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Thursday, February 21, 2013

LET'S SEE WHAT THEY DO NOW

 The weather forcasts for this weekend seem to be predicting mostly snow and according to WTIC radio "lot's of it". This could really be an opportunity for our Department of Publics Works Director to show that he can actually run his department.

Only time will tell , if the storm hits, we will see what our streets  look like Monday morning. Will it confirm incompetence or was it really the result of a historic storm.

I guess we will have to wait and see.

LET'S BRING SOME COMMON SENSE TO THE GUN DEBATE

As I have posted here before the problem isn't with guns, the problem is the human hands these guns are getting into. Responsible gun owners who keep their guns secured and understand the responsibility of properly owning a weapon aren't the problem.

I was stunned when I heard Vice President Biden claiming to have told his wife to go out on the porch with a double barrel shotgun and jack a couple rounds into the air if she ever felt threatened. That is the furthest thing from what a responsible gun owner would or should do. Not to mention that it is most likely illegal in most locations.

This just goes to show the rhetoric that is being spouted by policiticans grandstanding as the result of a terrible tragedy. Gun violence has been escalating in our country for decades, but apparently it takes 20 dead first graders at the hands of a mentally ill gunman to start the debate. Pure politics at this point. It will hopefully  produce results, but in the case of our Mayor, where has he been with all of the young people that have died on Hartford's streets over the last 10 or 15 years.

Mayor Segarra is in Danbury today , along with Wyatt Earp Biden, discussing gun control in response to Newtown. Mayor Segarra this morning explained his presence on twitter stating he was participating because he was afraid of guns after losing his own father to gun violence.

A gun by itself is nothing to be afraid of, it is the hands we put them in that creates the problem and that is where any solution needs to begin. It might make more sense to hold these discussions in our neighborhoods where gun violence is an every day reality. Hold the conversation away from the lights and the camera's and the few minutes in the national limelight to really make a change.

Let's also forget about the multi round clips and lets steer the discussion back to budget issues and the cuts in spending for those needing help due to mental illness. That is where the real gun problem lies because no sane person could walk into a classroom and execute 20 children, whether armed with an assault rifle or a handgun..

In the meantime, someone might want to educate our Vice President on what responsible gun ownership requires.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

WHERE IS WILLIE NUNES WHEN YOU NEED HIM?

During the Grand Jury Investigation into the administration of Eddie Perez, it was found that former Perez Chief of Staff Susan McMullen and Perez crony Kelvin Roldan had concocted a phony e-mail name to apparently avoid detection of FOI requests. The phony name of "Willie Nunes" apparently became a Perez staffer who was used when no one wanted to lay claim to e-mail documents.

As much as I had hoped things would change and the transparency would become real, that apparently never became the case under the new Administration of Mayor Pedro Segarra. Making a complaint under the Freedom of Information Act is a cumbersome process. It could take months, if not more than a year to wind your way through the process. Typically in the end, even after repeated violations under the FOI laws. the punishment is usually a slap on the wrists and a stern"don't do this again"

One of the largest fines levied was after a complaint I made against Perez's former Corporation Counsel John Rose.. He claimed documents didn't exist during a hearing , and once I started producing the documents and laying them on the table, the hearing officer didn't appear too thrilled. I had already obtained the documents through another source, unbeknownst to Mr. Rose.

Although the hearing officer recommended the maximum fine of $1000.00 against Rose, the full FOI Commission eventually reduced it down to $250.00, which the City of Hartford paid. So where was the sting to Rose for breaking the law? It was the taxpayers of Hartford that paid for him.

The Segarra Administration seems to have a well orchestrated plan for controlling the message and information coming out of City Hall. It has nothing to do with providing information to the public, it is about portraying the Mayor in the best possible.  The Mayor's media office is all about image. his spokespeople have been giving their marching orders , make the Mayor look good at all costs. It it is an interview about snow plowing or crime stats, it must be spun to make Mayor Segarra look good.

I have two FOI requests pending with the City of Hartford through the acting Chief Operating Officer Saundra Kee-Borges for months now , and yet no response. You might ask why, and when I explain what I asked for, it will become clear why they are stalling. They will most likely be a black eye for Mayor Segarra and his operations, but the public still has the right to know. The first one, submitted on November 30, 2012 was as follows:

In accordance with the Freedom of information Act, I am requesting the following for review:

Any and all documents, letters ,and correspondence, including e-mails regarding the sale or transfer of property at or in the area of 95 Park Street from the City of Hartford to the Spanish American Merchant's Association. Please include documents or minutes of any meetings held to comply with Connecticut General Statutes  8-24 or any other required laws regarding the transfer of Municipally owned property. Also please include any record of payment received for the purchase of the property.

Also please include any correspondence regarding payment of delinquent property taxes owed by SAMA regarding their other properties to comply with City ordinances regarding the transfer of property with outstanding taxes.

