No, that question wasn't meant as a joke, I'm serious. Is anyone held accountable at City Hall?
We pay some very big salaries to people who are supposed to be "managers" of City government, yet we continue to see , day in and day out the continuous missteps, mistakes and "lack of oversight". Sadly , many of those City salaries are also way out of whack with comparable jobs in the private sector.
The other sad part is that we see many of the "mistakes " being made by the same people repeatedly with hardly any accountability or repercussions for their acts. Darryl Hill is one name that immediately comes to mind, yet he is still left in charge to move on to the next mistake, driving Hartford further off the cliff every day.
I won't rehash it here all over again, but the Stadium is just one more example of people put in charge of oversight for things they know nothing about
In a recent blog posting I described normal construction management procedures. You can read more here.
Briefly, I wrote ;"Typically on a construction project someone is monitoring, and enforcing all relevant requirements. Is your licensing up to date and current? Do they have copies of you current license? Is your liability insurance up to date and current? Do they have copies of your current insurance certificates? Is any required letter of credit or bond up to date? Do they have current copies?"
Where was the checklist. I would think that would be critical to any move, especially before throwing a contractor off a project as large as the Stadium. Did anyone ask our "owners rep" from Chicago what was the best way to proceed before taking the shut down actions? Isn't that what we are paying them for, to protect our interests. Or did we rely on a couple of people who have already shown they know nothing about crisis management and planning?
The names I. Charles Matthews and Darryl Hill keep coming to mind. Maybe they should be working for FEMA instead of the City of Hartford since they are so good at running into disasters. Unfortunately many of those disasters have been created by them. But also, Mayor Bronin is the Administrator who is responsible for keeping this mess in check, he can't continue to blame the "previous Administration" for the mistakes, especially when he is willing to give his PAC money to prop up that previous Administration.
With the stadium I just wonder what else they have overlooked, what is the next screw-up we will hear about? The lights and water have been shut off because no one transferred the bills from DONO when the Mayor threw them off the project? This stuff would also be comical if it wasn't the reality of the way the "Keystone Cops" brigade at City Hall operates.( No offense to our real cops who are doing a great job under difficult circumstances)
Maybe it is time to create a new position for Darryl Hill of Chief Financial Officer since he has done such a great job so far as COO ( hopefully that reign for Hill is about to come to an end with the arrival of Bonnie Malley now that the Phoenix merger is complete)
I can almost envision the day the Mayor, Darryl Hill and I . Charles Matthews pull up in front of City Hall in the Shriner's little clown cars and laugh and tell us the last six months have all been been a joke.
These aren't abstract concepts, much of it is called common sense, and that is what we are paying the big bucks to some people to protect our interests, not put a potentially $100,000,000 plus project in jeopardy by failing to carry insurance coverage. It is called "MANAGEMENT". And the same person who continually screws up has also been given more control as the "Acting Finance Director" for the City of Hartford? What could possibly go wrong there?
The Union issues, the Stadium problems, the lack of insurance the stunning failure of Senate Bill 464 have all been crash and burn moments for an administration that we all hoped was bringing in sweeping change January 1st. What happened?
21 comments:
Hey Kevin, The Shriners Clowns do very good work, you owe them an apology for comparing them to the City of Hartford clowns.
What happened? Well, the voters made an error, 48 month long error, by not choosing Robert Killian. That's what happened.
Apparently the administration has now laid off all the city foresters. Good thing we don't have thousands of older city-owned trees in parks, adjacent to schools, over sidewalks that need to be maintained, because they never drop limbs and seriously injure folks (oh wait.. they do!).
http://articles.courant.com/2010-10-16/community/hc-hartford-downed-tree-injuries-101620101016_1_claudio-solano-bleachers-two-young-girls
The issue with Court Jester Bronin is that people who voted for him only did so because they believed he would bring money into the City from the state. What he did not plan for is the state coffers running dry and Hartford receiving no additional funds to pay off the increasing debt service and pension obligation payments. So his tactic for addressing this is to prepare a budget that will inevitably send Hartford straight into bankruptcy and alienating all the hard working employees that have served this City a lot longer than he ever will. It's quite comical that people now realize that Segarra was a much better Mayor than this clown will ever be. Going forward in my life, I will never again assume that a person with a Yale degree and a Rhodes Scholar to be intelligent enough to run a capital city. Just because one may be book smart, it does not guarantee he/she knows how to run a govt or business.
