Stefanowski rips into Hartford
Former GOP candidate for governor criticized Hartford in op-ed
Former GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski ripped into Hartford and its leadership in a Wall Street Journal op-ed column Friday, and reactions — pro and con — have poured in since.
Former GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski ripped into Hartford and its leadership in a Wall Street Journal op-ed column Friday, and reactions — pro and con — have poured in since.
Hartford’s Democratic government is inept, and the city itself is a crime hub with failing schools because of left-wing policies, excessive taxes and unchecked municipal labor unions, Stefanowski wrote in The Wall Street Journal.
“Once famous as the ‘insurance capital of the world,’ Hartford has been in decline for 30 years,” Stefanowski wrote. “Hartford’s poverty rate is one of the highest in the nation. The city is falling apart.”
Stefanowski, a resident of suburban Madison, previously served as an executive for a payday loan company. Since his loss to Gov. Ned Lamont in 2018, he has traveled around the state handing out masks during the coronavirus pandemic.
On Saturday, dozens of Twitter users commented on Stefanowski’s attack on Hartford, some enthusiastically joining in the criticism of Mayor Luke Bronin and other Democrats. But there was also heavy pushback.
“I guess Bob Stefanowski wanted to remind us that he has zero understanding of Hartford or any Connecticut cities, zero passion for our state, zero experience doing the difficult work of lifting up a community — and zero chance to be governor of a state that he loves to root against,” Bronin said Saturday afternoon.
“To be clear, Hartford has a lot of problems,” said Joshua Michtom, a Democratic member of the Hartford city council, in a Twitter post. “But Stefanowski diagnoses them all exactly backwards. He is consistently and astonishingly wrong.”
Michtom condemned the article as filled with inaccuracies and baseless conclusions. When Stefanowski wrote the Hartford crime was up sharply last year, for instance, he didn’t mention that violent crime also rose in New York, Cleveland and other major cities, Michton said. Preliminary FBI data indicates gun violence climbed in 27 major cities in 2020.
Stefanowski’s message also got a cold response from Republican
Mayor Erin Stewart of New Britain, who lost her bid to be the GOP’s candidate for governor in 2018. She had warned that the party couldn’t win with another hard-right male candidate; Stefanowski got the nomination, but lost to Democrat Ned Lamont.
“There’s no question that there are real, often insidious, and systemic problems that have plagued Connecticut’s cities for decades,” she said. “Bob — or whoever does his writing — has correctly identified several critical areas in this piece. But pointing out problems is the easy part. Actually solving problems is the mark of a true leader.”
Stewart, in her fifth term, said her city turned around a long-term pattern of budget deficits, but only over a period of time.
“When it comes to solving the financial problems of cities like New Britain or Hartford — or the state of Connecticut, for that matter — simply rattling off a three-point plan just isn’t enough,” said Stewart, who has been leaving the door open for another run for governor in 2022. “It requires the right mix of political fortitude, practical experience and common sense.”
Hartford advocates rejected Stefanowski’s analysis of what’s wrong with the city’s tax structure. Hartford hasn’t raised taxes in five years, and struggles with the same problems as New Haven, New Britain and other major cities: A huge percentage of residents are poor and much of its land is held by churches, hospitals, colleges and other tax-exempt entities.
Stefanowski hammered the city’s school system, writing, “The city spends more than $400 million annually on education ($17,260 per student) yet nearly 30 percent of its students don’t graduate high school on time.”
Michtom acknowledged that the city’s per pupil spending is roughly on a par with Farmington, a moderately affluent suburb. But household income in Hartford is about a third of Farmington’s, he said, and children grow up moving from apartment to apartment — and school to school — with no family money to pay for enrichment activities, tutoring, after-school test preparation.
But Twitter was also filled Saturday with defenses of Stefanowski’s position, with some commenters saying Hartford is suffering from too many years of liberal policies, high taxes and needless government regulation.