Connecticut
Post posts about what is happening in the State of Connecticut.
Fighting Chronic Lyme Disease
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 01/23/2009 - 21:18For two and a half years, my wife has been fighting Lyme disease, and today we received two pieces of good news about her battle. The first bit of good news came from a mailing list of people in Connecticut that are dealing Lyme disease that Kim is part of. There is a bill in the Connecticut General Assembly
To allow physicians to prescribe, administer or dispense long-term antibiotics for therapeutic purposes to patients clinically diagnosed with Lyme disease.
Unless you have dealt with people with chronic Lyme disease, that may seem pretty insignificant. Of course doctors should be able to prescribe, administer or dispense whatever medication is appropriate for the therapeutic needs of their patients. Yet unfortunately, there are many hurdles to prescribing long-term antibiotics for people with Lyme disease. Some people believe there is no such thing as chronic Lyme disease and insurance companies don’t want to spend money on antibiotics if they can avoid it.
For bad cases, intravenous antibiotics is often called for, and that can get pretty expensive. Sure, it isn’t much compared to the cost of caring for other long-term illnesses, but it can still be pretty steep. Even with insurance, the last round of intravenous antibiotics took up a third of Kim’s take home pay.
It isn’t just the expense of antibiotics that is so difficult for people with chronic Lyme disease. A recent study found that Chronic Lyme disease patients often have comorbid psychiatric illness. Put more simply, people with chronic Lyme disease tend to be more likely to be depressed, anxious, have problems sleeping and other ailments.
It isn’t surprising. Walking around for weeks with an IV in your arm, unable to do many tasks you used to be able to do can be pretty depressing and can make it harder to sleep. When you add in concerns about if you will ever feel better, or how you will pay for your medicine, anxiety seems pretty reasonable as well. Who knows how all of this further affects the brain chemistry. I hope that the pressure to address chronic Lyme disease will go beyond simply permitting physicians to prescribe, administer or dispense long-term antibiotics.
This takes me to the second bit of good news. Today, Kim had another Doctor’s appointment to track how things are going with her battle against Lyme disease. The latest blood tests came back showing no current signs of Lyme disease. Now, we’ve had the all clear before followed by another bout of fighting Lyme disease, so who knows what will happen next. But at least right now, Kim doesn’t have an IV in her arm and she is sleeping better.
Some of this, we believe, is thanks to a doctor that aggressively treats chronic Lyme disease, so we are thankful right now and hope that others find good doctors that aggressively treat chronic Lyme disease. Perhaps the legislation now being considered in the Connecticut General Assembly will help make it easier for others.
In and Around Woodbridge
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 01/22/2009 - 20:20Over the past week or so, much of the attention has been focus on national news as President Obama was sworn in and various people from Woodbridge were in Washington for the celebrations. Yet there has been a lot going on here in Woodbridge as well.
Last Thursday the town Democrats and Republicans gathered to select their slates for municipal elections. The Democratic Caucus was well attended, including members of the local press. The Amity Observer produced this list of candidates.
The whole process of selecting the candidates, at least for the Democrats was very quick. A slate was presented by the nominating committee which was approved by everyone. It probably took ten minutes to go through the formalities.
Yet there was much more to the meeting than just approving the slate. First Selectman Ed Sheehy spoke briefly, accepting the nomination, and outlined some of the recent accomplishments as well as future goals. He mentioned the completion of the new firehouse and the plans for the renovation of the old firehouse and a bridge.
He mentioned that Woodbridge was the first community where 25% of the people have committed to clean energy. He spoke about the economic development commission, and plans for the Massaro Farm and a $50 thousand dollar grant for that project. He noted that the town has a AA1 rating from Moodys which is the highest a town the size of Woodbridge can achieve.
He spoke about a five-year maintenance program, revisions to the town ethics rules and improved communications between the Board of Selectman, the Board of Education and the Board of Finance. He noted that people move to Woodbridge because of the quality of education in our town. He ended off focusing on his experience and the civility that he has brought to the office.
This brings me to the Board of Education meeting that took place last night. I ended up recording it for the Government Access channel, so I didn’t get a chance to write much about the meeting. Dr. Stella spoke about the wonderful experience everyone had as the school welcomed visitors from China. As a follow-up, he proposed sending two teachers to China to help set up technology to facilitate communication between students in Woodbridge and students at the schools in China.
In terms of the increased communications between the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Finance, this evening there was a joint meeting of the two boards to hear Operating Budget Presentations. This is the first of four presentations. Next week, there will be presentations on Tuesday and Thursday, and then the following presentation will be the following Tuesday. Unfortunately, my schedule was a bit too packed to get to this evenings presentation, however, I hope to get to some of the upcoming presentations.
