Cheshire's solar homes

In case you were curious, as of October 2013, Cheshire had about 30 homes with rooftop solar electric panels.  Here's a map:

I'm hoping to organize a couple "solar home tours" in the next month or two to help people visualize and understand what it means to "go solar!"  And keep in mind, you can now go solar with no-money-down and have a net savings on your CL&P bill from the beginning.

Lying to start a war: What's new?

Although President Obama is beginning to tacitly acknowledge the lies on which he predicated his call for war on Syria... and now admitting that he just wants to show Iran that he's the toughest kid on the block... I think it's worth reminding ourselves of history... and the lies that were told to involve the USA in other wars.

Due to my father, I'm fairly knowledgeable about the Vietnam War. Here's a copy of the letter he sent to the New Haven Register on December 7, 1967. His letter got him called by Senator Fulbright to testify about the truth of how we were dragged into that war.

More to come to explain the immediate consequences and long-term results of my dad speaking truth to power.

Tim White

The Gulf of Tonkin and U.S. Foreign Policy: A Personal Note

By John White, 
Cheshire, Connecticut

The U.S. war in Vietnam essentially began in August 1964 in response to what our government claimed was an unprovoked attack upon two naval ships, the destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy, while they were steaming peacefully on the high seas in the Gulf of Tonkin.  Although there was a U.S. military presence in Vietnam prior to that, the Tonkin events led to congressional action which allowed President Lyndon Johnson (and, later, President Richard Nixon) to escalate our military presence enormously and to wage war not only in Vietnam but also covertly in Southeast Asia.

Among the many books written about the Vietnam War, half a dozen note a 1967 letter to a Connecticut newspaper which was instrumental in pressing the Johnson administration to tell the truth about how the war was started.  The letter was mine.  It became, in the words of one book about the Tonkin Gulf events, "a national sensation."  

I wrote the letter to my local newspaper, the New Haven Register in December 1967, accusing President Johnson, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff of giving false information to Congress in their report about American destroyers being attacked in the Gulf on August 4, 1964.  I identified myself as a former naval officer and said I based my charge on two sources of information:  (1) reading the classified radio messages sent at that time by the two allegedly attacked destroyers, USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy, and (2) talking, a few months later, with the chief sonarman (whose name I did not recall) of the Maddox.  (It became clear later that I was mistaken about him being on the Maddox.  He was on the Turner Joy.)

My letter got international attention.  I was covered by everything from the wire services, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS Evening News and TV crews from Japan and the Netherlands to local media, radio interviews across the country and a documentary film, In the Year of the Pig.  Even the Soviet Military Review got into the act, saying I had "confessed" to a frame-up in Vietnam.  Change “national sensation” to “international.”

My letter helped Senator J. William Fulbright (D-Arkansas) to launch the Senate Foreign Relations Committee into a full-scale investigation of the Tonkin events.  He brought me to Washington to testify, and was soon locking horns with the Administration.  

My intention in going public was to help end the war.  It was a matter of conscience for me.  While I was in Vietnam, I'd felt the U.S. was right to be there defending democracy against Communism.  But after leaving naval service in June 1965, I began to have doubts as I learned things contrary to the military mindset and to what my fellow officers and I had been told by a Vietnamese general who briefed us in Danang, where my ship, the USS Pine Island (AV-12), had gone in response to the Tonkin events to set up a seaplane base immediately after the alleged attack.  The Pine Island, which had been in Japan at the time, was the first ship to enter the war zone from outside, although several other U.S. naval ships were already there.  I was the Pine Island's nuclear weapons officer.  The ship’s nuclear weapons storage area held 40 Mark-101 nuclear depth bombs, each with a 10-kiloton payload.  That is what we would have loaded aboard P5M seaplanes to be dropped on enemy submarines, if so ordered.  Thankfully, no such order was given, and after two weeks in Danang we went back to normal peacetime steaming around the Pacific.

In time, I came to feel I'd been conned and that America had no moral right to be in Vietnam.   I saw the U.S. policy not as making the world safe for democracy, but as making the world safe for hypocrisy.  Moreover, the war itself looked increasingly unwinnable by America.  As the body count mounted in an action I regarded as militarily and morally wrong, I became active in the antiwar movement as a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.  I didn’t march in the streets carrying a placard, but I did sign on to an ad by VVAW which was published in The New Republic over the names of several hundred Vietnam vets, including mine.  (I left the VVAW about 1969, after two years’ membership, because my inclination toward that sort of political action waned.  I recognized that the antiwar movement was not the same thing as the peace movement.  The former was political, the latter was spiritual.  The former was based on anger, the latter was based on “the peace which passeth all understanding.”  Moreover, the peace movement—the process of developing inner peace or enlightenment as the basis for outer peace or world unity—applied to all aspects of society and culture, not just the political.  Cessation of hostilities is a necessary step but it is not the final step.  The peace movement, as slow, difficult and uncertain as it may be, is senior to the antiwar movement because it has a more fundamental aim.  Inner peace is world peace.)

