March 15, 2010 9:27 pm

New Era In Dem Land

The young Dems finally gained control of the Norwalk Democratic party with the election of Marc Bradley as the new Democratic Town Committee chair. Bradley represents a fresh change for the party which has seen eroding support for its municipal candidates since once holding the Mayor’s office and all Common Council seats in 2001. He takes over a party that has some financial woes too, with debts still outstanding following the 2009 municipal election.

Addressing a concern that his work for Ned Lamont might be a conflict, Bradley responded, “We’re Democrats, we’re here to elect Democrats.” He explained that the delegates were already picked for the Democratic state convention and that people will vote their own choices, but while he appreciates the work Dan Malloy did in Stamford, he has made his choice in Lamont known.

The vote was nearly unanimous, Bobby Burgess and Joe Newell from District B abstained. Curiously Alex Knopp, former mayor, was not in attendance, despite clawing his way back onto the DTC following his election loss in 2005. In her outgoing remarks, Gail Wall remarked that she still thought of Knopp as the the Mayor, and thanks the DTC for the past two years of support despite “inexplicable challenges.”

After the voice vote was held, Bradley gave a brief talk. “We haven’t done a very good job of electing Democrats the last two years.” He promised to rebuild the party and bring everyone together.

The direction he plans to take the party was evident with the first order of new business, the state of the party web site. After listening to a brief explanation of who was in charge of it, Bradley said, “let’s take back control of it.” In observing the Blackberries and iPhones out at the meeting, you can almost see that tweets and Facebook updates will soon follow.

Also elected was Brenda Penn Williams as Vice Chair, Al Aymes as Recording Secretary, Peter Thor as Treasurer, Stuart Wells as Corresponding Secretary and Erik Anderson as Assistant Treasurer. Anderson, Aymes, Thor and Wells were re-elected to posts they had served previously. No vote was taken on assistant Vice Chair.

UPDATE: Anderson is newly elected to the position, and I’m confused about the assistant Vice Chair position.

David Jaeger

Great night last night. I look forward to seeing a new perspective on things in the DTC. As a Common Council Member I also look forward to working with the new DTC to improve our community.
Democrat

Out with the old and in with the new. Maybe now we can figure out how to actually run a campaign, attract candidates and win. It has been a long drought with these last two losers at the helm… totally clueless. Unfortunately, Serasis has never participated in a real campaign so he knows not of what he speaks.
p.s. Anderson is not an incumbent and there is no assistant vice chair position.
NorwalkSpectator

“In her outgoing remarks, Gail Wall remarked that she still thought of Knopp as the Mayor, and thanks the DTC for the past two years of support despite �inexplicable challenges.�

For REAL?

Come on, you’re putting one over on us here, Turfie!

Either that or Ms. Wall has stumbled into to some kind of weird time warp that is stuck in 2005 while the rest of us moved on.

�inexplicable challenges.� – You’ve got to be kidding me! It was called an election and Serasis LOST along with a few other fellow Democrats. No, I’m not talking about the TV show Lost. I mean LOST as in did not win. There were also two resignations from Council, both of them Democrats (Krummel and Sutton). I seem to remember that both of them were the Majority leaders, so I guess you could call those �inexplicable challenges.�

Anyway, to Mr. Bradley, the best of luck. And I’m glad to know you have a calendar that reads 2010.
Apathetic Voter

Brenda Penn Williams?? That figures. Hope she stopped shopping at CVS.
Annonymous

Let’s wish the new leader well as he struggles in one year with the Rosa Murray challenge to Susan Hamilton for the District A seat on the Board of Education and the Mike Barbis campaing looking for anyone to challenge BishopPullan in the Dem primary in Rowayton.

BOE Seats

Board of Ed seats are not distributed by district. All BOE Candidates run city-wide. If, however, the respective Town Committees decide to split endorsed candidates from separate districts, that is up to them.

Bruce Kimmel

As a result of the last Charter Revision, 5 seats on the BOE are by district. This past election, the 4 at-large candidates ran; in two years, each party will field slates of 5, one from each district.

Marley

I’ve come to think of the “younger” members of the DTC as being overly confident in their abilities without any substance or basis to deliver results. Am I alone?

