Thumbs up, thumbs down

Thumbs up to the governors of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island who continue to nurture a potentially collaborative relationship. Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont commented, “I think we’re going to do this on a regular basis.” It’s encouraging, but we’d rather see the trio define serious goals for the relationship, anything from shared purchasing to climate change initiatives. Rather than contemplate the full palette of possibilities, they should prioritize specific targets and circle deadlines to accomplish them. But then, all three have business backgrounds, and should know this.

Thumbs down to Bridgeport mayoral candidates who could not be bothered to send even a representative to attend a session on mailin voting hosted by an attorney from the secretary of the state’s office. Under normal circumstances, it might not seem like much of a slight in a busy election season. But normal circumstances never seem to exist in Bridgeport during elections. While allegations of absentee ballot abuse have lingered since last month’s primary between incumbent Mayor Joe Ganim and challenger Marilyn Moore, neither camp accepted the invitation to the session.

Thumbs down to whoever planted “Vote Team Trump/Camillo” lawn signs in Greenwich last week. The camp of First Selectman candidate Fred Camillo, his Democratic rivals and Indivisible Greenwich, a political action group, claim no responsibility for the unfair signs, leaving a series of fingerpointing. The responsible parties do the political process no favors by declining to stand by their actions.

Thumbs up to the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles shaving wait times at its branches by an average of 44.7 percent over the previous year. Some of the improvements are so dramatic that it raises of the question of what really took so long. The average wait time in Danbury dropped from more than one hour and 17 minutes to a little over 42 minutes. We encourage the DMV not to settle, though, for even these considerable strides.

Thumbs down to a rise in the number of homicides in Connecticut that involved family members. The 22 family violence homicides in 2018 were far more than in the previous 12 months, according the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection. Other data notes an uptick in the number of overall family violence incidents from 16,845 in 2017 to 16,954 in 2018.

Thumbs down to the probable cause of a 2017 MetroNorth derailment in Rye, N.Y., being cited as an engineer’s ignorance of a temporary 10mph speed limit. It’s yet another reminder of the need for the longdelayed $1 billion positive train control project, which would have prevented the train from traveling at almost 60 mph and derailing. Sixteen people were injured in the incident. The train was traveling from Stamford to Grand Central Terminal.

Thumbs up to the hundreds of University of Connecticut students who rallied in opposition to racism on campus. Though an Oct. 11 incident inspired the rally, participating students pointed to a culture of racism on the Storrs campus. UConn President Thomas Katsouleas said he attended the event to listen to what the students had to say. The vital next step is to draw many more people into the conversation.