LOVE FOR HARTFORD

There are many people  out there that love and care for our City and its future.

That love is expressed in many different ways. Here is just one more example, and it shows the creativity of Hartford's people

HMEA SAYS NO "OVERWHELMINGLY" TO BRONIN REQUEST

At a meeting today of the Hartford Municipal Employees Association (HMEA). Members apparently voted unanimously to turn down a request by Mayor Bronin to withdraw their contract negotiations from the arbitration process.

Apparently Bronin had requested the withdrawal from Arbitration as part of the process to start getting Hartford's budget mess in order. This step would have been part of the process to re-open Union contract issues, what many say is a necessary first step.

On the other side, there might be an issue of the trust factor between the Union's and the   City Administration. Previously Hartford's Unions were requested to agree to give backs, furlough days and various concessions. They did their part at that time, only to see Mayor Segarra then hand out raises to his staff, including a $20,000 raise to his Chief of Staff Jared Kupiec,

Unfortunately, Hartford's "Massive" budget deficit continues to grow daily.

The unfortunate pat of these actions is that many of HMEA'S members are actually Hartford residents and any layoffs of HMEA  members would hit them and the City very hard both in unemployment stats and difficulty paying taxes on their homes and vehicles.

SAINT PATRICK'S DAY WEEKEND IN HARTFORD

The annual Saint Patrick's Day celebration begins tonight with the pre-parade Mass at Saint Patrick-Saint Anthony Church at the corner of Church Street and Ann Ucello Street, directly behind the XL Center. The mass will be celebrated at 7:00PM

The parade steps off tomorrow morning fro the South side of the Connecticut Capitol at 11:00am. The parade route is below, arrive early and stake out your seat along the parade route. The weather is supposed to be great, and the parade always draws large crowds to downtown Hartford and its businesses.

Enjoy what Hartford has to offer, but please act responsibly. According to the Hartford Police

"We know people are going to be drinking.   We want to encourage everyone to do is to be responsible with any drinking that they do as well as how they travel; designate a driver, take a cab, use Uber, whatever.  We want people to be safe and enjoy the parade."

HPD Saint Patrick's Day Parade Event Plan

STATE OF THE CITY MONDAY NIGHT

BRONIN: "WE HAVE A MASSIVE BUDGET DEFICIT"

Before tonight's meeting with Hartford's Legislative delegation, Mayor Bronin made a few comments to the media. Here is the raw video of those remarks.

THE NBC CONNECTICUT TROUBLESHOOTERS REPORT: HARTFORD OVERSIGHT POTENTIAL

Here is more on Hartford's financial woes and the efforts to arrive at a solution. We will know more tonight after the meeting

FRM HPD: DUI CHECKPOINT FRIDAY

HARTFORD POLICE TO CONDUCT DUI ENFORCEMENT CHECKPOINT

(Hartford, CT.) – The Hartford Police Department Traffic Division will conduct a DUI Enforcement Checkpoint on Friday, March 11, 2016, from 5:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m., in the area of Garden Street and Capen Street.


This checkpoint is part of the Hartford Police Department’s ongoing expanded DUI enforcement program supervised by the HPD’s Traffic Division and funded through a grant from the State of Connecticut Department of Transportation DUI Enforcement Program.

For the most up to date traffic information visit the State of Connecticut interactive traffic map including statewide traffic cameras.

The Hartford Police Department encourages you to protect your vehicle and belongings by “putting your junk in your trunk.”

IS A STATE TAKEOVER IN HARTFORD'S FUTURE?

According to several well placed sources, the answer is yes. According to sources, a meeting will be held tomorrow night between Hartford's Mayor Luke Bronin and representatives of Hartford's Legislative delegation. The apparent intent of the meeting is to begin drafting legislation to move toward a State takeover of Hartford's troubled finances.