Posturing candidates to challenge incumbents for positions the candidates don’t have a chance of winning “just to appear relevant” is not the way to go. Social media will not win you an election. Facebook or webpages will not win you an election.

You win elections by having conviction and a plan than beats that or your opponenet. “Change” will never win an election without being substantiated. The fear of the unknown is worse than the fear of the known. Until our Democaratic candiates can explicitly states their positions on issues without using generic buzz words, the Republicans will make buzzard meat out of us. Each. And. Every. Election.

turfgrrl

Marley: I think Obama’s “change” message without substance kinda proves you wrong on that. Not to mention the social media storm that turned out the vote. Norwalk does not exist in a time warp, as much as some wish it would.

David Jaeger

Marley-

You win campaigns by working at it and as you said “creating a plan”. However the most important is the grassroots effort and by getting out and knocking on doors is what puts you over the top.

Apathetic Voter

That’s true – it certainly worked for Bill Collins. And I don’t remember any other candidate from any party who went door-to-door as aggressively as Collins did. He did it so often that it was a running joke, in the same manner as Jennie Cave’s hats were.

Marley

David – I agree and I give you credit. You knocked on my door during this last campaign season while none of the other three candidates did. I think, in this respect, you differ from other members of the DTC in terms of the necessary requirements to engage all voters, not just those who may see a candidate’s view in a newspaper, a flier in the mail or an online community.
Larissa Thompson

Someone said change. Change is good but I think we should have leaders who are winners. Bradley lost a seat for council in 2007. Anderson lost a seat for council in 2009. The leaders of our party should be winners helping others win. Not losers spreading their losing strategies.
Apathetic Voter

Change is good, if the change *works*. And so far, what we’ve seen of the Democrats’ type of “change” is not working for anybody.
Apathetic Voter

Change is good, if the change *works*. And so far, what we’ve seen of the Democrats’ type of “change” is not working for anybody. It certainly isn’t working for the middle-class taxpayer!
Hopey, Changey

Haven’t the Dem’s learned enough with the “hopey, changey” thing from their top banana in the White House?? This fall when we have have the election, you’ll see the turn over in both houses. Way to go Dem’s!!!
CHANGE YEAH CHANGE

The way this administration is heading “CHANGE” is all we will have left in our

pockets to live on.
Annonymous

The problems in Dem-land are, in no particular order, Lindstrom tends to be perceived negatively city-wide (despite good work prior to her first election as a neighborhood protector). Morris takes taxpayer money to run uncontested– while also taking lots of citymoney for a no-show job. Serasis did not mount a credible campaing and Briggs, despite being a true progressive, didn’t get any traction with the voters. Maybe if Barbis runs in 4 years he might have some good coattails- but I don’t see anyone else.
It’s funny that the average person couldn’t tell you that Bob Duff is a Democrat– most local dems seem as far removed from his mindset (kind-hearted, non-controversial public servant) that it’s no wonder they don’t seek out his help at election time.
Their leadership on the BOE was uninspired at best and now they seem left turning to Bishop Pullan and Rivas– 2 uninspiring pols.
Other than Nora King, is there a young dem on the Council who has really resonnated with the public?

I don’t think so,

because all the “young Dems” were either run off or they buddied up to Knopp after his ouster, and that got them absolutely nowhere. I can think of several “young Dems” that fall into either camp – Poruban, Bondi (Peter and Betty), Coffey, just a couple of names that come to mind. Oh, and that guy who used to show up to Council meetings with the parrot on his shoulder, I forget his name (but not the parrot poop!)

Watching and listening to Briggs in action often reminded me of “The Man Who Came To Dinner”. Both he and Bill Krummel struck me as people who remained behind long past their prime, and should have made way for younger politicians many years before now.

As for Lindstrom, she’s been around for years as a community “activist” in much the same manner as Diane Lauricella, and most people view Lindstrom as the same type of community “busybody” – which is maybe why she leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I can remember hearing talk about Lindstrom being quite a thorn in both the mayor’s and the police chief’s side back when Esposito was in City Hall. The fact that she managed to make it onto the Common Council was seen as a fluke by most people I know who dabble in City politics, but it hasn’t really legitimized her “busybodyness” much, I don’t think.

turfgrrl

I don’t think so: For the record– a young Dem would be someone under 35, the official “cut off” age.

