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| Bysiewicz, Lamont and Tong -- Hartford Courant |
Tong, The Tong Building, and the Laz Connection
“The lack of money is the root of all evil” – Mark Twain
The town of Manchester has decided to purchase for $1.75
million a property owned by the parents of Attorney General William Tong. Town
officials say, according to a piece in the Journal Inquirer, that the property, was “most recently appraised at up to $1.15
million…
“The parents of Connecticut Attorney General William Tong
own 942 Main St., under the company name WJSJM LLC. The 0.79-acre lot features
a one-story, 19,600-square-foot retail building that has a few tenants, but a
long history of vacancies.
“According to town assessor documents, the property was
assessed at $513,200 under the 2021 revaluation, with an appraisal of $733,200.
The structure was built in 1940, and the town estimated replacement costs at
$1.92 million.”
The bottom line, as bankers might say, is that Tong’s
parents stand to make a pretty penny on the deal.
Member of Manchester’s Board of Directors Dennis Schain,
whose background is in journalism and communications, said his approval of the
project “hinged on the Forest Street lot and the potential for growth
downtown.”
Schain waved aside the usual political cynicism, very much
in vogue these days.
“The real issues here,” said Schain, “is not to agonize over
what we paid versus what it is potentially worth,” Schain said.
The purchase represents a solid investment for Manchester,
Schain advised, and “… the only consideration in his vote,” according to the JI
piece, “was what is best for Manchester and its taxpayers, and connections to
the family of the attorney general had no bearing.”
It is unfortunate, Schain said that “we live in an era of
cynicism and conspiratorial viewpoints of the world.” It is difficult to
disprove a “conspiracy,” Schain added, “but anyone with proof of a conflict of
interest should bring it to light.”
The purchase of “the Tong building” was approved by
Manchester’s Board of Directors on a 7-2 vote during a meeting on February 7.
The purchase produced on February 14 at least one letter to
the editor written by John Hannon of Manchester, who questioned the sale.
Hannon wrote that the $1.75 million paid by his town for the
Tong Building was “way above the appraised value.” Only William Tong’s parents
benefited from the arrangement and, Hannon added, the proposed sale should be
put on a ballot, to be decided by Manchester voters in the next election.
Hannon has yet to be denounced as a cynic. We should all
realize that both cynicism and sycophancy are equally present in politics. Of
the two, cynicism is the more purifying virtue, particularly in the case of
people who do not believe everything they read in newspapers.
Were decisions concerning the purchase price and sale of the
Tong Building in Manchester made because the sellers of the property were the
mother and father of Attorney General William Tong, well-fortified in his
position because he is surrounded by a phalanx of more than 200 hundred lawyers
who come when he says come and go when he says go?
Money, Hartford Courant commentator Kevin Rennie reminds us
in a recent posting on Daily Ructions, is not an unimportant consideration
for entrenched political incumbents, Tong among them.
“An early test of strength for the 2026 Democratic
nomination for governor is playing out among two likely contenders. Lieutenant
Governor Susan Bysiewicz and Attorney General William Tong are jockeying for
the favor of prodigious Democratic fundraiser Alan Lazowski, Daily Ructions has
learned.
“Tong and Bysiewicz are each lobbying Governor Ned Lamont to
appoint Nicole Lake to lead the Department of Consumer Protection [DCP]… Lake
holds the curiously named position of Chief Impact Officer of Laz Parking,”
among other impressive politically connected positions such as “Chief Counsel
to the Connecticut Attorney General, Vice President & General Counsel to a
non-profit healthcare system and Associate General Counsel to a former
Connecticut Governor [Dannel P. Malloy]. She has also worked as a
consumer protection, labor and legal services attorney.”
It was former Attorney General Dick
Blumenthal who, some think too frequently, made use of consumer
complaints generated by the DCP to enhance his own public persona as the so
called “people’s lawyer.” Democrat successors in that office, including Tong,
have kept up the politically profitable tradition.
“Lake, Chief Impact Officer of Laz Parking,” Rennie
stresses, “was well positioned to take over as the head of the DCP after Lamont
unaccountably decided not to support the renomination of Michelle Seagull to
the position.
“Any ambitious Democrat wants [Alan] Lazowski on his or her
side… Neither Tong nor Bysiewicz would be able to finance a campaign for
governor with personal assets.”
Money, whether in the form of personal enrichment or public
reelection financing, remains the mother’s milk of politics.
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