The Hartford Courant's Don Stacom reports:
After last week's surprise setback, Gov. M. Jodi Rell is going to take another swing at getting approval to borrow about $22 million for park upgrades, building repairs and other work in about a dozen towns and cities.
But her hope to line up $81 million to buy new trains for the Metro-North Commuter Railroad is dead.
Last Friday was supposed to be the last Bond Commission meeting of Rell's administration, and she put forward more than $150 million worth of requests. All 30 or so items on her agenda got more "yes" than "no" votes, but when the meeting was over there was confusion about what had happened. Rules require six "yes" votes for an item to pass; lawyers and staff analyzed tapes of the voice votes and concluded that nine items, including the train purchase, had gotten only five votes, and thus had failed.
The 10-member commission was shorthanded because Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and Comptroller Nancy Wyman chose to skip it. Both are Democrats, and both said they didn't think it was right to commit the state to large-scale borrowing in the final weeks of the Rell administration.