THE FOX IN THE HENHOUSE

I have to ask myself if anyone at City Hall has any previous management experience the more I read and hear about City Hall operations.

As the LSNI ( Mayor Segarra's Livable Sustainable Neighborhood Initiative) has imploded before us over the last couple weeks it seems clear that something is wrong and no one was paying attention.
Segarra needs to be at the top of the "list of blame" because after all he was elected as our "strong Mayor". Next on the list needs to be Perez holdover COO David Panagore.

According to an article in the Courant " Jonas Maciunas, who had supervised the neighborhoods initiative, was reassigned to the development services' Complete Street Program, which oversees streetscape projects, a city official said. Panagore has taken over as head of the neighborhoods initiative."

Can anyone tell me what management style that is that you transfer the person who was responsible for screwing up the project to another critical department. If you don't have the skills, you don't have the skills, bottom line. That is what unemployment is for, you get rid of the people who can't or haven't performed the functions they have been paid very well to perform.And the person who was responsible or the program in the first place, remember the four assistants to Panagore who were assighed to the program, and now Panagore has taken over as head of the program.

What is that definition of insanity, I think it is to do the same thing repeatedly and expect a different result. What will Panagore do differently now, actually pay attention to the program?

Add to that a little claim of fraudulent paperwork submitted and this should be a full scale investigation, most likely leading to criminal charges if necessary. Bottom line is this all rests at Segarra's feet. This was a pet project of Segarra and it fell apart right in front of him. Name any corporation where the CEO would tolerate one of his prime initiatives  being allowed to fall apart by mismanagement. I can promise the only moves would be out the door, and definitely not to another department, especially if the CEO was embarrassed in the media like Segarra has been.

Panagore's explanation to WFSB last night regarding another blighted property was laughable. Instaed of saying the Mayor has taken a strong lead on blight across the City and we will have a crew out there first thing tomorrow morning, he essentially stated "there is nothing we can do" . Does he really think the property owner would fight the City because they cut the weeds on a blighted property. View Channel 3's story here

Another source inside Hartford DPW claims that they have only cleaned 13 propertied total and submitted the paperwork weekly to one of the Assistant COO's, Natalie Pertoso. The Courant's report seems to verify that claim as they have documents apparently for 13 properties that were cleaned. Where did the 26 other cleaned properties com from? Apparently not Public Works. So who falsified the numbers and who was responsible for putting apparently false information out?

Changes need to begin immediately and Segarra needs to step up and perform the role we elected him to perform, strong Mayor. He plays the "Goodwill Ambassador" role very well, as evidenced by his National Night Out performance. He interacts with residents very well, but he needs to step up and make sure the City government operates efficiently. Transferring dead wood around or overlooking incompetence is not efficiency. We deserve more than half a Mayor

 And it doesn't work well when  the person that is supposed to over see city operations, the Mayor's handpicked Chief Operating Officer is at the top of the list of incompetence.LSNI employess all apparently answered to him