Search This Blog

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

LOBSTERGATE, THE NEXT CHAPTER

Last years posting on former  Hartford Police Officer Natoya Guthrie and her alleged theft of lobsters from the self checkout line at Stop and Shop drew quite a few comments ..You can read more about Lobstergate, Chapter 1 here.

Now it appears that another City of Hartford employee is having a tough time making ends meet and has resorted to the same style of abuse in the Stop and Shop self checkout line. Fortunately this time it is not another Police Officer but instead a Hartford School System teacher.

Apparently, according to a Hartford Police arrest report which you can read below, Hartford teacher Sandra Crew was observed on 6/29/13 by Loss Prevention Agents at the New Park Avenue store scanning items at the self checkout..According to the report, Crew was scanning the tags for day old
Danish while bagging more expensive items.

When confronted by the arresting officer , according to the report," the items on the receipt did not match the items in her possession" . She was arrested and charged with shoplifting.

Apparently during the arrest process Crew stated to the arresting officer that she "is a school teacher for the City of Hartford Adult Education and that if she was arrested , it would affect her career"

She might have wanted to consider her career before she apparently  decided to steal from Stop and Shop.. Most businesses today have very sophisticated surveillance that can probably read the serial numbers off a dollar bill. As well as being able to record every point of sale purchase action that is made. All recorded direct on video.


Thursday, June 27, 2013

INTERNAL AUDIT COMMISSION MAKES IT OFFICIAL: APONTE ALLEGED ETHICS VIOLATION

Below is the final version of the Internal Audit Department's review of the Ethics complaint made against Councilman Alexander Aponte. The report was completed in regards to Aponte's voting related to the SAMA land deal at 95 Park Street

 The City Ethics Commission has scheduled a hearing on the matter for July 9, 2013.
Aponte Iac Review. The hearing is open to the public.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

ARE YOU SERIOUS?

Here is an example of the type of press releases coming out of the office of Mayor Pedro Segarra that was sent out this afternoon.

PEDRO E. SEGARRA, MAYOR
MAYOR SEGARRA STATEMENT ON PRESIDENT OBAMA’S CLIMATE CHANGE PROPOSAL --- NEWS AND COMMUNITY STATEMENT---
(June 25, 2013) Mayor Pedro E. Segarra today made the following statement regarding President Obama’s Climate Change Proposal: “I applaud the President’s efforts today. Future generations have enough burdens to face in the years to come. We should do everything possible to ensure they have access to a healthy, safe environment. Hartford was one of the first cities in Connecticut to adopt the State’s C-PACE financing, we’re adding solar panels to an additional 10 buildings this year, we continue to perform retro-commissioning updates, and we’ve established a Clean Energy Task Force to draft Hartford’s first Strategic Energy Plan. I support the President’s leadership on this issue, and will continue to make Hartford an example of how cities nationwide can reduce their climate impact. ### For Immediate Release: June 25, 2013 Contact: Maribel La Luz laluz@hartford.gov p. 860-539-5485
 
 
UPDATE
 
The White House has just issued a statement. ".President Barack Obama is thrilled that Mayor Segarra is in agreement with his proposal. Despite the President having to deal with issues in the middle east, Afghanistan and Syria , all business in the Oval Office had stopped this afternoon as President Obama anxiously awaited Segarra's response and endorsement.
 
UPDATE 2
PEDRO E. SEGARRA, MAYOR
 MAYOR SEGARRA ADDITIONAL COMMENTS ON STATEMENT ON PRESIDENT OBAMA’S CLIMATE CHANGE PROPOSAL --- NEWS AND COMMUNITY STATEMENT---FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 
According to Segarra:"As Mayor of Hartford, the environment is important to me, without clean waterways, the supply of Caviar may be reduced. As a Mayor responsible to my taxpayers, if the supply decreases, the price will increase and next New Years Eve, it potentially could run us over $1000.00 and that's just not fair for the taxpayers to pay that 
 
See, despite what you may think, I do know something about economics. It is also important that a clean environment be maintained so that those little baby lambs can grow and prosper so that the taxpayers get their money's worth when we order the rack of lamb.
 
And lastly, next year at our New Years Eve soiree, paid for by the taxpayers, when we raise our glasses of champagne to toast my former Chief of Staff, I want to feel confident knowing that the grapes are from a clean and pesticide free environment.
 
Thank you again to my close personal friend, Barack H. Obama for your leadership ( you know I just won a leadership award also , luckily they don't follow my performance in Los Angeles, stop laughing Mr. President I'm serious)

Friday, June 21, 2013

NO P-CARD PROBLEMS AT HARTFORD PUBLIC LIBRARY

The final audit report was released this morning  by Hartford's Internal Audit Department and it shows no purchasing card problems in the use of City credit cards.

