CT Post: DeStefano takes aim at Republicans

Website Vooweb.com provides the biggest collection of professional Web 2.0 Templates. Web 2.0 Templates - its a website templates which made by world-class designers. Buy our Web 2.0 Templates | A family cooking recipes with hundreds of healthy, whole-food cooking recipes for the home cook. Healthy Food cooking Recipes For Your Entire Family | List of Samui villas and houses for rent on Koh Samui. Koh Samui villas for rent and sale on a private Samui community on the southern tip of the island of Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand.

CT Post: DeStefano takes aim at Republicans

The Connecticut Post July 16, 2006

By Ken Dixon

John DeStefano Jr., the seven-term New Haven mayor, hopes to harness his reputation as a big-city leader with statewide union support and overcome a narrow loss of the endorsement for governor at the State Democratic Convention in May.

Slightly ahead in the polls and with higher name recognition from his mayoral tenure, DeStefano, like Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy, has been bashing Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell, attempting to link her to the administration of John G. Rowland, the corrupt former governor.

"The governor just doesn't get it," DeStefano, who turned 51 in May, said during a recent debate with Malloy as the Aug. 8 primary loomed closer. "Elections are about choices. Four more years of the same, or choice for change."

While Malloy was the first in the gubernatorial primary campaign to promote health-care coverage for the 70,000 uninsured Connecticut children, DeStefano raised the ante, offering universal insurance coverage for the entire state, funded by hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks for companies as an incentive.

DeStefano, a lifelong Connecticut resident who's at the helm of a city of 124,000 and who earned an undergraduate and a master's degree at the University of Connecticut, wants to index the state's minimum wage with the cost of living.

"You know, in America we always said that everybody should get to run the race and finish the race," DeStefano, who served for 10 years as deputy comptroller for New Haven, said. "But too often we forget something, something Jodi Rell doesn't understand - not everybody starts the race at the same place."

Speaking before crowds, DeStefano, the son of a police officer and a beautician, sometimes talks as if he were a school teacher leading a lesson, indicating a family influence. His two sisters are public school teachers and his wife, Kathy, is a kindergarten teacher. He and his wife, whom he met at UConn, have two sons, Dan and Jim, who attend college.

"In order to stand for something, you've got to be something," DeStefano said during a recent debate sponsored by Hartford area African-American groups.

DeStefano said that instilling values in children is as important as paying workers a living wage.

"You know what? Yes, everybody should go to work every day. Everybody who can should go to work. But also, work should pay," DeStefano said. "Work should pay a fair wage. It should be benefited and you should have access for your family health-care benefits, so you can pay your bills." DeStefano acknowledges that the state's criminal justice system seems stacked against inner-city minorities who make up a majority of the state prison population. He pledges to battle the tactics of predatory lenders, who hit minority residents with high interest rates.

DeStefano recently made a two-day whistlestop trip on Metro-North Railroad to propose a transportation policy - including a commuter rail line from New Haven to Springfield - that was approved this year by the General Assembly and Rell.

He also wants a joint Connecticut-Massachusetts airport and development authority and a standalone state department to manage mass transit, outside of the Department of Transportation. He also proposes a new authority to plan and market the ports of Bridgeport, New Haven and New London, and promote high-speed ferries.

Under DeStefano, New Haven has invested $1.2 billion toward reducing class sizes and build schools, expanding the magnet-school concept to bring in about 1,700 children from surrounding suburbs. Along the way, the student dropout rate was halved.

He boasts the support of 25 unions that represent more than 100,000 workers in every part of the state.

Max Medina, a lawyer who serves on the Bridgeport Board of Education, said he supports DeStefano because New Haven mirrors the problems of his city.

"First, I always ask myself what's best for Bridgeport and, I believe coming from New Haven and given his experiences there, he has greater experience with the type of issues Bridgeport has," Medina said in a recent interview. "A governor coming out of New Haven will have a much better feel for Bridgeport than a governor coming out of Stamford, with no disrespect to Mr. Malloy."

Medina, the son of a career union steelworker, said DeStefano is "strong" on labor issues.

"I like the fact that even though he's an intellectual, John DeStefano hasn't forgotten his roots and is able to balance his fairness to taxpayers with labor rights," Medina said.

DeStefano's achievements with public schools in New Haven also attract Medina's support, he said.

"I believe he's committed to providing great educational opportunities for kids in Bridgeport as well as the rest of the kids of Connecticut," Medina said.

Nancy DiNardo, of Trumbull, chairwoman of the Democratic State Central Committee, said she has to maintain objectivity until Aug. 8, with one target in mind for the fall.

"I think they're both great candidates and I think either one of them can do a far superior job than our current governor is doing," said DiNardo, who announced Malloy's convention victory from the stage of the Hartford Expo Center.