After the sudden death of Hartford City Clerk Dan Carey, the Hartford City Council seemed to move at lightning speed to fill the vacancy. Apparently a little too fast for a lot of people. After word began to circulate that an heir apparent had already been chosen without a legitimate selection process,Democratic Council people received numerous phone calls and objections to the flawed process. On Friday, September 18th, the Council Democrats held a caucus with the intention of naming Carey's successor. Due to the uproar from their constituents the Council Democrats emerged from their caucus without naming a successor. Through the Council President, Calixto Torres, it was announced that applications would be accepted for the position of City Clerk through noontime on Friday, September 25, 2009. Although a dozen applications were received from individuals with varying experience and qualifications, apparently no interviews were conducted prior to the naming of Carey's replacement. This was another back room closed door deal hammered out by the Democratic Majority on the Council,without any input from the community and definitely without any consideration of the other candidates who applied.
Hartford is a city that is suffering from a tarnished image brought about by an administration that has faced criminal arrests and accusations of corruption as well as a city that promises to bring cronyism and corruption to new heights. How do you imply any sense of legitimacy when you ask people to spend the time and energy to submit resumes and then totally ignore them for the original choice anyway? How as a Councilperson can you stand and say that new leadership is on the way and a new era of transparency is dawning on the City? This is more of the same old "business as usual" politics that has driven Hartford into the ground. It clearly proves that old adage that "actions speak louder than words". Although this Council seems to try to distance themselves from the Perez Administration, they also endorse his backroom politics every chance they can. We saw it recently when the Council voted to hand out close to $350,000 to political allies and non-profits without any input from the community, no regard as to who was more deserving, and as one Councilman said essentially "we are the Democrat's, we have the majority, so we can do it". Maybe actions true as a Democrat, but definitely not actions of the democratic process or worthy actions of a democracy.
And to those people who submitted resumes and were ignored by this sham process, I for one, as a resident of Hartford, wish to apologize for the Council wasting your time. They had no intention of an open and transparent process, and apparently thought no one would notice, because as you know, according to the "Gospel of Perez" Hartford's voters have a short attention span. And to the members of the Council that say one thing in public, and do the opposite behind closed doors, the day of reckoning is coming when we will hold our elected officials responsible for your deeds.
Municipal elections in 2011 will be here before we know it, now is time to start to take back our City, both through the Mayor's Office and the City Council
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