After All Things

Empowering law enforcement

Governor Hochul says she wants to empower law enforcement to fight antisemitism. Where do Connecticut universities fall on a survey of the state of free speech? And an in-depth look at the controversial sale of Mayor Joe Ganim’s Blackrock home.

Duration:: 13m
Broadcast on:: 09 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

The reporting and the resources behind all the stories you hear on WSHU depend on the sustained energy of people who care, people like you. I'm WSHU News Director Terry Sheridan and your investments in WSHU Public Radio help us face reporting challenges and meet them effectively providing important information and ideas. Thank you for listening and for supporting WSHU. We're expanding our world together. You're listening to After All Things, WSHU's daily news and culture update from the Long Island Sound region. Governor Holkel says she wants to empower law enforcement to fight back against anti-Semitism. Where do Connecticut universities fall on a survey of the state of free speech and an in-depth look at the controversial sale of Mayor Joe Gannam's former Black Rock home those stories more are ahead. I'm Sabrina Garon. New York Governor Kathy Holkel came to Long Island last week to reiterate her commitment to fight anti-Semitism. WSHU's Desiree Dioriel has more. She says the key to combating anti-Jewish hate is to empower law enforcement to find and investigate hate crimes and increase education about Jewish history. At the Holocaust Museum and Tolerance Center in Glen Cove, Holkel said 100 percent of the state's middle schools have curriculum about the Holocaust. There are thousands more ways we can use creative digital content to make it more relevant to young people in a way that they can relate to. Let's make that our next challenge. Tension in the Jewish community has increased since last October when Hamas attacked Israel and took hundreds of hostages including Omer Neutra, a native Long Islander. The war that broke out afterwards sparked protests in the U.S., including on the campuses of Stony Brook University and Yale. Desiree Dioriel, WSHU News. A non-profit watchdog group is out with a survey of the state of free speech on college campuses across the country. WSHU's Shelly Hasman-Caitis reports on the rankings of colleges and universities in Connecticut. According to the rankings by the Foundation for individual rights and expression, more students responding to the survey in Connecticut indicated that their school has at least one policy that might restrict free speech protections. The schools that took part in the survey, Yukon, Yale, Trinity and Connecticut colleges and Wesleyan University ranked either average or below average on the perception of their free speech policies. According to the Hartford Current, universities asked for their reactions welcomed the feedback and defended their commitment to the right to free speech. The Foundation says the findings reflect the tension between maintaining a free speech environment and deeply polarizing issues such as the Middle East crisis. Shelly Hasman-Caitis, WSHU News. Dozens of Suffolk County residents testified in opposition to a bill that would cap non-profit executive salaries. Executives would make no more than $250,000. That's the same salary of the governor of New York. Legislator Rebecca Sannon says she's noticed there's a lot of concern coming out of the medical community. Across the nation, there's investments in social care and building social care infrastructure because of our unwielding health costs and because of the inextricable link. The Nassau Suffolk Hospital Council and Long Island Association also sent letters in opposition to the bill. The city of Bridgeport says the controversial purchase of a Black Rock home owned by the mayor was done through the proper channels. More on that is coming up. Local support for after all things comes from Hartford HealthCare. The only health system in the Northeast with all its hospitals receiving a grades for safety from the LeapFrog group. The nation's leading independent safety watchdog group, HartfordHealthCare.org. Connecticut officials have recovered the bodies and identified the two men who were killed in a Labor Day boating accident in Long Island Sound. A third man was recovered on Labor Day shortly after the accident. The boat took on significant damage when it hit a jetty at the mouth of the Connecticut River in Old Seybrooke. For the first time in five years, a mosquito in Suffolk County tested positive for Eastern Equine and Cephalitis. The infected mosquito was trapped in Kinet Quad State Park in Oakdale at the end of last month. There have not been any reported human cases of Tripoli in New York. A documentary about the life of former US senator and vice presidential nominee from Connecticut, Joe Lieberman is set to release this month. WSHU's Molly Ingram reports. The documentary is called centered and follows the life of Lieberman as he climbed the political ladder as a centrist Democrat and later an independent. Centered premiered in Aspen at the end of August, Lieberman had been interviewed for the documentary at his alma mater Yale in the summer of 2023. He died in March due to complications from a fall. He was 82. Molly Ingram. WSHU News. Bridgeport