Special BOE Meeting Tonight

The Board of Education will be having a special meeting tonight at 7PM at the high school. The meeting will focus on hiring a new Finance Director and finally passing a budget for the fiscal year starting today. The starting point will be the budget proposed by the Mayor in a meeting with the Superintendent of Schools and several members of the BOE. The meeting was held Monday afternoon in the Mayor's office. By all accounts, including this article in the New Haven Register by Mark Zaretsky, the proposed budget will allow the BOE to avoid layoffs in the upcoming year. The cuts will be in administrative and maintenance costs. Other dollars were found in the estimates used by the Superintendent's office for heating the schools. The meeting should be very long and loud as both parties maneuver to score points ahead of this year's election.

Inside the BOE (Special Edition)

Marilyn Vitale and I sat down and taped a new edition of our long running show, Inside the BOE, at the ETV studios earlier this month. Marilyn wanted to bring out some points that were missing or misstated during the debate over the BOE budget during the recent weeks. This included clarification of the status of the Academy, teacher concessions and the BOE Finance Department. You can watch the whole show here or on ETV Ch 18.

Fiscal Year 2007-08 Audit

I sat down with Paul Hongo from the Mayor's office last week to discuss the audit for the 2007-08 fiscal year. There has been much information, and some disinformation, about this audit in the press recently and I thought it a good time to get the facts out.

Town Council - 6/9/2009

The Town Council had a series of Public Hearings and a Special Meeting on Tuesday night. The highlight of the evening was the return of Councilman Ken McKay after his illness earlier in the year. McKay was greeted with a bi-partisan round of applause when he arrived. After the meeting all of council members came over to talk to him and inquire about his health. It is good to see Ken back at the meetings.

The meeting itself was a sedate affair. The Public Hearings and the Special Meeting wrapped up in under an hour and that included a 10 minute break between segments. The entire meeting is in the video below.

Tweed Airport Construction

Yesterday morning I decided to go see how the work around Tweed airport was progressing. I took my video camera and went down to the area near the Dodge Avenue construction. It looks like the destruction of the wetlands on the north side of the airport is progressing nicely. Glad we could be of help to the rich Yale University community that would prefer to destroy the environment rather than fly into Bradley Airport.

Town Council Disappointing

I arrived at the Town Council meeting last night hoping for verbal fisticuffs. However, I was severely disappointed by the lack of contention over the 2007-08 audit report. After the auditor gave the presentation the Chairman of the Council asked for comment from the public but no one had anything to say. In all it was a pretty boring, although long, meeting. There was a mildly interesting presentation on a recycling program which is going to be put in place. The remainder of the meeting was pretty dry.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Goodbye ETV?

There is a bill before the legislature, H.B. 6044, that will change the way public access cable is regulated in Connecticut. I admit to having a lot of interest in this matter since I produce shows for ETV channels 18 and 20. On occasion some of these shows have had some affect on the affairs here in our town. I know for a fact that the shows have caught the eye of political leaders. The show I did on the quarry was not well received by Senator Fasano, as he made clear to me one night.

ETV provides a way for citizens to share with other residents of East Haven issues of public concern. On channel 20 you can see town meetings of various boards and commissions, shows by elected officials, and informational programs from various governmental sources. On channel 18 you can see shows produced by your friends and neighbors. Right now the East Haven Youth Services Bureau is working with ETV to expose children to creation of television shows. Political shows are produced and aired by both parties. I produced a series on the budget process this spring with guests from both the Republicans and Democratic parties.

All of this can be lost if the state legislature has its way. One set of amendments can be read to allow a station like the New Haven-West Haven cable station to take over the functions of ETV. If you want our local shows to virtually disappear into the clutter of programs from those cities then this bill is for you. Other amendments disallow fund raising by the stations and make funding by the cable companies optional. I am not sure if this bill and the amendments are the work of incompetence or the desire to stifle dissent but passage can be disastrous for ETV and the public's right to know what is going on in their town. I urge everyone to call their state representatives and senator to defeat the bill and all of the amendments.

State Rep. Mike Lawlor 1-800-842-8267 email: mlawlor99@juno.com
State Rep. Vincent Candelora 1-800-842-8270 email: Vincent.Candelora@housegop.ct.gov
State Sentaor Leonard Fasano 1-800-842-1421 email: Len.Fasano@cga.ct.gov