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Friday, November 20, 2009

Thursday, November 19, 2009

CHIEF TEALE MAKES A CHOICE- ANNOUNCES HIS RETIREMENT


At the end of last Saturday's posting regarding Dan Nolan, I made a comment that Chief Teale can't have his integrity and his job while working under this administration. I said it was time for Chief Teale to make a choice as to which was more important.

Apparently Chief Teale has made a choice. In an abruptly called staff meeting at 4:00PM today at Fire Headquarters, Teale announced his retirement after 28 years with the Hartford Fire Department. Chief Teale's official last day with the Department will be April 4, 2010. No information is available at this time how much vacation or accrued time will be used before that date.

The following e-mail was sent to all department members:

-----Original Message-----
From: Chance, Ronald J.
Sent: Thu 11/19/2009 4:44 PM
To: Fire Dept
Subject: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FROM CHIEF TEALE

All members and employees of the Hartford Fire Department please be advised that
I have decided to retire. My final working day is currently scheduled to be
April 9, 2010 leaving 4 months and 20 days for us all to prepare for a new chief
of this department. I would like to thank all of you for what will be at my time
of retirement 28 years in this department and 10 years as chief. Thus far it has
been the most defining time of my life and a truly rewarding experience.




Sincerely,


Chief Teale

Saturday, November 14, 2009

TWO GREAT WEBSITES AT CT.GOV


The State of Connecticut seems to be working to provide much information to web users in a user friendly manner. One of the sites that I have started using regularly and which has proven invaluable is the State of Connecticut Elections Enforcement Commission website, on there you can view candidates campaign filings outlining all of their income and expenditures, here is the address:
http://seec.ct.gov/eCris/DocumentSearch/DocumentSearchHome.aspx?seecNav=|

Have you ever wondered who had the best deal on rent for their campaign headquarters ? It looks like Hector Robles ($568.87). Have you ever wondered how much David Medina, Matthew Hennessey and Calixto Torres have donated to Kelvin Roldan's exploratory committee "Roldan for CT"? If you want to see who bounced checks to "Roldan for CT", that is there also. Interested in how much John Fonfara's campaign paid his campaign Treasurer, you can find the info here? (over $6,000).

Would you like to see how much former State Representative Evelyn Mantilla has been paid as a "consultant" for various campaigns. (I'll leave you in suspense on that one, but it is a big number, not including all that was paid to her by the Perez Campaigns). And don't forget to check out the Giles reports. How much did Abe Giles pay to himself for rent and use of phones as well as how much of his donations came from Georgia?

It's great reading, now if only the City of Hartford took the same step toward transparency.

Another site that was recently upgraded and is a great resource for parents is the Connecticut Sex Offender Registry. click here to go to the Department of Public Safety Registry site Before using the site though, be sure to read and agree to the terms and conditions. Keep in mind that it is illegal to use information from the website to "harass or commit a criminal act against anyone on the registry".

The new mapping portion of the website puts the location of registered sex offenders into perspective. As an example, put in the address 34 Sequassen Street, Hartford, CT 06106. This is the address for the River Street School. You will most likely be amazed and, somewhat nervous, as to the number of sex offenders within 3 or 4 blocks of several Hartford Schools. In case you are wondering, 43 registered sex offenders in close proximity to several hundred students.

When you enter an address the map shows you the location of any registered sex offenders in your neighborhood. Click on the names on the right hand side if you would like further details, including the offenders picture, name and other information.

Another great feature is to "register for e-mail alerts". If you would like to receive an e-mail alert if a registered sex offender moves into your neighborhood,sign up and you will receive an e-mail from the Connecticut State Police

I'M GLAD I'M NOT A PARENT IN HARTFORD



I'm sure you are asking yourself what that picture has to do with this post, I'll get to that eventually.

About a two years ago I sat at an MDC meeting as the Commissioners debated the re-appointment of MDC Chairman William diBella. DiBella had been under Federal investigation and had been found guilty of numerous civil charges and ordered to pay more than $791,000 in fines as the result of Federal charges of Fraud. At that hearing, MDC Commissioner Kevin Deneen made a very passionate presentation in opposition to DiBella's re-appointment.

Commissioner Deneen, a Windsor Attorney and someone I have known since childhood, asked how he would explain the MDC Commission's actions to his children. I'm paraphrasing here but Deneen asked how do you explain to a child that it is not ok to steal, when they ask essentially isn't that what Mr. Dibella did?

I was driving in downtown Hartford this past week and I came by the old YMCA and the Memorial Arch when I saw the sign shown in the above picture on the front of the building that houses Blackeyed Sally's and the Pig's Eye Pub. Now I'm not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but I thought the sign was totally in-appropriate for not only downtown Hartford, but for any public area.

What's next, will the Holiday Inn Express next door put up a sign "Bring Your Whore's Here- Special Discount Rates" ? In light of the City of Hartford apparently finding bumper stickers critical of President Obama unacceptable, what stand will they take on this?

The more I thought about it though, I wonder what messages we are sending to our young children. I think that most people would agree that raising a child anywhere these days is a difficult task, but in urban areas the task is even more challenging. Many children in Hartford do not have the benefit of a strong male, (called a father in most areas)to guide them. On top of that many have a single mother working 2 or three jobs to make ends meet.

Now add to that what some consider a failed education system that graduates 3 out of 10 students from the Hartford School system. Throw in the pressure of drugs, gangs, gun violence and crime. Not a great recipe for success.

