First the New Haven Register, now the Journal Inquirer had some choice words for Danbury's dishonest mayor's decision to put politics before people when it comes to gun control.

To those who remember the days of Camelot — that relatively contemporary one of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy rather than that of King Arthur — the modern version was launched when Kennedy wrote a book called “Profiles of Courage.” He told of political figures who were prepared to sacrifice immediate personal gain for principle — something rarely found in political wars today.

Recently Connecticut was treated to a perfect example of the opposite of a politician showing a profile of courage. Mark Boughton, mayor of Danbury and a Republican candidate for governor, has renounced his former membership in Mayors Against Illegal Guns, an organization dedicated to a reasonable kind of gun control exactly as listed in our Second Amendment, which calls for a “well-regulated militia.”

But Boughton, who said all the proper things when the Newtown massacre took place, has decided that “well-regulated” gun control is something he cannot support. He probably is catering to gun addicts who oppose anyone who has the temerity to say that “well-regulated” means any regulation at all.

Boughton may think he has gained support from the pro-gun lobby but he may be surprised to learn that there are Connecticut voters who believe consistency is a virtue and expediency is not what they are looking for in an elected official.

Courage of one’s conviction is to be admired in an aspiring officeholder — if those convictions are sincere and not necessarily self-aggrandizing.

As an example, take Sen. Ted Cruz’s resistance to Obamacare, which might be called a consistent position because he is opposed to anything President Barack Obama proposes — although you can be sure he feels that position is one that will benefit him in the state of Texas, which is his home.

But courage is something that few politicians have if it means risking the loss of an election.

Boughton may find that his lack of courage — his refusal to stand up for his convictions after the Newtown massacre — may well redound to his detriment at the polls. Even his own party may look askance at someone whose retreat from principle is so apparent.

"I am very disappointed that Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton withdrew from Mayor's Against Illegal Guns in what appears to be a political play for his campaign for Governor. As a former urban police chief I know very well the devastation that gun violence has brought to communities across the country. While I may not agree with all of MAIG's initiatives, many of them are a starting point for discussion. Mayor Boughton's withdrawal from MAIG sends a bad signal to advocates on both sides of this debate about his potential leadership. Real leadership demands that we adhere to our convictions especially on hotly divided issues such as gun control. By quitting and taking his bat and ball out of the game in the manner that he has, vastly diminishes his voice in future discussions."

Oh, this is rich!

After nearly two weeks of REALLY bad press, Danbury's dishonest Mayor Mark Boughton attempts to weasel out of his previous misleading statements regarding campaign contributions he received from Lisa Wilson-Foley...contributons that he previous denied exist.

First, lets backtrack...

The New Haven Register had this to say about Boughton after the indictment of disgraced governor John Rowland.

Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton has chosen "People Over Politics" as the slogan for his 2014 campaign for Connecticut governor, but on two critical issues, he's not living up to that promise.

On Thursday, former Gov. John Rowland was indicted on charges that he conspired with failed 2012 congressional candidate Republican Lisa Wilson-Foley and her husband to break federal campaign finance laws. Prosecutors claim he attempted to do the same with congressional candidate Mark Greenberg, but was rebuffed.

We reported all of the key details of both the Wilson-Foley and Greenberg schemes two years ago, before the Republican state nominating convention in the 2012 race. Instead of condemning Rowland and Wilson-Foley, Mark Boughton tried to bail out her campaign, endorsing her prior to the convention and swinging Danbury's significant bloc of delegates to her.

"I don't really see it having the impact that the pundits think it's going to have," was all Boughton could muster when he asked him about it at the time. "Rowland is popular in the 5th District. I don't know about the rest of the state, but in the 5th District, he remains popular."

Hartford Courant columnist and DailyRuctions.com blogger Kevin Rennie wondered at the time what really was at play with the endorsement, considering the Rowland taint on her candidacy and Boughton's past disdain for Wilson-Foley, whom he narrowly defeated in a 2010 Republican primary for lieutenant governor.

Our guess is that Boughton got in bed with Wilson-Foley and her husband Brian for the same reason that Rowland did - because they're millionaires with a significant ability to raise money for his future gubernatorial campaign.

A recent editorial (“Mark Boughton’s hypocrisy on John Rowland, guns”, April 11, 2014) made assertions about my candidacy for Governor that are contradicted by publicly-available facts.

As a candidate participating in the state’s clean elections program, the maximum contribution allowed to my campaign committee, Team Boughton, is $100. No one, not even wealthy individuals like Brian and Lisa Wilson-Foley or John Rowland, are eligible to contribute more than $100. The finance report filed on Thursday last week shows none of them donated to the committee.

For one, the NH Register never stated that Wilon-Foley or people connected to her contributed to Boughton's campaign...again, this is what the paper stated.

