Hearing on FY 12 City Budget May 12th at Slade Middle School

Now that the Stewart administration has put a $216 million budget on the table officials have set a public hearing for Thursday May 12th at 6 p.m.   The hearing will be held at Slade Middle School, not the high school as originally announced.

With federal recovery act funds gone and a best-case scenario of level funding for state education aid, the operative word is "layoff"from the brass at the Board of Education and the Mayor's Office.

At City Hall, Mayor Stewart says $11 million must be saved via layoffs or related reductions in or to the work force.

Prediction: Busway Will Get Go Ahead Today

The Governor has scheduled a Monday afternoon announcement about public transportation and whether CT will complete the New Britain to Hartford busway. Proponents Mayor Pedro Segarra and State Rep. Tim O'Brien are going.

Because of new jobs and giving guv cover and credibility with labor, Courant's Rick Green in CT Confidential says it will be the busway.

There are immediate prospects for hundreds of jobs to build the roadway along the railroad bed sinking the hopes of the rail crowd and the wishes of the towns of Bristol, Newington and West Hartford.

Remembering Rev. King and the Labor Movement - Again

Ultra-conservative radio host Dan Lovallo was distorting the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. the other day.  He joined a caller in bashing labor unions by objecting to unions' honoring and remembering King for his strong support of organized labor generally and public employee unions specifically.  It's all part of Lovallo's and his drive-time competition's (Former Public Employee John Rowland)  steady trash talk against many who work in the public sector.  Lovallo's distortions aside, the anniversary of Rev. King's assassination on April 4th is a sad and irrefutable reminder that King gave his life for both civil and economic rights, especially the right of public employees to bargain collectively. In this season of attacks against labor rights in the public sector Rev. King should be remembered for his close allegiance with labor. It's something if you are of a certain age you don't forget:

04 APRIL 2007

39 Years Ago Today

I remember exactly where I was on April 4, 1968. Thirty nine years ago today the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. 

That week day, like many others in my senior year in high school, I drove to Bradlee’s Department store on the Lynnway in Lynn, Massachusetts to punch in for the evening shift earning some money before entering Boston University in the fall. 

The news spread quickly that Thursday evening that King was dead. It didn’t take long to realize that my shift as a retail clerk would be different from all the others. The store quickly emptied out. Not a customer in sight all night. No need for Mr. Silverman, the shaken and somber store manager, to send me out on outside carriage control. The bullets in Memphis were enough to bring a normal business day to a halt in Lynn and most of the nation. Just five short years before I had come home from junior high on a late summer day to watch King deliver his “I Have A Dream” speech – an event that would inspire so many of us to become active in politics and protest. 

There are many good remembrances of what King said and stood for on his national holiday In January every year, but not so much is being said on this anniversary of the day he died. It's worth remembering on April 4th and throughout the year why King was in Memphis on a day I will never forget. 

By 1968, Rev. King was widening the concerns of his movement. In Where Do We Go From Here? King opposed a Vietnam policy that had begun to break the nation further apart. The lunchroom sit-ins and battles over accommodations and voting rights were giving way to a broader agenda. He was planning a new march on Washington – “the Poor People’s Campaign” -- when he decided to take up the cause of 1,300 Black sanitation workers in Memphis, a city of southern segregation, where the white power structure opposed the right to unionize and the Mayor vowed never to bargain in good faith in a way that would give the sanitation workers their dignity. The strike and a citywide economic boycott were a cause King knew he could not ignore.

King’s prophetic “I’ve Been to the Mountain Top” speech on the eve of the assassination is his best known from Memphis. But two weeks earlier, on March 18th, King galvanized support for strikers by saying: “So often we overlook the worth and significance of those who are not in professional jobs, or those who are not in the so-called big jobs…..One day our society will come to respect the sanitation worker if it is to survive.” Following King’s assassination, the Memphis power structure gave up its intransigence – recognizing the union, awarding pay raises and instituting merit promotions. 

King’s campaign for striking sanitation workers reaffirmed his greatness at the hour of his death and resonates today in the cause of social and economic justice. That is worth remembering most from the day he died.

from  http://nbpoliticus.blogspot.com/2007/04/39-years-ago-today.html

Party For State Rep. Sanchez: Affirming the American Dream in New Britain

Ward 3 Ald. Shirley Black and
Rep. Bobby Sanchez
At Fiesta Latina

Family, friends and colleagues were on hand at the Puerto Rican Society Friday March 18th to celebrate the election of Bobby Sanchez as the state representative from the 25th Assembly District in New Britain.   

Sanchez, the Democratic Town Committee Vice Chair and Board of Education member, was elected in the February 22nd special election to the state assembly seat . He succeeded John Geragosian, one  of the new state Auditors of Public Accounts.

