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Tuesday, May 7, 2013
PRICELESS
You knew it was inevitavble, "Mayor Caviar the Cartoon" and yes. it is priceless. Click on the picture above to get the full view if the right column cuts it off
Read Bob Englehart from the Courant's take on this here
DANCING IN THE STREETS
The owner of the Russian Lady, as well as the Tavern and the Rocking Horse Cafe, has acquired the permits to shut down Ann Uccello Street from Asylum Street to Allyn Street. A large stage is set up in the street for the various bands performing and a DJ entertains when the bands aren't playing.
An almost carnival like side show atmosphere exists with the mechanical bull and games as well as frozen drink stations.
Check it out and see what Hartford has to offer Downtown
HARTFORD.GOV DOWN AGAIN
Hartford.gov appears to be down once again.
Hopefully credit card purchases can still be processed
try it yourself and see what happens
Hopefully credit card purchases can still be processed
try it yourself and see what happens
HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF
Some people can plead ignorance once, but twice for almost the same thing is beyond ignorant.
A source I spoke with this afternoon, said that Hartford's Acting COO Saundra Kee-Borges had gone through a very similar scandal as to the caviar soiree during Mayor Mike Peter's term when she was the City Manager. The source said it was over shots known as "slippery nipples" and other items ordered and paid for by Hartford's taxpayers in 2000.
After getting off the phone I "Googled" Saundra Kee Borges Slippery Nipples the following article came up. you could almost replace Carbone's with Max Downtown and Slippery Nipples with Caviar
Her is the Courant's story from 2001. I guess some people never learn. I guess some things never change
A source I spoke with this afternoon, said that Hartford's Acting COO Saundra Kee-Borges had gone through a very similar scandal as to the caviar soiree during Mayor Mike Peter's term when she was the City Manager. The source said it was over shots known as "slippery nipples" and other items ordered and paid for by Hartford's taxpayers in 2000.
After getting off the phone I "Googled" Saundra Kee Borges Slippery Nipples the following article came up. you could almost replace Carbone's with Max Downtown and Slippery Nipples with Caviar
Her is the Courant's story from 2001. I guess some people never learn. I guess some things never change
Where's The Accountability?
January 28, 2001
Last fall, Hartford Mayor Michael P. Peters, City Manager Saundra Kee Borges and several city council Democrats had a ``council meeting'' at Carbone's Ristorante in the South End. While deliberating, they ordered fancy appetizers and a bunch of drinks including 14 glasses of wine, some beers, brandy, a highball and an exotic concoction called a Slippery Nipple. They had the gall to stick the taxpayers with the tab, almost $300.
City hall denizens like to pass off such ethical lapses by officials as isolated events that the news media and residents shouldn't get worked up about. But they're wrong. As other recent incidents show, key city officials have a blind eye when it comes to ethics and the need to enforce high standards of conduct. They -- the mayor, the manager and council members -- just don't get it.
City hall denizens like to pass off such ethical lapses by officials as isolated events that the news media and residents shouldn't get worked up about. But they're wrong. As other recent incidents show, key city officials have a blind eye when it comes to ethics and the need to enforce high standards of conduct. They -- the mayor, the manager and council members -- just don't get it.
There has been a pattern of ethical misconduct at city hall for years -- maybe it could be called the Slippery Nipple Syndrome. But the incidents have become so common and the response from top officials so lenient that cutting corners has come to be seen as the way of doing business.
Ethics -- or the lack thereof -- ought to be an issue in this fall's municipal elections. The only question is, Have Hartford voters become so accustomed to shoddy ethics that they're beyond disappointment? We hope not. Here's more of city hall's pitiful record:
On Dec. 30, the city's public works director, Arthur Miller, attended a UConn women's basketball game at the Civic Center during a heavy snowstorm while ordering the rest of his employees to stay on duty. That absence of leadership was bad enough. Mr. Miller compounded his error by accepting a free ticket to the game from Connecticut Light & Power. So did a number of other city officials, including the mayor. The ticket taking was an apparent violation of the city's ethics code and gift ban, not that the ban is uniformly enforced.
