Politics Archives - Keller Glass

HB 8002

This piece appeared on Citizens for a Thriving Windsor's website on Dec. 10, 2025

Governor Lamont signed House Bill 8002 into law. If you are interested in the details, I would point you to Ginny Monk’s work at the CT Mirror. She has done excellent reporting on this bill throughout its tumultuous history.

While this bill is a milestone for Connecticut, it is less than what is needed. It eliminates the “fair share” portion of the original bill and replaces it with “housing growth plans.” In effect, Lamont vetoed the stick and agreed to the carrot. This is likely to leave zoning unaddressed in many areas of the state with high demand and underutilized capacity for additional housing.

Windsor

The bill is unlikely to have much of an impact on Windsor for two reasons. First is the good news: as a town, we are already making strides towards denser housing near transit. There’s always room for improvement, but Windsor’s political leadership and town staff are making a good-faith effort to address housing in town, and it shows.

Unfortunately, the second reason somewhat counteracts the first. The housing market is not confined to town or state borders. Towns in the same region with strict and permissive zoning suffer the same high housing costs. This bill is a good start, but it doesn’t address the underlying problem: many towns are unwilling to allow housing growth and there is little political will in the state to make them change.

On the plus side, this bill moves the state toward regional and state-wide housing planning. There are still incentives for towns to allow more housing near train and bus stations, “Work, Live, Ride.” There are still provisions for towns participating in Work, Live, Ride to allow conversion of commercial properties to residential. It continues to waive off-street parking requirements for new development up to 16 units. It’s not perfect, it’s not enough, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Anger

Watching the debate in the General Assembly, the anger of the opposition was palpable. Unusually for Connecticut legislative sessions, opponents could not resist casting aspersions on the motives of the bill’s authors. They insisted they were ignored in the process, a pretty jarring claim given that the governor had vetoed a similar bill in response to their criticism.

What’s the disconnect? Why does the number of parking spots in new developments cause such a strong response? Why does the political party of business and cutting red tape bristle at allowing property owners to develop their land with less government intervention? Why the seething anger?

History

Escaping the Depression

It’s worth considering how we got here. The modern housing economy has its roots in the Great Depression. In order to avert a deflationary spiral, the federal government began guaranteeing loans. It didn’t take long for the 30-year mortgage to develop, something that local banks could never have offered previously at a reasonable interest rate. This stabilized the housing market during the Depression by artificially increasing demand through government-backed loans. This process also created a secondary market for the debt of these new mortgages, which began the process of financializing housing. The wealth created from housing debt began to spread throughout the entire economy.

There was real fear after WWII that the country would slide back into the Depression as the country unwound the war economy. To stave off this possibility, and to provide a benefit to vets returning from overseas, new borrowing instruments were created to allow veterans to buy homes with much lower down payments and interest rates. The boom in housing construction in the suburbs fueled private sector growth. Cars enabled low-density suburbs to function and provided a product for industries transitioning from war-time manufacturing. The federal government continued to facilitate this transformation through enormous road construction projects, which helped soften the blow of post-war spending reductions.

Entire neighborhoods were built to a “finished state” with all the amenities of the modern nuclear family could possibly need within a short distance… provided you purchased a self-propelled vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine.

A New Way of Life

It’s hard to overstate how radical a departure this was from the ad hoc way towns and cities had developed for millennia. The effect was the aesthetic of small town republicanism without the actual rural economy. Money had to be made somewhere else and brought home to the suburbs. The newness and uniformity gave a sense of social and economic order that would reify the country’s social hierarchy, maintain the astonishing post-war prosperity, and defeat those godless commie bums through the might of our productivity and consumption. The overarching financial system was largely invisible to most people, in part due to its enormous complexity. Someone taking out a small business loan may well be indirectly borrowing from capital that was backed by their own mortgage debt. All of this was opaque to most people.

The new developments reflected the biases and prejudices of the society that created them. Many of the veteran benefits and financial instruments that helped fund suburban expansion were unavailable to women and minorities. The racial makeup of Hartford and surrounding towns is still heavily influenced by the red lines banks drew on maps denoting areas for “undesirables.” In these areas, loans would be issued at significantly higher interest rates, or denied entirely.

Towns competed for wealthier residents by zoning larger minimum sizes for lots, on the theory that this would increase the value-per-acre of land while also supporting services for fewer residents. The opposite has been the case; less dense development requires more utilities per taxpayer, and especially more services for housing types that attract families with school-aged children. The maintenance on these systems has become ever more expensive. Most towns now balance their budgets via deferred maintenance and external revenue from state and federal funding. Put another way, while most towns maintain a balanced annual budget, they don’t actually have the tax base to maintain the infrastructure they’ve built.

Multiple generations (mine included) grew up under this system with an unquestioning belief in suburban, car-based development as the guarantor of American prosperity. A house and a garage on a half-acre symbolized financial independence, stability, and a store of wealth to pass on to future generations. Cars became the embodiment of American individualism and the triumph of our ingenuity as a free people. The American identity became wrapped up in this development pattern as a way of life. It was, and still is, viewed by many as an unalloyed good.

Reevaluating

However, many people’s faith in this system has been shaken over the past two decades. The 2008 financial crash revealed how fragile the system is, and showed that taxpayers would carry the burden of this fragility. Over time, exclusionary zoning and subsidized credit slowly reduced housing supply and increased demand, thus raising prices. Those higher prices produced more debt as buyers stretched further to meet escalating prices.

Ownership of that debt created wealth that could be leveraged into all facets of the economy. And what if the loans that kept the whole system afloat were bad? We found out in 2008: our leaders decided it was better for the American public to bail out the lenders than to deal with the underlying causes of both the financial crisis and the housing shortage. A drop in housing prices now posed a risk to the entire economy.

But many have not shaken their faith in this system. They are convinced of the inherent goodness of suburban land use, or at least the aesthetics of the time period when the suburbs were built. They view cars and car ownership as drivers of prosperity. And they view any change to this system as deeply threatening. While this reaction can be baffling when the topic is something as seemingly technical as lane widths, if you consider the assumptions that go into the suburban mindset then you begin to see what is at stake for people who believe in this system; this development pattern is viewed as the substratum of the order, prosperity, and socioeconomic status that gives dignity to our lives. If we bear this in mind, we begin to glimpse some people’s deep attachment to the status quo, and their anger at anyone who might try to change it.

