There are a few town meetings this week. However, the big meeting news concerns a law that is to go into effect on October 1st. The state legislature has decreed that any town or city that has a website must post the meeting agendas and minutes on the website. The town website is to become the electronic version of the Town Clerk's bulletin board. This is long overdue since it is difficult for many citizens to get to Town Hall to check the board on a daily basis. With all the agendas and minutes online it will become harder for any administration to bury information about meetings that they do not want the public to attend.
The meetings this week are:
Tuesday
School Building Committee 7 PM Town Hall
Wednesday
Board of Finance 7:30 Town Hall (this could be a hot one)
Thursday
Library Board 7 PM Hagaman Library
Zoning Board of Appeals 7:30 Senior Center
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Mike Lawlor Election Website
Representative Mike Lawlor's election website went live this weekend. The website has a blog, contact information, campaign news and issues of concern to the residents of East Haven. Mike is running for reelection against Lori Musco in November.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Civil Service - September 8, 2008
The Civil Service Commission met on Monday, September 8th. The meeting was short and lacking in contention or excitement. The biggest point of interest is the ongoing problem with people brought on as temporary workers without Civil Service approval and then getting rights to the job after they have been temping for awhile. This mostly a problem with the Board of Education where a number of custodians and attendance clerks had to be hired even though they did not score highly on the civil service examinations.
Watch the video of the meeting here or below:
Watch the video of the meeting here or below:
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Planning and Zoning - To Quarry or not to Quarry?
The September meeting of the PZC was held on Wednesday, the 3rd. There has been great anticipation of this meeting since the July meeting where the special exception to the quarry on Foxon Road was discussed. But, as I blogged here the developer requested a one month delay in order to prepare all the documents requested by the PZC at the July meeting. Apparently, a large number of people in the audience were not aware of the request for the continuance. They showed up expecting to discuss the quarrying. The neighbors that did show up were naturally upset that the meeting had been moved and most of them had not been told. They were also skeptical about the meeting the developers want to have with the neighbors tonight, September 4th, at the Foxon Firehouse. Watch the entire meeting here or below:
Town Council Meeti...zzzzzzzzzz
I spent a little over 2 hours at the Town Council meeting on Tuesday. Most of that time I attempted to stay awake at one of the more boring Town Council meetings I've attended. The meeting portion consisted, mostly, of a long list of budget transfers and other housekeeping-type chores that were devoid of any excitement. The resolutions which allows the Board of Education to apply to the State for the repair to the school roofs I expected to get a rise out of the Council. However, they were last on the agenda. By that point I think all the Council members were worn down and just wanted to get out of there.
The one thing they did spend an inordinate amount of time talking about was the transfer of $93,000 to the legal account for money expended on outside council for various cases including the airport litigation and some personal injury cases. You might think debating the expenditure of $93,000 would be an important thing for the Council to do. I might agree with you if they had been discussing the entire $93,000 transfer. However, both parties agreed that most of that amount should be paid. No. Our Council spent an hour arguing about $7,500 of that amount. The $7,500 was for the attorney that represented the Mayor in the fight with the Police Commission over Nappe. The Republicans argued that the Mayor, under the East Haven Town Charter, could not hire an attorney without Council approval. The Administration argued that the provision of the Town Charter did not apply to this case. Everyone agreed that an outside attorney was needed since all the Town Attorneys were conflicted out of the case since they had been involved in other litigation regarding Nappe. So, a quick synopsis of the issue is:
Outside attorney had to be hired - agreed
$85,000 of the $93,000 uncontested - agreed
Mayor has the right to obtain outside counsel - agreed
Charter requires Mayor to get Town Council approval - disagree
It was at this point that I was happy I stopped at Dunkin Donuts before the meeting to get a shot of caffeine. Otherwise, my ability to stay awake during this mess would have been seriously impaired.
The only humorous part of this entire debate occurred when the Republicans wanted to strip the $7,500 from the budget transfer. The 3 Republicans present needed to huddle among themselves before any of them could make a motion. So they made a request to have a Republican caucus. A caucus is a meeting of the members of a single party of a Board or Commission. Only the members of the party on the Board or Commission can be present. It is a legitimate, but seldom used, method of discussing the political ramifications of a particular course of action. The Republicans go into the kitchen in the Senior Center for 5 minutes and come out to make the motion to strip the $7,500. A minor nit, but they could not have done that before the meeting instead of making everyone else sit around for 5 minutes while they talked about this?