Although I felt that an ad wouldn’t be enough to end the war, I was unsure of what else I might do.  Then in November 1967, I heard Senator Wayne Morse (D-Oregon) say on the evening news that President Johnson was replacing the Constitution with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.  Morse’s remark dissolved my perplexity and crystallized something deep within me.  Because of his comment, I thought I could help the antiwar effort and my country by undercutting the basis on which the war was conducted, namely, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.  

I knew the resolution was based on false information.  Johnson had a draft of it in his back pocket, so to speak, when he addressed Congress on August 5, 1964; his staff had written it six weeks earlier.  He called for Congress to rally ‘round the flag and then stampeded it into authorizing a legal instrument which allowed him to "take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent any further aggression."  So, after several weeks’ anxious reflection on the situation—”Am I sure about this?” “Will I get fired from my job?” “Will I hear a knock on the door from the FBI?”—I wrote my letter.

Twenty Years Later

There was social uproar, but there was no knock on the door, so I got on with my life.  In 1987 the radio messages were declassified and confirmed my story.  Twenty years after I'd come forward, with more than a bit of apprehension about the possibility of being charged with treason for revealing secret information, I was pleased to have my story completed and to feel "cleared" of the "crime" of speaking out against what I saw as government deception.  That deception was real and, as we now know, ultimately led to the tragic loss of more than 58,000 Americans, billions of dollars of materiel, and a clear sense of national unity and purpose.  

It was far worse for Vietnam and Southeast Asia, of course, where the destruction was enormous and the death toll ran into the millions.  (But note that many of those deaths were committed by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong against their own people.  Note also that China and the Soviet Union were the main weapon suppliers to the North.  There is plenty of blame to go all around.)  

In his 1995 book In Retrospect, Robert McNamara acknowledged that the Vietnam war was a mistake, but he only admitted errors of judgment, not deception and coverup.  Furthermore, in the 2003 documentary The Fog of War, McNamara admitted that the August 4 attack never happened.  (For more on this, see the “Gulf of Tonkin Incident” Wikipedia page.)  Shame on him! 

As for me, I never felt unpatriotic about what I did, although I was considered so by some people.  I was antiwar but not antimilitary.  I supported our troops but not our foreign policy which put them there.  I separated the war from the warriors, some of whom were my friends and comrades-in-arms.  I opposed the former but honored the latter.  I respected their service and sacrifice.  I didn't want to see them come home in body bags because of an unconstitutional and just-plain-wrong conflict.  At a time when the debate was between the hawks and the doves, I sought to be an eagle.  Eagles spread their wings and soar on an updraft of the American Spirit.  (But note well:  it’s hard to soar like an eagle when you’re surrounded by turkeys and thinking like one!)

True America or False America?

I believe America's freedom must be defended from all enemies, foreign or domestic.  I also believe there are more than a few of the latter kind in positions of social, commercial, industrial, financial and political power who use their influence and resources in what can be called conspiratorial fashion—i.e., the New World Order—to extend their power and to increase their wealth through manufactured situations such as the Vietnam debacle.  (Three of the current phrases for such phony ventures are "nation-building," “pacification” and “stability mission”.)  

Therefore I challenged a government policy because I felt it was unconstitutional and contrary to the best interests of our nation, our armed forces and the world itself.  Defense of the homeland is noble; offensive tactics beyond our borders is not.  Our internal enemies are destroying the American Republic and American freedom—True America—to advance their objective of an American Empire ruled by them—False America.  Make no mistake about it:  if they are successful, America will become a totalitarian tyranny run by an oligarchy.  For an insider look at the origins of the Vietnam War, see Laurence H. Shoup and William Minter’s 1977 Imperial Brain Trust:  The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy. 1

It is the duty of soldiers to follow orders, not to question the mission they’re sent on by their government.  However, in a self-governing republic such as ours, it is the duty of citizens to inspect, question and, if need be, challenge the missions on which government sends soldiers into action.  Patriotism requires close citizen scrutiny of government policy and practice, especially where the commitment of American lives is involved.  Being a serving soldier does not mean being nonpolitical.  As George Washington put it, “When we assumed the soldier, we did not lay aside the citizen.”  

