Last Updated on November 13, 2025 by Matthew Hallock
CT’s legislators called for a rush “special” session in Hartford now, but it’s really a very special session. It’s a Golden Corral all-you-can-eat buffet for the construction industry at the expense of you and your 3.6 million friends and neighbors who live here. The provisions use the specious umbrella of “housing” and our elected representatives as agents. Someone – it wasn’t you – met in back rooms and drafted language to become state law that is the wishiest wish list of all time, if you’re one of the handful of company owners who truly benefits.
Some of the clauses are truly dystopian. One example is them giving themselves the right to select prime neighborhoods in your town, change your zoning code to allow large, high-density buildings, compel your town government to underwrite the infrastructure (like sewer and water), and pre-approve the plans for the developers they choose, without requiring local review. The buildings will just go up. This video with CT 169 Strong and state rep will make your jaw drop.
Fairfield will not stand for it, and we are confident many if not most of the people in CT’s 169 towns feel the same way.
Current legislation using the word Housing as carte blanche is a House of Cards. It is built upon the same legislation that was vetoed earlier this year, in a movement led by Fairfield’s late First Selectman Bill Gerber, along with leaders from just a few other towns and CT 169 Strong. Now, tragically, Bill Gerber is gone, and Hartford is attempting to fill the vacuum by slapping a new coat of paint on the same old stuff by changing some words around (and making some things even worse). The governor’s veto of the disastrous bill will be a distant memory if this legislation is pushed through.
Fairfield is already trying to get its head around the fact that Hartford has written the code to compel approval of 50+ buildings in town already. Alot of these units are rental apartments. Instead of owning condos or co-ops and building equity, studies show that renters are trapped in a vicious cycle, devoting large chunks of their take-home pay for domiciles they don’t own. They generally have a poorer quality of life and are less a part of their community. Many elected officials are developers and own buildings, displaying the ultimate in self dealing. This is another wave in what appears to be an endless series of them. Ask this of yourself:
- Did vested interests who don’t live in your town rewrite your Charter to vastly benefit themselves? They did in Fairfield.
- Did the CT Municipal Development Authority (CMDA) meet with town officials to advance their construction plans without public input? You know it
- Did they edit your town plans to write their own zoning to suit ravenous builders? Yup
- Did they dissolve the historic eight counties of Connecticut to create their artificial Council of Governments (COG) that split Fairfield county in two and created a super-region by allowing Hartford to co-opt UConn? They sure did.
The Betrayal and The Children
Look at the exploitation of our most vulnerable: inner city children. This year, before even conducting inspections, Bridgeport announced it was closing six elementary schools, including a special needs school, and then awarded a $700 million contract for new schools to a two-person startup. Their gig was then expanded to help craft the entire Plan of Conservation & Development and construction supervision on all the city’s schools in the span of months.
Meanwhile, Bridgeport is dead last in education in the state. CT’s largest city, which has a significant minority and immigrant population, doesn’t even have a PTA. How are parents who may not even speak English supposed to help their children do well in school? For successful student outcomes, you need a strong triangle of invested students, teachers, and parents. The quality of the facility (the school itself) is far down the list. But in Bridgeport and the rest of the state, the children are exploited as the state not only turns a blind eye but facilitates massive, pre-awarded construction contracts for facilities with dubious need. And while we’re at it, look at the brand new school Bridgeport built in the middle of a flood zone in the South End. There’s no FEMA money anymore and private insurance companies aren’t covering buildings in high-risk areas. Tomorrow, or in a year or three, when a storm comes through and wrecks the building, it will leave the public with an unusable hulk.
The Revolution: The Truth You Need
At the core of this are people who are supposed to be our public servants. Our elected officials want to serve their constituency, but they are prevented due to Hartford’s manipulation. In ancient Rome, service to the state was the most noble calling. But in Fairfield, our town leaders aren’t our town leaders. Department heads aren’t required to live in town, despite residents’ wishes. In fact, with the most recent charter revision, vested interests changed it to allow personnel to live even further away (35 miles). Plus, they inserted a For Cause employment termination clause in several positions, like the chief of police. It is virtually impossible to terminate someone with For Cause protection, unless they commit serious acts for a long time. So now Hartford has changed the words in our sacred Charter specifically to allow people to just work here but not live here. They’re not there for a love of their town, but for a sweet job and money. And it seems many department heads got these jobs without a fair hiring process, at our expense.
So look to your own town. Do your department heads and municipal employees live in town? Did they get their lifetime jobs with a fair hiring process? Do they have golden retirement pensions that you pay for?
You could never fight City Hall because they held all the information: the contracts, the people, and most importantly the money. However, it’s not 1975 anymore; it’s 2025. Times have changed but they haven’t. But we have Google now. This radical transparency, brought on by Google, will be ripping off giant Band-Aids. We can now see what is going on, and with further deep dives, we can see how deep their tentacles reach into CT’s 169 towns.