Proposed Solutions

What Doesn’t Work

Thus, many policy proposals to address the housing crisis are designed more to save the status quo than to address the underlying problems. A few that come up with some regularity:

Insert money at the point of purchase – Trump’s 50-year mortgage proposal and Kamala Harris’s $25K in downpayment support for first-time homebuyers have something in common: they both increase purchasing power (demand) without increasing supply, thus raising prices. Ironically, this inflationary pressure would be most acutely felt in the types of housing units needed by the types of borrowers these policies target; that is, starter homes and small family units. Put another way, these policies put upward price pressure on exactly the type of housing we need as affordable housing.

Public housing – I have yet to see a public housing proposal that details exactly how this type of housing would be built, where it would be built, and how it would be funded, so it would be unfair to pass judgement on whether a public housing plan could work. However, I do think it’s worth considering the government’s role in the housing market if public housing were to become the main method of dealing with the housing shortage. Public housing absent zoning and finance reforms is essentially the government saying it is going to keep restrictive housing policies while also deciding what and where new housing gets built to make up for the shortfall in supply. This is tiptoeing very close to a command economy. Given the scale of the crisis, I understand the impulse, and I can imagine a role for public housing in specific circumstances. But, in general, I would be hesitant to trust the entity largely responsible for creating the problem with solving it.

Build baby build – Should we continue to sprawl? The argument is tempting; if the problem is low supply, let’s make more. We know how to build greenfield housing, so let’s do it! The problem is the tax density issue I mentioned earlier. Single-family, 1/4 to 1 acre development alone is not financially sustainable in the long run. The infrastructure required to run a town that is developed on this model is more expensive than towns can charge in property taxes, so they rely on state & federal funds to make up the gap. Complete local self-sufficiency is neither practical nor desirable, but there must be financial stability somewhere in the system. If a development model results in the vast majority of towns not being financially solvent in the long term, then the development pattern doesn’t work. We need to build self-sustaining places that can then create the economic activity that sustains the less dense places nearby.

Moving Forward

So, how do we solve these interlocking problems? We can’t start over, and the suburbs aren’t going away. What do we do?

Very smart people have been thinking about this much longer than I have. Strong Towns has compiled a list of housing-ready policies that will help create density in existing neighborhoods, thereby making them more financially sustainable, while creating local jobs in the form of small-scale housing projects.

1. Allow conversions from single-family to duplex or triplex by right.

2. Permit backyard cottages in residential zones.

3. Legalize starter homes in all residential zones.

4. Eliminate minimum lot sizes in existing neighborhoods.

5. Repeal parking mandates for housing

6. Streamline approvals and permitting.

These policies are not a silver bullet, and local variation is likely needed. But they are more likely to work than the previously mentioned proposals because they allow us, homeowners and neighbors, to make decisions with our knowledge of local needs and the local market, all while catalyzing the local economy with small, locally-financed projects that employ local craftspeople.

In addition, Strong Towns founder Chuck Marohn makes a compelling case that local government has a role to play in plugging the financing gap for housing projects that traditional banks won’t provide loans for; things like incremental home projects, or building a backyard cottage, or an addition for a relative.

And then there’s the issue of how to talk about these necessary changes. We should be clear about our priorities, the facts, and the history that got us here. We need to remind ourselves that the wider audience does not spend much time thinking about these issues. They are trying to understand these very complex ideas while holding the same assumptions most of us held at one time or another.

These are generational problems that will not be solved with one bill. They require questioning the status quo while simultaneously taking the time to understand its intricacies. There is a way out of the housing crisis, but we need to stare the problem directly in the face. We need both practical optimism and radical common sense.

Let’s Remember Where Our Freedoms Come From

Dr. Lynda Alexander responded to my recent piece about Will Pelkey with a piece entitled “Let’s Celebrate Our Freedoms” in the Windsor Journal.

I have some thoughts.

It may surprise some of you to learn that I grew up in a very conservative family of lifetime NRA members, libertarians, mainline conservatives, and believers of a variety of Christian faiths. Windsor has always reminded me of the floodplains on the north Potomac where I spent most winters hunting waterfowl, one more reason I’ve always felt at home here. Both sides of my family are from Mississippi. Vigorous political debates were a frequent occurrence at family gatherings in Natchez. Among the many topics in these discussions, I heard outrage over armed IRS officers, unelected judges, and federal incursions into state prerogatives. It was assumed that citizens should stay vigilant against unaccountable power. Imagine my surprise then at some of the same family members now gleefully cheering on warrantless “arrests” by masked federal officers.

My point isn’t to highlight hypocrisy (we all have our blind spots), only to note that I watched the conservative movement change from the inside. I have noticed a rhetorical tick among conservatives in Windsor that very much mirrors my family members’ newfound appreciation of maximalist government power. I think it’s worth teasing this out, because it’s worrying, and because I’m not sure they’re fully aware they’re doing it.

The opening line of Lynda’s piece is indicative, “Our founders granted us considerable freedoms in our constitution[sic].” This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between the people and the government. We are a free people. We are not granted rights: our rights are inalienable. The government is an instrument of our sovereignty. It does not dictate our rights to us.

Rights that are granted are rights that can be revoked. In Dr. Alexander’s formulation, the relationship between the citizens and the government is inverted. Rather than the government representing a sovereign people, the people become subjects to a government that is sovereign unto itself (or perhaps by divine right?), which is kinda’ what the framers were trying to avoid when they launched a rebellion against the anointed monarch of the globe’s most mighty empire.

This isn’t an isolated example. We see this kind of language slipping into local politicians’ rhetoric with alarming frequency. When discussing the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk, Councilor Ron Eleveld said the following, “Because you cannot accept the fact that someone does not agree with you, you have to use violence to quiet them down. In Nazi Germany they silenced the opposition, in Russia, China and North Korea they silence the opposition, even today. In America we do not silence the opposition. We have something called free speech. We should all defend the right to this Right in our Constitution.”

