ANY SUGGESTIONS?

Over the last few weeks I have received a few calls from readers that are getting an error message when trying to view the blog.

The message""Windows Internet Explorer. Stop running this script? A script on this page is causing Internet Explorer to run slowly. If it continues to run, your computer might become unresponsive. Yes No".

I'm not sure what has changed that might be causing this, any thoughts from my computer savvy readers?

EDDIE...PLEASE JUST GO AWAY

I was hopeful. The house was on the market and word was that Eddie Perez was moving out of the City to prepare for the prison stay and we might just be over the worst of the Perez era.

But no, Eddie Perez has once again proven that he knows no shame. Jeff Cohen at WNPR and Kevin Rennie at dailyructions.com, have both reported that Perez is once again surfacing to fleece the people of Hartford.

Apparently future inmate Perez has made a demand upon the City of Hartford to be paid for unused sick time and vacation pay totaling $131,590.32. If Perez really needs the money that bad, might I suggest filling out a job application for the Roldan for (fill in the blank office name here)Campaign. It seems to be working out well for Perez's former Chief of Staff who has been paid over $15,000 by Roldan already.

If Eddie pushes the issue, maybe the Council and Mayor will instruct the Corporation Counsel to file suit to recover all of the Attorney fees it cost the City for employees going before the Grand Jury to testify against Perez, those resulted from his criminal activity. That will more than cover the amount of his vacation and sick time.

AN ETHICAL CHALLENGE OR AN ETHICALLY CHALLENGED DECISION?

In March, Hartford's Green Ribbon Task Force on Hartford's parks completed its work and presented their recommendations to Mayor Pedro Segarra.

One of the recommendations the Commission made was to hire a “highly qualified Parks Director” within FY 2011-2012.

Now here is the ethical challenge, let me know what you think.

The commission made the recommendation to hire "a highly qualified Parks Director". That recommendation essentially created a new job position. If you were serving on that Commission and made a recommendation to create the new position, could you then ethically accept that new position that you essentially created? It seems like a large conflict of interest to me.

Well, that is exactly what happened last Friday at the entrance to Bushnell Park. Mayor Pedro Segarra announced the appointment of Jack Hale, a GRTF (Green Ribbon Task Force) Member as the Parks Operation Manager for the City of Hartford.

The other issue is the position being created at the same time that Public Works has been decimated by staff layoff and cutbacks. I'm not sure if the hiring freeze still exists, but shouldn't this position have gone before the City Council for approval ?

After the press event announcing the appointment, I asked Mayor Segarra if he thought it was a conflict of interest and his response is on the video below. The audio announcing the appointment has a lot of background noise (a lunch truck with a noisy generator was running in the background), my questions to the Mayor are much clearer.

I also asked numerous people a "hypothetical" question using the circumstances I laid out above, and everyone thought it was a conflict of interest to serve on a commission and then accept a position created by that commission's recommendations.