Upcoming Town Meetings

Some of the Town meetings scheduled for next week are:

Monday 12/3 Flood & Erosion Commission 7:00 PM at the Senior Center

Tuesday 12/4 Town Council 7:30 PM at the Senior Center

Wednesday 12/5 Planning and Zoning Commission (Public Hearing @ 7:00 PM, Regular Meeting @ 7:30 PM) at the Senior Center

Thursday 12/6 Ad hoc Candlelight Committee meeting at the Foxon Rec Center at 7:00 PM

The Planning and Zoning Commission will hold 2 public hearings. One concerns a large piece of property on the East Haven-North Haven border which is going to be subdivided. The other public hearing is to change the zoning regulations for a developer that wishes to squeeze an Elderly, Non-assisted living facility on a piece of property too small for existing regulations.

Update: the Board of Education is having a joint meeting of its Personnel and Athletic Oversight sub-committees on Tuesday, December 4th at 6:30 PM in the Boardroom at East Haven High School. Here is the agenda:

12/4/2007 Sub-committee Agenda

The most important item on the agenda is an Executive Session to discuss the open Athletic Director's position. There has been an ongoing fight about who is going to be the new AD ever since the position opened up this summer. At one time there was discussion about splitting the position in order to appoint 2 part time AD's. Such a solution would have favored the child of a Board of Education member but was ultimately shot down when there was too much opposition. The latest fighting revolves around a candidate that is being vigorously pushed by some members of the Democratic Party. I have heard from several sources that the lobbying has been intense for one candidate. In fact, the candidate in question has been telling several people that he has a lock on the job.

East Haven Tops in Voter Turnout for November 2007 Elections

A tight race for mayor led to a high voter turnout in East Haven this year. Sixty-four percent of registered voters went to the polls to cast their ballots in the municipal elections on November 6th. That turnout percentage was the highest in the state and gives East Haven the "Democracy Cup" which is awarded by the Secretary of States office.

See the AP Wire Service report in Newsday:

Three towns take top honors for voter turnout

This year's election saw 8,000 voters come to the polls. The turnout in the last 2 municipal elections had been in the low 7,000s. Congratulations to everyone that came out to vote.

East Haven BOE Elects New Officers

The East Haven Board of Education met on Tuesday night to elect the new officers for the upcoming two years and to conduct business for the first time since the elections on November 6th. As was widely expected Marilyn Vitale was unanimously elected Chairwoman of the BOE. Frank Hammell was elected Vice-chairman and Lisa Anastasio was elected Secretary.

Town Council Organizational Meeting

The Town Council held the post-election organizational meeting tonight. Paul Thompson was elected chairman and Gary DePalma was elected as vice-chairman. Kenny McKay was named the minority leader by the Republicans on the Town Council. The meeting lasted just under 10 minutes. Here it is on youtube:

Board of Education Meeting - November 27, 2007

There will be a regular meeting of the East Haven Board of Education Tuesday, November 27th at 7:30 P.M. at East Haven High School. The meeting agenda will be light with the exception of organizing the new Board. Rumor has it that the officers will be:

Chairwoman - Marilyn Vitale
Vice-Chairman - Frank Hammell
Secretary - Lisa Anastasio

The composition and chairman of the Board Sub-committees will be decided by the new Chairwoman before the first regular meeting in December. I have spoken to Marilyn Vitale and her inclination, which I support, is to appoint chairmen of Sub-committees without regard to party affiliation. This will probably raise a ruckus among the political hacks in the Democratic Party (yes, there are political hacks in both parties) but I am confidant Marilyn will do what is right for the children of East Haven no matter how much political heat she takes.

Town Council Meeting - November 26, 2007

The East Haven Town Council will meet at 7:00 PM in Town Hall on Monday, November 26th. The special meeting will be held to organize the Town Council, including selection of the new Chairman and Vice-Chairman. An unconfirmed rumor has it that one member of the newly elected Town Council has accepted a job in New Jersey and will be submitting a letter of resignation in the near future. If that occurs a new Town Council member from that district will be selected by the full council at the next meeting.

I expect to have video of the meeting online by the next day. So stayed tuned here for updates.