We the People are the owners of the country and the masters of the government—including, through the right to vote, those in uniform—and if you have to take some heat for asserting that against scoundrels who wrap themselves in the flag to justify their illegal, immoral actions, so be it.  As Americans have learned the hard way, the U.S. government sometimes sacrifices American GIs for worthless causes such as “nation-building” in Haiti and Serbia, and “pacification” in Mogadishu and Kosovo, where there is no threat to our national security, but a lot of power and wealth to be gained by what President Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex.  In his Farewell Address of January 17, 1961, he said:  

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

Today it’s more accurate to call it the military-industrial-financial-intelligence complex because so much of our foreign policy gets generated by intelligence agencies and think tanks advising the State Department and the President, who themselves are in the hands of Wall Street.  Saddam Hussein was a U.S. ally before Gulf War One.  So was Osama bin Laden.  America armed them both in an effort to secure the Middle East for ourselves—that is, our commercial and industrial corporations and banks.  

Civil War General William T. Sherman famously said, “War is hell.”  Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler expanded on that in his 1935 book War Is a Racket, which condemned U. S. adventurism and the profit motive behind warfare.  It could be summed up like this:  “War is sell.”  To quote Butler:  “The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent.  Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.”

National Interest vs. Personal Agendas

When I’m overwhelmed by grief in remembrance of the gallant men and women who gave their lives in military service to America—more than one million of them since 1775—only part of that grief is for those who didn’t return and for their loved ones who lost them.  The other part of my grief is for the sheer foolishness of nations, governments and factions which think they have to go to war to settle differences, and for the sheer evil of those in command, both civilian and military, who generate wars to advance a personal agenda under the guise of patriotism.

America must never start or generate a war.  We should have a strong military to defend our nation—that can include preemptive strikes if a threat is clear and imminent—and we should thank God for the courageous men and women who volunteer to serve.  But war must never be an instrument of foreign policy or commercial interests.  Offensive war is rightly condemned by a soldier's conscience.

The only sensible and honorable foreign policy for America is strict neutrality.  That means nonalliance, nonintervention, and no meddling in the internal affairs of other nations.  It means free and fair trade with all who want it, friendly relations with all who want that, and a strong national defense, including properly supervised intelligence operations, against those who do not want friendly relations.  

Our nation also should stop acting as policeman of the world and withdraw from all military treaties so we are not drawn into war by proxy.  George Washington warned us in his Farewell Address (1797) to avoid all entangling alliances.  “Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world,”  he said.  Thomas Jefferson agreed; in 1799 he wrote, “Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.”   Two decades earlier, Benjamin Franklin put it succinctly:  “The system of America is to have commerce with all, and war with none.”

Their advice is still sound, especially since NATO is being turned into the standing army of the United Nations.  Kofi Annan, the former Secretary General of the UN, has stated publicly that NATO forces will be sent anywhere in the world to impose “stability missions.”  Ban Ki-moon, Annan’s successor, has said the same thing.

As for our country policing the world, I have a question.  America has 200,000 troops stationed at 800 bases in 140 countries around the world, but we can’t control our own borders, especially the U.S.-Mexican border, where illegal aliens and narcoterrorists come and go freely.  What’s wrong with this picture?

FOOTNOTES

1 According to the description given on its Amazon.com web page, Imperial Brain Trust is “the classic study of the Council on Foreign Relations, an organization that has, for decades, played a central behind the scenes role in shaping…foreign policy choices. This private club and think tank, bringing together the New York establishment and the Washington foreign policy elite as well as other powerful forces, took the lead in laying out the plans for post-World War Two international order. The Council also traced the key guidelines for Cold War intervention and vetted and advised generations of White House officials…  [The] Council on Foreign Relations continues to mark the boundaries of what insiders consider to be respectable foreign policy discussion, helping aspirants to policy influence test out their schemes for establishment approval.”  Accompanying reviews of the book say:

...A thoroughly researched expose of the discreet workings of the powerful Council on Foreign Relations...an influential oligarchy which not only studies but forms U.S. policy. With keen insight, the authors trace the origins of the increased power of the organization... 

— American Library Association Booklist

...the first in-depth analysis of the activities and influence of the most important private institution in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy...Shoup and Minter's work is based on detailed research, including examination of material hitherto unavailable to the public...this work will stand as a milestone." 

