/Run/Ride! 

Last year, we marched together as a team and raised over $2,000 for the Bennett Center. This year, help us keep the momentum going and bring your friends and family members to enjoy the beautiful weather, get in a little exercise, and enjoy some free food and entertainment. Most importantly, come to show your support for the Young Dems and raise money for a good cause. The 5K run starts at 9 o’clock, and the 3 mile walk kicks off at 10 AM in Mill River Park in Stamford. 

Feel free to email info@sfcyds.org for more information. Hope to see you there!

Misguided Priorities

By DAN MALLOY

By vetoing the minimum wage increase, Governor Rell is once again ignoring the will of Connecticut residents and their elected representatives, who now face an uphill battle of attempting an override. During these times of rising gas prices and declining home values, its extremely disconcerting that our Governor would appear so out of step with Connecticut’s working class families, and so out of touch with the harsh realities they face.

I urge the Governor to refocus and reconsider her priorities on the welfare of our community’s most vulnerable citizens.

Closing the Gap

By DAN MALLOY 

Last week, I attended a forum titled “The Achievement Gap: Are We Making Progress?” Many of us are aware of and deeply concerned about the achievement gap that exists in our urban schools. Both nationally and statewide, there is a 30 point average difference between minority students and their peers in test scores measuring proficiency in reading and math, and the gap is not narrowing.

This particular forum allowed for educators and community leaders to share their input on what local, state, and federal groups are doing to ensure that each child is given the same opportunity to succeed. All across the state, we need to stress the importance of creating a culture that values education and motivates students. We need to call on families and communities to coordinate with the school system and implement strategies that have already proven effective.

Gaining a broader perspective and exploring new ways to combat the problem is the first step in the process to close the achievement gap. At the conference, I heard some inspiring success stories that came from interventions at all levels of government. For example, here in Stamford we have created the Stamford’s School Readiness Program. This program provides access to affordable, full day preschool for working families and has been recognized by the state as a model of quality for early childhood education. This intervention has been essential in leveling the playing field so that no child enters school at a disadvantage.

Hopefully, the small successes can help motivate us to allow for future collaboration and communication in the effort to effectively and permanently close the achievement gap.

 

Memorial Day Reflections

By DAN MALLOY

Memorial Day is traditionally regarded as the kickoff for summer, a day spent with our families, enjoying the warm weather and a day off from work. However, I am cognizant that Memorial Day must be more than that. When we look around at our family and friends today, let us take a moment to honor and remember those who gave their lives for the freedom we enjoy today.

I encourage you to reflect upon the sons and daughters from our own community who are no longer with us, and offer thanks for their commitment and the enormous sacrifices they have made on our behalf. Thank you to veterans throughout the ages, and especially for those still in harms way fighting wars on two fronts today. May God bless them and bring them home quickly and safely!

Best wishes for a happy start to summer and a meaningful Memorial Day, from my family to yours.

 

Extra! Extra! Illiteracy All About It!

By MICHAEL K. NORRIS

In my day job, I spend a lot of time researching what’s going on in book publishing and retailing. So I read with great interest the story on the $20 million or so cut from the state budget for the early reading program, which may come to an abrupt end after July 1, when about 300 individuals tied to the program will lose their jobs across several cities.

I was pretty baffled at what’s happened thus far, and what I read today in the Stamford Advocate was even more puzzling: Lawmakers had asked the Department of Education to come up with ways to improve the program and ensure more accountability before funding another year, Harp said. The department responded, and the Democrat-controlled Appropriations Committee, satisfied with the changes, passed a revised $18.4 billion budget in March that included the $20 million for 2008-09. But that money ultimately evaporated after Rell, a Republican, and the Democratic leaders decided to adjourn on May 7 without making any budget adjustments, citing a growing state deficit.

Imagine how angry you’d be if your car was making a noise it shouldn’t be making and you paid to get it fixed, only to have the mechanic say they sent your repaired car to the crusher instead. That’s what’s happened on a legislative level here. The good, bipartisan folks arguing for the funding to be returned are, sadly, not making a very strong case. It’s not about the 300 jobs at all, but rather the future of kids in this state who absolutely need to grow up reading well.

Go ahead and read the National Endowment for the Arts study that was released last year: To Read or Not to Read. Personally and professionally, I found it scarier than anything Stephen King has ever penned. The report pulls together statistics from several private and public sources and fires data points at you like shotgun blasts: reading is declining as an activity, and people who read are more likely to volunteer, exercise, and create. What’s more, employers favor people who have high reading comprehension skills by a very wide margin. Not only that, but less advanced readers have reported fewer opportunities for career growth. Read those last two sentences again; they’re that important.

The early reading program needs to be saved, but not to protect the 300 jobs at stake now. The real issue is protecting tens of thousands of future jobseekers that will benefit from the program with better career choices, and the thousands of Connecticut businesses that’ll have a bigger pool of outstanding young people they won’t hesitate to hire.

Sounds like a worthwhile way to invest $20 million.

 

A Step in the Right Direction?

By ARIELLE REICH

There’s no doubt that the current health care system is broken and is in dire need of fixing. There are approximately 27 million uninsured Americans, and of that number, 9 million are children. Several efforts have been made in states to expand coverage, including the recent “health care pooling” initiative in the Connecticut legislature that would expand state health insurance coverage to add municipal, small business, and non-profit employees to the state insurance plan, which currently covers 200,000 employees.

Even though some say that the pooling of the risk among larger groups of people would lower cost, Governor Rell expressed concern and ambivalence over the proposal, the main fear being that costs to the state would increase. Of course, any expansion of coverage would add costs, but let’s not forget about the indirect costs that we are paying now: Using tax dollars to cover the emergency care of the uninsured is extremely costly to the state, as is ignoring disease prevention and screening because you don’t have insurance to cover it.