Republicans Out of Office Decide to Continue "Silly Season"

The East Haven Republicans seem to have plenty of time on their hands now that they are out of office. See the article in today's NH Register:

East Haven's New Mayor Defends Choice of Attorney

The Republicans say that Attorney Cofrancesco cannot be Town Attorney because she has filed several cases against the town. This is laughable. The Connecticut Bar Association ("CBA") has rules regarding situations like this because they happen so frequently. See Connecticut Ethics Rule 1.9 which addresses this situation. Attorney Cofrancesco must (1) stop representing the people suing the town; and (2) she must recuse herself from those cases on behalf of the town. She must not take any part in managing, overseeing, planning or, even, discussing those cases with the Town of East Haven, its elected officials or employees. An attorney will be retained to represent East Haven in those cases.

Mayor Capone Almon and Attorney Cofrancesco know this and planned for it:

Cofrancesco, who at one time was New Haven’s corporation counsel, and Capone Almon said the conflict is not unusual in the legal world and Cofrancesco will take steps recommended by the Connecticut Bar Association to insulate herself from any conflict by not being involved in any decisions relating to such cases.

“A lot of times, lawyers will leave a firm and will find themselves in a different position,” Cofrancesco said. “Instead of suing a company, they’re representing a company. ... Lawyers are trained to handle these types of things,” she said.

You will notice that none of the Republican attorneys is speaking out on this matter. The reason none of the Republican attorneys is making a stink is that they know they would be laughed at by their fellow attorneys of both parties if they did. Instead, political hacks like Carl Ruggiero and Dan McCann are the signing the letters to the editor (although I doubt if either of them wrote the letters).

April Capone Almon Inaugurated as Mayor of East Haven

Today at noon April Capone Almon was sworn in as Mayor of East Haven. Eleven days after the election and 3 days after being declared the winner, April took the oath of office at the East Haven High School. She gave a passionate inaugural speech emphasizing family and the importance of doing the right thing in an open manner. Take a look at the fine inaugural address for yourself.



Mike Lawlor gave a very fine speech introducing the new Mayor. He told the audience some of the history of East Haven and recognized the former Mayors in attendance, Hank Luzzi and Tony Proto.

Final Election Results

I picked up the final results today at the Town Clerk's office. The recount produced no changed outcomes. Everyone that was declared the winner on election night was also the winner when the final recount was done. Most races that were recount showed little change in the final vote counts. The one notable exception was the Board of Finance recount where Doc Schlegel and Ralph Vitale were fighting it out for the last seat. Both of the gentlemen ran as Republicans. On election night Doc Schlegel had 3340 votes and Ralph Vitale had 3325. When the recount was finished, Doc had 3312 and Ralph had 3277. To give you an example of how odd that result was, the 5th District Town Council race was also recount. Three Republicans and three Democrats ran for the 3 open seats in that district. When all the ballots were recounted the biggest change in any total for all the 6 candidates was 6 votes. The remaining vote totals were all within 5 votes of the election night count. I have no idea what happened with the Board of Finance but the SOTS office should look into that recount to see if there was an issue with the machines or whether the recount was skewed.

The closest race after the recount was for the Town Council in the 5th District. Richard Anania won the last of the 3 seats in the District with 706 votes over Teena Fucci who had 705 votes. Wouldn't you hate to be a friend of Teena's that did not get to the polls on election day!

The final outcome breaks down like this:

Mayor - Democrat
Town Clerk - Democrat (but cross-endorsed)
Board of Finance - 4 Democrats, 2 Republicans
Board of Education - 6 Democrats, 3 Republicans
Town Council - 11 Democrats, 4 Republicans

East Haven Mayoral Recount - Final Results (Updated)

April Capone Almon is the new Mayor of East Haven. She defeated Joe Maturo 4010-3985. The final tally was within 4 votes of the original tally on election night. Congratulations to April and all the vote examiners who went through 2 grueling days of recounting votes by hand. Today the tally went from 9:00 AM till almost 10:00 PM. I will add video as soon as I download it from the camera. In the next couple of days, after I have gotten a chance to rest and recuperate, I will give the long explanation of where the problems arose with the Sunday recount and what changed today to make such an accurate result possible. The short explanation is the moderator put in place some very solid recount procedures that were not in place on Sunday.