Like many a gathering at the Puerto Rican Society the “Fiesta Latina” had plenty of home-made dishes of chicken, pork, rice and beans. Sanchez, a Washington Street resident and human services professional,  welcomed attendees many of whom have worked with Sanchez through the years to register voters and promote turnouts on election days.  Ward 5 Ald.  Roy Centeno and DTC member Francisco Cuin introduced other elected officials during a brief program , including  State Rep. Tim O’Brien, Ward 3 Ald. Shirley Black and BOE President Sharon Beloin-Saavedra.  

Less than a month in state office, Sanchez says he’s absorbed in reading the many bills he’ll vote on. He faces a long week of  sessions on the finance, revenue and bonding committee as lawmakers work on a state budget of “shared sacrifice.”  His knowledge and career work in Head Start and social service programs will serve him well on the Education Committee, his other major assignment as a freshman lawmaker.

Sanchez, a New Britain native, reminded us that he was a child of the sixties. His immigrant parents enrolled him in the city’s first Head Start classroom at Saint Mary’s Church-- the early childhood program that was part of the wave of social and civil rights laws enacted and for which people gave their lives to bring about just a generation ago.  

The significance of the celebration for Sanchez was not lost on anyone in attendance. Sanchez’ election to state office is a milestone for the Latino community whose numbers, according to the 2010 census, rise rapidly in city and suburb alike in Connecticut.  Pete Rosa came by to wish Sanchez well. Rosa, a former BOE member and New Britain Alderman, was New Britain’s first citizen of Puerto Rican background to run and win elective office. It was not so long ago that Rosa, for his willingness to run and hold office, endured phone threats from anonymous voices fixated on ethnic division and hate in the city.  

That Sanchez has been elected a state representative is a solid sign of progress in New Britain. It says that people wanting to be part of politics and government will have opportunities regardless of  ethnic background or economic standing. It says that New Britain is “a city for all people”.

Pete Hamill, the author and journalist, would agree. He once remembered looking out his “tenement window” in Brooklyn in his youth and seeing  the Statue of Liberty and the New York City skyline.  

“They weren’t symbols of New York; they stood for America itself......Those symbols, made visible and concrete by the efforts of human beings, were not lies. The first said that here, in these United States, men and women were free of the ancient curses of class, iron tradition, religious division. An Irish Catholic from bigoted Belfast, a Jew from some forlorn and isolated Russian shtetl, an Italian from the eroded wastes of the Mezzogiorno: all were free. Each was the political equal of the richest man in the country, able to cast a vote in free elections, possessed of rights guaranteed on paper in the Constitution of the United States. Here, no man or woman would ever genuflect before a king. Here, no child would shiver in fear during the terrors of a pogrom. Here, no feudal don would exercise arbitrary powers of life and death. Not here. Not ever. This was America. Here you could imagine a glorious future. Here, dreams really did come true.  

[From “America: The Place Where Dreams Still Come True” by Pete Hamill]

Should New Britain Follow Tulsa And Consider Mediation at City Hall?

A Mayor and City Council majority are facing a big divide over budgets, policies and ethics.
The verbal disputes get heated with name calling and over the top rhetoric that pit one branch of government against another. All of this is occurring weeks ahead of what will be a very difficult municipal budget process.

The situation sounds a lot like New Britain and the continuing breech between the Mayor, his Republican allies on the Council and the Democratic majority on the Council -- a breech that grew worse when the Mayor lost a special election for state Senate this week and the Council leadership moved for a moratorium on city work for elected officials because of charges of favoritism towards them.

As much as it sounds like New Britain,  similar conflicts are occurring in Tulsa, Oklahoma where the idea of mediation has surfaced as a way to get the city's business done.

The news story from a local TV station quotes a local judge that seemingly intractable differences could be addressed  "in 30 days" if all sides agreed to sit down.

TULSA, OK -- There's talk of reconciliation between Tulsa's Mayor and the City Council.

The mayor and council might go into mediation to talk out their problems - and Thursday both sides took a step in that direction.

With Mayor Bartlett looking on, the City Council quizzed two retired judges about whether they could repair the mayor and council relationship.

"We can get for you what you want for the citizens of Tulsa and we can do that through mediation," Sam Joyner, a retired judge, said.

Sam Joyner and Daniel Boudreau have offered to serve as unpaid mediators and think they can settle the issues.

"If everyone wants to participate in the process, I think we could get it done in 30 days," Joyner said.

A short list of the issues includes the claim that Bartlett and Terry Simonson lied to the council and their ethics complaint against him. There's an allegation the council shouldn't have a city attorney, a lawsuit claiming the council violated the open meetings act and a threatened defamation lawsuit as well.

New Britain should be a big enough town to identify a judge or mediator who would enjoy the confidence of all sides so that the city's business could get done.  It's a certainty that the political and personal differences that have arisen aren't likely to be eliminated. But a reduced level of acrimony, respect for the rules and charter and some greater level of constructive communication between elected officials from opposite parties are in the best interests of the city.

