Rage, rage, against the dying of the light

God forbid anyone earn a profit in Connecticut, eh, Ned? Eh, Steve?

Camillo rejects state mandate for rent control commission. And good for him. There are lot of positions Fred Camillo takes that I disagree with, but I understand that he has to balance the widely divergent views, opinions and demands of all Greenwich residents, and all-in-all, he’s been doing a far better job, in my opinion, than most of his predecessors.

GREENWICH — Greenwich’s top elected official opposes a new state law that mandates municipalities set up commissions to investigate rent disputes between landlords and tenants.

The law was passed and signed into law by Gov. Ned Lamont in April.(Speaking of lousy politicians)

But Greenwich has taken no action, said First Selectman Fred Camillo, who opposes the creation of fair rent commissions and said he will look at the town’s options.

“I have great concerns about it, and I certainly will speak to our town attorney more in depth about it,” Camillo said. “I really do feel there is a fairness question here. I don’t know if we would challenge it or not.”

Under the law, municipalities with populations over 25,000 must set up fair rent commissions with subpoena power to investigate rent complaints filed by tenants against landlords and hold hearings on those complaints. Commissions must be in place by July 1, 2023.

But the new law does not carry any penalty for a municipality that decides not to form a fair rent commission. A spokesman for the governor’s office confirmed to Greenwich Time that the law contains no penalties.

Any such commission must be established in town through an ordinance, which would need approval of the Board of Selectmen and Representative Town Meeting.

But Camillo spoke strongly against the idea of forming a commission in an interview this week with Greenwich Time.

A former state representative, he said he “always worries about legislation not being well-thought out” and believes that is the case with this law.

Not surprisingly, Democrat Stephen, “Ban the Gun” Meskers voted against the law only because it lacked penalties against municipalities like Greenwich who defied it:

“Meskers said he voted against it because the law had “no teeth” in it.”

A commision that has the power to decide what a “fair’ rent is, is a rent control body. Rent control has been a disaster everywhere it’s been implemented, is condemned almost unanimously by economists along the entire political spectrum . For Democrats, of course, that’s a feature, not a bug.

Why not require all taxpayers to subsidize poor residents, if the goal is “affordable housing”? Easy: voters don’t like tax hikes that hit them directly, but the idea of penalizing one small group of “others” is perfectly acceptable, even at the cost of a deteriorating housing stock, a shrinking inventory, and a worsening of conditions for the poor.

Since the Great Society program was introduced by LBJ in 1964 with the announced intention of “totally eliminating poverty and racism”, we’ve taken mandatory government spending from 30% to 60% of the federal budget, created 80 new government agencies, and spent $53 trillion dollars. How’s that worked out? If Meskers or any other Democrat in Hartford were asked, their response would surely be to point out that most slum dwellers now have satellite TV, and as for the rest: failed schools, failed families, and a rotted housing stock, well, “it’s like socialism; it’s not that it’s failed, it just hasn’t been truly implemented in its purest, perfect form. Which, of course must necessarily involve a perfect world, where all rents are fair, and the landlord is your friendly, capable government.”

Fight the good fight, Freddie.