| Republican cronyism was on full display on Friday afternoon at Greenwich Town Hall as Peter Tesei's hand-picked Republican "First Selectman's Committee on Coastal Management" held a press conference to denounce Democratic challenger Lin Lavery for her accusations of cronyism against Tesei. The problem was that of the committee's nine members, eight were Republicans put there by Tesei. One was unaffiliated; none was a Democrat. The committee even included John Raben, the chairman of Greenwich's Republican Town Committee. Four of the eight Republicans were listed as Tesei supporters on his website. And to show how the town's volunteer committees have been politicized since Tesei took over two years ago, it was Tesei's secretary who called the press conference for the committee.
The committee called a press conference to refute Lin Lavery's charge in a mailing this week that the Republican incumbent had engaged in cronyism. Indeed, it was Tesei who changed the job of harbormaster so that he would no longer be the director of parks and recreation. He then transferred money to his control and had a well-known local politician put on his payroll.
In fact, the coastal management committee displayed for all that cronyism in which Republican incumbent Tesei has been indulging for the past two years. While his Republican predecessor Jim Lash had been scrupulous in keeping sitting Republican and Democratic town committee members off the "Selectmen's Nominations Advisory Committee", which had been chaired by Lin Lavery, the very first nomination to that committee that Tesei made was David Theis, the vice chairman of the RTC. That led the SNAC's chairwoman Mary Ellen to protest the slide into partisanship.
Lin Lavery also sharply criticized Tesei for politicizing SNAC. Tesei contended that he was only putting Theis there because he was qualified for the job. Right!
Since Tesei came in, he's appointed sixty two people to town committees. Guess how many were Democrats? Three. Yep, in a town whose voter registration figures show Republicans with 38% and Democrats at 26%, virtually all of the members of the critical volunteer committees that do yeoman's work for the town are Republicans. And David Theis? He's Peter Tesei's running mate for selectman!
Tesei thought his crony-laden committee could get away with criticizing Lavery and pretending to be a town committee of concerned citizens indignant at her criticism. But thankfully Frank Farricker and Dave Roberson, Democratic Town Committee member and chairman respectively, got wind of it, showed up at the Gisborne Room of Town Hall and verbally cut loose with a flood of criticism. For all the reporters in attendance, Farricker unleashed a torrent of outrage on the assembled Republicans, exposing them for the cronies they were, recited how many of them were major Republican campaign donors, how many were participating in Tesei's campaign and left no one in attendance in any doubt that this was a cheap stunt by Tesei to use what was supposed to be a non-partisan volunteer committee to score political points against his Democratic opponent. Dave Roberson pointed out that this was an attempt to divert attention away from Tesei's having lost Greenwich a $1.5 million earmark for flood control, which he blamed on a town employee who wasn't even remotely responsible for that earmark or flood control. He's also trying to deflect criticism for having botched the town's request for federal stimulus funding. He only intended to ask for $17 million, while Bridgeport, with twice the population, asked for over a billion. |
| The race for Greenwich first selectman could be, thanks to Peter Tesei, the meanest, ugliest campaign in Connecticut in many years. Tesei has repeatedly insinuated in print and during debates that Lin Lavery is a liar, and earlier this week he called her a liar outright in print.
The nastiest man in Connecticut? Certainly possible. Republican cronyism? Without doubt. |
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