It’s a noble sentiment, but expressed in a way that dangerously inverts the Constitution’s intent. In this framing, individuals’ use of political violence is equated with government repression. The trouble is that the Constitution does not constrain individuals: the Constitution constrains the government. It even states this explicitly in the amendment Councilor Eleveld is referring to, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech…” We, the people, elect a representative government which passes laws to govern individual behavior. The Constitution protects us from overreach by that government.

When Councilor Eleveld confuses limits on government with limits on the people, he changes the Constitution from a shield into an instrument of censorship.

Other town Republicans have repeated this misunderstanding recently. Earlier this year, I pointed out that opponents of the road diet referendum had been very aggressive, yelling epithets from moving trucks (how brave…) and in one case brushing me with a pickup truck while I was putting out signs. Rather than address this alarming behavior, the Chair of the Republican Town Committee wrote that I was “tone policing.”

Dr. Alexander’s response is of a piece. She says, “In granting us freedom of speech and expression, by implication, [the framers] expected us to exercise our judgment.”

The idea that the framers expected nothing but good judgement and uprightness in speech falls apart on the slightest contact with early American history. Many of the framers were polemicists of the first order and had no qualms hiring unscrupulous journalists to savage each other in the press. The career of James Thomas Callender is a good example of how the framers used their own First Amendment rights to publicly smear each other without mercy. I don’t hold this out as the paragon of upright behavior, only to point out that for the framers, freedom of speech was a good unto itself and was not contingent on the good intentions of the speaker. One glaring exception to this is John Adams’ Sedition Act, which is (and was at the time) widely regarded as an utterly shameful power grab.

Dr. Alexander goes on,

Speakers and writers are permitted to express their opinions without restrictions. These opinions include the interpretations, speculations and even at times, fabrication of information in order to make a particular point. And we are charged with investigating the motivation of the writers and speakers who have their own goals and agendas.

In short, Dr. Alexander read a piece laying out a factual critique of a government official and, rather than considering the claims against that official, she questions the motivations of the speaker. Seeing a citizen use freedom of speech to hold the government accountable, the very act with the framers sought especially to protect, Dr. Alexander sees nothing but poor judgement and distasteful agendas.

Perhaps it’s no wonder we see this kind of language slipping into local discussions of politics. We’re living through an utterly warped reactionary movement, one that has birthed the dystopian constitutional fiction of the Unitary Executive. For the first time in our nation’s history we have an actual secret police. The government is using its regulatory leverage over the private sector to silence voices it doesn’t like. And when millions of people took to the streets to state clearly that Donald Trump isn’t the sovereign, we are, he responded with shocking contempt by publishing imagery of himself, wearing a crown, dumping excrement on people who were (say it with me!) exercising their actual First Amendment rights.

So, fellow citizens, listen for this type of constitutional sophistry, and guard against ideas that turn the Constitution against us. Now more than ever, we must use our voices to hold power accountable.

Will Pelkey is Unfit to Serve

This piece appeared in the Windsor Journal on October 24th, 2025

Before the actual piece, I want to provide a brief meta discussion about why I chose to write this at all. Having a shit heel Town Councilor in a small town in Connecticut is pretty insignificant, in the grand scheme of things; so why bother?

Well, we’re in the midst of a fascist take-over in this country, and, contrary to the image they like to project, fascists tend to be small-time shit heels that aren’t worth the bother. That is, until they create a movement that swallows up a whole country. I don’t think Will Pelkey is a fascist. I think he sees the big shit heels and buys into their image of themselves. He’s using local government as a way to play act and to garner attention to himself, to make himself feel important.

And that’s how fascism takes hold, thousands of tiny, pathetic men (mostly men, anyway) donning the aesthetics of a mean, bullying movement to make themselves feel better.

We have to defeat this movement at the national level, but we also have to starve it of recruits from below by mercilessly reinforcing how pathetic these people are. We have to say it out loud, clear as sunshine.

That’s why I wrote this.

It’s election season, and we’re all exhausted. Politics has become increasingly ugly over the past few decades, prompting sentiments like Councilor Eleveld’s in this paper recently, “That is my biggest fear: that these sorts of situations happen and we don’t get good quality people, citizen legislators, coming forward willing to put their time in, for the simple fear they could end up with the target on their back.” Mr. Eleveld was speaking specifically about political violence, but I think his point can extend more broadly to the trolling, name-calling, bad faith, and meanness that pervades politics today. Good candidates, people who are genuinely interested in public service, don’t get into politics to engage in food fights.

Which is why I want to tell you about Councilor Will Pelkey.

Mr. Pelkey has engaged in a pattern of behavior that is out of step with Windsor’s values, his oath of office, and basic decency. He repeatedly posted repugnant images of Representative Jane Garibay’s face superimposed on Jabba the Hutt, despite protests from both Democrats and Republicans that such behavior is harrassing. In a rather bizarre episode, he posted pictures, taken at a distance, of Black residents at a public swimming pool, asking if one of his colleagues on the Council was in the images (for the record, she was not). He bullied a seriously ill colleague on the Town Council, repeatedly calling for roll call votes to try to catch former Councilor Smith unconscious when he had to call into meetings from a hospital bed due to a quirk in the Council’s quorum rules. These parliamentary shenanigans were cruel and completely unnecessary.

Up to this point, everything I’ve described is just the odious behavior of an unserious person. However, he also lied about police records, which violates his oath of office to “faithfully discharge” his duties as a Town Councilor.

On March 6 of this year, Mr. Pelkey posted the following regarding the upcoming road diet referendum, “According to data received from Windsor PD, these same streets recorded only 4 accidents since 2017, and zero deaths.” In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the Windsor Police Department revealed that there were, in fact, 85 collisions in that area during the specified time period (roughly 1/month), 16 of which resulted in injuries. Furthermore, the Police Department confirmed that it had not provided any data of this kind to any elected official or member of the public in the six months preceding the referendum.

To be clear, Mr. Pelkey deliberately invoked the authority of the Windsor Police Department to mislead voters about basic facts concerning our physical safety. He did not “receive” data from Windsor PD. He made up safety statistics to make a political point. These are simple counts that Mr. Pelkey could have easily obtained or verified with the police had he bothered to try. This project has been under consideration for over two decades; it’s not like he didn’t have time to check. This was no mistake either. Mr. Pelkey doubled down on this claim in the original social media discussion despite being shown publicly available police data contradicting his assertion. The message was then repeated almost word-for-word, in print, by Concerned Citizens of Windsor, a political action committee that has been fined multiple times for state campaign finance violations and reporting lapses.