Cut off?

Depends on how you look at it, Turffie. Compared to all the old geezers involved in the Democratic Party, “young” is like “beautiful” – in the eye of the beholder.

And I don’t know about you, but SOME life experience is needed in order to have something to base your political outlook on. NO WAY are you going to tell me that some 20-somthing recent college grad is capable of holding a political office, much less have the gravity and sense enough to know what to do with it once he gets elected. He’s still in proverbial diapers, for cryin out loud.

turfgrrl

cut off: Ah but young Dems is in fact a group, not an adjective. And for the record I’m against the infantilization of society. As a member of the older than dirt club myself, I can speak from experience that the future of politics deserves to be in the hands of the millennials because it is with total clarity that the older than dirters have royally messed things up. Gravity and sense? I say past their prime.

Annonymous

I keep seeing Rosa Murray at board of ed meetings– any chance she’s plotting a run for Mayor– she seems convinced that she did a great job as the chairman. Or is it true that she wants to run for the Dist. A seat and is hoping to beat Susan Hamilton?
Older Democrat

OK-let’s see what dose young dems can do. Their superstar, Lex Paulsen, went to work for Jim Himes. That leaves who exactly, with any record of accomplishment, knows how to run a meeting or fundraiser? Amanda Brown is pretty sharp but was outsmarted by the mayor at every council meeting. If she would distance herself from mentor Bruce Morris and surround herself with some good role models, I could hope for some future success.
Let’s give David Jaeger credit for running an energetic and winning campaign but what else can we look forward to? As Donna King’s boy, will he become another Republicrat like her buddy Mike Coffey?
Marc Bradley is an empty suit for Ned Lamont. He will probably be gone after the election, as per his usual pattern of dropping in and out of Norwalk. Then waht?
Annonymous

Just don’t see Amanda Brown as a credible candidate with any city-wide crediblity. She did nothing on the Council, is tied to Morris and her phoney perkiness seems disingenous at best.
Why are we not talking about Chris Perone? He has a safe seat and is amiable and non-confrontational. Maybe he’s the go-to guy for mayor.
I too like Jaeger, but he just seems way too young for me to consider him a leader– which I know is really unfair because he’s obviously a bright, hardworking guy. Same thing for Nora King (who I predict is mayoral material w/about 4 years under her belt on the Council).
But, really, for me the big concern is how my party can talk about “change” and still have labor-hack Peter Thor in a position of power– seems like the local dems are sending mixed messages again.

NorwalkSpectator

Nora King for Mayor?

I’m not being nasty here, but wasn’t she the one that campaigned for Council saying that she was for “education”? Don’t know about anyone else, but the City administration only allocates the funding for the BOE. That’s basic because it is the law. If she’s interested in education, she should have run for the Board of Education, not the Council. And if she truly believes that the Council is running the School District, it’s going to take alot more than four years to get her up to speed to run for Mayor, unless of course, the Democratic Party wants another KO like the last election. In that case, be my guest.

Amanda Brown may be intellectually smart, but she alienated ALOT of people during her Council term, me included. I thought anyone would be better than Miklave. Turns out I was wrong. The hostile, combatitive attitude had a lot to do with it, not to mention her alliance with certain people. Hey, it’s a free country, she can align herself with whoever she wants, but don’t come around crying if it turns out to be the wrong alliance.

Older Democrat

Dear Fellow Dem,
Chris Perone wasn’t interested in running for mayor but you’re right, he’d be a good candidate.
Peter Thor and Stewart Wells can offer leadership and know-how to the young dems on the Ex. Board. Not sure they want it however, they’re pretty arrogant and clueless about what they don’t know.
2010 will be an easy year for the new leadership, except for the conflict over the gubernatorial candidates, that could be embarrassing. They only have to raise enough money for campaign HQ. The legislative candidates have their own organizations and don’t need DTC to get endorsed, decision is made in caucuses.
2011 campaign will tell the tale–just you wait.
Marley