Beyond Woodbridge, Bethany is also preparing for municipal elections and there was a Board of Selectmen meeting last Tuesday in Seymour, which may have addressed some of the issues I’ve been talking about here concerning a guardrail for Haddad Road.
So, while there has been plenty of events taking place on the national stage, there is plenty going on locally, perhaps more than the local newspapers can fully cover. So, I’d ask my readers to consider attending meetings in your towns and posting them online.
What’s Online Near Woodbridge, CT?
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 01/16/2009 - 10:55Amidst all the stories of troubles in the news industry, the one hope always seems to be that somehow online news will take up the slack. Yet most of the time, while everyone talks about how it would be great if online news would take up the slack, few seem to do anything about actually bringing higher quality local news online.
Wednesday, the Knight Foundation announced the the first winners of the Knight Community Information Challenge. At the top of the list comes “A hyperlocal news site staffed by professional journalists and citizen contributors in the five ethnically diverse towns of Connecticut's Lower Naugatuck Valley”.
The Valley Independent Sentinel proposal was submitted by the The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. The Foundation works with the Online Journalism Project to support of the New Haven Independent. The Knight Foundation grant will be used to support an affiliated organization, the Valley Community Foundation which will create the Valley Independent Sentinel.
Paul Bass, the executive director of the Online Journalism Project says that the Valley Foundation is contracting with OJP to produce the new site. It will launch in mid-2009, following a model similar to the New Haven Independent. It will be an online only site, publishing multiple stories daily, five days a week. It will be staffed by professional journalists with heavy reader interaction and strong use of multimedia.
Here in Woodbridge, we are fairly fortunate to have sites like the Amity Observer and the Orange Bulletin covering local events, although I would love to see much more coverage in Woodbridge. However, as you get deeper into the valley, there is even more of a need of good, in depth local coverage.
For other online developments, I was recently contacted by ‘Roxy’ of Roxiticus Desperate Housewives. She has set up a set of websites, Roxy’s Best Of.... She’s from New Jersey so most of her sites so far have been centered on the Garden State. However, she is expanding into Connecticut and has set up Roxy’s Best Of ... Connecticut.
Roxy’s Best Of ... seems to reside somewhere between the hyperlocal journalism of sites like the New Haven Independent, reviews on sites like Yelp and the community of bloggers on sites like MyBlogLog, EntreCard and Adgitize. My sense is that it is a set of sites for fun narrative reviews of really good local places.
As a supporter of local companies and of positive news stories, I think Roxy has a good idea. She’s asked me to write for the Best Of sites in Connecticut. She has said that it is fine if I cross-post material to my own blog, that there is no pressure on posting according to any deadlines, and that if it turns into something that produces revenue, she will be sharing revenue with her writers. While it probably won’t be producing the hard journalism that the New Haven Independent does, it will be a valuable additional to local information.
On a more family oriented basis, @jcnork, whom I met through Twitter and lives in the next town over has a new blog post up about the State of the Norkosphere. He mentions the blog that his brother keeps about being in the Peace Corp in Romania, and a blog that his son has set up. Jack hasn’t been blogging much as he spends more and more time on Twitter, but it would be great to see him doing more long form writing.
Whether you are looking for good journalism, stories about good people to do business with around Connecticut, or simply good family stories, things look like they are moving in a good direction online around Woodbridge, CT.
Republican Efforts to Protect CT Dems Majority
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 01/15/2009 - 10:06As a registered Democrat, I ought to be appreciative of the efforts by CT House Republicans last night to protect the Democratic Majority in the State Legislature. However, as a person that supports increased citizen involvement, I’m actually glad that their efforts failed.
Last night, the State Legislature discussed a deficit mitigation effort and the Republicans presented many amendments that on face value seemed like good ideas. As an example, they proposed an amendment that would cut State Representative’s salaries by 5%. Given their inability to solve the financial crisis that faces our state, maybe that is a good idea. After all, when the CEOs of the carmakers sought a bailout, they offered to take a $1 a year salary. It must be nice to be able to afford to take voluntary paycuts.
Currently, State Representatives in Connecticut make something around $28,000 a year. Combine that with expenses and stipends, this can climb over $30,000 a year. That works out to be about $1,500 out of the pocket of each State Representative and back into the State Budget, a savings of over $200,000 a year overall. Since most of the legislators seem to have good paying jobs besides their part time job as legislators, this makes a lot of sense.
Rep. Hamzy even pledged to ask the Comptroller to cut his pay anyway. Good for him. I hope he follows through with his pledge and other State Representatives follow his lead. However, all of this appears to be a hollow gesture.
Rep. Hamzy, a partner at Hamzy and Conlin, a law firm which focuses on bankruptcy and divorce can probably afford the $1,500 pay cut much easier than his clients. Yet this gets to my concern about the effort. We need to make the job of State Legislator accessible to more people in Connecticut, including people like Rep. Hamzy’s clients, and not only to successful lawyers.
