Comments (2) As a reminder, tonight is the last chance for a public hearing about the skate park. Here is a chart (sent to the Hartford Skateboarding Task Force) comparing the cost of skate park to other recreation facilities and projects:
Upon commenting that I almost never receive political phone calls, I, of course, received one two today. The first one was a national poll that lasted all of ten seconds:
CALLER: “May I speak with the youngest male registered to vote in your household?”
ME: “No, we don’t got no males here.”
CALLER: “Thank you.”
These types of calls raise so many questions. Why would this poll only be interested in males? Why would they not have questions prepared for the females? If the purpose is to find out something about the attitudes, beliefs, or intentions of male voters, would they not want something to compare that to?
When all but one of the current mayoral candidates are male, and when all but one of the current City Council members are also male, this type of call, regardless of its intent, seems to echo the local trend: women don’t matter at the polls and we certainly don’t belong in positions of power. Continue reading 'Stop Playin’ on My Phone!'»
There are some gaps in this blog post. You should check out what Live in Hartford writes about this same forum in order to fill in those blanks.
For those who are unaware, eHow is a website that specializes in providing advice that should be obvious, but since it exists, I suppose the instructions are needed. In an article about dealing with bratty kids the advice given is to set boundaries, follow through, pay attention to the child, reward for good behavior, and if junior doesn’t adjust her attitude, seek professional help. Sound advice that any rational person could write, yet in everyday observation of the world around me, can see that there is a lack of thinking parents. Likewise, there is advice provided for those who wish to campaign for mayor. These bits of wisdom include:
Only release information to the public about the current mayoral administration if it is factual.
and
Obvious, right?
Not to everyone. Continue reading 'Mayoral Candidate Forum Spotlights Pressing Issues like Robocars and Raspberries'»
Mayor Segarra is popular.
In every conversation I have had regarding him, people have had nothing but positive things to say. For a politician, that’s sort of rare. Usually the way it goes is that if you ask enough questions, someone will have some gripe. Not here.
What that tells me is that those running against him need to set themselves apart. Some have tried this through smear campaigns, since there is really nothing legitimate to complain about.
With, let’s say, former Mayor Perez, setting oneself apart as a candidate should not have been a difficult task. If there were no rumors of one’s involvement with the whole Perez fiasco, then one was already distinguished.
Tonight at the mayoral candidate forum, contestants candidates will have an opportunity to show how they would do better than Segarra. Before we look at how they respond in the moment, let’s look at how they appear in forums where they have absolute control over how they appear: their web presence(s) Continue reading 'Mayoral Candidates: The Polished Version'»
For someone who has not officially declared his mayoral run yet, Kelvin Roldán has been engaged in his share of negative campaigning. On Sunday’s Face the State, the maybe-candidate evaded a series of questions. First, he had trouble providing a timeline for announcing his candidacy. Then, when asked — if elected — if he planned to appoint Hennessy, he dodged, calling the question “premature.” He was stumped about a poll that his supporters were administering, unable to give any indication of the number or content of questions. Later, he blames former Governor Rell for companies moving out of Hartford, but refuses to answer the question of whether or not former Mayor Perez deserved any of the blame. When asked a second time, he blatantly evades the question. Late in the video, you can see him unable to distinguish himself from Shawn Wooden, another mayoral candidate.
If you want to watch all of this yourself, check out the video here.
A potential mayoral candidate — who has yet to say what he stands for — flings more mud at the current mayor. Without blinking an eye, all of the media outlets jump on it. Initially, this happens without an explanation for why the State Representative would care at all about this “issue.”
It’s simply not news. I had known that the Mayor’s husband owns investment properties and collected Section 8 from some of them well before Roldán dropped his press release, and I’m not someone who spends any time filing FOIA requests or getting information for gossiping city council aides who could spend their time better by actually working. The property assessment data for the City of Hartford is online. It’s searchable by address and by name. According to this data, Ortiz has purchased (investment) properties and an office between 2003-2007. I am not sure what need there is to “investigate” when this is spelled out clearly. There are no secrets in Hartford; at any point in the past five years Roldán could have formally expressed his concern about a possible conflict of interest, yet he waited until exploring a mayoral campaign.
In a city where approximately 30% of residents live in poverty and thousands are on the waiting list to receive Section 8 subsidized housing, it’s not all that shocking that someone who owns an investment property would be collecting federal subsidies. While there may be a conflict of interest in here somewhere, as a resident, I am much more concerned that Ortiz is behaving as a responsible landlord. There are so many absentee landlords who do not maintain their properties and who turn a blind eye to tenants who engage in routine criminal activities. Those landlords who permit the erosion of quality of life in Hartford concern me far more than those who collect Section 8 for two tenants and do so while being married to the Mayor.
This is not about muckraking, it’s about having an agenda. Continue reading 'Scandals That Aren’t'»
The next time I hear somebody run his mouth about how people in Hartford don’t care about anything, I’m going to drag him to a City Council meeting. He would then see that even at meetings without a public hearing session, residents are willing to stand — if there are no chairs left, which often is the case– for over an hour to listen to public servants make decisions that will affect them.
Monday night, many residents showed up at City Hall to support designating roughly $50,000 for the Salvation Army’s Marshall House emergency shelter to remain open through the end of June. Because there was no public hearing, they held signs. This agenda item was not debated because its sponsor apparently missed a deadline. Items that were discussed: trees, the impact of war, and whether or not voters were too dumb to know what they were voting for in 2008 when they gave an 80% pay raise to City Council. Continue reading 'Removing Trees, Ending Wars, and Repealing Raises'»
Because such thinking has become part of the national rhetoric, nobody bats an eye anymore when words like “unity” and “collective” are shorthand for “conformity” and “the herd.”
Recently, Mayor Segarra was thrown under the bus for the way in which he requested a more just search process for the replacement superintendent. Actually, the request itself was demonized. This all could have easily been turned into an episode of The Simpsons:
That smell? That’s the lingering aftermath of yesterday’s fecal explosion over who the next Top Model Superintendent will be. In recent weeks there have been rumors about who would be appointed to this position, but instead of being straight with the people, we have been teased with coy statements.
Jeff Cohen of WNPR has been tracking the complete breakdown in communication, which points at how instead of addressing each other directly, the school system and the Mayor are going at it via the media. Instead of just answering Segarra’s inquiries about school bonuses, for example, school spokesperson David Medina sent Adamowski’s response in the form of a press release. Continue reading 'Transparent Political Education'»
Three values that seem to transcend all cultures are that of respecting one’s parents, working hard, and achieving an education. Despite doing all of these things, Mariano Cardoso is about to be penalized.
At the age of two, Cardoso was brought into the United States by his parents. As a child, he had no choice in the matter. While living here he has worked in order to pay for his education at Capital Community College, where he had planned to complete his Associate’s Degree in Engineering at the end of this semester. After living in the United States for twenty years, he is now facing deportation.
On Monday, about 25 activists gathered in front of 450 Main Street — the location of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — to protest the return of Cardoso to “his country,” Mexico, where he lived for only the first two years of his life. Cardoso’s supporters called for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to grant him amnesty, or at least defer the deportation until he has gained his degree. Such amnesty is not unprecedented. In 2010 a Harvard undergraduate who had been detained for his status as an undocumented immigrant was granted permission to remain in the United States. Like Cardoso, the Harvard student entered the United States with his family when he was a child.
Today’s protest was organized by Stop the Raids, an organization at Trinity College.
Contrary to other reports in the news media, activists included but were not exclusively students.
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