Our guess is that Boughton got in bed with Wilson-Foley and her husband Brian for the same reason that Rowland did - because they're millionaires with a significant ability to raise money for his future gubernatorial campaign.

Kevin Rennie points out that Wilson-Foley DID contribute to Boughton's campaign.

Republican gubernatorial Mark Boughton hopeful is caught in his own web. The popular Danbury mayor’s tight alliance with disgraced Republican Lisa Wilson-Foley (formerly Wilson Foley) is undermining his bid for governor a month before the party nominating convention. He’s having trouble explaining the $375 maximum contribution he received last fall from Wilson-Foley and her nursing home magnate husband Brian Foley.

In response to being caught red-handed in a boldface lie, Boughton's campaign goes into damage control mode and the dishonest one attempts to "clairfy" his previous rant.

The paper wrote an editorial this week criticizing Boughton for, among other things, his prior support for Wilson-Foley and receipt of help from her.

Boughton responded with a letter to the editor saying his campaign had not received funds from Wilson-Foley, her husband or Rowland. That’s true, though he did receive money to his exploratory committee from Wilson-Foley and Foley.

Candidates in an exploratory committee can accept up to $375, according to state rules. Those candidates wishing to participate in the citizen’s election program can only accept donations up to $100 in “qualifying donations” that can follow them when they become a declared candidate. They can’t take donations greater than $100 with them to the formal committee. Therefore, money donated by Wilson-Foley and her husband are not included in his current campaign, and were spent when he was deciding whether to run.

“None of them (Rowland, Wilson-Foley, Foley) have contributed to our committee. The exploratory committee, with was a different committee is already closed and operated under different rules from the candidate committee,” [campaign manager Heath] Fahle said. “Those funds would have been spent in the pursuit of testing the waters to see if there was sufficient support for the mayor’s candidacy statewide.”

So much for the dishonest one upholding the rule of law!

New Haven Register is having a field day exposing the REAL Mayor Mark Boughton and the columnist and former commissioner for Connecticut’s Freedom of Information Commission Andy Thibault's latest piece on the dishonest one's on-going effort to keep his activities at City Hall under wraps is a must read.

Reported in full with permission

Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton’s legal team – famous across the land for baseless threats against a local blogger – continues to write new chapters in the delay, deny, defend game over access to public records.

Curiously, these efforts now focus on stonewalling requests for financial records as gubernatorial candidate Boughton proclaims the mantra, “People Over Politics.” Already criticized for hypocrisy over his alliance with indicted former congressional candidate Lisa Wilson Foley, a flip-flop on gun control and deletion of critical Facebook comments on the gun issue, Boughton’s war on freedom of information poses a grave threat not only to the citizenry at large, but also to his own political fortune.

What was up with the Boughton-Wilson Foley deal? After the New Haven Register and Register Citizen broke the story that former Gov. John Rowland had a shadow role in Wilson Foley’s campaign while ostensibly working for her husband’s nursing home chain, Boughton helped deliver Danbury delegates to his former rival. Maybe he’s like Mother Theresa and just did it out of the kindness of his heart. Or, maybe there’s more to it.

As CT News Junkie reported, Boughton’s decision to end his relationship with Mayors Against Illegal Guns came just a few days after he was criticized by Second Amendment supporters at a Capitol rally. “I am not sure that the timing of his departure will help his campaign at this point,” a leader of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League told the news site. The daughter of slain Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung criticized Boughton for “putting his political ambitions ahead of the safety of Connecticut families.”

A normal and reasonable person might think Team Boughton would have wised up after being exposed in federal court for amateurish attempts to silence Hat City blogger Al Robinson. Robinson last fall reported unflattering details of a sexual harassment case involving the mayor and the city. Thereupon, Robinson was “ordered” by the city to remove two short news items, neither of which contained any confidential information.

Never mind that the city misrepresented its authority. For now, at least, in this state or country: “In the absence of a court order or statute barring disclosure, a blogger’s right to publish lawfully obtained transcripts comes within the protection of the First Amendment,” appellate attorney Proloy Das of Hartford said at the time of the controversy.

As U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Martinez put it, there was “no showing of substantial embarrassment or harm that outweighs the public’s interest in Mayor Boughton’s performance of his governmental responsibilities.” Martinez also rejected an attempt by the city’s subcontracted law firm, Rose Kallor of Hartford, to punish the plaintiff’s lawyer for sharing public records.

The Danbury News Times had sought those records since last September. The city, through Rose Kallor, ultimately sent redacted deposition transcripts electronically to the newspaper the day after Thanksgiving. The case is loaded with serious allegations of vast cronyism and a wide variety of discipline or no discipline at all for acts of violence, threatening and sexual harassment. The Hat City blog posts characterize Boughton as “infatuated” with a former personnel director and warped by power. Depositions also revealed the existence of secret personnel files.