His statements were obviously false to residents of the affected neighborhood, leading some to question the Police Department’s truthfulness on this issue. He eroded trust between the neighborhood and law enforcement, and he erased years of diligent, dangerous work by police and first responders from the public discourse.

Windsor police and first responders deserve better. Their jobs are hard enough without unserious politicians lying about what they’re doing. Our Town Councilors and state elected officials deserve better. Being an elected official is hard, but it shouldn’t come with open harassment from colleagues. Most importantly, Windsor residents deserve better. At a minimum, we deserve to be told the truth about our own safety by the people we elect to represent us.

Yes, politics has gotten uglier. But we, Windsor voters, don’t have to accept this kind of behavior here. Please vote for candidates who reflect Windsor’s values and who take their responsibility to us seriously.

The Debt Ceiling is Unconstitutional

I’d like to put forward a proposal to stop the recurring manufactured crisis that is the debt ceiling.

Stop pretending it’s legal.

In this era of increased partisanship and stochastic violence, there’s also the pervading sense that our legal institutions are straining under their own weight. If we’re looking for root causes, we should consider the many extra-constitutional features of the nation’s political institutions as currently constituted. For starters, political parties as a legal unit of governance. The framers did not predict the emergence of parties and a few warned us directly of their malevolent influence on the republic once they emerged. George Washington famously called them, “potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people.” Add to this state-wide apportionment of electors in presidential elections, the filibuster, constraining the house membership to an arbitrary number set a hundred years ago, and you start to get a picture of the elements of our current political system that are not in the Constitution and, in fact, are often used to subvert the Constitution’s underlying principles of popular sovereignty and majority rule.

But even these ailments, bad as they may be, are not unconstitutional per se; they are omissions. They are the results of institutions and political parties taking advantage of gaps in our founding documents.

The debt ceiling, on the other hand, violates the Constitution ipso facto.

To understand why, let’s do a quick Constitutional refresher on the relevant sections: In Article I, Congress passes laws. In Article II, the president executes those laws, hence the “executive branch.” The relationship between Congress and the executive is crystal clear in the Constitution. It charges the president with the duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” We may live in strange times. Trump may claim the right to impound funds. Stephen Miller may claim “plenary authority” for the president. But we must remember the framers’ clear intent that the president’s duty is to execute laws passed by Congress. This includes laws concerning spending and debt.

The 14th amendment addresses the public debt directly, “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.” The current Supreme Court likes to pretend the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments don’t exist, but they are just as binding as the bill of rights. On the question of debt the 14th Amendment provides an explicit directive: it is unconstitutional for the government to refuse to pay public debt. Supreme Court case Perry v. United States affirmed this interpretation of the public debt clause. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Charles Hughes characterized “the expression ‘validity of the public debt’ as embracing whatever concerns the integrity of the public obligations.”

It’s worth noting that the 14th Amendment addressed the concern that former confederates reentering the federal government would refuse to pay the public debt as payback for Congress invalidating Confederate debt or to hold the budget hostage to gain political concessions (sound familiar?)

It’s worth taking a moment to consider the precise chain of legal obligations at work here. The constitution states the president must follow the laws set forth by Congress, and that neither Congress nor the president may question the validity of the public debt. Congress collects taxes and duties to fund the government. Congress passes a budget, which is just a law instructing the executive branch how to spend those funds.

We may not agree with specific policy decisions made along this chain of commitments, but this is how the system is supposed to work. Trump’s illegal acts in office notwithstanding, the president can’t refuse to spend the money specified in the budget, both because of his Constitutional obligation to “take care” that the budget he signed into law is faithfully executed, but also because the 1975 Impoundment Act specifically forbids it. He also can’t raise taxes to fund the budget; that power is granted to Congress in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. (The same section renders Trump tariff-by-executive-order scheme unconstitutional, but that’s a subject for another day). He can’t print more money; Congress vested that power in an independant (for now) agency. The only option is to borrow money within the statutory limits of the budget.

Enter the heel in our melodrama, “The Debt Ceiling.” Congress now passes a different law, separate from the budget. Contrary to much of the rhetoric around the issue, the debt ceiling has nothing to do with spending. It simply forbids the president from borrowing money once the debt reaches an arbitrary threshold. In effect, Congress has spent more than it collected in taxes, borrowed money to cover the difference, and then told the person responsible for writing the checks to stop paying the bills. If this sounds a lot like Congress calling the public debt into question, that’s because that’s exactly what it is.

This puts the president in an impossible position. Congress is, in effect, forcing the President to choose between two different ways to violate the Constitution 1) ignore the debt ceiling to meet the 14th Amendment obligation, thereby violating the budget law 2) accept the debt ceiling and ignore the budget, thereby violating the 14th Amendment. In both cases, Congress has directed the president to break a law, which also forces the president to violate the aforementioned “take care clause.”

In our system, we call laws directing the executive branch to violate the Constitution “Unconstitutional.”

Every president who has had to deal with this legal knot, thus far, has chosen option two in the hopes that there is enough slack in the system that they will not have to actually default on US debt. Both political parties have consented to this state of affairs because it allows them to extract policy concessions when they are in the minority by holding the government hostage.

For Republicans, it’s a win-win. Shutdowns reify Republican’s accusation of government incompetence and chaos, so they either get what they want in the policy negotiations or they get thrown into the proverbial briar patch. The motivations for Congressional Democrats are more complicated. Shutdowns cause major policy headaches when they occupy the Whitehouse, effectively opening a whole new round of budget negotiations. More generally, shutdowns portray the government as dysfunctional (which, in this case, it most certainly is). People are more likely to blame shutdowns on the party advocating governmental competence and the status quo.