Thank you. Please feel free to contact me for any clarifications needed.


The property in question is actually the site of the new Hartford Hospital Parking Garage. The City sold the parcel to SAMA for $1.00. Yes you read that right, $1.00, no typo. SAMA apparently then in turn sold the parcel to Hartford Hospital for a reported half a million dollars , Yes, you also read that right, $1.00 transformed into $500,000. Not a bad return on investment.

The problems that arise from the transfer are twofold. First , Hartford's Municipal code prevents the City of Hartford from doing business or transferring property to anyone that is delinquent on property taxes to the City. At the time of the sale , SAMA had delinquent taxes due  to Hartford that should have prevented the transfer. In addition, section 8-24 of the Connecticut General statutes specifically outline the process for transferring and sale of municipally owned properties. It appears that none of the steps required by Connecticut law were followed.

I can see why the documents aren't forthcoming. Sweetheart deal or time for another Grand Jury?

 The next FOI request was filed on December 11, 2012 as follows:

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, I am requesting the following for review:

Any and all e-mails sent or received by Human Resources Director Valda Washington for the period December 2, 2012, through December 7, 2012. Please provide these electronically where possible.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Thank you.


E-mails also come under the FOI Act as public documents. This request was made after a source advised me that the Human Resources Director  Valda Washington had apparently been questioned through e-mails by the Finance Director regarding the use of her City Credit Card and unauthorized purchases.  She was apparently askinb the finance department to remove descriptions of certain reimbursements because as she allegedly wrote in her e-mail "the press would eat that alive" if they got a hold of her spending records on the taxpayers dime.

 Despite repeated requests, the requested documents have not been provided. Hartford's acting City Attorney, who apparently isn't even recognized as an attorney in Connecticut, recently sent me an e-mail trying to convince he believes in "open government writing" personally, I am a champion of open government"

This is a case where actions speak louder than words, open government means providing public documents without unnecessary delay. I am reasonable and understand the e-mails have to be reviewed for any exempt information, but over two months seems a little wrong.  I'm also not sure I believe the volume of e-mails Mr. Van Norden quoted. 800 emails for a 5 day period? Someone should show the HR Director how to turn on her spam filters.

To read Mr Van Norden's response click below.

To read about Mr. van Norden's licensing issues, click here



Friday, February 15, 2013

GOVERNOR MALLOY RESPONDS

Below is the Governor's response to Connecticut's urban mayors as they prepare for their press conference to criticize his budget proposals. Word is that Hartford's Mayor Pedro Segarra reconsidered his involvement and backed out of the press conference and notified Governor Malloy in a letter late yesterday afternoon
  

Thursday, February 14, 2013

WHERE ARE THEIR SOLUTIONS?

According to the Courants' Capitol Watch,  Democratic and Republican mayors from the state’s largest cities will hold a press conference Friday morning at the Capitol to blast Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s budget.  click here to read that story.

 Does any one realize that the money just isn't there?. Our big City Mayor's have lived fat and happy for far too long with no regard for reducing or controlling spending.

Rather than blast the Governor, maybe it is time to build some relationships, sit down, and deal with each other with respect and recommendations to deal with the problems.Our governor inherited a situation that I'm sure none of these Mayor's would envy.

Tough decisions need to be made and not everyone is going to be happy. I think there needs to be a lot of soul searching on the part of the Mayors for them to question whether they are going to continue to be part of the problem or are they ready to become partners in the solution.

Late word is that Hartford's Mayor Pedro Segarra has backed out of the slam session. Probably a wise choice when we realize that we need Governor Malloy more than he needs us. Malloy has been n0othing but a friend to Hartford since he was elected and moved here

And set thje politics aside, if that is even possible. At least two of the Mayor's probably see this as an opportunity to grind their political axes against Malloy

THANK YOU HPD

I'll be the first to admit that many times I accentuate  the negative. That is what in many cases it takes to embarrass or stimulate action to correct problems. This post is going to be a combination of negative remarks as well as some strong praise.

The first comment is going to be the decision by Mayor Segarra's Communications Director, Maribel laLuz and her e-mail to the 5th and 7th Districts of the Hartford Democratic town committee. How could anyone that has any management sense not want a debriefing of the operations after the storm. Somethings seem to have gone well, but so much also seems to have gone wrong,  a debriefing seems like it is extremely necessary to figure out what worked and what didn't.

To ignore that things went terribly wrong in some critical aspects only promises that we will repeat the same mistakes next time, probably with a couple of different key players missing though. You may not like the criticism, but it will hopefully avoid the same errors happening next time.

