Don’t let present problem define us
To the West Haven Community:
As a life-long resident of the City of West Haven, I am saddened by the recent events facing our city. It is very upsetting that monies intended to help our community recover from the COVID-19 pandemic have allegedly been diverted for personal use.
As the Chairman of the City Council, I want to say I am sorry to our community that this has occurred. Multiple audits and investigations are in process to determine exactly what gaps led this to occur. Emergency fiscal control measures have been put in place until a full set of actions are taken based on the audit findings.
We have done much work over the last few years in partnership with the State of Connecticut to improve our overall fiscal condition and balance a $165 million budget. However, while it matters, I understand how it is overshadowed by what is currently taking place.
This council has worked through some unique challenges including governing with state oversight and meeting remotely for a year and a half during a global pandemic. While we have worked hard, we clearly can do more to be better stewards of the city’s assets.
I understand that we need to be patient during these audits and investigations. That does not make it any easier because I, am, like you anxious for answers on how this could happen. I can assure you that as soon as the council is presented with the findings of these audits that they will be publicly reviewed, and the appropriate actions will be taken.
I take this issue very seriously, but I will not, nor should you, let this issue define who we are as a community. Bad things happen in life and lessons will be learned, but the good that is done in this community each and every day by the hardworking people of West Haven is what will continue to shine through even in the darkest of times.
Ronald M. Quagliani
Thinks objective thinking is unbalanced
I am worried that the editor no longer thinks rationally. In his reply to Barbara Cavallaro on Sept. 29, he states that in relation to Ben Franklin, who originally opposed vaccine mandates only to regret his decision later after the death of his 4-year-old son to smallpox, Franklin “…might have subjectively regretted it, but objectively he was correct. That’s all that matters.”
Franklin wrote in his autobiography “In 1736 I lost one of my Sons, a fine Boy of 4 Years old, taken by the Small Pox in the common way. I long regretted that I had not given it to him by Inoculation, which I mention for the Sake of Parents, who omit that Operation on the Supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a Child died under it; my Example showing that the Regret may be the same either way, and that therefore the safer should be chosen.”
One can only hope that the editor himself does not have to feel the regret that Franklin felt; however, from his response to Ms. Cavallaro, I can only imagine that if he lost an unvaccinated family member, friend, or neighbor to Covid-19, he would sleep happily and soundly knowing he was, in his own mind, “right.”
Hey, that’s all that matters.
Dominic Francese
Ed Note: Because I think in a rationally, I made the response. Whether Franklin regretted it or not, his reasoning was sound: Government should not make that decision. Full. Stop. It is because modernity only thinks subjectively, we are in the fix we’re in governmentally, socially, and institutionally. Situational morality is no morality at all.