In the face of an ever-increasingly authoritarian president, however, Democrats are reluctant to give up any levers to check the executive branch while they are in the minority. Some Democrats may be grateful for the opportunity the debt ceiling affords to stick a thumb in Trump’s eye. Fair enough. But taking a step back, it’s hard to see how assenting to the debt ceiling has been anything less than a disaster for Democrats. Further, it’s hard to see how it will work out any better for them in the future. Yes, the public may blame Republicans for shutdowns occasionally, but shutdowns generally give the public the impression of a political system lurching uncontrollably from one self-inflicted crisis to the next. This makes voters gravitate towards reform/change candidates and away from candidates advocating for basic government functions: e.g. Democrats. Meanwhile Republicans will continue to use this process to extract policy preferences outside of normal legislative and Constitutional processes. This is a fight on Republicans’ turf, and Democrats are fools to continue to fight here.

Trump’s actions during this particular shutdown illustrate the dangerous power vacuum that bad actors can exploit when Congress abandons its Constitutional role. Trump’s decision to pay military personnel with money siphoned from research and development funds may sound like a good-faith effort to support the people who protect us, but it violates a foundational principle of the Constitution. It’s the People’s money and the People choose how to spend it through their representatives. If the executive can spend money the People have not allocated, and pay for it with funds the People set aside for a different purpose, then the president is no longer “executing” the will of the People: he is executing his own will. We kinda’ fought a Revolution over this issue. We shouldn’t be so quick to abandon it.

So, what should Democrats do?

Democrats should state clearly that the debt ceiling is Unconstitutional. They should seize this superseding principle and refuse to get bogged down in the weeds of extra-legislative budget debates. Say it clearly, if any president chooses to shut down the government or honor the nation’s debts, they are violating the law and the Constitution.

Use the occasion to make a simple point on the national debt: Tax. The. Rich. Government shutdowns are unpopular. Austerity measures are unpopular. By refusing to engage in the process that creates these unpopular outcomes for voters, Democrats will leave Republicans holding the bag. They will also set themselves up for a winning platform built on the pillars of Fairness, Reform, and the Constitution.

Police Cameras & the Fugitive Slave Act

This letter was sent to the Town Council of Windsor Connecticut regarding an ongoing debate in the town over the use of video data collected by Windsor police and shared to outside agencies via Flock. FOIA requests to WPD had revealed numerous access incidents by federal immigration departments, and at least one incident of a Texas Sheriff's office accessing the system to search for someone for the stated reason that she had "had an abortion."

Dear Council Members,

I was unable to attend the Council meeting last night, but I did want to take the opportunity to share my concerns about the use of Flock cameras in our community.

There is no doubt that retroactive video data, shared across departments, can help solve crimes more quickly and at lower cost. Public safety is important, but any benefits must be carefully balanced against the rights and security of our residents.

History warns us of the dangers of law enforcement tools being used across state lines in ways that undermine individual rights. To discourage enslaved people from escaping the barbaric laws of slave states, the Fugitive Slave Act co-opted other states’ law enforcement resources. “States rights,” in this case, could only be maintained by forcing other states to act against their own citizens’ conscience and the basic dignity and autonomy of people within their borders. The Fugitive Slave Act was a major factor leading to the Civil War and remains a stain on this nation’s history.

There are strong echoes of this now. Some states have criminalized reproductive health care for erstwhile protected classes of citizens, and have also criminalized providing aid to people trying to access that care. As with slavery, the states’ unequal treatment of people before the law is rationalized by religious belief and extra constitutional claims of “states’ rights.” These states are using technologies like Flock cameras to track their residents who travel elsewhere for legal medical procedures. They are also passing civil laws to extend their reach across state lines. This effectively deputizes their citizens to enforce state laws, akin to the bounty-hunting system that existed throughout the antebellum period.

In addition to this retrograde legal environment, we’ve also seen the emergence of masked federal agents abducting people and moving them between states without extradition, without meaningful accountability to the public, and without accountability to the judicial system. Immigrants, documented and undocumented, already face the constant threat of dislocation, deportation, and family separation. These paramilitary law enforcement resources can easily be refocused to impose unjust state laws across other states like our own. With one executive order, local camera data can be used to locate health care providers in our town and send them to face felony charges in other states.

While I understand the potential crime-solving value of these systems, I urge the Council to prioritize the rights and safety of Windsor’s residents and visitors. A prudent course would be to suspend implementation until the Council can guarantee that these systems will not expose Windsor residents, visitors, or providers to out-of-state legal risks.

Please act now to protect our neighbors and the medical professionals our community depends on.

Respectfully,
Keller Glass

This Is Not Normal

This piece appeared in the Windsor Journal on May 2, 2025.

Dear Neighbors,

Though I’ve lived in many places around the United States, I’m proud to have made Windsor my home. One thing I noticed right away when I started to get involved in local matters is Windsor’s deeply ingrained tradition of civility and bipartisanship. Even in the Land of Steady Habits, our civic culture stands out as civil, even cordial. Neighbors and political adversaries talk over beers and across fences. But in recent months, something in our civic culture has shifted, and not for the better.

During the Broad Street referendum in March, volunteers (especially women) were subjected to curses and epithets from passing cars. As I was putting up Yes signs in the Center, I was nearly struck by a pickup truck that veered out of its lane toward me, then sped through three red lights up Poquonock Avenue. Later, a prominent opponent of the project explained to me, in all seriousness, why someone might feel justified in attempting vehicular assault in the context of the referendum. This is not normal.

It didn’t stop there. During the same campaign, elected officials lied about crash statistics in the Center, facts that directly impact the physical safety of Windsor residents. Regardless of your views on lane widths, roundabouts, etc., our representatives have a duty to tell the truth, especially when it concerns public safety. These lies were amplified, and further distorted, by a local political action committee, “Concerned Windsor Citizens,” which, for all their supposed concern, repeatedly failed to meet even the most basic filing and attribution requirements under Connecticut campaign finance laws. They’ve paid several fines in recent months for these violations. Again, this is not normal.

Most recently, the same group ran an ad in this paper riddled with typos and grammatical errors, urging residents to “Make Note of who has those YES Signs as they are the One’s” [sic] who want to increase the town budget. Is this what we’ve come to—political discourse that reads like a ransom note?

The word “Orwellian” has become cliché in recent years, but sometimes the shoe fits. Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four devotes entire chapters to the horror of a society where neighbors are encouraged to monitor and report on one another. He also warns of what happens when political actors view their opponents not just as wrong, but as inherently illegitimate. Once that idea sets in, all acts can be justified. That, too, is not normal.

