WHEN THEY ASK FOR PUBLIC DOCUMENTS, CALL THE POLICE.... OR..... OLGA, OLGA, OLGA... HAVE YOU TOTALLY LOST YOUR MIND?

Over the last several days I have received numerous calls questioning actions by the Democratic Registrar of Voters Olga Vazquez in removing voters from the voting lists.I will admit that most of the callers appear to be politically motivated since Vazquez's actions, according to the callers, is cutting down on members to the Democratic Town Committee.

Apparently though, according to the callers, this is not a citywide purging of voters. Rather, it seems to be selective to decrease the number of delegates in specific districts that are less than "accepting" of the current Hartford "leadership".

In an effort to prove or disprove these allegations, I went to the Registrar of Voters Office to obtain the list of purged or "inactive " voters for the last few months. Although the employees at the front desk in the Registrar's Office were very accommodating. their boss Olga Vasquez was a totally different story. Once employee even went so far as to tell me that they had received a 14 page report that very morning covering what I was looking for, so it wouldn't be a problem.

Then Vazquez emerged from her office and demanded to know what I wanted and why did I want it. I repeated my request and Vazquez stopped for a minute and the "deer in the headlights " look overcame her. She then thought for a minute and replied that I needed to put the request in writing.

(Recently, Vazquez was ordered by the FOI Commission to attend an FOI Training session as the result of a seetlement of a complaint against her. I had hoped the training would be beneficial, but apparently not. Hopefully the next time a $1000.00fine will get her attention)

OK, no problem Olga. I took out my Blackberry, hit compose e-mail and asked for her e-mail address so I could send her the request. Apparently she became more agitated when I asked her when the report would be ready since her staffers had just told me it was done that morning.

She began saying that she didn't work for me and she didn't just sit around waiting for my requests. I guess that is fair since she must be extremely busy hitting the delete key on her keyboard as she purges voters en-masse in the non Perez kool-aid drinking districts.

As she stormed back toward her office, I mentioned to one of the staffers "I guess they don't teach customer service to our elected officials". Vazquez heard my comment and quickly returned asking "what did you say? what did you say?". I repeated the comment and added, "your customer service is terrible". She then began saying "do you want to be escorted out of here? I'm calling the police"

She fumbled with the phone but seemed to be making little progress. I offered to call the City Hall police officer, Officer DiScenzo, myself, but I got his voice mail.

Rather than waste time, I had to make a stop in the Council Offices, I told Vazquez to send the officers to the Council Offices if they wanted to speak with me. I never thought she would be insecure or ignorant enough to call the police and waste their time.

Well, she did. A few minutes later an officer walked into the Council office looking for me. He asked for my version and I told him exactly what is written above. He then related that he asked Vazquez if I threatened her and she said no. He asked her if I was using obscene language and she said no. Apparently Vazquez told the officer that she felt I was harassing her.

At one point someone in the Council office even handed the Police Officer a copy of the FOI law and he read it. He then stated to no one in particular, "it says right here that he has the right to walk in and ask for public documents". The officer didn't even have to study the statute, he got it right away. (maybe he can get a job in the Corporation Counsel office)

Excuse me Olga, but you ran for the position, now do your job. A resident and citizen requesting public documents is not harassment it is you fulfilling your obligation under the law.

As the old saying says "where there is smoke there is fire". If the Democratic Registrar's reaction to my request for public documents is any indication, I think we might have a five-alarm fire here.

I'll keep you posted as to where this goes.

And a note to Chief Roberts: your officers were extremely professional. The first officer to respond, Officer Ortolazo and his "backup" who's name I didn't get are a credit to your department. It's just sad their time was wasted on something like this
(and yes, the Chief does read this blog)