I think that the health care pooling is a step in the right direction. Those small business, municipal, and non-profit employees are often the ones who aren’t covered through work, and either have to purchase costly insurance on their own or take the risk of going without. Any effort to expand coverage is good in my book, but whether or not pooling comes to fruition, we shouldn’t take the focus off of being proactive in health care reform. At this point, we simply can’t afford not to.

Good News Serves as a Good Reminder

By DAN MALLOY

This week, I was proud to find two separate acknowledgements that praised the city of Stamford and its residents. In honor of Father’s Day, Best Life, a nationally distributed men’s magazine, made a list of the 100 best places to raise a family, and Stamford was listed fifteenth best place to live. In their comprehensive study, they looked at factors like safety, school test scores, and patient-doctor ratios, but also measured some quality of life features like divorce rates, average commuting times, and proximity to parks and museums. As someone who has raised a family here, I can certainly agree!

Also this week, Lower Fairfield County was recognized as the nation’s seventh most heart-healthy midsize metro area. The study, conducted by the American Heart Association measured heart health, rates of smoking and obesity, and healthy eating and exercise habits. Hopefully, our smoke-free establishments and new trans-fat ban that will become effective in the next few months will continue to spread awareness and help our communities make those healthier lifestyle choices.

Both the Best Life list and the Heart Association study pay homage to the tireless effort of our community members, who have worked to build the school system, make streets safer, and draw attention to public health awareness and disease prevention. While acknowledgements for our efforts are wonderful, I feel that they also serves to remind us of the fact that we still have so much more work to do to. The issues we face in my community are not unlike the issues facing scores of towns and cities throughout Connecticut. We all struggle to improve and properly fund education without driving up taxes, to deal with surging energy costs, to ensure that everyone has access to quality health care, and so much more. Let’s work together throughout the state, with residents and leaders alike, to make sure all of our communities wind up on national “best” lists.

An Optimistic Outlook at our State Convention

By DAN MALLOY

At the Connecticut Democratic State Convention this past Saturday, I had the honor and pleasure of nominating Stamford’s own city chairman, Ellen Camhi, to go to Denver as a Democratic National Committee member. I have known Ellen most of my life, and for all of my political life she has been a steadfast and extremely effective chairman and valued community leader in my city of Stamford, so it was a particularly special moment for me.

Consider how CTnewsjunkie reported the reaction of the crowd, which I think was a tribute to the respect the Party has for Ellen:

“Without much fanfare, John Olsen, Ellen Camhi, and Anthony Avallone were nominated to go to Denver in August as members of the Democratic National Committee. The largest applause erupted when Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy took the podium and nominated Mrs. Camhi, as a national committee member.”

What was really striking was to see so many active Democrats at the convention engaged in what was happening locally, statewide and nationally. Clearly, there’s a great deal of political spirit and energy behind this fall’s Presidential race. When I asked the conventioneers to imagine what the country and the world would have been like if we had had a Democrat in office for the past eight years instead of the Bush Republicans, the crowd went wild – our personal freedoms intact; a budget that reflects our shared American values; respect and leadership worldwide; and most of all that we would never have known the deeply personal cost of a protracted war with no end in sight.

At the same time, it’s clear that we have some pressing problems right here in Connecticut. Last Friday, the New York Times editorial page singled out Connecticut as the leader among all states, but not where we should be leading:

“From 1987 through 2006, income in the bottom fifth of the state’s families fell by 17.4 percent. Over the same period, the top fifth saw their income rise by 44.8 percent…The loss of manufacturing jobs, coupled with an [educational] achievement gap, is a recipe for perpetually worsening poverty…When it comes to income inequality, first out of 50 states is shameful.”

We have a tremendous amount of work to do, but with the kind of energy, commitment and passion that I saw on Saturday from so many Democrats, I’m feeling more optimistic than ever that together we can make a real difference, and now is the time!

Driving Toward Mumbai

By MICHAEL NORRIS

At ten years old, in a Vernon movie theater that closed long ago, I saw the film Back to the Future for the very first time. I was rapt at the end when the car lifted off the ground and blasted off into the sky. Wow! I thought, I can’t wait for the future!

Last week, I got back from the future: Mumbai, India. On the roads there, the ten-year-old that still lives in me from time to time covered his eyes in terror. No flying cars, but Mumbai reveals (among countless other things) the future of a city when the infrastructure - as well as the available transportation options - can’t support the population. In Mumbai’s case, it’s in excess of 13 million and growing (millions more including the suburbs). If you were to imagine the automotive equivalent of a herd of buffalo stampeding, you’ll get as close as you can to understanding what the traffic is like there.

I quickly noticed that the white striped lines on the pavement weren’t lanes; they were suggestions. Also, most of the vehicles I saw didn’t have outside mirrors; they were either broken off or the cars and trucks just didn’t leave the assembly line with them. Related to this, many trucks in India have beautifully painted signs on the back that read: “Horn Please!”

The motorized rickshaws (which look like the front of a Vespa scooter bolted to a stripped VW Microbus frame) are fun to ride in if you remember to keep your knees together. If not, they’ll likely be scuffed by a motorcycle – often one carrying a family of four –that’ll try to squeeze by you at a traffic light. As for the fog-like pollution, I recommend breathing through your nose or the taste of the air will be with you till your next meal. 

As much as I really did enjoy the people I met there, the sights I saw and the food I ate, the traffic actually made me wonder what Fairfield County roads will look like in a year or five years. I also wonder what the lungs of Americans living in cities would look like too. I also wondered what the cost of gas would be as well.

Unless politicians start talking loud and often about public transportation and car alternatives, Mumbai will be a lot closer to the east coast than an 18 hour flight.