And what did Mr. Miller's boss have to say about his decision to watch the Huskies rather than be on duty with his troops? ``It probably was not the best judgment'' was as stern a response as Ms. Kee Borges, the city manager, could muster.
No wonder officials keep crossing the line.
On Police Chief Bruce Marquis' first day on the job in December, some dissident officers egged his car. That's vandalism, and it would be investigated if a citizen complained that his or her car was the target. But Mr. Marquis decided not to investigate, saying he wanted to move forward. The city manager's office acquiesced.
In other words, the vandals got away with it. That's no way to impose discipline on an out-of-control department.
In November, acting Police Chief Robert Rudewicz was given only a two-week suspension without pay for lying on an accident report. Again, Ms. Kee Borges said she was ``disappointed at his poor judgment.'' What would happen to an average person who falsified an accident report?
Early last year, Fire Chief Robert Dobson resigned -- finally -- after a number of embarrassments, among them using a city car on city time to drive to Bloomfield to work at an art gallery and framing shop owned by him and his wife. Sometimes he failed to show up at fires because he was moonlighting.
In September, the city's enfeebled ethics commission took council members to task for accepting bathrobes as gifts from a group helping a local developer with a proposed downtown project. Judging by their comments, the council members thought they had done nothing wrong and resented being called to account. One called the ethics proceeding ``a sham and a farce,'' and another -- no longer on the council -- declared the hearing a ``kangaroo court.''
Ethics -- or the lack thereof -- ought to be an issue in this fall's municipal elections. The only question is, Have Hartford voters become so accustomed to shoddy ethics that they're beyond disappointment? We hope not. Here's more of city hall's pitiful record:
On Dec. 30, the city's public works director, Arthur Miller, attended a UConn women's basketball game at the Civic Center during a heavy snowstorm while ordering the rest of his employees to stay on duty. That absence of leadership was bad enough. Mr. Miller compounded his error by accepting a free ticket to the game from Connecticut Light & Power. So did a number of other city officials, including the mayor. The ticket taking was an apparent violation of the city's ethics code and gift ban, not that the ban is uniformly enforced.
And what did Mr. Miller's boss have to say about his decision to watch the Huskies rather than be on duty with his troops? ``It probably was not the best judgment'' was as stern a response as Ms. Kee Borges, the city manager, could muster.
No wonder officials keep crossing the line.
On Police Chief Bruce Marquis' first day on the job in December, some dissident officers egged his car. That's vandalism, and it would be investigated if a citizen complained that his or her car was the target. But Mr. Marquis decided not to investigate, saying he wanted to move forward. The city manager's office acquiesced.
In other words, the vandals got away with it. That's no way to impose discipline on an out-of-control department.
In November, acting Police Chief Robert Rudewicz was given only a two-week suspension without pay for lying on an accident report. Again, Ms. Kee Borges said she was ``disappointed at his poor judgment.'' What would happen to an average person who falsified an accident report?
Early last year, Fire Chief Robert Dobson resigned -- finally -- after a number of embarrassments, among them using a city car on city time to drive to Bloomfield to work at an art gallery and framing shop owned by him and his wife. Sometimes he failed to show up at fires because he was moonlighting.
In September, the city's enfeebled ethics commission took council members to task for accepting bathrobes as gifts from a group helping a local developer with a proposed downtown project. Judging by their comments, the council members thought they had done nothing wrong and resented being called to account. One called the ethics proceeding ``a sham and a farce,'' and another -- no longer on the council -- declared the hearing a ``kangaroo court.''
For years, Hartford firefighters used city property for private gain. They were paid by out-of-town fire departments, whose personnel received training in the city under the supervision of Hartford firefighters. The improper practice ended only in September after city officials were embarrassed by stories in The Courant.
Those comments typify the attitude of Hartford's elected officials toward ethical standards. It took the council more than three years to pass rules and procedures for the ethics commission. During the time the body lay dormant, never meeting, the term of one initial appointee came to an end and another resigned. The council breathed life into the commission in 1997 only because, said then-Majority Leader John Stewart, the mayor wants ``to get the press off our backs.'' And before jump-starting the commission, the council watered down its powers.