I’ve been surprised by our reluctance to address this shift in political discourse in town. Yes, Windsor has a laudable tradition of civility. We don’t all have to agree: we won’t. But we should demand that civic and political groups engage the public with a good-faith commitment to the truth. We do not have to accept lies from public officials, and we absolutely cannot accept political intimidation. Civility without accountability does not serve the public good.

Sincerely,

Keller Glass

An Unfortunate Result

The piece appeared in the Windsor Journal in March of 2025.

Hello neighbors,

The referendum to approve the Broad Street Traffic Calming and Pedestrian Safety project failed by a roughly 42% to 58% in a high-turnout vote. I won’t sugarcoat it—this was a decisive result. The only district that supported the project was Windsor Center were the project is actually located, which is both telling and deeply disappointing.

I know this might sound odd right now, but I am so grateful for this experience. It has been a privilege to meet new friends and deepen existing relationships as we did the hard work of democracy together. I never expected this level of individual support, and I am in awe of the time and effort our friends and volunteers poured into this effort.

One unexpected outcome of our outreach was how many people came up to me, introduced themselves, and shared their personal stories of being injured in this neighborhood—or of friends and family members who have been hurt or killed. Just last week, a man told me about his brother, who was struck by a drunk driver on Bloomfield Ave and died at just 12 years old. It’s difficult to recall that conversation without tearing up. I can’t express what an honor it has been for neighbors to share their pain and their stories with me. We hear them, and we are not giving up on them.

We expected some NIMBY pushback. What we didn’t anticipate was how this referendum would take on the tone of a culture war, nor the outright misinformation spread by elected officials and even a few town employees. Insults and epithets were hurled at residents putting up YES signs, with greater frequency at our female volunteers. I also had to file a police report after putting up YES signs in the Center. A pickup truck swerved out of the travel lane to miss me and the car my daughter was napping in by inches, and then immediately ran all three red lights going up Poquonock Ave from Broad Street. We knew this would be an uphill battle, given the national climate, to say nothing of legitimate local concerns over property taxes. But we did not expect people’s anger and resentment to override Windsor’s tradition of bipartisanship and civil discourse. This passed the Town Council in a bi-partisan vote, after all. It’s incredibly difficult to have a reasoned conversation about detailed infrastructure plans in the middle of a culture war debate. Opponents of this project took full advantage, stoking fear and anxiety to make sure a rational, empathetic discussion never had a chance.

I respect the outcome of the referendum, but I am deeply saddened by the incursion of callousness, misinformation and political intimidation into Windsor politics. Broad Street remains dangerous. Windsor Center residents will attest to this fact, and publicly available data proves them right. We will continue to advocate to address this dangerous roadway in our neighborhood, and we will not be silenced or intimidated.

This project has suffered a major setback, but the support from Windsor Center points to a clear need for safety improvements in this neighborhood, much as other neighborhoods have concerns about speeding on their own roads. The town took a maximalist approach to Broad Street, which we fully supported because of the obvious need and the complications of doing this kind of work while meeting CTDOT standards on state roads. Pedestrianization often starts small, however—with inexpensive materials like paint and temporary concrete planters. Some opponents of the project expressed a desire to see more temporary fixes attempted before a full configuration: they may well get their wish. We will continue to support large-scale projects, but we’ll also advocate for neighborhood-level safety improvements throughout Windsor, wherever residents are unsafe.

All of this is to say: the feedback from the voters on this specific project was clear and we respect the outcome of the referendum, but we’re not done advocating for a safer Broad Street. Safety is a process, not a destination. We still live here. Collisions still occur with startling regularity. People are hurt. Lives are put at risk.

This road is still a tragedy waiting to happen. I sincerely hope that reasonable opponents of this project were earnest when they said it was the specifics of this project’s design and funding that they objected to, and that we don’t have to wait for a tragedy to implement common sense road safety measures.

Thank you again to everyone who voted, and thank you to everyone who poured their time, energy and stamps into making Windsor a safer, thriving community.

Sincerely,
Keller Glass
President, Citizens for a Thriving Windsor

Roundabouts and Road Diet Myths

This piece appeared in the Windsor Journal in February of 2025.

There are several persistent myths about roundabouts and road diets that often lead to misunderstanding. Here are a few of the most common ones:

“Roundabouts are dangerous.”

Decades of research show that roundabouts are safer for all users, especially pedestrians, who experience a 50-80% reduction in collisions, serious injuries, and fatalities.

“Roundabouts are a proven safety countermeasure because they can substantially reduce crashes that result in serious injury or death.” — Federal Highway Administration

“Roundabouts are safer intersections for all users.” — Connecticut Department of Transportation

“Roundabouts are designed to improve safety for all users, including pedestrians and bicycles.” — U.S. Department of Transportation

“Traffic-calming measures, such as roundabouts and speed bumps, are engineering approaches designed to reduce vehicular speed and, thus, decrease the number of pedestrian crashes and associated injuries.” — American Academy of Pediatrics

This is especially true for single-lane roundabouts like those proposed in the Broad Street Project, which consistently show reductions in all crash types, unlike some multi-lane designs.

“Drivers won’t know how to use them.”

Connecticut drivers adapt quickly to roundabouts. The two roundabouts installed in Glastonbury have resulted in 40% and 60% reductions in crashes at those intersections, as discussed in the Hartford Courant article “Glastonbury roundabouts significantly reducing collisions after 2 years in operation.”

First Selectman Ed Chmielewski of Salem said of the roundabout installed at the intersection of state roads 82 and 85, “I think it has saved lives.”

Granby development director Abby Kenyon, reflecting on the roundabout installed at Route 202 and Notch Road in 2020 remarked, “the complaints have really died down; the feedback now is largely positive.”

Roundabouts are increasingly common in Connecticut, and contrary to some claims, Connecticut residents have proven themselves perfectly capable of learning how to navigate them.

“Roundabouts slow down emergency response times.”

Roundabouts are far less likely to become backed up than lighted intersections, enabling traffic to clear for emergency vehicles more quickly. “Studies by the Federal Highway Administration have found that roundabouts can increase the traffic capacity by 30 percent to 50 percent compared to traditional intersections.” — The Open Transportation Journal.