—Library Journal

The Foreword to the book says it reveals how “monopoly capitalists in the Council on Foreign Relations carefully and secretively planned the policies of modern-day imperialism and then introduced them into government.”

With regard to Vietnam and Southeast Asia, Shoup and Minter say, the CFR decided in the 1950s that Southeast Asia must remain under U.S. influence in order to serve as a market for trade and natural resources needed by U.S. businesses.  Military force was recommended as early as the 1950s for maintaining U.S. hegemony in the area. 

The Pentagon Papers “leaked” by Pentagon official Daniel Ellsberg gave dramatic proof of the devious and dishonest way our government, under five presidents (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon), maneuvered our nation into the war and escalated it.  For a video summary of the 7,000 pages of top secret documents and the history of their release, see The Most Dangerous Man in America, a documentary film available on DVD.

For more information on the Council on Foreign Relations, see James Perloff’s 1988 The Shadows of Power:  The Council on Foreign Relations and the American Decline.  A history of the CFR, Amazon.com describes it as exposing “the subversive roots and global designs of the CFR.”   It adds, “Passed off as a think-tank, this group is a key ‘power behind the throne,’ with hundreds of top-appointed government officials drawn from its ranks. Traces activity from the Wilson to Reagan administrations.”

The Council, Perloff writes, while remaining largely unknown to the public, has exercised decisive impact on U.S. policy, especially foreign policy, for several decades.  It has achieved this primarily in two ways.  The first is by directly supplying personnel for upper echelon government jobs.  The second major way in which the Council affects policy is in formulating and marketing recommendations.  (See the chapter on the Vietnam War.)

A earlier and longer version of this essay was published in The Barnes Review in September-October 1999.

Solar electric panels... by the numbers

As I've been explaining, I'm advocating that Cheshire respond to the state's RFP for the third phase of a program called Solarize CT.  And now, the Town Council Chairman, Tim Slocum, has placed it on their agenda for Tuesday, July 9th @ 7:30pm in Town Hall.  Needless to say, I plan to be there and offer as much explanation as possible.  But numbers can be easier to understand in writing, so I'm explaining the economics here.  And you probably want to know...

How much does it cost for a typical home to get solar panels?

Without this program, it might be normal for a 2000 sq ft home in Cheshire to pay about $32,000 for solar panels.  That's based on a typical home using 700 kWh / month.  For your own understanding, check one of your CL&P bills to see if you use 700 kWh / month.  But in the meantime...

700kWh x 12mos = 8400 kWh / yr

So you need to generate 8400 kWh / yr.  And here in CT, we're lucky that we have a law allowing for net metering.  Net metering means that although you use electricity at night, if your solar panels generate more electricity during the day, the two get netted and you do not need to pay for generation or delivery services.

How many solar panels does a typical home need to generate 8400 kWh / yr?

A house normally gets about 7 kW of generation capacity installed.  And kW is how solar electric panels are normally described by manufacturers and installers.  But of course, the panels are not generating electricity all the time, such as at night.  In fact, the CT DEEP suggests that the typical generation capacity of solar electric in CT is 13%.  In other words, on average, panels work 13% of the time.  So here's the calculation to to get you to 8400 kWh / yr:

(7.1 kW) x (24 hrs / day) x (365 days / yr) x 13% = 8100 kWh / yr

So much does it cost to install 7.1 kW of solar panels?

Results from Phase 1 of Solarize CT (occurred from Sept 2012 to Jan 2013... and Phase 2 is ongoing) showed that homes in Solarize towns* installed an average of 7.1 kW at a cost of $27,000 before rebates & tax credits.  Among the other 165 and during the same period, homes paid an average of $35,000 for a similar installation.

Those numbers are typically discussed in terms of $ / W or $ / kW.  So the Solarize towns were paying about $3800 / kW and non-Solarize towns were paying about $4900 / kW.  And those costs are typically broken down into hard costs (hardware) and soft costs (labor).

The hardware comes from China and those costs are not dropping dramatically.  They were probably about $2000 / kW in 2011 and about $2000 / kW today.  Not stable like hard costs, the soft costs are dropping.  They were about $4000 / kW in 2011 and are now in the range of $1800 to $2900 / kW.

It's the soft costs where this program hopes to help homeowners save money, as well as do right for the environment.  Here are some ways where economies of scale can be achieved quickly with this program:

1) CT has 1.4 million homes.  We also have about 70 to 80 solar electric installers.  With 169 towns, we have about 13,000 initial contacts to be made between solar installers and town building inspectors. Yet CT now has only about 5000 solar electric installations, including about 30 to 40 in Cheshire.  The initial contacts between installers and building inspectors takes time.  By participating in this program and suggesting a preferred installer, the goal is to reduce time costs, such as this.