A candidate gets credibility when he votes according to his convictions/best interest of Norwalk. When votes are along party lines – that tells me often a candidate doesn’t have convinction but rather “goes with the flow” and succombs to the machine mentality that “you must vote as we vote to get reelected”. In reality, a Democractic council member who occasionaly votes with the GOP or a GOP who votes with the Dem, establishes himself as a true leader because he’s willing to vote what is best for the city, not what his party thinks is best. Voters take note of that. If I can already predict how you will vote on any given issue based solely on your party affiliatioin, you have no power. If on an issue there appears to be an equal chance you’ll go either way, in the best interests of the city, you hold all the power.
I Don’t Know Fellow Dems

Marley hits the nail on the head— look at the four top vote getters on the council and the school board (Hempstead, McQuaid, Calarossi and haynie). Hempstead and McQuaid buck the mayor and the two BOE folks are often the only 2 votes against the team from Education, Inc.
I have yet to see real good campaigns run in Norwalk– at least not recently. The Republican shool board people ran a theme-driven, readily identifiable campaign (which is why they won). But, I’ll be damned if I could tell you what the repubs or the dems running for the council really stood for.
And look at how few candidates go door to door– Jaeger did, Lindstrom does, Calarossi did, Straniti and Clyde Mount did, but I don’t really remember hearing about anyone else who was actually out there knocking on lots of doors.
That’s why I dont see this Bradly kid making any change– if you told me that they went with Chris Potts I’d have some faith. But, we once again have folks who have never stood in the trenches in successful city political campaigns. I don’t see how they will ever convince enough people that Dick Moccia doesn’t feel their pain and doesn’t listen to them.
Older Democrat

Marley,
Substitute “CT” for “Norwalk” and you just described Joe Lieberman. Is he credible to anyone?
We have a 2 party system and the party that has discipline is most likely to carry out their program. Some of the Norwalk Dems or “Republicrats” spent way too many years carrying out the Republicans’ program. Note that they did not run again as Democrats. Mike Coffey, Mr. Republicrat in Chief, could not get elected to the DTC. Oh, except in District B, and they’ll elect anyone there, criminal record or not, if they submit to Burgess’ orders. What can I say, some Dems have no integrity or brains.
All the annonymous posts proves my point

The fact that only one or 2 Dems have posted by name here is a great sign that they just don’t get it.

We want communication with our officials– we want to know their ideas. their intentions, their concerns. But, why would they want to communicate with the voters, when it’s obviously more fun to hang out with Alex Knopp and complain how the voters just don’t get how much better off we were with him.

But, once again, they are going to take my vote for granted, refuse to acknowledge that the guy they forced to bolt from the party beat them badly at the polls in the BOE races and still try to shame me into voting Dem because that’s how my grandfather voted. Sorry, Dems– but you messed up my kids schools, did little to consolidate services between the schools and the city and generally raised my taxes while giving me less and less.

Until you prove that the Young Dems are different (which you can’t do unless you communicate with me), I will continue to vote the person and will lean toward the R-side (even though I will probably never vote for a Republican for President if I live to be 100).

turfgrrl

It takes guts to post here under one’s name and for the most part it is the young dems who have, not the “establishment dems.”. The republicans , young and establishment post here under their own names more often. The problem with most political flunkies is that they take criticism personally. Many who are critical post anonymously. That isn’t fair either. I wish I had a solution. It would be nice to have more real discussion than anonymous drive by criticism. If we want more dialog here than contact the people you want to hear from and tell them to post. Support the open communication by helping police against personal attacks.

KnowlegeableNorwalker

And Turffie, most people posting here have no idea of how to run a campaign or what really inspires people to vote in this town. Norwalk is a town where we vote to unseat office holders. The negative reigns supreme here. Anyone who can clearly deliver a negative message against an incumbent can become Mayor. This administration gives very little ammunition to the Dems because they (the R’s) do nothing. We have a do-nothing Mayor, and a Council lead by a do-nothing Council President and do-nothing Majority Leader. It takes a while before people start to see the effects of doing nothing (hiding in the bushes). When the city again becomes a deteriorating mess, as it was in 2001, perhaps a Democrat will see an opportunity to run a real campaign against inertia… and for Change We Can Believe In. Norwalkers are generally lazy about these things… it has to hit them between the eyes before they take action. And it’s always against, not for anything.

