THANK HEAVEN FOR SARAH BARR

I still receive regular calls asking me how Sarah Barr still has a job at Hartford City Hall. Until today, all I could tell people was that I was as confused as they were. Common sense would say that the spokesperson and the face associated with a corrupt, criminal Perez Administration would have been shown the exit at City Hall quickly if a fresh start was really happening.

After all, Barr was the one who was credited with creating the "Gospel of Perez" that taught Perez's staffers the fine art of spinning and embellishing the truth. The "Gospel" was all about the message, forget about the truth. Barr was also the one standing by Perez manipulating the media as Perez faced the Grand Jury and had his home searched by authorities. She was also there as arrest number one took place and there again during arrest number two. She was there at the prayer vigils and Function Room pep-rallies and she was there putting name tags on all the Council Chamber chairs reserving them for Perez Cheerleaders at the State of the City addresses.

I thought that would be a no-brainer for Mayor Segarra, Barr would be out the door. Especially since Segarra seems to have no problem handling the media on his own, and the speeches seem to come from the heart rather than from a script as was the Perez style. And whether those speeches were written upwards, backwards or right to left to account for the "dyslexia defense", there is no doubt Barr was the Perez mouthpiece. And if budget cuts were really needed , Barr's $80,000 or $90,000 plus salary would be a good start.

All those thoughts went out the window today when I realized Sara Barr's true value to the people of the City of Hartford and restoring our image as a thoughtfully run City. Just when you think Hartford is a laughing stock and can't do anything right, Sara Barr steps forward and earns every penny that the taxpayers of Hartford have paid her since she lost her job at Channel 3.

Anyone who has followed the debacle of this years "Festival of Light" must have seen that Hartford appeared to be a huge disappointment to countless children and adults. Many of them families who ventured into Hartford last Friday for a spectacular holiday event. The only problem was that those who ventured in were left in dismay after the switch was flipped, and what to their wondering eyes did appear,...... but an artificial tree lit in the middle of Bushnell Park.

Luckily for us, all the disappointment has now been forgotten by one little media statement from the Barr spin machine......"WE DID IT FOR THE SQUIRRELS". Yes you read that right, the lack of the 250,000 twinkling lights promised before the event apparently happened out of consideration for Bushnell Parks wildlife. Lights require wires. Wires carry electricity. Squirrels eat wires. Birds land in trees. Trees have lights, the same lights with wires that carry the electricity that the squirrels might eat and, as the Barr theory goes, birds could get electrocuted as they land on those wires that carry the electricity that the squirrels eat.

Brilliant, brilliant...absolutely brilliant. It is so bizarre that people will have to believe that. And tell me what suburbanite wouldn't be willing to overlook the original failure and give Hartford a second (or maybe even third, fourth, fifth or more) chance. Consider the alternative, the poor little squirrel falling from the tree, smoking nuts and all after eating the wrong wire before the bird could land and electrocuting himself. This might be a good time for the "chestnuts roasting" joke, but I will choose not to.

So anyways, back to Barr. For a city that seems to have a severe credibility issue on just about every front, why would we even think of using the truth when the absurd will do just fine. Why would anyone admit "we screwed up, we underestimated what the public expected" when you can tell people "we did it for the squirrels".

From what my City Hall sources tell me , Barr will next take over media efforts for the Hartford Police Department. Tell me I'm crazy but her next effort is also brilliant. Those same visitors to the City who were disappointed by the "Festival of non-Lights" also seem to have serious concerns about Hartford's gun violence. Barr's latest effort will kill two birds with one stone. That might not be the right choice of words if we are concerned about electrocuting birds on the lights, but I'm not as good at the spin as Barr is.

Anyway, the new plan like I said is brilliant. Barr has apparently instructed the Hartford Police Department to immediately cease referring to anyone taking a bullet as a "shooting victim". Instead, according to her directive fresh out of the Mayor's Office, from this point forward any one shot in Hartford is to be referred to as "suffering from a severe case of lead poisoning". Like I said before, absolutely brilliant. Shooting victim scares people, "suffering from a severe case of lead poisoning" should change everything, it worked with the squirrels.

If they fell for it with the "doing it for the squirrels" defense, why wouldn't they buy it with the "lead poisoning" defense, hopefully it will work much better than the "dyslexia" defense, I guess two out of three ain't bad.

Keep it up Sarah, these fools will never see through the smoke and mirrors.

P.S., it also gives me a reason to re-use the lovely pic above. Many people asked me where I got that pic from and in all honesty the photographer who took it recently passed away. I'll never forget how the photographer loved seeing me use the pic and was proud of the naturalness and quality as opposed to the "staged" photos he seemed to dislike. Brian Libert was never seen without his camera and loved clicking away, many pics were flattering and many were not, but they always seemed to capture the true essence of his subjects personality. Don't you agree?