2) Ten installations in ten towns will require more travel time than ten installations in one town.

3) The cost of customer acquisition for solar installers is quite high.  This program hopes to leverage existing social networks in town to spread the word about the opportunity.  It's similar to Cheshire's Neighbor-to-Neighbor program for which we just got a letter in the mail this weekend.  N2N demonstrated that this approach can be successful in increasing awareness.

Anyway, these are some of the ways in which this program can help reduce the high cost of solar electric.  And while history cannot predict the future, it does suggest that the program itself may help reduce the cost of solar electric in Solarize towns.  And while solar electric panels probably now cost around $4500 / kW statewide, I suspect this program could help reduce those costs even further.

It's entirely possible that Cheshire could average $3750 / kW.  That would place the cost of 7.1 kW of solar panels at $26,600.  And then there's the state rebate of $1750 / kW, reducing the cost to $2000 / kW.  And depending on your income, there's also a 30% federal tax credit.  That would reduce the cost to $1325 / kW.

At $1325 / kW for 7.1 kW, you'd pay $9400 for your solar electric installation.

Now, let's break down your electric bill.  You probably have three parts:

1) generation services... this is the relatively new program where you choose your supplier.

2) delivery services... this is CL&Ps business.  They buy the electricity.  It may come from the nuke in Waterford, a gas plant in Middletown, a hydro plant in Quebec or somewhere else.  But it doesn't matter where the generator is located, CL&P handles the delivery.

3) interconnection services... this also gets paid to CL&P.

For all of the solar electricity that your panels generate, you pay neither generation nor delivery services.  However, as long as you are connected to the grid, you'll pay the CL&P fee which is currently $16 / month.

Assuming that you stay grid-connected, you can only avoid the generation and delivery services.  An example rate for these two services is $0.07 / kWh for generation and $0.05 / kWh for delivery, but check your bill to see exact numbers.

At $0.12 / kWh for 700 kWh / mo, you pay $85 per month for your electric bill.  That means you pay $1000 / yr for electricity.

$9400 / $1000 per year = 9.4 years payback

And with an estimated useful life of 20 to 25 years, this means that after ten years your electricity is free!

Ok, ok... it's a bit more complicated than that.  But this story is already really long.  And I imagine you're already bored.  :)  So I'll end it here and say... don't be shy about questioning me.  I'm trying to give you the basics, while giving the most pertinent details.  And when it comes to energy, this stuff tends to require lots of explanation.

Hope this was helpful.  Please be in touch!  If the Council approves the RFP response, I understand the State will be announcing their decision by July 31 with the program to occur from September 2013 to January 2014.  So things could start moving fast.

Tim White

p.s. In the interest of full disclosure, although I'm currently a full-time student at Yale's Environmental School, I'm interning this summer at CTs Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority (CEFIA).  CEFIA is the quasi-public agency that is running the Solarize program.

* Four of the 169 towns participated in Solarize

Cheshire properties - some GIS maps

Have you ever wondered about the owner of a particular property in Cheshire?

Or perhaps you've been curious where the new (post-2011) voting district lines have been drawn?

Or a variety of details about Cheshire properties, such as:

- Aquifer Protection Area
- Prime Farmland Soil
- FEMA Flood Zone
- Open Space
- Cheshire Zoning

If so, you can find details here.  And you should also be able to navigate to find other towns in the greater Waterbury area.

Tim White

Increasing the use of solar energy in Cheshire (2 of 3)

As I mentioned in my previous post, Connecticut faces some serious electricity problems.  This is due to our reliance on centralized generation (CG).  An alternative to the CG -- typically provided by nuclear, natural gas and coal-fired power plants -- is distributed generation (DG).

Probably the most common existing form of DG is a household generator.  (I quickly found a 4 kW generator online for $400, while a 7 kW generator is listed at $900.  Installation by an electrician may run the cost up to $2,000.)

Another -- and increasingly popular -- form of DG is solar electricity.  It's also known as a photovoltaic array or PV.  Solar electric is the cause of the Solarize CT campaign.  And it's the Solarize CT campaign that I hope to bring to Cheshire as Solarize Cheshire!

Why undertake a campaign?  Why bother?

The Solarize campaign concept began in Massachusetts and had demonstrable results.  So the State of CT decided to undertake a similar campaign to increase the use of solar electric in The Land of Steady Habits.