More accurately, the proposed legislation will form an "oversight board" comprised of Connecticut's Treasurer Denise Nappier, the Governor's OPM Director Ben Barnes, Hartford's Treasurer Adam Cloud and other Hartford business people. This board should not be, and can not be a group of political hacks. We already have that with the Stadium Authority, and look where that has gotten us,over $10 million more in debt This board has to be able to make decisions to get our City back on track without worrying about political ramifications


This is a drastic step for the City to take because much of the local control of City government, especially financial, will be relinquished to the oversight board.


Throughout last years campaign, Bob Killian and others repeatedly said that Hartford was broke. This action now apparently proves that. The incumbent, Pedro Segarra chose to ignore the problem and committed Hartford to an ill conceived baseball stadium deal that plunged us further into debt. And let's not forget the Dillon Stadium deal that plunged us into a Federal Grand Jury investigation

Luke Bronin has repeatedly been telling residents that tough decisions were going to have to be made in relation to Hartford's budget and upcoming deficits and this is probably the most difficult decision Bronin has had to make in his short tenure. This is why we elect competent leaders, to clean up after the incompetent ones we vote out of office. This move should in no way reflect on Bronin, other than commending him to do what is needed at a very difficult time.

But, it has to be noted that this is the mess that Luke Bronin inherited when he assumed Office January 1, 2016. It is also the price Hartford is now being forced to pay for years of incompetence by Mayor Segarra( and his predecessors) and a Council who preferred to bury their heads in the sand, instead continuing to kick the can down the road and hoping things would work out.

The only way to fix a problem is to first admit you have a problem, and this seems to be the first step to getting Hartford back on a solid financial footing.

FROM HPD: WELCOME BACK TO HARTFORD BROCK DAVIS

On December 9, 2015, at approximately 1202 Hours, Hartford Police Public Safety Dispatch Center

received numerous 911 calls regarding an incident in the vicinity of Albany Avenue and Baltimore Street.  A short time later, a male victim arrived at St. Francis Hospital via private vehicle suffering from multiple stab wounds. The male victim succumbed to his injuries was pronounced deceased by the attending physician. A crime scene was established and secured

in the area of Albany Avenue and Baltimore Street. Major Crimes Detectives immediately initiated an investigation. As a result, Brock Davis, DOB 10/03/74, was identified as the suspect in this case.

On January 22, 2016, an arrest warrant was submitted to a judge of the Hartford Superior Court and

approved, charging Davis with Murder. A judge set bond of $1,000,000 was attached to the warrant.

On Thursday, March 3, 2016, U.S. Marshal's Violent Crime Fugitive Task Force members developed information that Davis was staying with an associate in Springfield, Massachusetts.  On that date at approximately 1430 hours, Brock Davis was taken into custody without incident by the task force in Springfield Massachusetts. Davis was processed in Springfield, Massachusetts for an outstanding local warrant and charged as a fugitive from justice related to the homicide investigation.

On Tuesday, March 8, 2016, Davis was extradited from Massachusetts, transported to Hartford Police

Headquarters and served with the Murder warrant.

The investigation was a group effort consisting of the Hartford Police Department's Major Crimes Division,

Crime Scene Division, Shooting Task Force, Capital City Crime Center and the Hartford States Attorney's

Office.

Davis will be arraigned tomorrow morning, March 9^th, 2016, at Hartford Superior Court, located at 101 Lafayette Street Hartford, Connecticut.

HAVE YOUR VOICES HEARD ON THE WATER BILL

This is an e-mail I received today asking to help get the word out. I have not looked into the matter extensively, so I don't have an opinion yet on the matter. At the very least, if it involves the MDC , it needs to be watched closely.

ACT TO SAVE OUR CT WATER NOW!

Dear Hartford Resident,

Have you heard of the fight going on in Connecticut to protect our precious public resource, our water, from commercial exploitation? We need your voice to help our legislature pass an important bill:
SB 422: AN ACT CONCERNING RESIDENTIAL WATER RATES,

PUBLIC DRINKING WATER SUPPLY EMERGENCIES AND

SELLERS OF BOTTLED WATER.

