Thumbs up, thumbs down
Thumbs up to the generous gift of 27 acres to Danbury through the estate of Victor Westman, who died in the spring. The retired railroad engineer lived all of his 85 years on the land along Bear Mountain Road and sought to have it preserved. The City Council is expected to vote this fall on whether to accept the wooded site, which is across from the city’s 140acre Bear Mountain Reservation that fronts Candlewood Lake.
Thumbs up to the report that farming is making a resurgence in Connecticut. The state had a 15 percent increase in beginning farmers between the two most recent agricultural censuses, second only to Rhode Island, which had a 27.2 percent growth. Connecticut now has nearly 6,000 farms, according to the 2012 census, an increase of roughly 1,000 farms enumerated in the 2001 census. Thanks to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who is credited by some state farming experts as having contributed to the growth through programs he supported.
Thumbs down to the rash of overdoses on the New Haven Green last week that might have been triggered by a batch of synthetic marijuana known as K2 or “Spice.” More than 100 overdoses from Tuesday through Thursday involved about nearly 50 drug users; no one died. The sheer volume of harm in such a public place is focusing attention on the depth of drug problems in the state and the need to coordinate police, social workers, crisis-intervention specialists, mental health counselors and others in response.
Thumbs up to the state Department of Transportation’s ongoing initiative to install center-line rumble strips on many of Connecticut’s major, two-lane roads. The strips create noise and vibration when a vehicle drifts over the center line. The work requires intermittent lane closures during the work. The temporary inconvenience is worth it. According to the Federal Highway Administration, nearly 20 percent of roadway fatal crashes involved an opposing direction collision.
Thumbs down to perennial Republican candidate Joe Visconti, of West Hartford, for his ill-advised tweet describing Democrat William Tong, a Stamford state representative and now the Democratic party candidate for attorney general, as “Kim Jong Tong.” Not funny. Tong, who is of Chinese descent, would be the first Asian-American to hold statewide office should he win in November. Republican state Sen. Len Fasano, of North Haven, the Republican Senate President pro-tempore, put it best. “Representative Tong was targeted by an irrelevant individual with a tweet that is ignorant, immature and irresponsible.”
Thumbs up to a report showing expectant moms in Connecticut are in a good place. The financial web site WalletHub rates Connecticut as the sixth best place to have a baby. The ranking considers 26 different measures, including the number of pediatricians per capita and the cost of delivery. Vermont was named the best place to give birth to a new human and Mississippi the worst. The state did well in a number of areas, with the sixth highest number of midwives and obstetrician-gynecologists per capita, the 11th highest number of pediatricians and family doctors per capita, the 19th lowest rate of low birth-weight babies and the 11th lowest infant mortality rate.