Thus far, the campaign has existed in three outreach phases:

- Phase 1 occurred from Sept 2012 to Jan 2013.

- Phase 2 is ongoing, beginning around April 2013 with a scheduled completion of July 2013.

- Phase 3 has not yet begun, though the State's RFP was issued about three weeks ago with a July 12th deadline... and the campaign to be undertaken from Sept 2013 to Jan 2014.

It's the current RFP of Phase 3 that has my interest because the program has shown clear results.

Not only has the program reduced the cost of solar by about $8,000 / home, it's also increased the number of homes getting solar electric installed by ten-fold.  That means more local jobs, rather than jobs in CG plants that will probably be both distant and have negative impacts on the environment.

$8,000 is a lot of money.  How do I get that savings?

A typical CT home buys about 7.1kW of solar electric.  Of CT's 169 towns, four participated in Solarize Phase 1.  Within those four towns, the average cost of one kW was about $3,800.  Within the other 165 towns, the average cost of one kW was about $4,900.

So instead of paying about $35,000 for your solar electric installation, you pay about $27,000.  And yes, at $27,000, the economics make sense.  Just consider what you pay for your monthly electric bill.

$27,000 is a lot of money.  How does that help me?

You probably pay around $100/mo to CL&P.  That translates to about $1200/yr.  And with an estimated 25 year life for solar electric panels, you'd get a payback at around 22 years.  But that's not accounting for benefits like the 30% federal income tax credit that you can take.

More on the numbers later.  I'll leave it here for now and try to elaborate further this weekend.

Tim White

Increasing the use of solar energy in Cheshire (1 of 3)

The State of Connecticut has major electricity difficulties in our future.  It's true that CT produces (~33million MWh) more electricity than we consume (~30million MWh) annually, but peaking issues complicate the matter.  In other words, we consume a lot more energy on July afternoons than we consume at 3am in mid-May.

Peaking issues lead to our current transmission need for importing electricity from other places, such as Quebec's hydro power, via the Northern Pass that cuts south through New Hampshire and Massachusetts.  Obviously, this leads to environmental concerns.  But the transmission issues are not the only delivery problem we face.

We have delivery service problems with both transmission and distribution.  While transmission services bring electricity across great distances at high voltage, distribution services bring low voltage electricity from the "step down" transformers to your house.  And it's with the power lines on your street that we face another problem:  old infrastructure.

So our electricity problems face both transmission and distribution issues, along with other issues, such as the emissions from fossil fuels plants.  One way to address these issues is to generate electricity in CT.

Solar photovoltaic arrays (PV) are one way to do this.  Although current PV technology is not a panacea, it would mitigate the problems we face in the Constitution State.  That's why we're trying to take action in Cheshire.

The idea started with the state program Solarize CT.  I'll explain that in an upcoming post, but I need to sign off for the night.

Tim White

Sequester closure date for Connecticut airports

For all the bluster over the dire consequences of sequestration, the only thing that's caught my attention has been airport closings.  I've used Tweed New Haven in the past and could use it again.  But when March 1st came and went and nothing changed, I finished my yawn... having had my views of government officials reinforced.  (That is, they knowingly lie or are too clueless to ask the right questions and get real answers.)

Anyway, for the Nutmeggers who are interested in when the sequestration is supposed to impact CT airports, I found the airport closing list here.  CTs airports are listed as follows:

Stratford (BDR) -- 5 May 2013
Danbury (DXR) -- 5 May 2013
Groton (GON) -- 21 April 2013
Hartford (HFD) -- 5 May 2013
New Haven (HVN) -- 5 May 2013
Oxford (OXC) -- 5 May 2013

Just outside of CTs borders is Westchester Airport.  I don't see it on the closure list.  As well, news reports seem to say that Hartford's Bradley (BDL) isn't impacted.  And I'm guessing that small airports, such as Meriden, don't have towers?  Regardless, I was curious about Tweed.  And I got my answer:  May 5th is the targeted date for closure.

Tim White

Summer-only pool?

At the February Council meeting I voiced my opposition to spending more money to fix the bubble damage that occurred during Nemo.  I've been tired of the pool spending for years... as I think a majority of town residents have been too.  But for years the Council had supported the never-ending spending that had been predicated on the 1996 fallacy that the pool would be:

1) open all year; and

2) self-supporting.

But is the never-ending supporting coming to an end?

Is the Town Council's view of the "need" for a year-round pool -- broken from the attached promise of self-sufficiency -- moving?

