Police Commission 1/31/2012

Nothing is worse than bad political theater and we had a bushel full of that tonight at the Police Commission meeting. The room was packed with politicos of both parties and enough reporters and camera crews to sink a cruise liner. The assembled mass of citizenry took to cheering when their side said something they liked and sulking or grumbling when the opposite happened. There were so many TV crews and reporters there the public comment had to be held over on one side of the room near the kitchen.

The Police Commission passed a resolution asking Mayor Maturo to fire Chief Gallo. Another motion to disband the Learn Committee also passed. A third motion to file a complaint with the CCHRO over the Mayor's taco remarks and the actions of Chief Gallo passed. The first 2 motions will be ignored by the Mayor. I'm not sure how far the 3rd motion will get but it should keep me reporting on politics for awhile.

A surprise 4th motion was added to the agenda. The motion forms a Police Commission Advisory Board consisting of the 2 departing Police Commissioners. For the humor factor alone I give that the high marks for the night.

I'll post the video when I get it downloaded later tonight or early tomorrow. Till then here are some pictures to give you an idea of how crowded the Senior Center was.

EH News Hongo Interview

Marilyn and I were in the studio last night and taped a couple of shows. One on the Board of Education issues with curriculum and finance. Another concerned the activity of the last week with regards to the EHPD. While I have not come close to finishing up editing on the shows, I thought the interview I did with Paul Hongo might be of interest so I am putting it up now. I asked the Administration if Mayor Maturo wanted to come on the show but did not hear back from anyone. That may be understandable considering what happened last week.

Gallo Retirement Press Conf.

Here is the video from the press conference. The video is a little shaky since I didn't have a tripod handy and was holding the camera over my head most of the time.

Police Commission 1/31/2012

The January Regular Meeting of the Police Commission will take place Tuesday night at the Senior Center at 7:30. The agenda is here.

Press Conference at 11 AM

A press conference has been scheduled for 11 AM at Town Hall. It is widely expected that Mayor Maturo will be announcing the resignation or retirement of Chief Gallo.

More details as they become available. If I can break away from work I will head down the street to tape the press conference.

BOE Audit Highlights

Since I was making some clips from the BOE's audit meeting the other night, I decided to create a highlight video so you don't have to sit through 90 minutes of the full meeting. Here are the highlights.

BOE Audit Report - 1/26/2012

On Thursday the BOE Finance Subcommittee met with the auditors to find out about the $657K that was not spent in the 2010-11 budget. The amazing thing wasn't that the money wasn't spent but that no one seems to know what happened. As close as I can figure out the BOE says the money was spent, the auditors say it wasn't spent, and no one seems to know why there is this discrepancy. There will be more on this over the coming weeks but at this point how can the Town Council give the BOE a penny more until they get their books in order (I'll leave aside the test scores until another day). Enjoy or be befuddled by the video:

Part 1:


Part 2:

Town Hall Taco Delivery

Here is the video from the delivery of tacos to Town Hall today.

BOE Finance Sub-Committee Mtg at 6PM

The BOE's Finance sub-committee is meeting at the HS tonight at 6PM. There will be discussion of the 2012-13 proposed budget. I hear the auditors may attend to discuss the $657K that was not spent and how that affects this year's budget.

What Happens When (if?) the Mayor Resigns

With the continuing firestorm surrounding the Mayor's taco comments there is the possibility that he will have to resign. If he does, who takes over? The rules for replacing a mayor who resigns are detailed in Chapter 3 Section 2 of the Town Charter.

The Chairperson of the Town Council, Rich Anania, takes over as temporary mayor for a period not to exceed 30 days. During that 30 days the Town Council will have to elect, from the members of the Town Council, a permanent replacement for the Mayor. If the Town Council cannot agree on a replacement within 30 days then a special election must be held within 90 days to select a replacement.

The backroom wheeling and dealing when, or if, Maturo has to resign will be incredible. For someone covering politics in East Haven it will give me material for an unending stream of blog posts and TV reports.

