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Why Doesn't Bridgeport Business Take a Stand?
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Business New Haven
3/3/2003
By: BNH
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In a February 19 meeting with Bridgeport business leaders, U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays (R-4) summoned sufficient candor to acknowledge that he found it difficult to push aggressively for federal dollars for Bridgeport projects at a time when each day's testimony in the corruption/fraud/racketeering trial of Mayor Joseph P. Ganim brings new revelations of how deeply embedded is the culture of corruption in city government.
As Shays told the Connecticut Post three days later, "Am I supposed to appropriate money so thieves can steal it?"
As an example, Shays pointed out that in the most recent congressional appropriations package, Bridgeport's Intermodal Corridor Project received "only" $2 million, while a similar project in Stamford got $10 million.
Shays said that Bridgeport's "culture of corruption" must be remedied before federal dollars would begin to flow freely again.
It's hardly surprising that Shays' acknowledgement was not at all was the Park City executives wanted to hear. More than one businessperson in attendance asked whether Bridgeport, the city, should be punished for the misdeeds of Ganim and his cronies in the administration.
The answer, frankly, is yes.
It has been observed that people generally get the government they deserve. Joe Ganim and his bagmen pals didn't enter City Hall at the point of bayonets or at the head of a tank column; they were elected in a nominally free and open process that is open to influence by all sorts of interest groups, including business.
Businesses that think they have no stake in the electoral process and thus ignore it do so at their peril.
For all the criticism that the Connecticut Business & Industry Association takes for being the handmaiden of the state's very largest companies, it does at least attempt to influence (however clumsily, sometimes) the fundamental tools of politics and government.
When Bridgeport businesses decline to exert influence on behalf of good government for their city, should they be held innocent when they get bad government? We don't think so.
A large local business group such as the Bridgeport Regional Business Council (BRBC) ought to wield substantial influence if it were to call, in a very public way, for Ganim to resign, and resign today. But it has not seen fit to do so, and therefore forfeits its right to cry foul when federal projects and dollars are steered elsewhere.
In our view, Shays' position may be unpopular in the Park City, but it is fundamentally right.
Many things must change for democracy to be restored to the Park City. One of them may be that business leaders must roll up their sleeves and do some of the difficult work. That might include directors of the BRBC taking a public stand against the disgrace their city's government has brought upon those who live and work there.
That also should include business leaders and business groups taking an active role in influencing who will next inhabit City Hall and what kind of agenda they will pursue.
That requires real, hard work. That will also require real dollars.
But whatever the expense, it's got be less than what it's costing them now.
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