
Team Tripp must figure voters have short memories. According to their campaign literature, they are running on a campaign of fiscal responsibility and lower taxes. Yet their team consists of candidates who have raised taxes in the past, and pledge to raise them in the future!
Remember the 13-point mill increase that crushed taxpayers in 2013? Well Third Ward alderman candidate Joseph Jeanette voted for it. In fact, it’s hard to find a proposed tax increase he didn’t vote for during his previous decade on the Board of Aldermen.
Does Team Tripp think Third Ward votes want a repeat performance from Mr. Jeanette? Or do they think the Third Ward has acquired collective amnesia?
There’s also Tarek Raslan, who has publicly stated that higher taxes are something “he would support.” (Ansonia budget hearing on 5/24/17). Not to mention his continual argument that departments should be funded at the level they request, rather than the level taxpayers can afford.
A further example is Nina Phipps, running for alderman in the First Ward. And her father-in-law Bill Phipps, running in the Second Ward. Both related to Chris Phipps, who sits on the Board of Education.
Is there any doubt what would happen if the Phipps family was asked to raise taxes in support of a certain department?
If voters are concerned about taxes, it makes little sense to think they would vote for the candidates most likely to raise them. Yet this is exactly what the Tripp team is asking.
The writer is a former Ansonia resident now living in Florida.
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