As far as the praise, in this storm the true praise needs to go to the Hartford Police Department. Last Friday afternoon as the storm began to build, at about 6:00PM I was at the Public Safety Complex and spoke with Chief Rovella. I invited him to come join me outside to build a snowman. He declined my offer. I keep hearing about a jacuzzi in his new office and he probably didn't want to come out into the cold. ( just kidding on that one taxpayers, there is no jacuzzi, at least not that I have seen)

During our conversation I told him how impressed I was with the snow plowing downtown, the streets looked great and there were plenty of trucks out. He agreed and told me that he was being told the entire City was in good shape. That all came to a screeching halt around  11:00PM as the storm intensified and DPW shut down.

The Hartford Police did not shut down, in fact they went into high gear for the next several days. While DPW trucks were headed for the garage in their vehicles that are intended to make it through the snowstorms, HPD was sending officers out into the storm in their 2 wheel drive vehicles , some equipped with tire chains. HPD never shut down and the calls for service continued to come in while the DPW trucks sat idle.

After the storm was done, HPD Officers in 4 wheel drive vehicles were pulling out stranded motorists as well as police vehicles that were stuck. They were even plowing streets to get EMS vehicles and fire vehicles into neighborhoods left impassable by the DPW hiatus. Yet no one at the Hartford Fire Department or the Dispatch Center sent their crews home because the weather was bad. They fulfilled their commitment to the people of Hartford while DPW did not.

For days after the storm, Hartford police Officers were trudging through feet of snow to make sure no one was trapped inside vehicles left abandoned on Hartford's street. Then the process of towing the vehicles to clear the streets of the igloos began. It was hard to find a plow truck to clear the streets after the cars were towed, But it seemed that HPD Officers stepped up and started taking charge of the snow removal operations.

That is not their job, but it was clear by this time that to get the City opened and alleviate the risk to Hartford residents by impassable streets, someone had to take charge. I spent a little time Sunday afternoon with Sergeant Bremser from the Traffic Division as they towed vehicles and coordinated efforts to get streets plowed. Bremser continued at what seemed almost around the clock Monday , Tuesday and Wednesday getting streets cleared one by one, calling for plows and loaders and keeping contractors moving to where they were needed most.

Bremser wasn't the only one though. HPD had almost 30 officers committed to snow plowing operations and as I travelled around the City and listened to radio communications, I kept wondering why Police Officers could figure out the priorities while those who should be doing it and managing the plows didn't seem as though they were.

One person who was in the EOC for most of the weekend told me that the decision to pull the plows off the road was a decision DPW realized was a critical mistake they could not recover from. I think there was also a lot of bad information that was being relied upon to make decisions in the EOC. Sunday afternoon I texted Mayor Segarra "where are our plows?". Within a few minutes he called me and told me "they are out there' we are making progress."  I replied to him that they may be out there , but they sure weren't in the Asylum Hill area.

 The Mayor said that he was told that almost every street in Asylum Hill had at least one path plowed through it. I told him I had just come back from checking for myself and he needed to go out and check for himself because most streets were still buried and hadn't been touched at all. To Pedro's credit, he called me about a half hour later and said I was correct. He had just driven through the Farmington Avenue area of Asylum Hill and agreed it was bad.

Whoever was giving the Mayor the inaccurate information hopefully won't be around the Mayor again anytime soon. Again to the Mayor's credit, he called me at about 11:00PM  and said he had just driven through Asylum Hill again and the side streets were "sloppy" but passable. That's all I was asking for . If fire, police or EMS needed to get somewhere I wanted to know that they could.

Wednesday night I again travelled around the City  just to see how the operations were going. The outside contractors and the large snow blowers brought in by the City were working like fiends. Farmington Avenue, Asylum Avenue, Park Street and the areas around Hartford Hospital were all being cleared by the crews. Again, it was interesting to me to note that these operations were being directed by HPD. I understand the police presence for traffic control and safety, but the police radio traffic channel was busy all night determining what crew would go where, where they would be dumping snow and determining where the crews would head next.

The efficiency of the operations were a credit to the police Supervisors and Police Officers working in the bitter cold to get our streets clear. One location , Asylum Avenue through Asylum Hill was being cleared curb to curb by the huge snow blower that made me cringe as I thought about the damage that thing could do. I don't think there would be any surviving a snowblower accident with that thing.

Not a DPW vehicle was in sight as I noticed Officer Mike Allen from HPD directing the movement of the trucks and loaders like General Patton during the War. The only thing missing were the pearl handled grips on his weapon like Patton had. I think they made record time outbound on Asylum, making the turn by Elizabeth Park and headed back toward downtown to clear the streets for the morning rush.

The same thing was going on all around critical traffic areas of the City, Lt. Mefferd, the Commander of the Traffic Division was doing a Mike Allen impression around Hartford Hospital and Washington Street and truckloads of snow were hauled away. Again no DPW supervisors anywhere in sight and I couldn't help but wonder why the Snow Removal Operations had suddenly become a Police Operation.

Mefferd, Allen and numerous other Police Officers were getting it done when DPW wasn't so , let it roll, Our streets are passable today.

Maribel, I know it is not your call , but please rethink that debriefing, this can't be allowed to happen again