Hawk Hunting Breakfast

We take a short break from politics to segue into nature. My front yard seems to be a hunting place for hawks. This morning there was a big one perching in the tree right outside my office window. There is another, larger, tree in my front yard that we jokingly call the "Bird Condo" since it has so many sparrows living in it. The hawk seems to have realized this and decided to try and do breakfast in the front yard. Check out the talons on that hawk. I think he could have carried off the neighborhood cats without any problem. The last picture is the best.

EH News 11/14/2011

Marilyn Vitale went into the studio on Monday to tape the latest edition of EH News. We talked about the elections, what happens with the BoE and PZC. James Albis came on as a guest to talk about his first term as state representative.

Police Commission - 11/17/2011

The repeatedly scheduled and cancelled meeting of the Police Commission happened tonight at the Senior Center. The meeting was as short as it was contentious. From the looks of it every off-duty office on the department showed up to give support to Sgt. Miller. The meeting was held over the shouts of the audience and the meeting lasted just over 4 minutes.

Bd. of Police Commission - 11/17/2011 *Back On*

If you are starting to get confused, join the club. It looks like the original meeting scheduled for Hagaman was cancelled in order to post a new meeting notice for the Senior Center. So it looks like the Police Commission meeting is scheduled for tomorrow night at the Senior Center at 7PM. I will check with Town Hall tomorrow just to make sure.

Never mind. It has been cancelled:

CANCELLATION OF MEETING

A SPECIAL MEETING OF THE HONORABLE BOARD OF POLICE COMMISSION
SCHEDULED FOR 7:00 P.M. NOVEMBER 17, 2001 AT THE HAGAMAN LIBRARY,
227 MAIN STREET, EAST HAVEN, CT HAS BEEN CANCELLED.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED

VIRGINIA WILLIAMS
SECRETARY

Here is the agenda for the meeting on Thursday night:


HONORABLE BOARD OF POLICE COMMISSION
SPECIAL MEETING
NOVEMBER 17, 2011
HAGAMAN LIBRARY- COMMUNITY ROOM
227 MAIN STREET, EAST HAVEN, CT
AT 7:00 P.M.

Roll Call:

Motion that Acting Chief Gaetano J. Nappi return the following internal affairs investigations to the
Honorable Board of Police Commission for action at a later time:

1. IA 2011-09
2. IA 2011-10

Respectfully Submitted

Virginia Williams
Secretary

Election 2011 Recount

What a long day this has been. The recount started around 10AM and ended just before 6PM. Joe Maturo won by a final total of 4,025 to 3991. The Board of Finance ends up 4-2 in favor of the Republicans.

There is not much good video of the actual recount as it was happening due to a ruling by the Registrars of Voters, Head Moderator and Town Clerk that blocked video cameras from being placed in a reasonable location. Originally I had used my hand held camera, like I have done at just about every major Board and Commission meeting for 4 years, to video the recounting from close range. However, at 11:15AM I was informed by the police officer on duty that I had to set up in bad location which inhibited me from seeing or hearing anything of substance. The officer informed me that was the decision of the Registrars. This decision was made in clear violation of a Freedom of Information ruling about camera placements that can be found here. One has to wonder what the Registrars wanted to hide from the camera. I will be filing a complaint with the Freedom of Information Commission this week. When town officials take it upon themselves to limit the reasonable access of the public it diminishes peoples' trust in the integrity of the process and nothing is more important than making sure the votes are counted correctly. This the Registrars, Head Moderator and Town Clerk failed miserably at today.

Election 2011 Results - WTF???

Here (page1, page2, page3) are the sheets from the Town Clerk's office with a breakdown of votes by district. Here are the official sheets sent to the Connecticut Secretary of State on election night. The sheets sent to the SOTS on election night are on 8 1/2" by 17" so my scanner cut off the bottom of the first page. I'll leave to another time why the state has not joined the rest of the world in the 21st century yet.

Look at page 3 of the Town Clerk's pages for the Board of Finance and compare with the Board of Finance numbers (on page 3 of the pdf) for the results sent to the SOTS. The little x's on the sheets sent to the SOTS were added by me to denote the losers. Notice that the Republican candidate, Marline Asid, magically went from 3207 votes on election night to 3217 votes yesterday. With 3207 she is loses the election. With 3217 votes she wins. Was there a recount yesterday for the Board of Finance and I missed it?

