Tong, The Tong Building, and the Laz Connection

“The lack of money is the root of all evil” – Mark Twain

The town of Manchester has decided to purchase for $1.75 million a property owned by the parents of Attorney General William Tong. Town officials say, according to a piece in the Journal Inquirer, that the property, was “most recently appraised at up to $1.15 million…

“The parents of Connecticut Attorney General William Tong own 942 Main St., under the company name WJSJM LLC. The 0.79-acre lot features a one-story, 19,600-square-foot retail building that has a few tenants, but a long history of vacancies.

“According to town assessor documents, the property was assessed at $513,200 under the 2021 revaluation, with an appraisal of $733,200. The structure was built in 1940, and the town estimated replacement costs at $1.92 million.”

The bottom line, as bankers might say, is that Tong’s parents stand to make a pretty penny on the deal.

Member of Manchester’s Board of Directors Dennis Schain, whose background is in journalism and communications, said his approval of the project “hinged on the Forest Street lot and the potential for growth downtown.”

Schain waved aside the usual political cynicism, very much in vogue these days.

“The real issues here,” said Schain, “is not to agonize over what we paid versus what it is potentially worth,” Schain said.

The purchase represents a solid investment for Manchester, Schain advised, and “… the only consideration in his vote,” according to the JI piece, “was what is best for Manchester and its taxpayers, and connections to the family of the attorney general had no bearing.”

It is unfortunate, Schain said that “we live in an era of cynicism and conspiratorial viewpoints of the world.” It is difficult to disprove a “conspiracy,” Schain added, “but anyone with proof of a conflict of interest should bring it to light.”

The purchase of “the Tong building” was approved by Manchester’s Board of Directors on a 7-2 vote during a meeting on February 7.

The purchase produced on February 14 at least one letter to the editor written by John Hannon of Manchester, who questioned the sale.

Hannon wrote that the $1.75 million paid by his town for the Tong Building was “way above the appraised value.” Only William Tong’s parents benefited from the arrangement and, Hannon added, the proposed sale should be put on a ballot, to be decided by Manchester voters in the next election.

Hannon has yet to be denounced as a cynic. We should all realize that both cynicism and sycophancy are equally present in politics. Of the two, cynicism is the more purifying virtue, particularly in the case of people who do not believe everything they read in newspapers.

Were decisions concerning the purchase price and sale of the Tong Building in Manchester made because the sellers of the property were the mother and father of Attorney General William Tong, well-fortified in his position because he is surrounded by a phalanx of more than 200 hundred lawyers who come when he says come and go when he says go?

Money, Hartford Courant commentator Kevin Rennie reminds us in a recent posting on Daily Ructions, is not an unimportant consideration for entrenched political incumbents, Tong among them.

“An early test of strength for the 2026 Democratic nomination for governor is playing out among two likely contenders. Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz and Attorney General William Tong are jockeying for the favor of prodigious Democratic fundraiser Alan Lazowski, Daily Ructions has learned.

“Tong and Bysiewicz are each lobbying Governor Ned Lamont to appoint Nicole Lake to lead the Department of Consumer Protection [DCP]… Lake holds the curiously named position of Chief Impact Officer of Laz Parking,” among other impressive politically connected positions such as “Chief Counsel to the Connecticut Attorney General, Vice President & General Counsel to a non-profit healthcare system and Associate General Counsel to a former Connecticut Governor [Dannel P. Malloy]. She has also worked as a consumer protection, labor and legal services attorney.”

It was former Attorney General Dick Blumenthal who, some think too frequently, made use of consumer complaints generated by the DCP to enhance his own public persona as the so called “people’s lawyer.” Democrat successors in that office, including Tong, have kept up the politically profitable tradition.

“Lake, Chief Impact Officer of Laz Parking,” Rennie stresses, “was well positioned to take over as the head of the DCP after Lamont unaccountably decided not to support the renomination of Michelle Seagull to the position.

“Any ambitious Democrat wants [Alan] Lazowski on his or her side… Neither Tong nor Bysiewicz would be able to finance a campaign for governor with personal assets.”

Money, whether in the form of personal enrichment or public reelection financing, remains the mother’s milk of politics.