Blankley wants to get trucks off I-95 and onto ships

Brookfield CT

12 August, 2021

9:55 AM

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By Scott Benjamin GREENWICH – John Blankley says the best solution for relieving the traffic congestion that has turned Interstate-95 into a rush-hour bumper car venue near Stamford and Greenwich is to "take trucks off the roads" and put them on ships. Blankley of Greenwich, who is running as a petitioning candidate in the August 17 special election in the 36th state Senate District, recently sent a mailer to voters with an aerial photograph of a ship and the hundreds of trucks that could be loaded onto it. Blankley, 73, a former chief financial officer for Stolt Tankers and Terminals, said his plan would reduce traffic congestion which has reached the point where in 2019 during his campaign for highway tolls Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich) said there were real estate professionals in Stamford that would not show homes to clients during the rush hour. He said that two years ago Amazon "didn't come to Connecticut [for its second headquarters] because of the lack of transportation infrastructure." "My plan also will reduce pollution," Blankley added in an interview with Patch.com. He said part of Connecticut's share of the $1 trillion federal infrastructure proposal that was recently approved in the U.S. Senate could be utilized for the truck shipping program Blankley said his plan would require negotiations between states, truckers and shipyards. It would utilize ports in Bridgeport, New London, Rhode Island and New Jersey. In 2015, an ad-hoc committee appointed by former Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Essex) recommended spending $100 billion over 30 years to upgrade Connecticut's transportation system. Little progress has been made since then. Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich) was thwarted during his first year in office as he sought to install highway tolls. By February 2020 he conceded defeat and opted to try to find some spending through bond appropriations. Blankley - a founding partner of Flagship Networks, which provides information technology consulting and other services – faces Republican Ryan Fazio, 31, a member of the Greenwich Representative Town Meeting, and Moms Demand Action leader and attorney Alexis Gevanter, 39, also of Greenwich, in the special election. The district includes all of Greenwich, part of New Canaan and the northern section of Stamford. Two-term state Sen. Alexandra Kasser (D-Greenwich) vacated the seat in June, citing ongoing divorce proceedings. Blankley was the Democratic nominee in the district in 2016 and also has run for a state House seat in Greenwich and for the office of first selectman. He lost in a primary in 2018 for the Democratic nomination for state treasurer and later served on the transition team that year as state Treasurer Shawn Wooden of Hartford prepared to take office. Some observers believe particularly in a special election, Blankley's bid as a petitioning candidate will harm Gevanter's chances of winning the seat. Blankley said, if elected, he would not caucus with either party. "I will give voice to the people in the middle" of the political spectrum, he explained. In 2018 Kasser was the first Democrat to capture the district since 1930. Among the Democrats who lost in the district over that span was Lamont, who was defeated by Greenwich Republican William Nickerson in 1990 when the seat was open. Kasser held 100 living room conversations across the district, which has undergone a change in political demographics over the recent years. The Greenwich Time reported earlier this year that Democratic registration was now ahead of Republican in town for the first time in generations. If Gevanter prevails the Democrats would maintain their two-thirds super-majority in the state Senate. The upper chamber was 18-all at the time of Kasser's initial election three years ago. Initially, Blankley sought the Democratic nomination but left the race before the convention in July. He then collected the required number of signatures mostly by spending days at the Greenwich transfer station. In 2018 Kasser narrowly defeated 10-year Republican Scott Frantz of Greenwich. Frantz's percentage of the vote in Greenwich declined from 62 percent to 52 percent between the 2016 and 2018 elections. Kasser's victory was largely due to her plurality in North Stamford. In 2020, Kasser outlasted Fazio, who works in the renewable energy field, by just 1,451 votes out of more than 56,000 that were cast. Neither candidate declared victory or conceded defeat until about 36 hours after the polls closed. Gevanter told Patch.com in July that she wanted to lower taxes and abolish the estate tax. That same week Patch.com reported that Fazio wanted to simplify the tax code, reduce spending and make reductions of a progressive type in the state income tax. Blankley said his goal is to just hold the line, calling his opponent's positions "pie in the sky." "The good times on Wall Street don't necessarily last forever," he explained, making an apparent reference to the surge in capital gains revenue in Connecticut over the last 18 months. Federal Financial Analytics co-founder Karen Petrou wrote in her recent book, "Engine of Inequality" (Wiley, 288 pages), that in April 2020 the Standard & Poor's 500 had its best week since 1974, even though the country was mired in the pandemic. Blankley remarked, "I'm against raising taxes, but I'm also saying that I don't think that taxes can be further reduced." He said, for example, that the deep income tax cuts of 2012 and 2013 in Kansas were a "catastrophe" that resulted in schools being closed. Blankley said he would have supported the two-year, $46.3 billion budget that Lamont