Let's face it. Mr. Peters, the city policy leader who could use the bully pulpit to demand high standards of conduct, has not done so. Neither has Ms. Kee Borges, who appears unable to lower the boom on offending department heads. Nor do council members leave the impression that they give two hoots about squeaky-clean government.
City voters should hold them accountable at the next election.
Those comments typify the attitude of Hartford's elected officials toward ethical standards. It took the council more than three years to pass rules and procedures for the ethics commission. During the time the body lay dormant, never meeting, the term of one initial appointee came to an end and another resigned. The council breathed life into the commission in 1997 only because, said then-Majority Leader John Stewart, the mayor wants ``to get the press off our backs.'' And before jump-starting the commission, the council watered down its powers.
Let's face it. Mr. Peters, the city policy leader who could use the bully pulpit to demand high standards of conduct, has not done so. Neither has Ms. Kee Borges, who appears unable to lower the boom on offending department heads. Nor do council members leave the impression that they give two hoots about squeaky-clean government.
City voters should hold them accountable at the next election.
THE CAVIAR MAYOR AND HIS "LIQUOR CABINET"
A distraction? Lets call it what it really is, it was a criminal act, a theft from the taxpayers of Hartford by a group of pompous City officials who suffer from an extreme case of entitlement. A group of pompous officials who should know better.
Not to mention, where is the moral obligation to the people of Hartford? Mr Kupiec, who spends his fair share of his time in the "entertainment" district downtown, if his credit card receipts are any indication. must notice Hartford residents struggling to make ends meet. After Hartford's bars close and the streets clear, senior citizens with shopping carts collecting bottles and cans pick up the recyclables trying to make ends meet, a nickel at a time, so they can survive.
Where is the moral obligation to their constituents? How do you dine on caviar and filet Mignon at the expense of the same people you are entrusted to serve.. The same people pushing the shopping carts in the streets.
How do you claim to not realize which credit card was used? It just seems that any thinking person would realize that they don't recall putting their signature on a paper slip and calculating a gratuity. So much of this just doesn't add up. And how do you not remember who else was sitting at the table? It kind of sounds like a case of selective amnesia, to protect someone you don't want to publicly identify.
Ok, so lets get back to the criminal part. People make more choices everyday. Many of those people regret those decisions after they get arrested and charged with their crime. This was clearly a larceny from the people of Hartford. The fact that restitution was made several months later should mean nothing, other than to confirm they realized what they did was wrong and they got caught.
For the last few days I have used an example that seems to make sense when people say he paid the money back. Let's say you make a decision to rob a bank, that is called criminal intent. You do the deed, the teller hands you a bank bag full of cash. As you begin to exit the bank you notice police cruisers pulling up, so you throw the bank bag back to the teller.
Technically. you made restitution by giving the money back. I seriously doubt that you will not be leaving that bank in handcuffs, even though you gave the money back. The fact that Kupiec paid the money back does not make the original incident go away.
I think the fact that the Mayor and Kupiec readily paid the money back, looks worse for them because clearly they knew their actions were wrong, no one had to order or force them to reimburse the City.
There are plenty of other unsubstantiated liquor and restaurant charges on Kupiec's card that should prove troublesome for him, but just the caviar binge should be enough to get a criminal investigation rolling.
And the greater question for me is how is this tolerated, aside from the fact that the caviar Mayor and his Chief Operating Officer were all complicit in the act, why are heads not rolling? it appalls me that the same people that can so readily rip--off the people of Hartford are still occupying their positions of trust at City Hall to rob the taxpayers once again.
It is also interesting that the beluga swilling Segarra has decided to curtail all credit card users. The Audit report clearly shows that the majority of the offenders are under his direct control, the Office of the Mayor, the Chief Operating Officer,and Corporation Counsel.
And finally, should the Mayor's "Security Detail" really be sitting at the table eating with him? I have never once seen Troopers assigned to the Governor's detail sitting eating with him. It is kind of hard to legitimately assess any security risk while you are checking to see if your Filet Mignon was cooked correctly. I know that the dignitary training program these officers go through is well respected and I doubt throwing back a spoonful of caviar is what is taught.
Apparently our Caviar Mayor developed his taste for the good life before he actually became Mayor, you can read more here
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