I admit it. What the Republicans did with the caucus I found to be a bit odd. What the Democrats did next went past odd to outright bizarre. Apparently, the Democrats could not figure out that they should vote against a Republican made motion on an obviously political issue. Soooooo....the Democrats decide they need to have their own caucus. The Democratic members of the Town Council head to the kitchen followed by Town Attorney Cofrancesco. What did she do??? The Town Attorney is not a member of the Town Council. If she joins the caucus it is no longer a "party caucus" as defined by the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA"). It removes the "caucus" from the party caucus exception to the open meeting provisions of the FOIA. Therefore, it is a violation of those open meeting provisions. The Republican Minority Leader, Ken McKay, sees the Town Attorney go into the kitchen with the Democrats. I thought his head was going to explode at this point. He rushes over to the Town Clerk and tells her to get Attorney Cofrancesco out of the kitchen. The Town Clerk makes the Town Attorney leave the caucus. The Democrats then spend 10 minutes trying to figure out that they should vote no on the Republican motion.
After that bit of farce the meeting continued on its interminably boring way till it ended with a whimper shortly after 9 PM. IF you are having a bout of insomnia watch the entire meeting on ETV Channel 20 sometime in the next couple of weeks.
The one thing they did spend an inordinate amount of time talking about was the transfer of $93,000 to the legal account for money expended on outside council for various cases including the airport litigation and some personal injury cases. You might think debating the expenditure of $93,000 would be an important thing for the Council to do. I might agree with you if they had been discussing the entire $93,000 transfer. However, both parties agreed that most of that amount should be paid. No. Our Council spent an hour arguing about $7,500 of that amount. The $7,500 was for the attorney that represented the Mayor in the fight with the Police Commission over Nappe. The Republicans argued that the Mayor, under the East Haven Town Charter, could not hire an attorney without Council approval. The Administration argued that the provision of the Town Charter did not apply to this case. Everyone agreed that an outside attorney was needed since all the Town Attorneys were conflicted out of the case since they had been involved in other litigation regarding Nappe. So, a quick synopsis of the issue is:
It was at this point that I was happy I stopped at Dunkin Donuts before the meeting to get a shot of caffeine. Otherwise, my ability to stay awake during this mess would have been seriously impaired.
The only humorous part of this entire debate occurred when the Republicans wanted to strip the $7,500 from the budget transfer. The 3 Republicans present needed to huddle among themselves before any of them could make a motion. So they made a request to have a Republican caucus. A caucus is a meeting of the members of a single party of a Board or Commission. Only the members of the party on the Board or Commission can be present. It is a legitimate, but seldom used, method of discussing the political ramifications of a particular course of action. The Republicans go into the kitchen in the Senior Center for 5 minutes and come out to make the motion to strip the $7,500. A minor nit, but they could not have done that before the meeting instead of making everyone else sit around for 5 minutes while they talked about this?
I admit it. What the Republicans did with the caucus I found to be a bit odd. What the Democrats did next went past odd to outright bizarre. Apparently, the Democrats could not figure out that they should vote against a Republican made motion on an obviously political issue. Soooooo....the Democrats decide they need to have their own caucus. The Democratic members of the Town Council head to the kitchen followed by Town Attorney Cofrancesco. What did she do??? The Town Attorney is not a member of the Town Council. If she joins the caucus it is no longer a "party caucus" as defined by the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA"). It removes the "caucus" from the party caucus exception to the open meeting provisions of the FOIA. Therefore, it is a violation of those open meeting provisions. The Republican Minority Leader, Ken McKay, sees the Town Attorney go into the kitchen with the Democrats. I thought his head was going to explode at this point. He rushes over to the Town Clerk and tells her to get Attorney Cofrancesco out of the kitchen. The Town Clerk makes the Town Attorney leave the caucus. The Democrats then spend 10 minutes trying to figure out that they should vote no on the Republican motion.
After that bit of farce the meeting continued on its interminably boring way till it ended with a whimper shortly after 9 PM. IF you are having a bout of insomnia watch the entire meeting on ETV Channel 20 sometime in the next couple of weeks.
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