Recount Procedures

Here are the recount procedures from the Registrars' office. These procedures will be used in Saturday's recount. The recount will be held at 10AM on Saturday at the Senior Center. With any luck we will get it right the first time this year. I'll be at the recount to do some video and will post more on the blog when I hear it.

Election 2011 Results ****Recount****

Those of you wishing to make fun of my electoral prognostication skills feel free to do so when you see me around town. My 500 vote estimate for an April win was woefully wide of the mark. The final total, subject to recount, was

April Capone 3,994
Joe Maturo 4,025

Here is the spreadsheet with the final results from the forms sent to the Secretary of States office this evening.

Election 2011 Turnout 7PM

The last turnout numbers for the day are here. I will not be posting the final turnout numbers for 8PM since I will be down at District 2 getting the results at 8PM. I will post those numbers when I get them. Here are the 7PM turnout numbers. They continue to show a 8-9% turnout deficit compared to the 2009 election.

District	2009	2011	Delta
1S	125	122	-3
1	1463	1386	-77
2	1677	1565	-112
3	1603	1393	-210
4	1514	1371	-143
5	1555	1384	-171
5S	78	74	-4
	8015	7295	-720

Election 2011 Turnout 6PM

and the 6PM numbers are:

District	2009	2011	Delta
1S	125	118	-7
1	1299	1204	-95
2	1527	1420	-107
3	1458	1306	-152
4	1396	1242	-154
5	1408	1286	-122
5S	78	69	-9
	7291	6645	-646

Election 2011 Turnout 5PM

Here is the latest figures with the difference between the turnout in 2009 election and today's turnout.

District	2009	2011	Delta
1S	117	110	-7
1	1128	1062	-66
2	1340	1242	-98
3	1247	1116	-131
4	1229	1105	-124
5	1204	1118	-86
5S	78	64	-14
	6343	5817	-526

District 4 is slowly building up a turnout deficit which is nearly as high as district 3's deficit. District 5 and 5S are at 100 less while District 2 is nearly as bad off at a 98 deficit. The race could be tightening as the day comes to a close. With District 2 still leading in total votes cast it is still a likely win for the Mayor since that always been her strongest district.

Election 2011 Turnout 4PM

The 4PM numbers show a steady deterioration in turnout from the last election. At 4PM in the 2009 election there were 5,634 votes cast. Today there were only 5,156 votes cast by the 4PM reading.

District	2009	2011
1S	111	104
1	993	915
2	1195	1107
3	1117	994
4	1078	988
5	1067	988
5S	73	60
	5634	5156

Election Day Part 3

Today is a beautiful day for an election. Temperatures in the 60s with sun and clear skies. Here are some pictures from the Districts 3 & 5 polling place at Deer Run School.

Election Day 2011 Turnout 2PM

Here are the 2PM numbers:

District	2009	2011
1S	95	89
1	793	745
2	834	887
3	917	810
4	830	782
5	897	774
5S	66	56
	4432	4143

Districts 3 & 5 still show a much lower turnout this year as compared to the 2009 turnout. The number from 2009 for District 2 seems to be incorrect for the 2PM reading since it is the same as the 1PM reading. If that is correct that means no one voted from 1-2PM in District in 2009 which seems unlikely. My guess is that it was written on the sheet as 834 at 2PM when it should have been 934. I will check with the Registrars when I go back to get the 4PM totals. District 5 totals are surprisingly low this year. During the last election there were 897 voters by 2PM. This year there are only 774. The Republican infighting between Finkle and Maturo over the nomination might be having the effect of suppressing turnout in that key district for Maturo.

Election Day 2011 Turnout 1PM

Here are the 1PM numbers:

District	2009	2011
1S	88	78
1	696	662
2	834	797
3	817	730
4	746	697
5	786	692
5S	63	53
	4030	3709

The 2nd District numbers have fallen off since the 10AM reading but the districts 3 & 5 are still well below 2 years ago. District 3 is down by 87 voters and district 5 is down by 94 voters. District 4 is down by 49 voters but still having better turnout than districts 3 & 5. At this point it is looking more like a lower turnout than the last local election and the districts Joe Maturo must win are down substantially from last election.

