Despite the public’s growing resentment of the privileged position of Connecticut’s approximately 45,000 state employees, their unions may be doing the state a great favor by resisting Gov. Dannel Malloy’s demand for a billion dollars’ worth of concessions for each of the next two budget years, the equivalent of about $22,000 per employee per year, almost a quarter of their average compensation.Yes, plenty of economizing could be done with state government’s work force, from wages to insurance benefits to pensions. But the governor’s demand of the state employee unions is grossly disproportionate, contradicting his theme of “shared sacrifice,” and distracts from even bigger problems. Besides, the governor doesn’t need the consent of the unions to economize with them; he can just lay off employees, saving an estimated $100 million per year for every thousand laid off. Reducing the state work force by 5,000 employees, 11 percent, might save half of what the governor aims to save in the state employment account even as it forced him and the General Assembly to share sacrifice where it should be shared: with municipal government.The governor has tried to make a virtue of his not proposing to reduce state financial aid to municipalities, and the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities is broadcasting radio commercials lauding him for it. But this is no virtue at all, as there are about 158,000 municipal employees, three-and-a-half times more than state employees and all of them heavily subsidized by that state aid. There’s no fairness in asking state employees to sacrifice so much while leaving municipal employees untouched.Seeming to try to pressure the state employee unions to sacrifice themselves for the sake of everyone else, the Malloy administration this week published a list of how it would cut a billion dollars from municipal aid if that amount couldn’t be saved from state employees. Cities would lose tens of millions of dollars each; even small towns would take big hits. Meanwhile the municipal group’s radio ads warn that cutting state aid would result in “big property tax hikes, deep service cuts and teacher and municipal layoffs.”Not necessarily. For this “doomsday” scenario presumes that cities and towns can’t or won’t seek concessions from their own employees’ unions, presumes that everything in municipal government is a “fixed cost.” Of course municipal officials are not eager to seek concessions and thereby alienate the biggest constituency in their local electorate. Rather, they’ve made careers of trying to transfer municipal costs to state government so the tax responsibility is borne by state legislators and the governor instead. Only a few municipal officials, like Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, last year’s Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, dare to note that state government really isn’t so helpless against its unions, that it could change labor law, particularly the law requiring binding arbitration of public employee union contracts. For that matter, if state government ever thought that Connecticut’s financial circumstances were desperate enough, it could suspend or repeal collective bargaining for public employees entirely.Crazy as Malloy’s exemption of municipal employees from “shared sacrifice” is financially, the political calculation behind it is as obvious as the political calculation behind trying to restore state government’s finances by taxing “the rich” more. As a matter of politics, antagonizing only a few people and their families is better than antagonizing 45,000, and antagonizing 45,000 is better than antagonizing 158,000. Fairness has nothing to do with any of it.But the whole government class has to start to sacrifice if Connecticut is to be saved, since the taxpaying public already has sacrificed amply, its decline in income during the recession being reflected in the decline of state government’s tax revenue.Truly shared sacrifice might mean 10 percent reductions in compensation along with pension curtailments for both the state and municipal work forces, as well as profound rethinking of state government’s failed policies and mistaken purposes. For example, is drug criminalization really worth hundreds of millions in criminal justice expense each year? Should students who fail in high school really still be guaranteed admission to the state university and community colleges systems, incurring hundreds of millions in remedial expense? Should the state keep subsidizing childbearing outside marriage, whose social and budget costs are beyond figuring?Connecticut may never get to “shared sacrifice” and face the crucial questions of policy unless the state employee unions hold out. Chris Powell is managing editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester.
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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