Because they are better able to handle unexpected traffic surges and prevent backups, emergency vehicles can move through more efficiently. In free-flowing conditions, fire trucks, ambulances, and police vehicles can pass through without stopping, unlike at a red light.

“The project is too expensive.”

Roundabouts and road diets are more cost-effective than signalized intersections. They reduce the need for police enforcement, as speeding is controlled by design rather than active monitoring. This frees up Windsor’s police force for more pressing duties.

Roundabouts also save on infrastructure costs. The three traffic lights on Poquonock Avenue in Windsor Center are due for replacement, an expense that could exceed $1.5 million. Roundabouts eliminate the need for costly signal maintenance and use no electricity, leading to long-term savings. They also remain operational during power outages, ensuring safer roads in winter storms.

Residents will also save money. Roundabouts reduce fuel consumption by cutting idling time at red lights, lowering both fuel costs and travel time. They decrease property damage from crashes and reduce medical expenses, lost wages, and insurance costs due to fewer and less severe collisions.

As for the town budget, the total project cost is $6 million, with $3 million already secured from federal funds and $1 million from state transportation grants. Windsor is actively pursuing additional grants to cover the remaining balance.

Even in a worst-case scenario where no additional funding is secured, the estimated cost per household would be about $3 per month over five years. While any tax impact is a serious consideration, this project will enhance Windsor’s financial resilience and ultimately pay for itself through long-term savings at the state, town, and individual level.

“Nobody bikes or walks, so there’s no need for a road diet.”

This argument is circular: “We built an unsafe road, so people don’t walk or bike, therefore we don’t need to make it safer.” The reality is that Windsor’s roads see fatal crashes almost every year. Just because residents make the rational decision to avoid walking or biking on unsafe streets doesn’t mean the town has no obligation to make those street safer.

Road diets consistently lead to increased pedestrian and bicycle traffic by making streets feel safer. This, in turn, boosts local economic activity. A prime example is Hamburg, NY, “Completed in 2009, the project has resulted in a 60% decrease in crashes and 90% decrease in serious injuries. Unexpected by the State, the project has also catalyzed far-reaching social and economic benefits for the village, which has seen a steady increase in population and public programming. These include a farmer’s market, outdoor movie nights, garden walks, a street music festival and other events.” — Project for Public Spaces

Local business owners were also thrilled with the project’s results, “Our entire village is transformed. Not a day goes by in my store I don’t hear about how everyone loves our village. This project fulfilled every expectation and then some.” — Laura Hackathorn, Village Trustee.

Both roundabouts and road diets improve safety, reduce crashes, and create more livable, business-friendly streets. While myths persist, the data overwhelmingly supports their benefits—they work, and they work well.

This project is about making Windsor a safer, more connected, and more vibrant community—while saving lives and money in the process. Please join me in voting YES for the Broad Street Traffic Calming and Pedestrian Safety Project on March 11.

Broad Street Project Goes to Referendum

[ a version of the piece appeared in
the Windsor Journal in February of 2025 ]

In a decisive vote Monday night, the Windsor Town Council approved the ordinance for the Broad Street Traffic Calming and Pedestrian Safety Project with a 6-3 bipartisan majority, followed by a unanimous 9-0 vote to send the project to a public referendum on March 11, 2025.

The project has been decades in the making, driven by local residents and advanced through contributions from officials at every level of government. Discussions about improving safety and increasing foot traffic for local businesses began over 20 years ago with the Windsor Center Business Association, a group that later evolved into First Town Downtown. Despite strong local support, the project was repeatedly stalled by the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT), which historically opposed town-led changes to state-owned arterial roads. The initiative was later incorporated into Windsor’s 2014 Transit-Oriented Development Master Plan and the 2025 Plan of Conservation and Development, adopted in 2015.

Momentum for the project increased when the state legislature granted towns greater authority over state roads, allowing Windsor to seek funding. State Rep. Jane Garibay worked tirelessly to secure necessary funds, while Congressman John Larson secured federal support. Town staff also obtained grant funding to cover the balance of the road diet portion of the project. In 2023, residents successfully advocated for the inclusion of roundabouts to align the project with CTDOT’s Complete Streets Plan, which saw renewed emphasis under Transportation Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto. Town Manager Peter Souza and Economic Development Director Patrick McMahon helped guide the project through extensive design revisions and many public meetings over the years.

During Monday’s meeting, the Democratic caucus reaffirmed its focus on safety and emphasized the importance of giving Windsor residents a direct say in the project. The Republican caucus largely agreed with that principle but voiced concerns about the timing and scope of the initiative.

Among the three opposing votes, Councilors Ron Eleveld and Will Pelkey previously stated that they do not oppose the project on its merits, but believe the public needs more time to evaluate its full scope. Mr. Eleveld also expressed concerns that American drivers struggle to adapt to changes in road design. Pelkey has further suggested expanding the project to include additional pedestrian improvements, such as extending the west sidewalk of Broad Street into the right-of-way, closing the public library parking lot, and eliminating most or all driveway entrances onto Broad Street. Councilor Len Walker, the ranking Republican member, has not publicly explained his opposition. However, at a public meeting last year, he questioned the design philosophy of pedestrian safety features, including pedestrian refuge islands, telling a civil engineer, “Good luck with that.”

During Monday’s meeting, Mr. Eleveld cited a Michigan Department of Transportation study indicating that roundabouts have, in some cases, led to an increase in the total number of crashes, while acknowledging that the same study showed a significant reduction in deaths and serious injuries compared to signalized intersections. The Broad Street roundabouts are designed as single-lane entries and exits, a configuration that CTDOT data shows can reduce total crashes by 40% and serious injuries and fatalities by as much as 80% compared to traditional signalized intersections. The Michigan study cited by Eleveld, “Evaluating the Performance and Safety Effectiveness of Roundabouts – An Update,” highlights the critical difference between single-lane roundabouts, which saw an 8% increase in crashes in Michigan, and multi-lane roundabouts, where crashes rose 123%—while both designs still significantly reduced severe injuries and fatalities. As stated in the first sentence on the The Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) roundabout website, “Roundabouts are a Proven Safety Countermeasure because they can substantially reduce crashes that result in serious injury or death.”

