FROM THE "YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP" FILE

Well, one of the items on the Hartford City Council Agenda tonight is an appropriation of additional funds for the Registrar of Voter's Office. Apparently they can't manage the budget with the allocation provided to them at budget time in July. Surprisingly, one of the items that is helping to drive them over budget is the hiring of Democratic Town Committee operative Prenzina Holloway as a "consultant" for 40 hours a week. Yes, that Prenzina Holloway, mother of Councilwoman Rosezina "rJo" Winch, and the same Prenzina Holloway that was found guilty of voter fraud by the State of Connecticut Election's Enforcement Commission and fined $10,000. In July of 2005 Holloway was found to have been illegally in possession of absentee ballots and had signed the name of another person to an absentee ballot application, according to the Elections Enforcement Commissions website. Holloway was fined $10,000 by the EEC. That fine was subsequently reduced to $2,000 when Holloway claimed "financial hardship", at or about the same time she purchased an H2 Hummer. So much for the financial hardship.

And to prove the old adage that "politics makes strange bedfellows", the same person that filed the complaint resulting in the charges and fines against Holloway is now the same person that hired Holloway, Democratic Registrar of Voters Olga Vazquez-Aviles. ALthough I guess this is part of the "quid-pro-quo" we keep hearing about in Hartford politics. Holloway was the swing vote who eventually jumped up during the Democratic nominating convention and changed her vote to the Olga Vazquez-Avila camp, resulting in the eventual ouster of Shirley Surgeon as Democratic Registrar.

And we wonder why Hartford is stuck in corruption and political patronage.