Resignation?

The Taco turmoil is reaching far and wide tonight as media outlets around the United States and the world are picking up on the story. Locally a Facebook group has been formed to call for Mayor Maturo's resignation, a local Republican has called for Maturo to step down, Democratic Town Chairman has demanded Maturo's resignation, and state and local politicians have taken the Mayor to task for his comment. These included statements from:

Governor Malloy:
"The comments by East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo are repugnant. They represent either a horrible lack of judgment or worse, an underlying insensitivity to our Latino community that is unacceptable. Being tired is no excuse. He owes an apology to the community, and more importantly, he needs to show what he's going to do to repair the damage he's done. And he needs to do it today."

Representative James Albis:
"Mayor Maturo's comment was highly inappropriate." The question of resignation was "ultimately up to the Mayor."

Senator Len Fasano:
"I don't believe Mayor Joe Maturo should resign. And I know that Mayor Maturo knows miss-spoke yesterday and regrets what he said. But I do believe he needs to unequivocally apologize for his unfortunate comments."

Dan McCann published a full statement on his blog calling for Mayor Maturo's resignation.

The Hartford Courant published an editorial entitled "The Mayor Is An Idiot".

East Haven on TV

It will surprise no one that East Haven will make the TV news tonight. I just came from Town Hall and took these pictures of the TV trucks lined up on Main Street and in the Town Hall parking lot.

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

Mayor Maturo, who wasn't having a good day to begin with decided to make it oh so much worse this evening. While being interviewed by a reporter from WPIX in NY he was asked "what he was going to do for Latinos?" In a response he would prefer to have never uttered said, "I might have tacos when I go home." He later said he thought the remark might have been "a little insensitive." Ya think?

Check out the video here:
http://www.wpix.com/news/wpix-conn-officers-arrested-mayor-reax,0,2435685.story

and some additional footage here:
http://www.wpix.com/videobeta/?watchId=c7142d48-0ff9-44ba-8fac-701272b56097

And just google maturo and tacos for more stories on this from around the United States.

Update on indictments

After reading through the indictments again, I see there are references to intimidation of Police Commissioners. One involved the actions at the November 17, 2011 meeting and the other was the subject of the December 5, 2011 meeting. To make it easier for the readers to find these videos I am re-posting the videos here.

November 17, 2011 Police Commission meeting


December 5, 2011 Police Commission meeting
Discussion of order of Chief Gallo barring Commissioners from EHPD property

DOJ Press Conference

Watch it live on Fox:

http://www.ctnow.com/videogallery/64232118/live/Fox-CT-News-Live-Stream


Watch it live on WTNH:


http://www.wtnh.com/subindex/video/watch_us_live

4 Arrested in EHPD Probe

See Mark Zaretsky's article on the NH Register site. I'm sure there will be more news coming. Four officers arrested by the FBI this morning. Cari, Spaulding, Sgt. John Miller, and Jason Zullo. No charges available at this time.

Here is the indictment from the NH Register site:

MILLER, Et Al Indictment

If I am not mistaken, they mention a "co-conspirator-1" which can only be Gallo. From page 11 of the indictment it says co-conspirator-1 "ordered all EHPD personnel not to permit Police Commissioners on the premises of the EHPD station without his prior approval".

EH News 1/14/2012

Marilyn and I taped this show over a week ago. It is now on ETV and here online. We discuss BOE issues and the Town Council and PZC meetings held earlier in the month. Enjoy the show.

Snowstorm - Roads Horrible

I just got back from a short drive. The roads are horrible! If you can stay off the roads. I only saw 1 town plow and 2 BOE plows out in my short drive. The roads are extremely dangerous. Even Main Street is a mess.

I went driving around the center on Sunday morning to take some pictures. The roads, while better than yesterday, are not in great shape. So take it easy today until the ice and snow melt some more. Until then, here are some pics I snapped while out.

