This is getting ridiculous.

It seems like the News-Times Dirk Perrefort stole yet another story from yours truly...this time it's about my report on the state senate not extending the conveyance tax for municipalities.

…and typical Perrefort fashion, his inaccurate reporting completely misses the point and doesn't tell the whole story.

Since I KNOW he reads my site daily AND since he's NEVER reported on this subject in the past, it's fairly obvious that Perrefort got the idea for his story by reading my post on Friday morning. Upon reading my post, Perrefort basically just grabbed points from my post, make a few phone calls to elected officials and whipped up an article before deadline while avoiding the real issue with the bill, which centers around local and state lawmakers in the Greater Danbury area who supported/opposed the tax.

Although he reported on figures from Ridgefield and New Fairfield, because he rushed the story, Perrefort didn't report on the impact of not extending the conveyance tax in Bethel and Danbury…two areas that are at the heart of the News-Times circulation. Even worse, Perrefort didn't report on the state lawmakers record in regards to the bill OR the fact that the House of Representatives passed the bill before the end of the session.

Since the general assembly session is now over and that the conveyance tax bill won't be addressed until state lawmakers set a special session, and since Danbury City Hall was closed on Friday, Perrefort did a disservice to this story by rushing it in the manner that he did as opposed to taking his time with the article and covering all his bases (I was in the process of doing a follow-up to my original post but since Danbury City Hall is closed on Friday, I wanted to wait till Monday to do a follow-up on the city's projected revenue from the conveyance tax for the next budget year).

Also, Perrefort failed to inform the public that while Finance Revenue and Bonding committee State Senator Andrew Rowback added an amendment that would protect some homeowners, his fellow committee colleagues Mike McLachlan (whose district includes Bethel, Danbury, and New Fairfield) and Toni Boucher (whose district includes Bethel and Ridgefield) voted against the amended bill while in committee. Since the tax will cost millions to municipalities, why didn't Perrefort ask McLachlan and Boucher why they voted against extending this critical tax for their district? While did Perrefort avoid reporting on the impact of not extending the tax would have in Danbury and Bethel?

Outside of property taxes, municipalities are very limited when it comes to their streams of revenue and the conveyance tax is major determining factors in the drafting of budget for city and towns. Since cities and towns are now voting on their budgets, the failure of the state senate not extending the tax can have a major impact on taxpayers.

In light of these facts, Perrefort's rushing to report on a story he grabbed from my site, by not reporting on McLachlan and Boucher's opposition to extending the tax, and not reporting on the impact this bill would have in Danbury and Bethel, once again the political reporter for the Greater Danbury's newspaper FAILED to report on all the facts behind this bill.

It’s one thing to bloggers and reporters to bounce ideas, stories (and sometime notes) off of each other, something that was quite common between sources, the mainstream media and online community. It’s another thing to just grab other people’s work and whip up a story without doing any meaningful reporting on the subject. Perrefort did exact the same thing when I first exposed Mark Boughton’s gubernatorial website before his official announcement, and now he’s doing it again with this story and it really needs to stop.

No disrespect to the News-Times as a whole but what Perrefort’s doing in grabbing other people’s work without properly reporting on the subject is a simply wrong and a disservice to the paper's readership.

…oh, and by the way Dirk, if you're going to lift stories from my site, at least take a moment and make sure to get the political affiliations of the people you're reporting on correct.

Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi, who is seeking the Republican Party's nomination in the gubernatorial race during next month's convention, said he had a hard time believing it was just a mistake.

I'm sure Marconi would be surprised to know that he's running for the state's Republican gubernatorial nomination.