Now throw in the example society sets. Kevin Deneen was right, how do you explain a William diBella to your kids? How do you explain a Mayor that has been arrested twice already to your kids? How do you explain to your kids the Police Chief and Superintendent of Schools standing by the Mayor after he's been arrested? How do you explain to your kids the reason to obey the law when a so called "community leader" drives her Yellow Hummer for almost a year unregistered?

And how do you explain to your kids what is socially acceptable as far as language to use? It must be difficult to explain to a kid why not to use a word when they point to a building and see the same word in three foot high letters. "Mommy, why is it OK for them to say it?"

And we wonder why we have the problems we do. Mr. Mayor, please do your job and let the owners of Pig's Eye Pub know this is not the example we want to set for our kids.

Am I over re-acting? Let me know. And by the way, that sign runs the entire length of the patio at Pig's Eye, it is probably 12 feet long by about four feet high

IS THE NEW PUBLIC SAFETY COMPLEX IN JEOPARDY ?



The above picture is the front facade of the old Hartford High School and intended to be the front of the new Hartford Public Safety Complex. The large open area between the right portion and the left portion is one of several areas of the building that have collapsed


Although a couple of groundbreaking ceremonies have been held for the "new" Public Safety Complex, it may be further behind now than it was at the first groundbreaking ceremony several years ago. For those that travel in the area of the construction sight, High Street has been totally closed to traffic, apparently due to the collapse threat of the remaining structure.

As anyone who has viewed the site. the brick exterior walls of the old Hartford High School were saved to form the exterior of the new complex. At a cost of almost $3,000,000 (yes, that's millions) steel support beams were used to shore up the walls in an attempt to keep them structurally sound.

Apparently that investment wasn't a wise one as large portions of the walls have been collapsing. On Saturday, a source familiar with the project said that the rest of the building may have to be razed and the project redesigned as a totally new structure and new design. This would render the majority of the current design work useless.

As of the last groundbreaking, statements from the Mayor's Office indicated that funds were in place for less than one-third of the $80,000,000 price tag. That figure seems irrelevant now as any new design work will only add to the final cost unless the project is scaled back to reduce costs.

As any one familiar with the Perez Administration knows, "cutting spending" or "reducing costs" is not a term used in their vocabulary.

APPARENTLY IT'S NOT ONLY THE HARTFORD FIRE DEPARTMENT EMERALD SOCIETY THAT SUPPORTS DAN NOLAN




After this last posting about the bumper sticker controversy and Dan Nolan being banished from public events, the comments, e-mails and phone calls started within about a half hour after the blog post went up on-line. I went back and looked at all the comments and e-mails from the beginning and it seems pretty clear that Dan Nolan's case stirs up some pretty strong opinions.

No other postings have brought out the same number of comments. Not when Eddie Perez was arrested (twice), not when taxpayers money is squandered by a traveling Councilperson, not even when two police officers are accused of police brutality, none match the volume of comments on Nolan.


Although most of the comments are pro-Nolan, I think the facts of the case pretty much speak for themselves. At a Connecticut Labor Board hearing later this month, hopefully the facts will become clearer. At that hearing the veil should be lifted from this termination as all of the facts become public and people are obligated to testify under oath.

One of the major questions I have that will be hopefully answered is how this all got started and who was the driving force behind it. From the documents uncovered through an FOI request earlier this year, it seems that the Hartford Firefighter's Union President Vincent Fusco was the first to send a letter of complaint to the Hartford Fire Department administration based on allegations from an anonymous source.

After requesting the investigation, Union President Fusco seemed to change sides and wrote about the "damage" that the suspension and investigation was doing to Nolan's reputation. Now, the same Union that initiated the investigation is handling Nolan's defense, under the guidance and direction of Fusco. I'm not sure how comfortable I would feel about that if I was in Nolan's situation.


Although I would prefer to fully provide both sides on an issue, the Fire Department Administration won't talk. The Union President won't return calls or present their side. The Corporation Counsel won't return e-mails or phone calls. Some people are willing to talk as long as their names aren't brought into it. Union "leadership" that I have spoke with tried to defend the Union President's actions, until they saw the letters side by side.

They spoke of issues of "liability" if they didn't report "anonymous" complaints against Nolan. If one tenth of the "tips" that have been relayed to me, many of them that I have looked into and found to be accurate, are true, the Union and the Fire Department have much greater liability issues than Dan Nolan.

Where does the Union stand on the letter sent to Nolan's union attorney banning him from Fire Department events? And how does the Union leadership feel about the Corporation Counsel attempts to manipulate law enforcement to discredit Nolan. A source familiar with the police investigation told me that it was very clear that the City wanted a prompt investigation and the arrest of Nolan before his Labor Board hearing. That didn't happen and the investigation has been closed since there is no probable cause for an arrest.

That indicates to me the City is desperate and knows their case is weak, and most likely won't stand up to scrutiny. For the Corporation Counsel to push such an agenda is shameful. But then again, Cheif Teale told me a couple months ago, I was bering used by Nolan.

Issues of drug use, alcohol use, firefighters routinely not showing up for work for days in a row without notifying anyone, arrests of firefighters for thefts and child pornography all raise serious questions. Where has the union been on all of this and does the pattern of discipline for those acts compare to the punishment for Nolan?

I guess that is an issue for the Labor Board to decide, and even after they render a decision, I can almost guaruntee that won't be the end. If this adminstration has their way, no expense will be too much and this case can drag on for years until the courts decide, or until a Mayor with a conscience is elected and people like Nolan, Clarence Corbin and others are given an apology and an offer to return to work.

In the meantime Chief Teale, just a comment to you. Under the Perez Administration you can't have your job and your integrity. Make a decision and choose which one is more important to you