Mayor Joe Gannum was one of the biggest beneficiaries of a 2021 city property revaluation. The Connecticut mirrors Andrew Brown did in-depth reporting on this story and he spoke with WSHU's Abongudama about how this happened. Bridgeport Mayor Joe Gannum bought a house in the city's Black Rock neighborhood in 2021 for $333,000 and sold it two years later for $1.1 million. That's quite a profit on a flip. But Gannum also got city tax breaks on the property. Is that what prompted you and your colleagues at the Connecticut mirror to decide to scrutinize the city's records on this? Yeah, so last year when Mayor Gannum was running for a re-election in a hotly contested mayoral race and people began to at that point to notice several things. The Connecticut Post reported that Gannum reportedly did a bunch of work on the property that was never permitted. The post also previous to that reported that the house was being marketed as an Airbnb even though that was against the city ordinances. So when Gannum was running for a re-election his mayoral opponent John Goams and some of his allies began to look and kind of raise the issue of how low the taxes on this property dropped immediately after the mayor purchased it. The major takeaway from this story is that in 2020 in early 2021 the city was going through what's called a re-valuation where they re-value for taxing purposes every piece of property in the city. And so when Gannum purchased this 7,000 square foot house in January of 2021 he immediately asked for a further reduction from his city's tax department. He requested through his brother who is an attorney a 45% cut to the assessment that was going to be set on the property. And the city with along with a contractor that was hired by the city to do this re-valuation essentially granted that request almost immediately. You got about a 45% reduction in the taxes? That's correct so it's about $8,000 a little over $8,000 in tax savings annually compared to what he would have been paying on that property had the assessment not changed. Now Gannum's name wasn't on this request because his brother was making the request on behalf of the previous owner. There are records that we looked at that were filed in response to a complaint about all of this that showed that Gannum's brother got permission ahead of time from the former owner to use her name to contest the tax assessment. Now they did that because the property had not changed hands to that point but when he went before the city and the city's contractor in this informal hearing as it's called Gannum had purchased the property just the day before. So yes the records do not indicate if somebody was looking at this one piece of paper you wouldn't know it's Joe Gannum's problem. And a number of people who filed complaints about Gannum after they found out that Gannum had gotten such a you know such a huge reduction in his taxes. What were there you talked about a couple of people who who filed complaints and weren't able to get much out of the city as far as reductions on their taxes. Yeah so other people who filed complaints with the city made some of this you know kind of similar arguments right they were maybe let more modest homes these weren't 7,000 square foot homes they'd be 3,000 square foot homes and they essentially told the city similar things to what Gannum did which is our property can't be worth what you're saying. We've owned it for three decades. We haven't made any upgrades to this property in fact some of the property is deteriorated to the point that you know it's not going to sell for what you're saying that this house is worth. And interestingly enough we got a spread sheet from the city that kind of detailed notes on a lot of these appeals that went before the board of assessment appeals and there were notes in there on some of these that essentially had city employees or the city assessor's office or board of assessment appeals I'm not sure who was writing it saying that you know the fact that someone hasn't made upgrades to their property in three decades isn't a justification for lowering someone's tax assessment essentially I think the quote was the city shouldn't be paying for parents not up keeping their properties. Well so but but the bottom line Andrew what is the city city's position in this that this is just regular business and they have said repeatedly that everything about the purchase of the property the resetting of the assessment on Ganon's property was done through the proper channels and was done in a above-board way and the fact that Ganon received one of the largest tax reductions that year as I described the story they essentially argued that this was a result of savvy real estate investment not his position as the mayor of Bridgeport. Well thank you so much Andrew. Thank you so much for listening to After All Things supported by Hartford HealthCare for the latest news from around the sound listen on the radio stream online at WSHU.org or download the WSHU app which is also where you can find more great podcasts from WSHU like long story short in this one of course and as always feel free to reach out to us with any thoughts or story ideas you might have our email is news@wshu.org I'm Sabrina Garone enjoy the rest of your evening I'll talk to you tomorrow [Music]