So my friends who come over have their favorite drink while we sit around the firepit.

Those towns can already combine services if they choose to. For example the Tyler Regional Animal Care Shelter, which was agreed to by Manchester, south Windsor and east Hartford. I think what’s being forgotten is that where you live is a choice. If you want big town services, move to a big town. Stop forcing every town to be like every other town. Towns with no officers can already purchase services from the state police via the resident trooper program.

West Hartford is a thriving, nice town and Hartford isn't. Why would residents of West Hartford want to merge into Hartford?

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Sloppy Waffle is great. GoldBurger’s isn’t on the turnpike but it’s nearby and is also amazing.

I’m saying it’s quite the opposite. Cities have massive mill rates and high taxes. Generally, the smaller the town the lower the taxes. Towns can adapt to their residents much more efficiently. My rural house cost half the amount of taxes of my urban house. It’s the city government that are larger that are inefficient. And once again, you are ignoring quality of services. If I have an issue, I can speak directly to my town manager. I can call a department and speak to a live person, not a phone tree. Good luck speaking directly to a mayor of a city and getting anything done. If I call police, they show up within 5 minutes. When I was in a city, i had it take as long as 5 hours.

Wait, are you saying people much rather be financially forced out of owning a home because of higher mill rates to sustain inefficient government but at least you get a lollipop and a smile when you ask to speak to the assessor? Efficiency is needed. Efficiency equals customer satisfaction.

You are looking at it from a overall financial perspective, which is irrelevant to most people. Quality of services is vastly superior in small towns, because those services have to answer directly to a small entity. 169 micro governments don’t need to agree, because they have their own services and can make decisions for themselves.

Absolutely not true.

What is bigger to manage, 169 micro governments that can’t efficiently agree on EMS, school, firefighter, police, public work projects vs 8 counties that can manage resources.

Right now the state forces towns to form their own groups to save money, like the Northwest Hills Council of Governments. Towns cant afford proper planning or employ people to meet the never ending state mandates on all towns, no matter their size. This is the only way some towns can meet state requirements.

We are so fractured and divided as a state that we waste resources (tax payer money) because of wasteful but required town expenditures. It would be far more efficient to have a county system. It would also standardize procedures.

Wait, so why do you buy extra bottles if you’re not drinking them?

It's still better than the guy zipped around in a truck with 2 large dogs loose in the truck bed.

The steele dossier? The one that was funded by the DNC and HRC, and that’s source was a Russian who lied to the FBI?

That one?

Oh and the mueller report who concluded there was zero collusion?

Interesting.

It’s not optimizing. As government gets bigger, it gets worse, with few exception. Bring your concerns to any city entity and see how you are treated compared to any small town. Services received are almost always worse.

Easy, will split into 4 big towns, dunkinville, cumbiesville, dollar general city, and pizzaburg

No. It benefits literally no one. Some idiots think combining west Hartford sand Hartford will make Hartford better. It won’t. It never will. In every scenario, you are destroying the “good” for a negligible affect on the bad.

West Hartford is rich and white. Hartford is not.

A tale as old as time

A song as old as Rhyme

Merging municipalities

Ct state regs go much farther. Ct disqualifies you from gun ownership for drug misdemeanors, they took it way further than the fed.

They do not have bigger fish to fry lol. They are a political organization. The head of doj is a political appointment that sets the direction. If we elected a hardcore antidrug prez that installed a doj head that was also, you can bet your ass they would be suing and arresting state officials en masse.

New York's 'Sullivan Act' gun control laws was passed during a time when there was a large migration of southern Europeans (mostly Italian). Same bigotry

The area around every Dunkin' should be considered its own municipality..That will end all the divisive and unnecessary arguments over which town has the most Dunkin's....

CT really needs to give municipalities an option for independent revenue stream that doesn't rely solely on property tax. Just spitballing but if the state knocks the sales tax back to 6% and redistribute the other .35% back to the towns directly based on gross receipts (services would be where the business is domiciled) that'd relieve the utter pressure in a big way for towns to not give up all the services they provide in house.

Don't know, never made it there. Interested in other's views!

And I'm just saying they can take a record, it doesn't mean the purchaser used it. I have several bottles of liquor at my house I never drink. I buy and keep them specifically for friends that come over.

When I was buying a house 8 years ago, I could have bought a block in Bridgeport for the average price of a detached home in my area. The problem has not been and will never be "cheap land".