When the ship is sinking, you don't complain about who is bailing

When I began CCB, we looked at a couple of ways to structure the organization. LLC or Corporation? Membership bases vs. Non membership based? And we even contemplated making it a for-profit business. That last one didn't last long for me because there was no way I was running a for-profit sailing school in Bridgeport.

The Boat Basin Today- Take a look  the video above to see what it looked like
before we started in 2012. The City wants to kick this out of Bridgeport to go
back to the way it was 

Why you ask? Well look at us now- the corruption of Bridgeport, the infighting with my board, the collapse of the investment banking system- do you think we would have made it this far if CCB was for profit?

But the biggest argument against NON-Profit status, was not "Oh you'll make more money!" It was the "Politicians will eat you alive if you don't pay property taxes". Boy hasn't that proven spot on in the last few months.

If you're a member of the civil service or an elected official in Connecticut you have a very close relationship with the almighty property tax. It pays your mortgage, it puts braces on your kids teeth and if you squander it frivolously or for personal gain, the people will eat you alive. Many a young elected official went home early for failing to grasp the concept of honesty, economy and thrift in the hallowed halls of our State and Local municipal buildings.

But the real name of the game to stay in your government funded job, is your property tax conversion rate. In football, they call it your conversion rate when you turn ball possessions into points. In Government, conversion rate is the rate at which you identify things to tax and then collect on those taxes. And its a blood sport in places that have a shrinking tax base (A la Bridgeport).

The Mayor's Staff would have you believe he is rocking a major river recapture and CCB is in the way of progress, this is the face of the current Pequonnock River Recapture

Oh it's a problem at the State level and every City has the same beef- There are not enough funds to pay for all the things people want them to do, and so they have to use the one way they have to pay the bills to do everything- property taxes. Do you want a new school? Property taxes. Do you want social services? Property Taxes. Do you want the Mayor to have a car to drive to Atlantic City for his next junket or do you want him to fly to Vegas instead? Property taxes.

Oh sure we have other ways money gets in to the general fund. Fees, bond interest and unclaimed nickel deposits on cans all play a role I suppose. But the lions share of the way we pay bills in this State and at the Local level is property taxes. ( I mean that to say, money that is not taxed on money you earn but on stuff you own).

And so when you bitch about paying them you piss off City workers, cops, teachers and of course, the guys who are expected to sign their checks.

I had an illuminating moment in one of my many battles with Charlie Carroll (Bport's Facilities and Parks Czar). I was trying to get Boy Scouts to come in to build bat boxes in the landfill and wanted the City to wave the parking fees for the Boy Scouts. The conversation got heated, as they so often do when I talk to City officials, and he said, "Well if you don't like it (Paying the parking fees), why don't you start a real business that pays property taxes". ( The idea being the more property taxes I pay, the lower the parking fees could be.)

Ok I get it, people think because we do boating at CCB, its not a real business- after all we're not cleaning out porta potties after all. But if you think its fun all the time, and that it isn't work, you'd be very mistaken.

The only thing missing is tumble weeds, the boarded up buildings, the derelict structures and the pock marked streets seem to be more appealing to the Mayor of Bridgeport than the efforts of a bunch of volunteers working to reclaim a waterfront

The big difference is, when we make money at CCB, it goes right back into the organization- none of it gets dispersed for profits- and so there is no profit to tax. We also do good things so the IRS says if you have a purpose that puts you on the good guy list, we let you pass on sales tax and people can get tax deductions for supporting your organization. We can even make money for profit, say we wanted to start selling cars, we just couldn't keep the profits without paying taxes on the sale of those cars- so its not all tax exempt all the time- Non-Profits do pay some taxes, but by and large we are penalized far more because we cant get traditional financing, no one wants to lend to a Non-profit, no investment comes when there is no profit- and we have lots of regulations we have to follow in what and how we do business. It's aint all sails and sunshine at CCB, and neither is it at the local food bank, the local Veterans Home or the local homeless shelter.

We're all non-profits because we don't go to work because there is a demand, we go to work because it needs to be done. And so we get our tax bills waved.