The MRJ is reporting on that two Council members, Tom Ruocco and David Schrumm, are also voicing spending concerns.  And while Tom has fought the unnecessary pool spending for years, David's shift is significant in the movement toward ending the wasteful pool spending.  While there have been many such pool spending votes, one of the more memorable that comes to mind is the $20,000 that got thrown away on a pool consultant.

The MRJs Eve Britton reports:

Town Council Budget Committee Chairman David Schrumm agreed that a permanent solution has to be found, and if it can’t be, making it a summer-only pool is the only viable option.

If David is serious about moving beyond the bubble, then the Council may finally be moving toward a real solution -- summer only.  As a member of the Council I voted to send the failed $7,000,000 permanent structure to the voters for consideration.  We've already gone down the path of a permanent structure and the voters rejected it 61% to 39%.  And considering the costs involved, I find it hard to believe a not-for-profit will want to take on the pool.

The logical option is summer-only.  Particularly if the cost to fix the bubble -- less insurance reimbursements -- is significant, I hope the Council seriously considers moving to a summer-only pool.

Tim White

Cheshire's census data: mapping income

While the US Constitution calls for an actual enumeration of Americans, the enumeration (basically the US Census) no longer includes income data.  It's now conducted via the American Community Survey.

If you're interested in learning more about Cheshire's income, you can click here.  It's a map that shows Cheshire as five neighborhoods:  northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest & east (central).  The "neighborhoods" generally mirror Cheshire's four Council districts and have median household incomes as follows:

Northeast:  $124,000

Northwest:  $112,000

Southeast:  $98,000

Southwest:  $112,000

East (central):  $99,000

So I guess I live in Cheshire's "poor neighborhood."  j/k.  There certainly are some people in need, but I don't think any 20% segment of Cheshire can be considered poor.

Tim White

Cheshire election history (1979-2012): CEO turnout

In the continuing series on Cheshire's election history, here you can see three data points for Cheshire's elections for POTUS:

1 - voter registration

2 - voter turnout (total # of voters who cast a ballot); and

3 - votes for President (total # of voters who cast a ballot for President.



Here are the equivalent data for Gubernatorial races:



Due to my inability to manipulate excel, I separated the two trends into two different graphs. Furthermore, I matched the voter registrations to the year of the election. As a result, the voter registration trends for POTUS and Governor are different.

And here's the graph that I thought may be of most interest to you, % turnout by year. Again though, I faced system constraints with excel. So I coupled two successive elections together for each point on the horizontal axis. Anyway, you can see here that about 80% to 90% of Cheshire voters typically turnout for a Presidential election... while 60% to 70% turnout for Gubernatorial elections.



And of course, you can find my source data here.

Tim White

CCM vote: Forget R vs. D, think Authoritarians vs. Populists

As I noted in a recent post, some Council members were surprised by -- and concerned about -- a recent TM vote at a CCM meeting. And the concern did not fall along party lines.

Council members David Schrumm (R) and Peter Talbot (D) were quite comfortable with the TMs vote. Some Council members -- including Patti Flynn Harris (D), Tom Ruocco (R), Jimmy Sima (R) and Chairman Tim Slocum (R) -- were not happy with the TMs vote because he spoke for the Council without ever having received any Council guidance. One Council member, Mike Ecke (D), saw "both sides" of the issue.

This non-party line view reminded me of a little discussed concern that was addressed in 1824 by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Henry Lee:

Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties:

1. Those that fear and distrust people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes.

2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depository of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist; and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves.

Far too often the public discourse focuses on Republicans vs. Democrats. But much of the time, I feel that the less discussed issue -- authoritarianism vs. populism or aristocrats vs. republicans / democrats -- is the more important issue.

In this situation of the TMs vote, it seems likely to me that you have a possible window into the authoritarian / populist tendencies of Council members.

And as Jefferson wrote that I would... I declare myself as an aspirant for belonging to the second group.

Tim White

Cheshire election history (1979-2012): The power of incumbency

From 1979 to 2012, we've had 17 local elections.  We've also had four Council districts (1st District, 2nd District, 3rd District, and 4th District) since Cheshire got a Charter with elections beginning in November 1971.  So since 1979, we've had 68 Council district elections.

Of those 68 elections, only four elections have seen elected incumbents defeated:

1991 -- 3rd District, George Bowman (D) defeated Gil Leslie (R)

1995 -- 2nd District, Tom Stretton (D) defeated John Perotti (R)

2003 -- 4th District, Tim White (R) defeated Lynn Salzer (D)

2009 -- 3rd District, Andy Falvey (R) defeated Laura Dicaprio (D)

There have been a number of appointed incumbents defeated at the polls.  But my point here is about the power of incumbency for elected Council members.