Public comments on the project were largely positive, with supporters emphasizing the safety benefits and the potential increase in foot traffic for local businesses. Opponents raised concerns about potential tax implications, whether these projects are more suited for struggling Rust Belt cities, that the current configuration has failed to bring retail back, and the uncertainty of federal spending and its impact on funding. While concerns about the project’s impact on the town budget are understandable, further state funding remains a strong possibility. The notion that roundabouts and road diets are primarily used in Rust Belt towns is misleading—these design principles are standard in modern urban planning across industrialized nations. Supporters of the project agree that the current Broad Street layout is ineffective, which is why change is needed. As for federal funding uncertainty, turning down available funding now because the Supreme Court might overturn the Impoundment Act of 1974 would be a missed opportunity to improve local infrastructure.

Windsor Center has immense potential, but Broad Street remains a barrier to safety, economic activity, and community vibrancy. According to the Connecticut Crash Data Repository, Windsor averages about one crash per day, mostly on four-lane arterial roads. Broad Street alone sees about one crash per month—a concerning statistic for a district that depends on pedestrian activity. Statewide, nearly one person dies on Connecticut roads every day. Windsor has an opportunity to reduce that risk by implementing proven safety measures.

With the Town Council’s approval, the Broad Street Safety Project now moves to a March 11 referendum, where Windsor voters will have the final say. Absentee ballots will be available at Town Hall beginning February 18.

Please join me in making Windsor Center a safer, more vibrant place to walk, ride, and live.

Some Safety Is More First Than Others

[ This piece appeared in the
Windsor Journal in February of 2025 ]

The mid-air collision over the Potomac River this week is an unmitigated tragedy. As of this writing, all 67 people aboard both American Airlines Flight 5342 and the Army helicopter are presumed dead. The sudden loss of so many lives is horrifying and deeply saddening.

Tragedies like this—and far less severe aviation incidents—are always followed by rigorous investigations that lead to safety improvements. In South Korea, a recent crash that killed 179 people prompted the removal of many concrete structures near runways throughout the country. After the 2009 crash in Buffalo, New York, which killed 50 people, the FAA implemented sweeping changes, including stricter pilot fatigue rules, higher experience requirements, improved stall training, and a national pilot record database. Following last year’s Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 decompression incident, the FAA grounded all Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft, and the NTSB launched a full investigation.

Because of these rigorous investigations and strict accountability measures, air travel remains remarkably safe, even in spite of high-profile disasters like Flight 5342. The death rate per mile traveled by air is thousands of times lower than that of passenger vehicle travel. It’s a modern marvel that people can spend a lifetime flying and experience such negligible risk. In fact, the paradox almost explains itself: air travel feels scary, so we refuse to accept injury and death as inevitable—and we go to enormous lengths to make it as safe as possible.

But this raises an important question: if we refuse to accept death and injury as a normal part of air travel, why do we accept it as a normal part of automotive travel?

The comparison is striking. I recently drove through Windsor Center and saw the aftermath of a serious crash at the intersection in front of Geissler’s. The car’s hood was caved in, windows shattered. No emergency responders remained. Traffic flowed around the wreck, drivers adjusting slightly to navigate past it. I did the same. It was a relatively unusual sight—but not shocking. There was no media coverage of the crash. If a public figure had been involved or if the crash had caused a major traffic jam, maybe the news would have paid attention. But as it was, the incident passed unnoticed. Perhaps police issued a citation, but no one examined whether the intersection’s design played a role, whether vehicle visibility issues contributed, or whether both drivers had a clear instruction on right-of-way rules during their driver safety course. There was no systemic review—because we, as a society, don’t expect one. Car crashes are just a fact of life: they are banal.

The U.S. sees 46,000 auto-related deaths per year—the equivalent of an American Airlines Flight 5342 disaster happening every 12 hours. Every two months, we lose as many Americans to car crashes as we did in the entire Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Vulnerable populations—children, the elderly, the unhoused, and people with disabilities—are disproportionately affected. The deadliest day of the year for children, by far, is Halloween as hundreds of kids are hit by cars while trick-or-treating in their own neighborhoods. But these tragedies rarely make the news. The NTSB does not spring into action every time someone is struck in a crosswalk. Departments of transportation do initiate systematic reviews when people die in car crashes. We simply mourn, care for the injured, and move on.

Connecticut is not immune. As of this writing, someone has died on our roads every single day of 2025. Windsor is no exception either. According to the Connecticut Crash Data Repository, we experience traffic accidents almost daily and lose roughly one resident per year to auto-related deaths. The most serious crashes happen on four-lane arterial roads, but even local streets see their share of serious injuries. The sections of Poquonock Avenue and Broad Street under consideration in the Broad Street Safety Project have seen more than one crash per month over the past decade.

We do not accept this level of risk in any other part of our lives. And what makes our indifference even more striking is that these crashes don’t happen in private spaces. They happen on our roads—our public property. The only comparable cause of accidental death in America is gun violence. Unlike many states, Connecticut has taken a common-sense public health approach to gun regulation, leading to lower firearm deaths per capita than many other states, and less than half that of our automotive death rate.

Windsor has a rare opportunity to take meaningful action. Every design element in the Broad Street Safety Project is backed by decades of research showing benefits across the board. These projects have been proven to increase property values, boost sales tax revenue, spur development, lower municipal maintenance costs, reduce fuel consumption, lower insurance costs, reduce harmful air particulates, and shorten driver travel times. Towns from Pasadena to New Britain, Grand Rapids to Edgewater have demonstrated that well-planned traffic calming and pedestrian safety improvements lead to more vibrant, resilient, and economically sustainable communities.

But ultimately, this is about saving lives. If we do nothing, more people will be severely injured—or killed—on Broad Street, given the current crash rate and the decades-long lifespan of projects like this.

Do I wish the NTSB took automotive deaths as seriously as plane crashes? Yes. Do I wish the Connecticut DOT was more responsive to local safety concerns? Absolutely. But the reality is that these improvements happen at the local level. I trust the FAA and NTSB to take the tragedy in Washington seriously, and to take meaningful action to keep such tragedies from happening in the future. But if we want the same consideration for the tragedies we experience on our own roads—if we want a safer Broad Street and a more vibrant Windsor Center—we have to make it happen ourselves.

Please join me in taking this small step toward a safer country—and a huge step toward a safer Windsor.