I asked for those same records on March 24 of this year. Obviously, the records were readily available with just a couple clicks. Instead of producing the records promptly as Connecticut’s FOI law demands, three days later I got this response from Danbury Assistant Corporation Counsel Dianne Rosemark: “The City has received your request for information below. We will provide a more detailed response to your request on [April Fool’s Day] Monday (the City is closed on Fridays).”

Who gave the order to stonewall this request for a week or more?

I asked Rosemark that question in correspondence on Monday, April 14.

For the record, I did receive the redacted depositions after protesting the ludicrous delaying tactics. I also noted in follow-up correspondence that such records should be available immediately to any citizen who requests them during normal business hours. Someone ought to test that, for, without the equivalent of a cattle prod, it is challenging to pry public records out of Danbury City Hall.

Given the city’s long-standing troubles with public records production – including issues with illegal redactions (e.g., redacting non-confidential material) – I intend to ask the FOI Commission to review the uncensored depositions in chambers to determine whether the redactions made by the city’s hired guns were legal. This is a routine procedure which in other cases has resulted in full disclosures of public information in other cases.

Still outstanding from my March 24 FOI requests are complete billing records to the city from Rose Kallor; as well as financial records including losses from investments connected with the jailed swindler Bernard Madoff and warnings from actuaries about the city’s failure to make adequate contributions to pensions. In a follow-up request dated April 14, I noted that the Danbury City Charter requires a match with employee contributions, and that allegedly has not happened over a number of years.

Given the way Danbury deals with public records requests under the Boughton regime, what impact might a Governor Boughton have on the state’s beleaguered FOI Commission? Think about it. Boughton for governor? Governor of The Hidden Public Records sounds about right.

Andy Thibault is a contributing editor for 21st Century Media’s Connecticut publications and the author of Law & Justice In Everyday Life. He formerly served as a commissioner for Connecticut’s Freedom of Information Commission. Reach Thibault by email at tntcomm82@cs.com. Follow him on Twitter @cooljustice.

Nice try Rennie but you only scratched the surface...

For the rest of the state, this must be comical but for someone who has followed the antics of Danbury's most dishonest mayor for a number of years, it's just another day in the life of following a person who has a hard time telling the truth.

Seems like Mark Boughton went into his too-common meltdown mode over someone exposing his hypocrisy...a hypocrisy that residents in Danbury are used to seeing on a daily basis.

Here's what Boughton had to say about the most recent criticism from the New Haven Register regarding his connection to Lisa Wilson-Foley.

A recent editorial (“Mark Boughton’s hypocrisy on John Rowland, guns”, April 11, 2014) made assertions about my candidacy for Governor that are contradicted by publicly-available facts.

As a candidate participating in the state’s clean elections program, the maximum contribution allowed to my campaign committee, Team Boughton, is $100. No one, not even wealthy individuals like Brian and Lisa Wilson-Foley or John Rowland, are eligible to contribute more than $100. The finance report filed on Thursday last week shows none of them donated to the committee.

In his rant against the New Haven Register, Boughton attempts to cry foul claiming that Wilson-Foley never gave a contribution to his campaign...which is not only false but NOT WHAT THE PAPER CLAIMED.

Here's what the NH Register CORRECTLY STATED.

Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton has chosen "People Over Politics" as the slogan for his 2014 campaign for Connecticut governor, but on two critical issues, he's not living up to that promise.

On Thursday, former Gov. John Rowland was indicted on charges that he conspired with failed 2012 congressional candidate Republican Lisa Wilson-Foley and her husband to break federal campaign finance laws. Prosecutors claim he attempted to do the same with congressional candidate Mark Greenberg, but was rebuffed.

We reported all of the key details of both the Wilson-Foley and Greenberg schemes two years ago, before the Republican state nominating convention in the 2012 race. Instead of condemning Rowland and Wilson-Foley, Mark Boughton tried to bail out her campaign, endorsing her prior to the convention and swinging Danbury's significant bloc of delegates to her.

"I don't really see it having the impact that the pundits think it's going to have," was all Boughton could muster when he asked him about it at the time. "Rowland is popular in the 5th District. I don't know about the rest of the state, but in the 5th District, he remains popular."

Hartford Courant columnist and DailyRuctions.com blogger Kevin Rennie wondered at the time what really was at play with the endorsement, considering the Rowland taint on her candidacy and Boughton's past disdain for Wilson-Foley, whom he narrowly defeated in a 2010 Republican primary for lieutenant governor.

Our guess is that Boughton got in bed with Wilson-Foley and her husband Brian for the same reason that Rowland did - because they're millionaires with a significant ability to raise money for his future gubernatorial campaign.