 

HOW YOU CAN HELP

 

1. Submit testimony via email or personally at the public hearing.
2. Come to the hearing on March 11^th with as many friends as possible. We need to demonstrate to our legislators that we want our water protected. No signs or banners allowed inside the legislature.   Flyers and buttons encouraged
3. Contact your state legislators and members of the Planning & Development Committee to express your support of these bills.
4. Spread the word and tell your friends.

THE PROBLEM: The Metropolitan District Commission (MDC), the public water supply agency serving twelve towns in the Hartford area, has made a special deal with Niagara Bottling, a California based, multinational, multimillion dollar company, to allow them to take up to 1.8 million gallons per day of our public water. Niagara plans to put the water in single serve plastic bottles at a bottling plant in Bloomfield that could produce up to 10+ million plastic bottles per day. The MDC passed rate discount ordinances benefiting only Niagara that would save the bottling company approximately $2 million every year. Bloomfield elected officials gave Niagara a $4.9 million tax abatement over seven years without a real cost-benefit analysis.

 

YOU CAN SUBMIT WRITTEN TESTIMONY

 

Niagara Bottling has started lobbying the CT legislature. It's crucial that each of us sends in written testimony supporting Sen. Bye's "Substitute" Water Bill SB 422 no later than Thursday, March 10^th, in preparation for the Legislative Hearing Friday March 11th at 11 AM.

 

1. Your written testimony should be sent as a PDF or Word document to pdtestimony@cga.ct.gov .

2. Include your name and the bill number SB422. Put "Substitute" SB 422 in the subject line.

3. The bill language as raised in committee requires revised language. Support the substitute with such points such as:

• Protect residents, not water bottlers, during a drought. If the Department of Public Health declares a Drought Advisory, production of bottled water out of state should stop.
• Rescind water rate discounts for water bottlers . They extract large amounts of our municipal water and spring water, fill the environment with plastic pollution, and profit while citizens are conserving and paying more.
• Rescind the Special Sewer Service Charge discount for water bottlers (now known as the Clean Water Project Charge). CT ratepayers have paid for years to build infrastructure for clean water; no discounts for corporations.
• Re-establish a citizen MDC (Metropolitan District Commission) watch dog committee .
• Impose a moratorium on any new large water capacity agreements until the State Water Plan is completed and addresses this issue.

 

ATTEND THE PUBLIC HEARING IF YOU CAN

 

The Hearing is scheduled for 11 am on March 11th in the Legislative Office Building (LOB), 300 Capitol Ave, Hartford. Plan to arrive early; you may want to carpool. When you enter the LOB, you will need to go through security, so allow extra time for that.

 

Parking: Park in the garage behind the LOB. Pull in the LOB driveway, go around back, and take the garage entrance on the right for visitors (there are signs).  If there is no space in that section, exit, take a right at the stop sign, drive further to the back and there is a 2nd entrance with parking underneath the building. If the garage is full, there’s an adjacent surface lot, and also on-street parking nearby.

 

 

CONTACT LEGISLATORS

 

Call or send a personal e-mail to the Co-chairs of the Planning and Development Committee: Sen. Cathy Osten (860-240-0579) and Rep. Philip Miller (860-388-7208). Other members of the P & D Committee can be found at https://www.cga.ct.gov/pd/. If your legislator is among the members of the P&D Committee, ask them to support SB422.

SPREAD THE WORD AND TELL YOUR FRIENDS.                           This bill needs support from throughout the state.

What happened in Bloomfield could happen elsewhere in CT.
Together let's protect our water for future generations!             

"WE THE PEOPLE" PROGRAM FOR MARCH 7, 2016

HPD's new Crime Center, Budget talk, HFD swearing in ceremony, Saint Patrick's Day Parade, a little bit of everything this week