Reality bites.
The stadium is the final nail that bankrupts the city. Declaring bankruptcy would be a blessing. Have a judge oversee the finances, rip up existing contracts, and a fresh start. It's coming soon anyway, why not now? Only political reasons - drag it out beyond this election to maximize the possibility of Malloy getting a plum federal job with Crooked Hillary. Bronin is just a chump, out of his depth on many levels and unaware of what is going on.
How about Malloy heading up the Federal Department of Commerce? Just about perfect.
Whatever Bronin's faults, and however true it may be that Judge Killian was the better candidate for Strong Mayor, we tend to forget that the Council remains the legislative and primary budgetary authority. The Mayor should get together with his team to propose common sense fiscal management (i.e., reform) and/or call for a control board.
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Bronin, who won the endorsement Monday with the backing of 49 town committee members, billed his group as the "Democratic team for change." It includes the endorsed candidates for council, probate judge and treasurer.
Bronin and his team visited businesses along Albany Avenue early Wednesday afternoon.
"Over the next seven weeks we're going to be going out every single day and every single night talking to voters of the city of Hartford about the things that matter most," Bronin told reporters before campaigning.
"We're going to be talking about the need for a plan and leadership to address the dangerous spike in gun violence that we've seen in this city, and that also means getting at the root of the problems that we've got," he said. "We have to be so much more aggressive. We have seen, as we've said, a devastating spike in crime over the past few months. This is a time for leadership."
New Haven is nicer am doing much better as a city their downtown is thriving they police officers Yale police officers they even have security guards patrolling the streets with the same Union an benefits as the Yale Police officers an their starting pay is about 17$ a hour I wouldn't even tell a friend or family member to apply to any Hartford city job they will be filing bankruptcy soon and another city that is beautiful is Stamford CT I was downtown there an it literally looks like Beverly Hills Hartford is cursed an will continue to go downhill because there's too many phony people an crooks
The new mayor has been quite vocal in blaming previous administrations for the situation they are now in. Rightly so. But at some point, he has to hold himself and his new administration accountable.
Let's start with Development Services. The mayor touted the new director. One would hope and expect that the first thing Mr. Fitzpatrick would have done was to pull the files of all the large development projects, review them and see if all was in order. You know, things like letters of credit and copies of insurance certificates, all of which one would think would be in the file. Had Mr. Fitzpatrick done his due diligence back in January, and saw these things were missing, he would have had ample time to get all the t's crossed and i's dotted. But yet again, Hartford has hired another pig in a poke and the Mayor's response is to blame the prior administration.
SMH
HARTFORD IS BANKRUPT, EVEN WITHOUT FILING FOR BANKRUPTCY HARTFORD IS ALREADY BANKRUPT.
Peter Brush,To bad the Hartford Police Dept doesn't have a "stop and frisk" policy. If so,they could have walked along side that weasel Bronin and his "team" of "s@&tbags" down Albany Ave and taken some of those guns off the street. I wish I could have witnessed that phoney Bronin walking by numerous deadbeats on EVERY street corner down Albany Ave that were drunk,high and NOT WORKING! Did anyone else want to throw up while watching Bronin on tv give a phoney sidewalk eulogy about Hartfords last victim of gun violence. HE NEVER MEET THIS GUY! I said it before ,someone please go dig up Mayor George Athanson and reanimate him ! IM MAD AS HELL AND IM NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE !
Everyone wants to attack the unions. The contracts were done in Good faith and followed by those in the union and paid there part of it.. These individuals and many others have costed the city millions. nothing has changed. Bronin really wants us to go into bankruptcy . For all you saying rip up the contracts start over again great. Bring the police and fire down to minamal staffing and by federal standards these departments can only do so much. Your loud music complaint good luck, water leak good luck. The quality of life in this city is so low. There already braisen bank robberys down town a guy car jacked with in eye shot of police head quarters . This city is a poster child for liberal welfare city's . Just wait high rise home invasions are next downtown.
Luke Bronin should have done better, no doubt about it, but you always have to remember who brought us here. Nobody else but the corrupt Segarra. It's now impossible to undo his "done deal."
Luke Bronin should have done better, no doubt about it, but you always have to remember who brought us here. Nobody else but the corrupt Segarra. It's now impossible to undo his "done deal."
@8:12
Hey you ole fart. Be patient. Bronin inherited the mess. Hartford should go into receivership. There is no hope for Hartford. All neighborhoods are touched by blight, slum, you name it. The middle income has moved out. The more desperate and disenfranchised has moved in. Hartford cannot sustain itself. It won't get any better because it cN't. If I was starting a new business, Hartford is the last place I would open unless I depended directly on its residents. Sagarra's put the death nails into Hartford's coffin.
Plan Two: The New Hartford Process moves all the poor out and re-gentrifies the neighborhoods. The grand list grows. The school population shrinks and schools are closed.
It's over. Fold the tent and light out at dawn. Have o e last cup of coffee and be sure to put out the fire.
What is clear to many with some finance experience is that this administration has taken all the steps to move the city into bankruptcy. Would he do it? who knows but the have taken the steps. He knows that very well as part of his work on the Treasury Department. I am a democrat, but the unions got so powerful, the lack of accountability and quality in the work force is so pervasive that it is sad the poor quality of services we offer to the people that need it the most, the people we say we are fighting for. SAD. The corruption continue to be were it was. Watch the city employees driving around on the city fleet doing nothing. Check the health department parking lot, 30 vehicles seating there and people not doing there jobs, 30 vehicles pay by residents of a city that sometimes don't have the dollar to take the buss!. Ask MHIS to check web access use by address and categories, they have the ability to do it. FOI that Kevin, expose that. You have the platform to do it. Just publish here the entire file. Ask for user name, web address visited in the last three months and site category. There are employees of the City of Hartford watching porn, visiting dating sites and texting from their computers and phones, we paid for all that. Mayor, Root out the problem. Don't put more makeup on that ugly pig. The financial situation is not the real problem, you know that the property is going to be reassess soon and revenue would follow, perhaps not to where is needed but it will improve. The real problem is institutional culture, lack of transparency and lack of accountability. It can not be solved in a day or two, perhaps no even in four years. But you have not taken so far any meaningful step on that direction. Perhaps like many say around you are just building a resume for a political future, nothing wrong with that, but do it right because it could be also the end of your political future.
Anonymous 9:38PM "Everyone wants to attack the unions. The contracts were done in Good faith ..."
Ever hear the old joke, why do banks get robbed? Because that's where the money is.
Likewise for the unions. The city is broke and union contracts are where the money is. It's a tough situation because it affects peoples lives, but when the money runs out, something has to give.
The end is near. Prayers of Armageddon are being answers. Clouds will turn red and ash will fall. Hartford like Pompeii will be covered for a milanium.
DARRYL HILL AS CFO?
STUPID AND RIDICULOUS MOVE.
They kept the supervisor who does norhing but lay with the nen she supervises. This Town Pump had a baby by an employee, she lies, does nothing, doesn't live ir contribute anything to Hartford, they are afraid of her so they keep the tramp. Check her record, she did the same thing at UCONN.
5:30 Names, give us names. Nothing to be afraid of if you remain anonymous
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