So only four times in 68 elections* have elected incumbents lost reelection.  Elected incumbents normally win.  And two times, elected incumbents were not even challenged:

2001 -- 1st District, Sheldon Dill (R)

2011 -- 1st District, David Schrumm (R)

Before I began this study of Cheshire's election history, I knew that the federal and state levels reelected incumbents about 95% of the time.  Now we know that the same holds true for local elections in the Council districts.

And one last tidbit... of the four challengers who won, three of them won on their first time out.  Who was the stupid one who thought he could beat the odds even after losing once?  Me!  :)

Tim White

* Of the 68 elections, I'm not really certain that it was all elected incumbents who ran in the 1979 contest.  And I did find the 1971 to 1977 election records in the Town Clerk's Office, but they're not a high priority for me.  So that data collection will wait.

Council views on Town Manager's CCM vote

In a January 17th post I raised an issue related to the unelected Town Manager who, during the prior week, went beyond his authority at a CCM meeting in which a vote was taken on gun control.

Following the vote, on January 16, the MRJ printed this article in which the unelected TM opines on the measures:

I think that they were very reasonable

This caught my attention because the elected Council had not deliberated gun control during a public meeting. So I posted the following question intended for elected Council members:

Did you publicly, or privately, either individually or collectively, direct the TM to advocate for this?

And thanks to the press, we're beginning to understand the views of elected Council members, particularly on the extent to which the unelected TM has authority to speak as a representative of Cheshire. The MRJ kicked off our understanding with this January 17 piece:

Ruocco (R) - “It’s frustrating when you get emails from people who are upset. They feel like they’ve gotten sidestepped"

Flynn-Harris (D) - said Milone shouldn’t have cast the vote if it was viewed as representing town government’s position on gun policy.

Talbot (D) - had no issue with Milone’s vote, saying the town manager is asked to represent the town at CCM.

The Cheshire Patch largely rehashed the MRJ talking points, but the WRA added some new insights on the unelected TMs authority to use his office to advocate his own personal political agenda without any guidance or direction from elected Council members:

Ecke (D) - sees "both sides"

Slocum (R) - the Councilman named in the WRA piece "Manager chided for vote"

Separate and apart from the above news pieces:

Sima (R) - agrees with Ruocco and Slocum that the TM overstepped his authority

Schrumm (R) - agrees with Talbot that this vote represented the personal view of the TM, not the view of the Town

Falvey (R) - unknown

Nichols (R) - unknown

Interesting to me is that these responses regarding the TM's vote do not fall along party lines.

But perhaps the most telling comment so far came from our northern border via the MRJ:

Southington Town Manager Garry Brumback was present at the meeting but abstained from voting. “My job is not to participate in policy discussions,” he said. “My job is to implement.”

Tim White

Cheshire election history (1979 - 2012): US House

Continuing with Cheshire's election history since 1979, I offer the history of our Congressional elections. For all of this time, we've been a part of the US House's 5th Congressional district or CT-5.

You'll notice that for the CT-5 I've included both non-major parties and "blank" votes.  And I feel it's worth noting that a good amount of non-major party votes include cross-endorsements for major party candidates, such as 900 votes for Chris Murphy in 2008 on the Working Families party line.

And as we write the history books on Cheshire politics, as I've mentioned before, in 2005 Chris Murphy went to Rahm Emanuel and asked for money to run against then-incumbent Congressman Nancy Johnson. When Rahm asked for evidence that the CT-5 was winnable, Murphy pointed to electoral trends in Cheshire, such as party affiliation.

Murphy got the money and it appears to me that recent history has proved Chris Murphy's assertions to be true.

For the source data on this graph, click here.

Tim White

A day in the life: The doors of Cap Haitien

Haiti's main city is Port-au-Prince. PAP is the capitol and the heart of Haiti. It can seem like an entirely different world from the rest of Haiti. Sometimes PAP is even called the "Republic of Port-au-Prince." :)

There are other cities in Haiti though. The second biggest city in Haiti is Cap Haitien. I had the chance to visit in August 2011. Although my main draw to Cap Haitien was the awe-inspiring Citadelle, what I found was... in its own way... enchanting. I give you...

The doors of Cap Haitien!




I love the colors...


especially the pastels...



Look... Donald and Mickey are everywhere!


This is a lottery stall of sorts. It's one of thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of such gambling halls across Haiti.


And again... those beautiful Caribbean pastels.




Tim White