BOE Curr. Subcommittee Highlight Reel

I know wading through 2 hours of a BOE Curriculum Subcommittee can be tedious. To save you time I have boiled the 2+ hour meeting into a 15 minute highlight reel.

BOE Curriculum Subcommittee 1/17/2012

On Tuesday night the BOE Curriculum subcommittee met to discuss the CMT scores for grades 3-5. The subcommittee chairman, Chuck Scalese, had examined the CMT scores over the last several weeks and decided that they were very bad. I could have saved him some time since I had already looked at those numbers and decided the same thing months ago. But a lot of folks don't believe it until they look for themselves. Better late than never to the party I always say.

The rest of the BOE in attendance was also appalled by the disaster that are the CMT scores and vigorously pointed this out to the audience (that would be me) and the administrators present. I'll have more on this meeting this weekend. For now, enjoy the video. I broke the meeting up into 3 segments of approximately 40 minutes each.

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:

Police Comm. Spec. Mtg. 1/18/2012

Here is the agenda for the Board of Police Commission's Special meeting on Wednesday:

HONORABLE BOARD OF POLICE COMMISSIONER’S AGENDA
Special Meeting on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 7:00 PM
At the East Haven Senior Center, 91 Taylor Avenue, East Haven


Roll Call
Pledge of Allegiance/Moment of Silence


New Business:
1. Discussion/Possible Action regarding the promotion of Lieutenant at the
East Haven Police Department.


Respectfully Submitted,


Fred Brow
Chairman, Board of Police Commission

BOE Subcommittees on Tuesday

The BOE is having a joint Curriculum and Finance subcommittee meeting on Tuesday at 6:30 in the boardroom at EHHS. The Curriculum subcommittee will focus on the CMT Scores for Grades 3-5 and the Finance subcommittee will work on the proposed 2012-13 budget.

I may be wrong but I believe I smell the pungent odor of whitewash emanating from the Curriculum subcommittee. The BOE and the Administration teaming up to hide under a cloak of obfuscation just how horrible the scores are.

BOE Budget Proposal

The Superintendent presented his budget proposal for the 2012-13 fiscal year tonight. He is requesting a 5.5% or $2.435 million in additional spending. The budget documents are located here on the BOE website.

Here is the budget presentation:



The Finance Subcommittee meeting:



I am going to post the rest of the BOE meeting here as I upload it. That was a VERY long meeting so it might take a couple of days.

BOE Meeting Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3 (and final):

2010-11 Audit

I wanted to make sure this got posted before I went to the BOE meeting in a few minutes. Here is the 2010-11 Audit. Enjoy the light reading. More to follow once I've had a chance to look through it.

BOE Misses Budget - Underspends by $600K

My co-host, Marilyn Vitale, has learned that the BOE underspent their budget by, at least, $600,000 in the 2010-11 fiscal year. Such a colossal undershot of their expenditures would be a boon for Mayor Maturo's next budget since the $600K would revert to the Town coffers. Combine that with the anticipated surplus Mayor Capone left and it means that the fiscal situation is not nearly as bad as has been reported. I'll be digging up the actual numbers as I get the time. It should be interesting to see who's head rolls over this flub.

Planning & Zoning - 1/4/2012 Video

It was a pretty quiet night at the PZC last night once a squabble over the start time for the regular meeting was resolved. Once the meeting got underway at 7:30 the PZC approved the site plan for the storage facility at 395 Short Beach Road.

Planning & Zoning - 1/4/2012

The public hearings for the PZC scheduled for 1/4/2012 (tonight) are being tabled. The regular PZC meeting will occur at 7:30PM, as scheduled.

Town Council 1/3/2012

The Town Council met tonight to deliberate over a couple of items. One thing they did not manage to get approved were the minutes from the last Town Council meeting. There were some issues with the description of the Republican caucus and the motion so the approval was tabled. The other item of interest was the recommendation of the Board of Finance to move $30,000 from the contingency account to pay the water bill. The discussion of the splash pad and water usage was sharp and drew some public comment.