As drought grips state, Greenwich officials weigh emergency climate declaration

As the state declared a Stage 2 drought in all eight counties of CT last week and the Town opened cooling stations, the Greenwich Board of Selectmen weighed a motion brought by Greenwich High School students to join surrounding CT municipalities like

Stamford in adopting a climate emergency resolution.

First Selectman Fred Camillo thanked the students, but was wary of adopting a climate resolution containing the word "emergency." The students are continuing to meet with BET and Planning and Zoning Commission members to revise the proposed resolution.

Democratic Selectperson Janet Stone-McGuigan, co-chair of the town’s Sustainability Committee, urged her colleagues to act on the proposed resolution soon. “These students have worked very hard on this resolution,” Stone-McGuigan said. “I would hope we can have a vote on this before the end of the summer.” Read the full article.

The second read of the climate resolution is on the agenda at the Board of Selectmen's meeting this Thursday, the 28th. Public comments form.

"More than 100 million people in 28 states are facing heat advisories and dangerously high, record-breaking temperatures

this week. Energy infrastructure is straining to keep residents cool and wildfires are raging across 12 states. The climate crisis is

here, and it’s only going to get worse if we don’t take bold action."

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, July 21, 2022

It's time to act

Earlier this year, the Republican-dominated Town budget board voted to cut minuscule funds for climate preparedness from the Town budget.

Twenty thousand dollars for a study to identify a location for a solar parking lot canopy was struck from the budget, as was $50,000 for a climate resiliency study.

While the funding would make no discernible difference in our $465 million budget or our mill rates, the cuts demonstrate where climate change action stands on BET Republicans' priorities.

Greenwich resident

Matt DesChamps writes that "The time to act is now, and not when we are under water. We don’t know how much time we have before we cross the tipping point where the atmosphere can no longer absorb carbon emissions. When this line is crossed, the costs of addressing the climate issue will be catastrophic to our town budget, economy and standard of living.”

Read more at Declaring a climate emergency would be great for Greenwich by Andrew Winston, author of Net Positive and Green to Gold; and Greenwich youth point out the planet is burning by Alma Rutgers.

Election news

Senator Murphy proposes bipartisan bill

to protect election results

CT Senator Chris Murphy and a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators proposed legislation to make it harder to overturn election results.

Their proposal modernizes the Electoral Count Act of 1887. It states that the role of the Vice President in counting electoral votes is purely ceremonial.

It also ensures that electoral votes tallied by Congress accurately reflect each state’s vote for President, improves the handling of election mail by the US Postal Service, increases penalties for intimidating election officials or voters, and preserves electronic voting records.

Senator Chris Murphy. Source: PBS NewsHour

Republican voter suppression tactics

come to Connecticut

Following their defeat in the 2020 election, the RNC has focused on raising an “army” of volunteer election observers to harass voters in Democratic precincts and collect information about alleged fraud that can be used to overturn election results they do not like.

They have conducted 2,100 workshops nationwide and recruited 10,000 poll watchers, including in CT. Similar efforts are underway in CT by Fight Voter Fraud, the group chaired by Dominic Rapini until he decided to run for CT Secretary of State this year.

Fight Voter Fraud is recruiting a “silent army,” each of whom must sign a non-disclosure agreement before receiving a file of names of voters whose lives they investigate on social media, to determine whether they live where they are registered to vote.

Democratic primaries August 9

Democratic primaries are taking place on Tuesday August 9. Candidates for Connecticut's Secretary of State and Treasurer are on the ballot. Learn about the candidates here. To register to vote, please follow this link. Applications for absentee ballots can be downloaded here.

What we're reading

A wake up call for all of us.

Croydon, New Hampshire. Population: 800

One Small Step for Democracy in a "Live Free or Die" Town. This must-read from the New York Times tells the unbelievable story of how lack of participation in a small New Hampshire town allowed a few libertarian policy makers to cut the Board of Ed budget in half on a whim before anyone noticed.

They hadn’t attended the town meeting. They hadn’t fulfilled their democratic obligation. They hadn’t kept informed about the Free State movement. ..."I was practically kicking myself in the ass for not being there," Mr. Spiker said. "I guess I assumed our town would take care of it.” One Small Step for Democracy, NY Times,

July 10, 2022

One more thing...

The League of Women Voters hosted a webinar on Reinventing American Democracy, featuring Stephen Heintz of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Dr. Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. Their report guides us on how to become a more resilient democracy by 2026, the nation’s 250th anniversary. A video of the program is available and well worth your time.

Stay in touch & get involved!

CONTRIBUTE

VOLUNTEER

Paid for by the GDTC, Robert Brady,Treasurer