It's Boughton all the time this week as the mayor is milking his visit to Briazil for all it's worth. Aren't we all lucky.

Mayor Boughton did a two for Tuesday today announcing his new "in the know" blog in which he'll report back about his trip to Brazil (nice template. I wonder where I saw that design before).

Now if that wasn't enought, never shy from promoting his crusade against illegal immigration, Mayor Boughton jumps at a chance to talk about illegal immigraton when John McCain came to town yesterday. I wonder if his views had anything to do with the fact that he's off to Brazil today...

Lets break the "illegal immigration mayor" self promoting rant down bit by bit.

Noting the urgency of the illegal immigration problem was a Republican in attendance at the McCain events Monday, Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton.

His city has largest population of Brazilians of any place in the United States; many of them are illegal immigrants, Boughton said.

Hmm, one must ask themselves, how does Mayor Boughton know that many of the illegal immigrants are Brazilian? If the media would do a quick follow-up question, they would find the many holes in his statements.

Danbury must bear the burden of enforcing housing codes in overcrowded immigrant houses: "you’ll have ten or 15 people living in a three-bedroom house," the mayor said.

Now, he's fine tuned his message from a year ago when he simply stated that illegal immigrants are draining the city services (still waiting on those figures) but lets look at this closely.

Is every overcrowded house is occupied by illegal immigrants? I would argue that even if you kick every illegal immigrant out of the city (which is his real gameplan), you would still have a massive overcrowding problem in the city due to the high price of rent versus the amount of job oppurtunites for all immigrants. If you simply look at the situation from a economic perspective and not as a social issue, it's clear that illegals are not the problem when it comes to overcrowding. People simply can not afford the high price of rent in the area and it's an issue for all residents; legal and illegal. As long as there is a job market for immigrants, people will continue to come to Danbury looking for work.

Also, you noticed how Boughton didn't address advocating making it easier for the city to go after landlords, instead he only targets illegal immigrants. And this comes from a mayor who at one time proposed building a day laborer center for illegals who gather on Kennedy Place.

Let's continue.

Boughton said "it has frustrated residents" that Congress has been unable to agree on a solution, either McCain’s proposal, passed by the Senate, which would create a guest worker program and permit illegal immigrants to eventually qualify for citizenship, or the House-passed enforcement-only bill.

"Nancy voted yes on the House bill so voters pretty much don’t see her as the issue," Boughton said.

Now, this is Boughton doing a poor version of political spin. Now, I've seen Nancy Johnson address the xenophobes and the immigrant community earlier this year and not one anti-immigrant person was happy with Johnson's preformance including the outspoken/do-nothing majority leader of the Common Council Pauline Basso. I'll pick on this later.

He added that he opposed McCain's approach because it permitted illegal immigrants to pay a fine to acquire legal status.

"I don’t think we can reduce permanent residency and ultimately citizenship to paying a fine. It should be worth more than that," the mayor said.

Although Boughton says this is a federal issue, he very much knows how he wants the government to approach this issue. He's quick to dismiss McCain's proposal yet many do not know what he would do if in a position to make a change. In fact, he doesn't make a statement on anything regarding ways to tackle illegal imigration and that lies the problem.

What we need in Danbury is new ways to approach illegal immigration and although Boutghon is in a good position to do somehting, he opts to get attention for himself with quotes like this or reports on his new "in the know" blog. Can someone please list me one thing that has changed in terms of illegal immigrantion since Boughton made this issue his rallying cry?

What we need here is leadership, not endless self-promotion. Wouldn't the mayor's time be better spent making sure the ad-hoc committees that he appointed actually meet and get something done? To illustrate my point, here's a list of the ad-hoc committees since the summer Pay particular attention to the ad-hoc committees that haven't met yet, the issues which are pending and the political party who made the request. Is it fair to say the mayor is not doing his job if the ad-hoc committees HE requested haven't met?

Sept. 6:

Change of ordinance to identify the Danbury Housing Partnership as lead agency to implement plan to end homelessness requested by the mayor; has not met

Public notice registry review committee requested by Council Democrats; has not met.

Conveyance of vacant land at 2 Garry Knolls requested by Democratic Council member Lynn Taborsak; has not met.

Grant agency review committee requested by Council Democrats; has not met.

Aug. 1

FEMA fire grant for Fire Department requested by Republican Council member Colleen Stanley; met sometime before the Common Council meeting in September.

Tarrywile Park land exchange inquiry requested by the mayor; has not met.

Sex offender restriction ordinance inquiry requested by the mayor; met but has not reported to the council.

July 5

Televised Common Council meetings requested by Council Democrats; has not met.

June 6

Tax credit for elderly homeowners requested by Democratic minority leader Tom Saadi and Democrat Lynn Taborsak; has not met.

Request for Sewer Line at 4 Stadley Rough Road by Republican Common Council member Gregg Seabury; has not met.

May 2

Permit requirement ordinance for parades and marches requested by the mayor and referred to an ad hoc committee by Saadi; has not met.

Absentee landlords inquiry requested by the mayor and referred by Republican James Johnson; met May 24.

Sewer and water extensions for 20 Eastwood Road requested by Seabury; met June 26.

Sewer and water extension for 60 Forest Ave. requested by Stanley; met June 21.

Kennedy Place review requested by Republican Charles Trombetta; met May 22.

The city has not addressed important city concerns such as the sex offender restriction ordinance inquiry, permit requirement ordinance for parades and marches (which came about because of the World Cup celebrations), televised Common Council meetings, and tax credit for elderly homeowners (although Republican State rep Pauline Basso would have you believe that she's an advocate for seniors).

With all these things that the mayor can be working on in terms of pushing the agenda forward, he rather grandstand and promote his visit to Brazil. Is this right? Are there not more pressing issues that requires the mayors attention (such as the fact that the Common Council doesn't seem to be doing their job)?