turfgrrl

KnowledgeableNorwalker: You mean like how Walter Briggs effectively delivered a negative message against Moccia or Serasis effectively delivered a negative message against Moccia? Moccia won in 2005, 2007 and 2009 because he articulated a positive and effective message about his vision for Norwalk, which to remind you is a balanced mix of preserving the quality of life in Norwalk neighborhoods, keeping property taxes low, redeveloping parts of Norwalk and improving government infrastructure that most people don’t see until its broken. Under the Moccia administration more dollars have been put into road repair, traffic signal upgrades, flood mitigation, sewer improvements and city property/assets repair, upgrades and maintenance.
There’s always room for criticism, but I’ve yet to see anyone on the Democratic side articulate any policy criticism with any credibility. I think Norwalk voters see through hypocrisy alot faster than they see through empty promises of change when 90% of the business of the city is neither partisan nor controversial.
Norwalk can be better, and to get there it takes political leadership on both sides of the aisle to work together and in check of each other to get the best policy, the best legislation, the best operation out of what we have. That is why Republicans succeeded in winning seats on the Board of Education. That is why Moccia has proven to be an effective mayor.
As for the common council, I’m perplexed by the continuing saga of a legislative body that fails to legislate itself into relevance. To take a simple issue, here it is 2010, they haven’t figured out that they should be focusing on getting every meeting online, every city department online, and adopting technology to make government operate more efficiently including their very own meetings. Then there’s that whole $400/yr part time job status for the sixth largest city on Connecticut.

NorwalkObserver

I still say that Norwalkers vote against. Moccia has been riding the wave of inertia in Norwalk. Voters stay home and he will continue to get re-elected. You kid yourself if you think voters are noticing the things you mentioned. and when Dems put up weak candidates, with no experience and no knowledge of campaigning, they get what they deserve. Just wait and see when Norwalk hits bottom. Then an opportunity will become apparent to a good (and I emphasize, good) candidate to take on this Mayor. Briggs and Serasis were pathetic and you know it.

turfgrrl

NorwalkObserver: I would disagree and say that most Norwalkers think Moccia is doing a pretty good job. Dems didn’t put up pathetic candidates in Briggs and Serasis, they put up negative candidates who couldn’t advocate FOR an issue even if it hit them on the side of the head, dropped into a powerpoint and was supported by everyone universally. Didn’t I say most people don’t notice infrastructure stuff? Yes, I did, but I mentioned them because that is the stuff that was falling apart, under, Dem rule.

Why are you perplexed? It all costs money,

and money is one thing the City does not have in any degree of availability in order to “get every meeting online, every city department online, and adopting technology to make government operate more efficiently including their very own meetings.”

For one thing, there’s something like only 6-7 people in the City’s IT department, and that IT department has been UNDER-staffed for at least a DECADE. They still manage to work miracles with next-to-nothing in the way of either equipment or funding, and ought to be commended for the thankless job they do, because if it weren’t for the IT guys and gals, the entire City would grind to an abrupt halt.

And I’m always curious as to why anybody thinks these meetings should be online in the first place. Not everybody has a computer. Not everybody is interested in sitting around at home watching meetings. Most people I know – even the ones with computers – would rather attend a meeting in person where they have the opportunity of making statments during the public speaking part of the meeting. You can’t do that sitting at home watching a pre-taped meeting on YouTube. Just because some people like to tweet or publish their personal life on social websites doesn’t mean that everybody else is required to follow them like lemmings. Some of us still have a sense of personal integrity and don’t have a psychological need for approval from strangers on every little aspect of our lives.

NorwalkSpectator

Perplexed, I’m with you on this one. People keep saying “More transparency, more transparency!” but it costs money. The principle meetings, (Council and BOE) have written minutes, audio tapes and video recordings made during the meeting, plus having the public in attendance. The other meetings (Council & BOE Committee meetings) have written minutes and the public in attendance. The schedule of the meetings are published in the newspapers. The hard copies of the minutes are available for the asking from the City Clerk’s Office or the Superintendent’s office, along with being posted online. The BOE videos were being posted online for a set amount of time. I don’t know if the Council videos were being posted or broadcast on cable. I imagine they are. Most people are not interested in the Ordinance Committee meeting unless there is an agenda item that pertains directly to them. Same for Recreation and Parks or Finance/Claims. If they do have a personal interest, most of the time they like to be actually in the room.

