Dr. Mertens, Vows To Fight Media Bias Toward Independents

I wanted to share a story about this: the two media outlets that deliberately and premeditatedly excluded any mention of Tom Marsh’s participation in the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities debate on October 6 in their coverage were the Hartford Courant and Channel 8, the ABC affiliate.

Here’s the print story that ran in the Courant on Oct 7:

http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-ccm-gov-candidates-1007-20101006,0,195356.story

Channel 8 set up cameras at the debate so that they could carefully shoot it without ever having Tom in any shot, and during their TV coverage, they never mentioned that Tom participated (despite the fact that I’ve heard from attendees that Tom won the debate).

These facts have made me more angry at the media than any of the rest of their actions this year. So, here’s my story: I was at an event on Saturday that included a presentation by the news director of Channel 8. It was a one hour interactive presentation and discussion of news and media coverage. Half way through he started talking about the importance of trust in media. I interrupted, and told the story of what Channel 8 did. This resulted in a passionate discussion for the remaining 30 minutes about ethics in journalism. The news director defended Channel 8 strongly at first, but the crowd beat him down. At the end of the session, the news director told me that he would investigate, and “if we blew it, I’ll be as upset as you are.” We’ll see about that.

I’ve been talking about this at every campaign event since: the fact that Tom Marsh has essentially been invited to every debate EXCEPT the televised debates, and that many of the major media outlets have made a point of not mentioning his participation in those he’s been invited to, has caused audible gasps in the audiences. We need to hammer this beyond the election. I’m planning op-ed pieces to all CT newspapers (they won’t print op-eds from candidates, so I have to wait until after Nov. 2), detailing what has happened, and I encourage others to do the same. Mike Telesca and I have discussed the possibility of a lawsuit as well, to raise awareness. This is our biggest problem; the media is complicit in the degradation of our democracy, and we need to fight to repair it, beyond November!

Best,

Dr. John Mertens
Professor of Engineering, Trinity College

City Officials Seek Pay Raises

Milford city officials, mainly the mayor, city clerk and registrar of voters, are up for pay raises tonight. The Milford city board of alderman will vote on these pay raises. Mayor Richetelli indicated that he is underpaid compared to other mayors and the Democratically controlled board of alderman are biting their nails.

One person in particular is the 2Nd District alderwoman who is also running for state representative as a democrat. The feeling on the street is one of economic despair, over taxation, and a struggle with declining wages and business challenges. This economic climate is going to attract some major attention as to the outcome of this vote. The pay raises may end up being a Pyrrhic victory if approved. The taxpayers already overburdened are not particularly happy with the job our city has done in keeping the burdens on homeowners affordable.

This vote tonight will be a true test of courage for our aldermanic leaders who will show Milford who it is their loyalties lie with. No matter how this votes ends up there will be many unhappy people.

UI Profits Soar 288%...And Accordingly So Does Milford's Forclosures!

UI had its annual conference call last week February 2008. To sum things up they whined that the economy was slow, you could not pay your bill and their losses on bogus xcelecom were disappointing.

On the party side their profit jumped 288% from 9 cents a share to 35 Cents a share! This profit was achieved by those of you who are paying your bills. They are anxiously waiting to fire up their pollution factories formerly known as the "filthy Five" and the "Sooty Seven" to increase their profits even more perversely.

As they increase their mega profits, the Connecticut Post today noted that Milford's pre-forclosures are up from 50 last month to 166 this month. The front page of the finance section bears concern of stagflation. But don't worry UI's Executives are also concerned about the economy, it has held their profits back to only 288% when they should have been more than that. The awful truth, if I may add a little sarcasm, is that purchasing candles has become a much cheaper lighting source than electric. This may now become even more relevant as the 2009 future prediction by UI's executives greedily boast double digit profit projections. I predict more people will be "breaking a sweat" flipping a light switch and/or acting out against family members who do not shut off lights.

I am absolutely baffled by the quote of Rich who said "Continuing operations for the fourth quarter are up nicely 35 Cents a share compared to 9 cents a share in 2006." I am absolutely speechless that this company was allowed to conduct itself in the economically oppressive manner that it has. This is an outrage and I am appalled that the DPUC has no control over the menacing profit of a public utility company.

Amazingly, they even succeeded in bilking the IRS out of 21 Million Dollars! Listen to the entire conference call because I am disappointed that in spite of the fact that this company has been given a new power grid, overcharged us with fraudulent meters, was given a 90% increase in just 7 years, killed parakeets, razed the landscape, devalued homes, and is now planning to poison our air in Milford come 2009, that DPUC continues to ignore the fact that people are losing their homes and need a break!

The conference call speaks for itself! Also the beginning of the broadcast is blank air time scroll to the middle of the feed for the conference call to begin.

Listen by clicking here.