signed in June and included no new taxes. The state over the last budget cycle structurally fully funded its state employee pension obligations and paid $1.5 billion toward legacy costs that consume about 25 percent of its spending, according to Lamont's recent comments to the CT Hearst editorial board. A Wall Street Journal editorial last November stated that Fitch Ratings had reported that Connecticut's state employee pension system was the second worst funded in the country. Blankley applauded the bipartisan agreement that Malloy signed in 2017 that created spending and volatility caps and helped pay down some of the pension debt over the most recent budget cycle. He said the state should continue to try to accomplish that in the coming years. "There are no quick fixes," he declared. As far as finding money to lower costs, which would could be used to fund some of the pension obligations, and keep the tax rate stable Blankley said Lamont is on the correct track though his ambitious digitization program, which is making state operations more efficient. "Attrition is working for us," he said. Blankley doesn't believe that the state needs to take legal action to secure further concessions from the state employee collective bargaining units, nor do the state employees need to make further negotiated concessions. A consultant to the state Office of Policy & Management has reported that the 2017 negotiations would result in the state saving $24 million by 2037. During her initial campaign in 2018 Kasser co-authored a column for Bloomberg News that called for only a base line of benefits for the state employees with regular stress tests on what the government can afford. Gubernatorial candidates Oz Griebel, Mark Bouhgton, Bob Stefanowski, Tim Herbst and David Stemerman called for major revisions in the state employee system during the 2018 campaign. Both Malloy and Lamont have suggested in recent years that the municipalities pay for some of the pension costs, for the kindergarten through 12th grade public school teachers, which the state has fully borne since 1939. They have said those costs are destined to escalate in the coming years. Said Blankley, "I think that we should stick with the current set-up. That is not a burden that we should put on the municipalities." He said part of what separates him from his two opponents is that he has "major business experience." "How many Democratic senators have started a business?"' Blankley said. At least one: Norm Needleman of Essex, the 33rd District. Hartford Courant political columnist Kevin Rennie wrote last December that for nearly 50 years Connecticut governors have sought to lower electricity rates without success. Fazio told Patch.com in July that the state has the highest costs in the continental United States. Blankley said he would promote alternative energy sources, noting that while working as an executive with British Petroleum he was part of an energy unit that became the largest solar business in Europe. Regarding employment, Blankley praised Lamont's establishment of a workforce council. That panel is expected to establish eight public-partnerships in various regions of the state. Blankley said it would help retrain workers in a brief amount of time for higher paying jobs. Overall, Blankley commended the governor's performance during the pandemic. He said he supported the recent extension of the governor's executive powers, which have been in place since March of last year. He said that under the circumstances, the governor must have the ability to "be nimble" and that opponents of the extension have little to fear since Lamont "is no dictator." However, he said he disagrees with the governor's recent decision to leave it up to the 169 municipalities do individually decide whether masks are required as there has been a resurgence in cases , partly as a result of the Delta Variant. "There are no boundaries between towns and states," he said, noting that a municipality might takes advantage of the circumstances by not requiring masks when a neighboring municipality doesn't have that same standard. Blankley indicated that a statewide standard would eliminate that obstacle. Some municipalities have recently issued mask mandates in public areas. On another topic, Blankley said he supports the legislation approved earlier this year to legalize sports gambling and to legalize recreational marijuana. "[Some] people have an ethical view," he explained. "However, gambling is always going to go on. People are going to smoke pot. Let's regulate and tax it." One report indicates that Greenwich's Golden Triangle neighborhood near Lake Avenue, Round Hill Road and North Street is the richest in the nation. Is that an accurate snapshot of Connecticut's 10th-most populated municipality? Blankley said Greenwich is very diverse. "Twenty percent of the students in the public schools receive free or reduced lunches," he exclaimed. "The disparity between those people at the top and the people are the lowers rungs is possibly a wider gap than anywhere in the country." Blankley said Greenwich also is "a bigger area than people think." Its total area – land and water combined – is 67.2 square miles, the largest in the state. New Milford - which is first in land - with 61.6 square miles, ranks second in total area with 63.7 square miles. In comparison, Stamford – Greenwich's next door neighbor and the third most populated city in Connecticut – has a total area of 52.03 square miles – more than 17 square miles less than Greenwich. Blankley said that over the final days of a seven-week campaign he will contact voters through mailers, phone calls and at public events. He said that door-to-door canvassing is less effective in an abbreviated race. He said, "You have to go to places where there are large groups of people."