Another lawyer, Rep. Arthur O’Neill rose to speak against the amount of money made available to candidates participating in the Citizen’s Election Program. He felt that too much money was being made available for campaigns. He noted that he ran unopposed and did not take the $7,500 from the fund that he was eligible to. I applaud him for doing that and agree that the amount available to unopposed candidates should be reviewed.
However, he went on to suggest that the amount available in contested races is also too high. Rep. O’Neill hasn’t been in a contested race since 2002. Perhaps he needs a challenger to help him remember what is involved in campaigning and reaching out to his constituents. He spoke about the Citizen’s Election Program benefiting legislators. In fact, it isn’t about helping the legislators, it is about helping the voters, by providing voters with more choices and more information about the choices.
Cuts to the salary of State Representatives and cuts to the Citizen’s Election Program are both effective ways of protecting incumbents, and since the Democrats have a strong majority, they are ways to protect the Democratic Majority.
As a Democrat, who wants more civic involvement, to Rep. Hamzy, to Rep. O’Neill and their counterparts, Thanks, but no thanks.
The Whipping Boys of Corruption
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 01/13/2009 - 13:46In a recent Op-Ed in the Hartford Courant, Patricia Shea, “lawyer, lobbyist and partner in the government relations firm of Levin, Powers, Brennan & Shea in Hartford” asked the question, “Why Are Lobbyists Whipping Boys For Corruption?“
On the surface, the answer seems pretty simple. When trying to ferret out corruption, the first thing we are told to do is to “follow the money”. What better place to start than to look at the people who are being paid to try and bring about specific legislation?
The accomplishments of Levin, Powers, Brennan & Shea as listed on their website, LobbyCT.COM provides a useful glimpse at what they are up to: “Succeeded in legislative affirmation of property tax credit...Achieved the overwhelming defeat of a proposed ‘Windfall Profits Tax’...Lobbied to ensure that Connecticut pension funds would not divest $50 million of Hydro-Quebec (HQ) bonds...Successfully lobbied the largest Medicaid Rate Increase for Connecticut’s Hospitals in over eighteen years...Successfully lobbied for the creation of a Distressed Hospital Fund...successfully convinced legislators not to pursue a specific provider tax on dentists...we have gained unprecedented state financial support…created the organization that developed the Pfizer Global Research Center...Negotiated for a gross receipts tax exemption for alternative fuels...We were one of the key architects of Connecticut’s film tax credit program”
Follow the money.
Now, this is not to say that everything that they have done is about reducing taxes for corporations and increasing state funding to companies that pay them for their services. This is not to say that some of the things they have done may actually benefit the people of Connecticut, and this certainly isn’t to say that they have been involved in any corrupt practices. As a matter of fact, I suspect that Levin, Powers, Brennan & Shea does some important work that does benefit the people of Connecticut.
I should note also that I, myself, am the spouse of a registered lobbyist. Kim, as a senior organizer for Common Cause, is paid by them, in part, to lobby. I believe that her lobbying also significantly benefits the people of Connecticut.
Ms. Shea’s complaint is that “U.S. District Judge Stefan R. Underhill's 98-page decision to uphold the lobbyist ban is based on a ‘perception’ of undue influence in government.” She goes on to note “Lobbyists have been unjustifiably vilified despite the fact that no registered lobbyist has been involved in any of the corruption cases that Connecticut has seen over the past several years.”
Yes, there is a perception, perhaps unjustified about lobbyists wielding undue influence in government. Perhaps the ‘achievements’ page of Levin, Powers, Brennan & Shea contributes to that perception. So, what do we do about addressing this perception?
Judge Underhill seems to think that continuing the ban on lobbyists contributing to political campaigns will help. I agree with the Judge on that. As much as I would like to contribute to various state campaigns or attend their fundraisers, I feel that it is part of my responsibility as the spouse of a lobbyist to avoid such activity as part of my effort to reduce any undue influence, perceived or real, that paid lobbyists might have on government.
As a matter of fact, as part of my efforts to reduce any such influence, I vocally support the Citizen’s Election Program’s funding of state elections. This program is one of the most effective ways of reducing any undue influence, perceived or real, that paid lobbyists might have on our state government. Who knows, it might even lead to decisions about tax rates and state funding that are more in the interest of all the people of Connecticut and not just those that can afford to hire a lobbyist in Hartford.
“The Whipping Boys of Corruption”. Yes, it does bother me that this is how paid lobbyists are perceived. Really, all of us should be lobbyists as we get more involved our state government, both directly and through supporting the Citizen’s Election Program. Then, perhaps, “The Whipping Boys of Corruption” can cease to be used as a moniker for paid lobbyists and can be used as a much better moniker, perhaps for a new band.
