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Friday, June 13, 2014

HARTFORD FIREFIGHTER DOUGLAS CALDWELL ARRESTED

According to sources, Hartford Firefighter Douglas Caldwell was arrested Wednesday evening for Public Intoxication. I have FOI'd the police report and as soon as I receive it, I'll post it here.

Sources have also confirmed that the "extended vacation" was apparently a stint in rehab... his arrest probably indicates that didn't go too well.

More on Caldwell here

UPDATE FROM HPD, DEPUTY CHIEF FOLEY 3:00pm

I can confirm that on 6/10/14 a Douglas Caldwell, 42, of Hartford was issued a misdemeanor summons for violating city ordinance 4-3, "Public Drinking" while at 291 Barbour St. He was given a court date of 06/17/14 0900 hours.

A COLUMN TO DEFINITELY READ

Hartford's voters don't always think out their decisions well, but for this City to change, we need to start rethinking our decisions.

Try to learn about the  people you are voting for and what have they accomplished? What is their track record? Are they willing to take a stand on the tough decisions ?

Kevin Rennie at the Courant has an interesting take on the August primary and it does raise some interesting issues.

Will the August primary be a personality race or will it be about who actually represents the people and their best interests.

Take a moment to read Rennie's article here

CITY HALL UPDATE



Last week I posted about a City Hall employee that was under Criminal Investigation for stealing from the mail.That posting is below.

Sources have confirmed that an employee at Hartford City Hall is the subject of a criminal investigation being conducted by HPD. Charles Dean, the City Hall Mail room employee, is currently on Administrative leave while the investigation continues.

The charges allegedly involve Dean stealing items of financial value out of the mail received at City Hall. The items were apparently meant as donations intended for fire victims , donated by a local business. Dean is apparently accused of intercepting the items and then being caught converting them for their cash value at the establishment that donated the items. I know it sounds cryptic, but I don't want to jeopardize any criminal investigation by putting all the details out  until the criminal aspect is complete. According to another source familiar with the situation, this may not be an isolated incident.

It s unclear at this point if federal authorities will get involved in the investigation for the theft from the City hall mail room of mail delivered by the US Postal Service.

Today Charles Dean  turned himself in on criminal charges and was arrested by HPD. Apparently his scheme involved stealing Bob's Furniture Gift cards that were sent through the mail  to the City of Hartford to be used by people in need of replacement furniture after fires, water damage, etc. According to sources, Dean and his son were using the donated gift cards at Bob's Furniture in Southington after the cards were stolen from the mail room at Hartford City Hall

HPD will apparently be releasing more information later today

If history is any indication, Dean will be moving into his new office in Mayor Segarra's suite any day now, probably with new furniture from Bob's

MORE ON HARTFORD FIREFIGHTER CALDWELL

Several months ago I posted about a Hartford Firefighter that appeared to have some severe substance abuse issued. Several Hartford firefighters had called me to complain that this firefighter was constantly under the influence of what they believed to be alcohol or drugs while on duty. Since he was an acting lieutenant at the time at Engine 14 on Blue hills Avenue, they feared that he was a direct hazard to their well being and safety.

You can read more about Caldwell in my postings here and here.

Today the Courant did a story on Hartford Firefighter Douglas Caldwell, you can read that story here

 I raised the issue with Hartford Fire Command Staff members, but with limited results. Apparently, according to the Firefighters that called me,  the Hartford Firefighters Union was also going out of their way to protect Caldwell and his dangerous behavior. Caldwell was eventually transferred to Engine 2 on Main Street.

The addiction problems continued there also. On March 31, 2014, Caldwell apparently went into a local Bodega  and created a disturbance while in uniform. The shop owner called the Hartford Police and filed a complaint against Caldwell.

Unfit for duty , yet we are paying him for an extended vacation, Only in Hartford

Here is that report:

THE ROCK CATS, ARE WE GETTING ALL OF THE DOCUMENTS

The simple answer is probably not.  As I mentioned in the previous post, you find little gems that you don't really expect when reading through FOI requests.

One such e-mail was written by Segarra's Chief of Staff Jared Kupiec to the Rock Cats general manager John Willi. Although Kupiec had sent the original e-mail to Willi from his City of Hartford e-mail, he made it a point in the e-mail to advise him of his "personal" e-mail. Most likely knowing that it would be more difficult to opbtain pursuant to FOI.

What other public business is going to "private" emails to avoid detection?

From the e-mail from Kupiec to John Willi:

 Please don't ever hesitate to contact me should you have any
questions or concerns.  My personal e-mail is jared.kupiec@gmail.com

and my personal cell is 860-933-2731.  My work cell is 860-692-2711.

More of the Segarra Transparency.

SEGARRA WILLING TO BANKRUPT HARTFORD

You never know what you will find included in an FOI request. As part of a request for documents related to the Rock Cats deal, the e-mail below was included.

The e-mail was written by the Mayor's former Chief of Staff Jared Kupiec on February 5 2013, before his Grand Theft Auto days.

The e-mail discusses their wishes to get a 500,000 square foot Amazon.com Distribution Center to locate to Hartford. As with the Gang who Can't Shoot Straight, it was actually a 1.5 to 2 million square foot Center, The proposed mezzanine alone was 500,000 square feet. I am not sure where in Hartford they would find the land to accommodate that.

The interesting part though is that in order to make it look like he was actually accomplishing something, according to the e-mail, Segarra told Kupiec that he was willing to bankrupt Hartford to get the warehouse. Kupiec claims "I briefed the Mayor and he said, "If I have to go into the red to pursue an economic development opportunity that creates jobs, I'll do just that."  I asked him to confirm that we could "throw the kitchen sink" at Amazon to "make it appetizing" and he replied with, "whatever it takes, get it done."

Isn't it interesting how he chooses to spend our money with reckless abandon, from Caviar to baseball Stadiums to Distribution Centers. Money is no object.