In the summer of 2010, Boughton and Wilson-Foley were in a primary battle for the LT. Gov ticket and the mayor had a hissy-fit as Wilson-Foley littered the city of Danbury with her lawn signs. Needless to say that Boughton had nothing good to say about Wilson-Foley but as everyone in Danbury knows, the way to Boughton's heart is by filling his pocket with campaign contributions...and Wilson-Foley did exactly that in a BIG WAY.

Upon reading Boughton's laughable letter to the editor to the New Haven Register, he would have readers and supporters believe that Wilson-Foley never gave a penny to his campaign for governor...which is true but (in typical Boughton fashion) highly misleading as well as a boldface lie.

What Boughton didn't inform the readership is that Wilson-Foley gave to his gubernatorial exploratory campaign as well as pull every trick in the book to give Danbury's mayor as much cash possible for his mayoral campaign in 2011. Given the bitterness between the two just a year prior, and Boughton's history of being involved in questionable fundraising tactics, it would be fair to assume that Wilsonm-Foleys the contributions were in exchange for the mayor's endorsement (which happened FOUR days before the Republican convention) and the lion share of Danbury's delegate support in 2012.

On July 7th 2011, Lisa Wilson-Foley (a.k.a. Boughton's nemesis), gave the mayor a the maximum amount of cash you can give to a mayoral campaign contribution in a reporting period...1,000 dollars.

Oh, it gets better...

During the same reporting period, Brian Foley (Lisa Wilson-Foley's husband) also threw the maximum campaign contribution amount to Boughton's cause.

Later in 2012, Boughton "suddenly" became Wilson-Foley's biggest cheerleader and handed the congressional candidate the lion share of delegates from Danbury to her cause, although news of Wilson-Foley's disturbing connection to Rowland was already well known among politicos in the state and among the delegates at the Republican Convention.

...and remember, this happened before the maximum contributions Wilson-Foley and his ilk gave to Boughton's gubernatorial exploratory committee which was reported by Kevin Rennie.

Boughton's dishonesty comes as no surprise to me since I know a thing or two when it comes to Danbury's dishonest mayor's past questionable actions when it comes to shaking the money tree.

Here's a complete copy of Boughton's campaign Oct 10 2011 finance report...I wouldn't be shocked if I'd find more contributions to Boughton from people connected to Wilson-Foley in other reports during 2011...

In yet another spot on editorial, the Register Citizen correctly highlights the hypocrisy of Danbury's most dishonest mayor...

Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton has chosen “People Over Politics” as the slogan for his 2014 campaign for Connecticut governor, but on two critical issues, he’s not living up to that promise.

On Thursday, former Gov. John Rowland was indicted on charges that he conspired with failed 2012 congressional candidate Republican Lisa Wilson-Foley and her husband to break federal campaign finance laws. Prosecutors claim he attempted to do the same with congressional candidate Mark Greenberg, but was rebuffed.

We reported all of the key details of both the Wilson-Foley and Greenberg schemes two years ago, before the Republican state nominating convention in the 2012 race. Instead of condemning Rowland and Wilson-Foley, Mark Boughton tried to bail out her campaign, endorsing her prior to the convention and swinging Danbury’s significant bloc of delegates to her.

“I don’t really see it having the impact that the pundits think it’s going to have,” was all Boughton could muster when he asked him about it at the time. “Rowland is popular in the 5th District. I don’t know about the rest of the state, but in the 5th District, he remains popular.”

Hartford Courant columnist and DailyRuctions.com blogger Kevin Rennie wondered at the time what really was at play with the endorsement, considering the Rowland taint on her candidacy and Boughton’s past disdain for Wilson-Foley, whom he narrowly defeated in a 2010 Republican primary for lieutenant governor.

Our guess is that Boughton got in bed with Wilson-Foley and her husband Brian for the same reason that Rowland did - because they’re millionaires with a significant ability to raise money for his future gubernatorial campaign.

Oh, but it gets better...

Boughton joined fellow mayors last January in backing an aggressive gun control agenda formulated by the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities. He also praised New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s push for legislation in New York that limited high capacity magazines and required background checks.

But after right-wing anti-gun control candidate Martha Dean entered the race for governor, and gun enthusiasts posted photos showing themselves with $100 bills, pledging to donate to Boughton’s campaign if he would leave the organization Mayors Against Illegal Guns, he did just that earlier this week.

“People over politics,” or “principles over politics,” would indeed be a great rallying cry for a candidate for governor in 2014. But so far, Mark Boughton seems mainly concerned about finding cash to fund his campaign and maneuvering through a Republican primary in which right-wing activists will beat on candidates who don’t pander to gun makers.

As more people learn about the REAL Mark Boughton, you can expect more editorials that will expose Danbury's "Big Poppa" for the dishonest fraud that he is.