Update #1: here is the video of the result announcement and a short press conference by the new Mayor of East Haven!



Update #2: Susan Bysiewicz gives a short speech to the press and the vote examiners prior to the second recount. She and two members of her office came down. The two staff members of the SOTS office were, in the words of Secretary Bysiewicz, "going to stay with you as long as it takes to conduct this recount." That is a very strong statement by the SOTS that the East Haven recount was important and the Secretary was going to provide everything she could to make sure the recount went smoothly. However, it was not precisely true. The two members of her staff bailed sometime in the afteroon. Leaving a recount that is going smoothly seems utterly reasonable since East Haven has never had a problem with vote recounts as long as anyone could remember....except for that little problem on Sunday which resulted in East Haven spending $15,000 on a recount that was invalid. Watch Susan B for yourself:



Update #3: here is some video of the facilities used for recount #2. As you can see these facilities are so much less crowded and better lighted than the Town Hall lobby which was used for the first recount. You probably cannot tell by the video but the accoustics were better for recount #2. The Bradford Manor fire house facility has high wooden ceilings which help dissipate the noise from the examiners, partisan inspectors and the audience. The Town Hall lobby has a lot of stone on the floors and it is a substantially smaller space.

East Haven Mayoral Recount - Part Deux (Updated)

Tomorrow morning East Haven will attempt to do a valid recount of the ballots in the mayoral election from November 6th. I will be there with the video camera to capture the action. My understanding is that Susan Bysiewicz will be there in person to oversee the recount. Maybe she will explain her office's unwillingness to send a staffer to provide technical assistance for the first recount.

Update #1: I will be heading down to the recount site at the Bradford Manor fire house in a few minutes. Susan Bysiewicz is scheduled to be there at 8:45 AM to confer with East Haven officials. The recount itself is scheduled to start at 9:00 AM. However, if this is like the first recount, the recount itself will not start until shortly before 10 AM. There will be extensive coverage from most of the news outlets in the state. Channel 8, the local ABC station, is already at the site.

Slideshow For Recount #1

Here is a slideshow of some pictures and information about the first recount on 11/11/2007.

Introduction to the East Haven Mayoral Recount - 11/11/2007 (Updated)

Here is the introduction for a cable access show I taped before the first recount. As you can see at the end of the clip where I say, "we should have a result by the end of the day" that I was wildly optimistic.



As everyone knows by now the second recount will be held on Wednesday at an unknown location. I will be taking the day off to tape the second recount and will post video soon after completion of the recount.

I am still amazed that there were no representatives from the Secretary of States office on hand for the first recount. Not only was this the first major recount with the new machines but the responsibility for doing recounts was switched in October from the Town Clerks office to the Registrar of Voters office by state statute. It does not take a clairvoyent to know that things were not going to go smoothly.

I will be posting more video as I get it uploaded throughout the evening.

Update #1: here is the video from the start of the recount process. The video begins with the swearing in of the examiners and continues through the beginning of the actual recounting. I hope this section gives a good idea of the conditions the examiners were operating under. No matter what the outcome of the recount the people that gave up their Sundays in order to spend time doing a thankless job should be applauded. Also, hats off to the staff of the Registrars office and Town Clerk's office who gave it their all under very trying circumstances.

Shredded Documents in East Haven

While spending too much time in the East Haven Town Hall yesterday, I was shown a pile of bags full of shredded documents in the basement of Town Hall. The bags were halfway between the Building and Finance Departments. By all accounts the members of the (outgoing?) Maturo administration having been shredding documents since the day after the election. Is this normal behavior for an outgoing administration? Possibly. However, it raises some troubling questions about the contents of those bags. During the day Sunday the bags were shown to some of the East Haven police that were in the building for the recount. They decided it would be best if the bags were secured since the State of Connecticut has a records retention law that must be followed and destruction of certain types of documents would be illegal. The bags were removed and secured for a subsequent investigation. Here is an article from the New Haven Register on the recount and document destruction:

http://www.nhregister.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19014488&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=590581&rfi=6

Update #1: now that I have finished work for the day I will try to get more video from the day of the first recount uploaded. Here is a video taken in the basement of Town Hall in the morning. That is me doing the standup report. Feel free to enjoy or poke fun.