And that pisses elected official off royally. Phil Kuchma, local Bridgeport big wig investor and golden boy in City hall because of the size of his property tax bill, complained to me when I asked him to help me build the Bridgeport Boat Basin, "I think what your doing is great, but do you have to be Non-Profit?" The City Tax Assesor said when he handed me a $17 property tax bill for our portion of the drawer we used at the Shehan Center, said "We have to be very strict about who we give tax exemption to, there are 100 churches in this City who all want to have a dozen vans and none of them want to pay property tax on any of them". There are a hundred ways I have been told, we don't like non-profits in Bridgeport, but it's not like we would be welcome for our tax status anywhere in Connecticut.

But my argument is, when the ship is going down, do you really start kicking people of the boat who can bail?

Since I opened CCB in 2006, I have seen more than one business fail in Bridgeport- in 2009, the traffic heading out of Bridgeport looked a lot like I-95 in Stamford today. For a while there, it seemed once a week I heard of another small business shutting down. Unfortunately that trend continues.

Epernay closed in 2012 along with a host of other downtown businesses, who will take up the fight to save Bridgeport when businesses like these go away? That's right NON-PROFITS

Last week the Community Bank closed. Last Year, three restaurants closed in Downtown Bridgeport (Melt, Cafe Roma and my favorite, Epernay). That doesn't include CVS boarding up, the spider webs on Main St and the the 30 year vacation on Steel Point. Bridgeport is withering. You could say it's contracting, but the truth is, Bridgeport and for that matter Connecticut, has been in a contracting economy since the day I was born- I have never seen this State in a boom time. It's not just paralyzed, it has 40 years of atrophy to overcome if this patient is gonna walk again. Hope springs eternal, but its safe to say, a career in the NFL is not the cards anytime soon for the broken athlete that is Connecticut's largest City.

The ship is sinking. And while some have pulled up stakes and moved to better times and better places down South, the hard working Non-Profits of Connecticut are still here, feeding the hungry, clothing the poor and yes, protecting the waterfront.

If we did it for money, we would have quit a long time ago. Non-Profits do what they do because in the vast waste land that is now Connecticut Cities, your not going to make a bundle on things like poverty, but they are there and need to be addressed just the same.

Now I don't agree with the way a lot of charities approach the problems of Connecticut, many believe in hand outs where I believe in hand ups. But I will not kick them out of the gene pool because they dont pay for Finch's serial legal blundering. I wont complain that they aren't funding the corruption that has taken the helm of the Ghost ship. And I won't evict them when they have trouble paying their bills, because when they are gone, the sound of silence will fill the air.

Many of the Non-Profits of Connecticut were founded in the ideal age of the 1970's They have been on the mean streets of Bridgeport, New Haven and Waterbury since the time when Jenkins Valves and Carpenter Steel were pumping dollars into the pockets of the civil servants who picked up their trash. They were also built relying on the largess of our Connecticut philanthropists, IE the VP at Jenkin's Valves. Those big donors have left Connecticut, but the organizations they founded are still here doing the work they were founded to do.

So now, should we complain that they aren't funding the local property tax base when they are the ones left to do the living, dying, working and serving in our community? "Well my father didn't think so. And compared to warped frustrated old man..." (sorry started channeling George Bailey again) But seriously, do we kick out the last people who are here still trying to make our community a better place to live?

There is a premium on businesses who are putting as much back in to the community as they are taking out here in Connecticut. Why would we fight any of them about staying here?

Well obviously that applies to CCB- Bridgeport Harbor is devoid of life? So why would you kick the one organization out who wants to be there and has invested more money  for the community in that Harbor than any other entity besides the tax payer in the last five years?

This is why I believe City officials are so disingenuous about their claims against CCB- (Hey Bill- that means I think your full of shit) And this is why I am fighting for CCB's right to keep their claim in Bridgeport Harbor. It's not about making money, or recouping our investment. It because its the right thing to do and when Bill Finch is sucking his tax payer funded retirement package dry in Boca Raton, CCB will still be there picking up trash, strapping life jackets on kids and ensuring no child is left ashore.

That's my just my opinion anyway- Thanks for reading.