If they are out there judges or diplomats may apply at City Hall.

Playing Favorites: Stewart Administration Sends Lots of No-Bid Work To Two GOP Aldermen

A review of city purchasing records show that two Republican city council members have received a substantial amount of no-bid business through the Stewart administration.  The  transactions appear to have avoided an open bid process by either skirting a $3,000 minimum for bidding or bypassing the competitive and ethics process altogether.

Alderman at Large Mark Bernacki’s Sir Speedy Printing Company and Ward One Alderman Willie Pabon’s New Britain Fence Company have logged dozens of transactions on the city’s dime steadily doing printing and fencing work.  Between the end of 2003 and 2010  -- the tenure of Tim Stewart in the Mayor’s office -- the two firms connected to the GOP aldermen received a total or $240,316 -- $77,458 in billings from Sir Speedy and $162,858 from New Britain Fence, according to City Hall finance records.  


Between the end of 2003 through 2010 Sir Speedy’s invoices involved more than 260 separate transactions with jobs ranging from as little as $19.95 to $1,000 or more -- all falling below the $3,000 level, with one exception of an invoice for $5,764 . Annual amounts for Sir Speedy range from a low of $3,226 in 2004 to a high of $17,885 in 2006. New Britain Fence Company’s billings ranged from a low of $1,050 in 2010 to a high of $87,285 in 2006.

Controversy over contracting and public officials in the Stewart administration surfaced in 2006 when Mayor Stewart approved an “emergency” purchase order for New Britain Fence to install a mile long fence around the Pinnacle Heights housing project that was slated for demolition.  The Pinnacle Heights contract totalled $68,870 and was awarded to New Britain Fence at the end of August that year without bidding or going to the Common Council.

Democratic Alderman Larry Hermanowski objected  to the “emergency” contract at the time, filing a complaint with the city ethics commission because both Pabon, then a police commissioner, and his son, were public officials serving on city boards.  Hermanowski’s complaint -- subsequently dismissed by the Stewart controlled five-member ethics commission -- was based on the city’s ethics code which prohibits any elected or appointed official from doing work for the city without “an open and public process.”  Responding to the Hermanowski complaint, Mayor Stewart defended the emergency contract in September 2006, telling the Hartford Courant:

“There’s nothing shady going on here. This was not a contract that was steered to a crony of the mayor,” Stewart was quoted as saying as he claimed  the city’s purchasing agent and economic development director handled the purchase.

Undoubtedly Tim Stewart will defend any and all transactions that have gone to businesses connected to GOP members of the Council as dealings that are as pure as the driven snow. 

The issue, however, is not whether businesses such as Sir Speedy or New Britain Fence should have an opportunity to work for the city. They should as should other businesses here in the same line of work.

At issue is the total absence of transparency by Stewart in favoring certain vendors and not working with the Council through an open process for doing the city's business.  More important, the matter raises the question of whether special treatment has been given to public officials for private gain.

In this regard the city’s Code of Ethics is clear: “No official or employee shall grant or make available to any person any consideration, treatment, advantage or favor that it is not available to the general public.”

A related post on the city’s ethics commission is available at http://nbpoliticus.blogspot.com/2006/10/new-britains-partisan-ethics-process.html

Public Transit: Towns On A Slow Train That May Never Get Here

A concerted and well-funded effort by the Bristol Chamber to scuttle the New Britain-Hartford busway has gained considerable ground in recent months.  Last week suburban Newington's Town Council was the latest to favor ending the project in favor of developing rail from Waterbury into Bristol and through New Britain.

A January 31 New Britain Herald editorial weighs in on the problem with dumping the bus line now and starting to plan a rail line from scratch.

Busway opponents seem to have engaged in some magical thinking about rail but, except about the Hartford-Springfield corridor, no plan exists and no one knows what would be the real cost to develop rail service extending into Bristol, the dream of Sen. Welch, Bristol Chamber of Commerce President Mike Nicastro and others who are trying to de-rail the busway.

There are compelling arguments that rail -- light or conventional -- would have been preferable to a busway. But back in the 1990s the highway-oriented Transportation Department argued (incorrectly) that this part of Connecticut couldn't generate sufficient passenger volume to warrant a commuter rail system.  The Waterbury rail line, however, does not appear to provide the kind of commuter relief of a busway and would not be attainable for perhaps a decade.   Trains would be running to give better connections to a student going to Boston to college or a family outing in New York City. But they would be running with less regularity to get John Doe from Bristol to his insurance job in Hartford on time.

There are compelling examples that busways -- as proposed here -- have worked elsewhere to get people out of their automobiles and reduce the carbon footprint that so many in the rail crowd favor.

The arguments against the busway get weaker when the growing and compelling need to reduce I-84 congestion and the value of getting people to work on time are considered.   -  John McNamara (Part 1 of 2)