Election Day 2011 Turnout 10AM

Here is a spreadsheet showing the turnout in the various districts this year versus 2009 at 10AM

District     2009       2011
1S                53            44
1                369          354
2                454          471
3                432          383
4                441          396
5                459          372
5S                31            27
                2239        2047

As you can see the 2nd District is the only district with increased turnout. Since that is April's strongest district it does not bode well for Joe. There is also a huge drop-off in districts 3 & 5 which Joe is going to need to win. At this point if the GOTV game of the Republicans does not pick up it could be a tough night for the local Rs.

Election Day 2011 Part 2

The voter turnout stands at 2,047 or 13.2% of the registered voters as of 10AM. The turnout at the election in 2009 was 2,239 or 13.84% at 10AM. Looks like the vote totals will be down a percent or so by the time the day is over.

Here are some pictures from Districts 1 and 4 that I just took.

A smiling Mike Riolino is shaking hands in the 4th.

Meanwhile Joe Maturo and a bevy of Republican candidates were milling around and seeking votes.

District 1 had few candidates greeting voters but seemed to have a steady stream of residents heading to the polls while I was there.

Election Day 2011

Election day is finally here and the residents are heading to the polls to cast their ballots for local offices. I just came back from the Registrars office (which has been moved back into Town Hall from the garage) and the vote total as of 8AM is 872 or 5.6% of the registered voters. Two years ago the 8AM numbers were 1,013 and 6.26%. A small drop off in the totals but it is early yet.

Here are some pictures from the various polling places.

District 4 around 7AM

Outside District 1 at around 8AM

District 2 a little after 8AM

There are the smiling faces of our Town Clerk, Stacy Gravino-Piccirillo and her mom, Bev Gravino. Bev is running for Town Council in District 2.

Joe Maturo checking his phone outside the District 2 polling place

The staff in the Registrars' office about 8:30AM.

Pre-election Prognostication

In a bit of electoral fortunetelling I've polled several knowledgeable local pols that are not involved in this year's race for their thoughts about the outcome. The group came up with a win for April ranging from a close, 200 vote win, up to a 900 vote landslide. On average, our prognosticator's give April a 525 vote lead over Joe. I was solidly in the middle of the estimates with a 500 vote April win. Everyone polled thought District 2 would be a big win for April with District 4 another solid win. That leaves Joe slugging it out in Districts 1, 3, and 5 to overcome an expected April advantage of 700-900 total votes in Districts 2 and 4. District 2 has always been an April stronghold and a good response to Irene plus the popularity of the Cosey Beach Park and splashpad should make sure she receives a big win in that district.

Joe's anemic fundraising and the very contentious intra-Republican fight between Finkle and Maturo earlier this year is going to be a problem for Joe. On the other hand, the state of the economy is going to be a problem for any incumbent in this election cycle so you can't entirely discount Joe's chances. Another, possible, advantage for Joe is the Board of Education. Not that his candidates are good but that the BOE over the last 2 years has been the biggest disaster to hit East Haven education in decades. Only 2 incumbents from either party, Maisano and DePalma, deserve to be reelected. The remainder deserve to be consigned to dustbin of history.

At this point dear readers, you will get bonus points for correctly identifying the first person to consign someone to "the dustbin of history" and how he met his unfortunate death. Now back to our prognostication.

If April is tagged with responsibility for that motley crew at the BOE then it could be a long night at Democratic HQ.

There you have it. The total pre-election WAG of our panel and, ultimately, me. If I turn out to be wrong feel free to point that out the next time you see me. By 9PM Tuesday all guessing will be over. Enjoy the election!

PZC 11/3/2011

The video just finished uploading. I'll add more commentary later when I have time.



There were 2 big items on the agenda. First was the acceptance for review and setting a hearing date for a zoning change in Foxon and the proposed development of a veterans' housing facility. For some reason the developers of the housing thought a vote was going to be taken on the zoning change and development at the meeting so they brought out a group of residents and veterans to speak in favor of it. Anyone familiar with PZC knows that they set dates for public hearings then, normally a month or 2 later, they have the actual public hearing. This gives residents notice of the changes being considered and a chance to come to the meeting and make their case for or against the project. In any event there was no hearing at this meeting. The public hearing has been scheduled for early January.

The second item was Len Fasano's plan to rebuild parts of his beach club that were destroyed by Irene. The Commissioners asked some questions and then approved the plan for the rebuilding.