Bristol officials cringe at New Britain comparison

Most every time a Bristol official seeks to point to a place that's failing to do what government should, they target nearby New Britain. Case in point: At Monday's budget hearing, Finance Vice Chairman John Smith said the city has to be willing to pay for a quality educational system and other quality of life necessities. "If we don't do that, there's a community not too far to our east which has never done that," he said, adding that it's the kind of place where they snatch $10 million out of the water department's surplus and borrow money to buy textbooks. "I don't ever want to be like that community," Smith said. City Councilor Ellen Zoppo-Sassu said that New Britain has become a city with a group that is "extremely well off" and a much larger "strata of people living barely at the line of poverty."
Copyright 2014 All rights reserved. Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com