What a spectacular week we have just had. It started with our Greenwich Sentinel Award being given to the Rev. Jim Lemler last Thursday. It was a wonderful evening at Indian Harbor Yacht Club.
Thank you to all who attended and contributed. All who attended agreed it was our Greenwich community at its best, celebrating one of its own.
One of our favorite events of the year is the Fourth of July ceremony at Town Hall. It is wonderful to see our community come together to celebrate our country’s birthday. The festivities are organized and run effortlessly by our own Bea Crumbine and Ed Dadakis. Their love of country and community was on display for all to see. We were saddened to hear that Bea will not be as much in the forefront of the event in the future, but we are certain Ed and his team will continue to do a great job.
With the Fourth of July now firmly behind us we are in the throes of summer. As you would expect, the weather is getting hotter and stickier. However, it is not just the weather that is heating up. We are still without a state budget and emotions and tensions are rising in Hartford. There is a fair amount of accusation being thrown about. To us, it sounds like a lot of hot air.
The legislature was called into special session just before the holiday, ostensibly to vote on, and hopefully pass, the Governor’s proposed mini budget. After spending the day in Hartford they adjourned without a vote being called. Why? Because the Democrats could not muster enough support within their own party to pass the Governor’s budget. Sound familiar? It is a repeat of their failure to pass a budget during their regular legislative session.
The Democratic leadership in the House have said they would call for another special session on July 18 to again vote on a budget. Great! Do it! Without a budget, our state is operating under executive orders signed by the Governor. It may sound simple enough to just let the Governor continue to operate our state’s checking account that way. That would be a mistake. Not only because it would significantly reduce funding for important state programs, but because it does not fix our problem.
If the state budget was a can, then the majority party in Hartford kicked it down the road last week. If there is a special session on July 18 to pass a budget, we hope the Democrats in the House will vote in favor.
Otherwise, it is getting very expensive to keep playing kick the can.
It is not just getting hot in Hartford. Next Thursday there will be a public hearing of the Connecticut Siting Council in Cole Auditorium at 6:30 p.m. to discuss the controversial Greenwich substation and line project. This project would upgrade the Cos Cob substation and build a new one on Railroad Avenue, with a new high voltage power line connecting the two.
The town has been working with Eversource to come up with an acceptable building plan. Unfortunately, neither plan as proposed is ideal. We applaud Peter Tesei and his team at Town Hall for trying to find an acceptable solution to what Eversource claims is a future energy capacity shortage. From what we can see, all of our elected officials from federal down to members of the RTM’s District 2, neighbors, and neighborhood associations, have been working hard to come up with a viable solution. We encourage them to be steadfast in their position.
The meeting on Thursday, July 13, is an opportunity for those in our community with questions and comments to voice them on the record in a public forum.