The claim by members of the Maturo Administration that the Democrats were responsible for the shredded documents is laughable. The Republicans have controlled Town Hall for 10 years. They were the only ones with the ability and time to destroy documents.

I will be adding footage of the bags when I have the time later today.

Mayoral Recount Today

I am off in a few minutes to the Mayoral recount being held at the East Haven Town Hall starting at 9 AM. With any luck I will be able to provide some footage and interviews later in the day. April Capone Almon leads with 4010 votes to Joe Maturo's 3989 votes. This has been the closest mayoral election in recent East Haven history. This year, for the first time, the recounting will be done by the Registrar of Voters office and not by the Town Clerk's office. No one is sure how long the recount is going to take since each ballot has to be examined by a pair of examiners. One of the examiners in each team is a Democrat and the other is a Republican.

Update #1: the recount got off to a slow start about 9:45 AM. The recount is being done in the lobby of Town Hall and it is packed with chairs, tables and people. The lighting is not good and the temperature is a little on the warm side. They have started recounting in the 1st District since there are Town Council positions that are being recounted in that district. The remaining districts will be recount after that is finished. At the present pace I do not expect this recount to be finished before 3PM today.

Update #2: the recount has completed. Now they are trying to figure out why they have more votes for mayor in the recount than they had voters voting. It is a total mess at Town Hall with no one knowing why they have such a bizarre discrepancy. I am heading back to Town Hall now and will update later.

Update #3: the results of the recount will not be certified by the recount moderator, Lori Jaffe due to significant discrepencies noted in the previous update. There are 114 more votes cast than people that are thought to have voted. The moderator and the Registrar of Voters will contact the Secretary of State on Tuesday to get instructions.

Update #4: what a day it has been. I am in the process of uploading the announcement from the recount moderator on the circumstances surrounding today's problems. The original machine count had given the Democrat, April Capone Almon, a 21 vote lead. The recount shows her with a 65 vote lead. However, as noted above, there are more votes for mayor than people that voted according to the tally sheets and voting machines show. There could be many reasons for this including poll workers not crossing off all voters from the list when they came to vote, inaccurate counts by the machine on election day, and human error during today's recount. All 3 of these reasons could have caused discrepancies in the vote totals. The one person I do blame for some of this mess is the Secretary of State, Susan Bysiewicz. Despite repeated requests by her office to send a representative to the recount, she refused. Her cavalier attitude concerning the recount was a significant impediment to getting a clean recount.

Here is the video of the announcement by the moderator of the results, such as they were, of today's recount. Let me warn you that, at one point in the taping, a loud siren from our local fire department is clearly audible. If you are wearing headphones you might want to lower the volume before watching the video.

Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting - 11/7/2007

On Wednesday, November 7th, the East Haven PZC held their regular meeting. The meeting was preceded by a public hearing at 7:00 PM. The highlight, or lowlight, of the meeting was the approval of the filling and building houses on wetlands by State Senator Leonard Fasano. This was an outrageous act by the lame duck PZC headed by long time Republican political hack, Frank Cappelloni. He was aided in the pillage of our wetlands by the other commission members, Charles Coyle, Jospehine DiLungo and Robert Falcigno.

Welcome To East Haven Politics

Today we are announcing the creation of the East Haven Politics blog. We will be covering the politics of East Haven, Connecticut at the local and state level. In the upcoming year we look forward to covering the new administration in Town Hall, the races for State Senator and Representative, and the meetings of all the East Haven boards and commissions. For full coverage of the Board of Education, please visit our sister site:

http://www.insidetheboe.com

We already have a substantial number of videos online from the past year at:

http://youtube.com/easthavenpolitics

This blog is not meant to be strictly neutral but will, instead, cover the East Haven political scene with a progressive slant. That being said, we will not be reticent in pointing out the foibles of any Democratic politician.