I’m not sure what benefit having every meeting posted online is supposed to provide except for filling up airtime and spending more money. Don’t know about you, but my free time is at a premium level and watching a discussion on waste management or the sewage treatment plant probably won’t be high on the list.

turfgrrl

NorwalkSpectator: It doesn’t cost money to post an MP3 recording of any meeting. It costs $60 a year for the City to own a vimeo account to post video. The NEF is the entity who films the BOE meetings, not the BOE, and they invested in both the vimeo account, the camera and got a volunteer to run the camera. All low cost.
The point of having the meetings recorded live, as is, and posted, is precisely because the minutes and the agendas don’t disclose what was actually said. How many new business/old business agendas so we see? What was discussed? By whom?

turfgrrl

The City’s IT staff is useless. First they don’t even understand the technology they support. Second, there’s so much open source and essentially cost free technology and solutions out there, they could maximize the dollars they do have. They are in violation of FOI by sending an email out to City employees asking them to delete emails because they are out of storage. They don’t provide email services to the Council. Oh why bother even responding to this!
Who cares if not everybody has a computer! Most people do, and most people work and get afford to waste time going to lvie meetings when they can tune in on the web and get it on their phones or computers on the timeframe that fits their lives. How many minutes does our Council waste adjusting minutes when they could have a permanent recording of what actually was said?

When I was taking minutes for the City,

I took them as verbatim as I could possibly get away with – and I was not always successful. At that time we were only required to be sure the motions were recorded completely. However, much of the time it was not always easy to draw the line at what didn’t need to be kept in the written record – and I didn’t want to be the one responsible for deleting something that might have turned out to be important and should have been kept – I tried to be as concise as possible, and my minutes often ran to 8-10 pages or more. (Which, believe me, was not all that appreciated by my employer, although I did get a LOT of thanks from the various commissions and committees I was taking the minutes for.)

If it was REQUIRED that meeting minutes be verbatim – since the meetings are recorded before they are transferred to typed minutes (at least they were when I did them, me and my trusty tape recorder), then not only would there be WRITTEN minutes of what was actually said, but there would be the recordings which would be kept as well.

I fail to understand why the minutes aren’t done verbatim to start with, and I could never see why the “verbatim” part of the equation was always such a problem for some people. If minutes were required to be verbatim, much of the “transparency” discussion would be moot.

Marley

Turf I think you answered your own questin relative to transparency in an earlier post when you said “I think Norwalk voters see through hypocrisy alot faster than they see through empty promises of change when 90% of the business of the city is neither partisan nor controversial.”

Candidates are elected based on platforms/ideals/mores (e.g. no new taxes, limited government, social services etc). Within that continuim, I really am not interested on the events of a specific committee meeting or board meeting. If I was interested, I would attend. The 1-2 meetings a year that may have contentious issues – those will get interest. But the populace shouldn’t care to be involved, or expected to be, in the general day to day operations. That’s why we voted in candidates.

To your point, the minutes/agendas are online. The “transparancy” argument is immature. And an excuse to spend more money. Anyone who wants to go to a meeting has that option.

turfgrrl

Marley: Government moves slowly. So what meeting do you attend when you want to tune into an issue? The meeting where it’s presented with all the accompanying slides, pictures or diagrams? The meeting where it’s voted on? The meeting where it’s discussed because something is costing more? The meeting where a money allocation is requested? The thing is, most issues span several meetings, several committees and several months. And no, it is unreasonable to expect people who work, who have children, to drop everything each time a meeting is held on a subject that interests them.
As I responded in another comment, the money issue is moot. It doesn’t cost much or anything to be transparent.

Steve Colarossi

For what it’s worth coming for a former Dem, I wish the young Dems well in their efforts to open up their party and foster greater dialogue with the general public about what is truly important.
With constructive communication, rather than the shot-gun anonymous blasts on the city’s 3 websites that carom from one thread to sheer invective, we can all work together to robustly debate our policies and vision for the improvement of Norwalk.

turfgrrl

Steve Colarossi: Thanks for encouraging robust and spirited debate and discussion, not only here, but on the BOE as well. There’s an old management 101 saying, “you can’t manage what you don’t know.” and asking questions is one way to get there.