Next up is the Hartford Board of Education.

The library is below.


Wednesday, June 19, 2013

WHAT IS THE COST OF INCOMPETENCE?

As I Keep hearing more and more about Hartford's Budget struggles, I keep thinking what would happen if Hartford was actually run like a business? Accountability for job performance, requiring timely performance, everything that would keep someone employed in the private sector.

This started occurring to me as I sat through the Hartford Internal Audit Commission meeting this afternoon . I listened to Hartford's Acting COO, Saundra Kee-Borges bob and weave as she was asked some tough questions about the recent P-Card report.

She explained that many of the missing receipts  were actually always in the Finance Department in a shoe box on a shelf. They weren't really missing. WHAT? A shoebox on a shelf, yes you read that right. A half a billion dollar a year operation stores their receipts in a shoebox on a shelf.

I then remembered the original report that detailed the Finance Director Julio Molleda essentially being asleep at the switch and allowing these problems to occur under his watch..Yes the travel policy violations, the P-card shoebox on a shelf deal, the MDM Golf letter of Credit, All Molleda as he continues to collect his six figure salary.

You can hear some great things at Audit Commission meetings. That letter of credit thing was discussed a couple months ago.

Apparently Molleda , in conjunction with the Office of the Corporation Counsel (yes, if you are paying attention, that is also a familiar name,( Saundra Kee-Borges) Apparently when MDM Golf was awarded the contract to manage( manage being a legal term, what it may better be called is a criminal act) Anyway, MDM was required to put up a letter of credit for $300,000 to ensure that they performed under their contract.

The six figure salary earners  were again asleep at the switch and allowed the letter of credit to expire and it was never renewed , so now the tax payers are left holding the bag and the council just approved dumping $10 million into the 2 courses since MDM has run them into the ground.

Even worse is the flagrant violations of the City Charter. At today's Audit Commission  meeting Mayor Pedro Segarra identified Juan Figueroa as his Chief of Staff. Wait a second, aren't we already paying one who won't leave? Jared Kupiec still hasn't announced his departure date from City dis-service. So is Figueroa working for free? I doubt it. The Charter allows Segarra one Chief of Staff. No big deal though, we can eliminate another Police position to cover the salaries.


As long as no one is paying attention, Kupiec can extend his departure and roll over his six weeks vacation time he gets July 1st , that should only amount to $10 or $12 thousand based on his current salary. Hang in there Jared, no one is looking, just please make sure to return the I-pads and all the electronics. And feel free to keep the City car as long as you need, It is part of the Administration's Economic Development plan. If you can't get around to Happy Hour, our businesses might suffer.

And as far as the COO position. How long will this farce continue? The Hartford City Council essentially took a vote of no confidence in the Segarra Administration when they refused to approve Kee -Borges as COO. Now what will it take to find her replacement? six months, a year, how long will Segarra be allowed to run his temp employment service out of the Mayor's Office for Al Ilg, I guess it is not that bad though, at $80.00 per hour how much police overtime would that add up to?

Who paid for Segarra to find his first COO? And who paid for his previous Chief of Staff searches? Isn't that the claim that was made when Figueroa was brought on board. "Special Assistant to the Mayor for the Chief of Staff selection process" I think it was called.

Let's call it what it is, "let's keep Juan happy until we can slide him in as Corporation Counsel and no one will notice he didn't get it in the first place".

All of this incompetence adds up , all as we are talking about selling liens on residences and potentially forcing people out of their homes to close a budget gap. Kudos to the Council for putting the brakes on that tonight.

The list of the incompetence costs can go on and on. Don't forget the $60,000 spent on a national search for a police Chief, even though the right pick was right here among us. The dollars spent for outside legal opinions when we have a room full of City lawyers that have to look out the window to see which way the wind is blowing to determine how their opinions will go, these all add up.

I can go on and on, but again we need to start using some solid business principals to manage this City and accountability needs to be at the top of the list. Not everyone is cut out for the jobs they are hired for, proper managers know how to identify that and move on. Apparently not in Hartford.


AUDIT COMMISSION REFERS APONTE TO ETHICS COMMISSION

The Internal Audit Commission today voted unanimously to refer their investigation of Hartford Councilman Alexander Aponte's involvement in the SAMA land deal to the City's Ethics Commission fro review.

Aponte, a member of SAMA, apparently didn't disclose his relationship with SAMA and voted on the deal, creating an apparent conflict of interest.

As I posted yesterday, Aponte is not a newcomer to questionable ethics and deals.

You can read more of Aponte's history here