Today, morning, SoNo. Thanks to an alert reader, we have the visual.

from a press release:

Date: 7/6/10

Time: 3:32 pm

Location: 26 Chestnut Hill Road, Norwalk CT

Incident: Bank Robbery – Fairfield County Savings Bank

On the afternoon of Tuesday, July 6th, 2010 at 3:32 pm the Norwalk Police Department received a hold-up alarm from the Fairfield County Savings Bank branch located in the shopping plaza at 26 Chestnut Hill Road.  The alarm was then verified that an actual robbery had just occurred and Patrol Units were dispatched to the area.

The area was secured and K-9 Units from the Norwalk Police, Westport Police and Connecticut State Police attempted to track the flight of the suspects.  The track led down Newtown Avenue and leads are being investigated.

The Detective Bureau then arrived on scene and recovered physical evidence that will be examined and analyzed.  Surveillance video footage was also examined and it was determined that at least two suspects were involved in the robbery.  The first suspect entered the bank and went to a teller station where he passed a note implying that he had a gun and demanded money, no weapon was displayed.  The second suspect remained near the front door as a lookout.  Once the robbery was completed the suspect fled with an undisclosed amount of money out the door and is believed to have fled out the rear of the shopping plaza onto Newtown Avenue.

Suspect # 1 – White male, 6’1” – 6’4”, thin build. Age is estimated in the mid 20’s.  Wearing a dark green long sleeve hooded sweatshirt or pull over, long white basketball style shorts with blue and yellow trim along the bottom, low white sneakers, dark T-shirt, and a gray baseball hat with an Underarmor logo on the front, sunglasses and a goatee that could be fake.  He was carrying a black shoulder bag similar to a laptop case.

Suspect # 2 – White male, 6’ tall, medium build wearing a dark blue “AERO” 87 hooded sweatshirt with the zipper in the front.

Witnesses believed they observed these two suspects walk into the shopping plaza from Chestnut Hill Road in through the exit and in front of the Fairfield County Savings Bank and then in between the Cranbury Wines and Liquor and Village Gourmet minutes before the robbery.  The suspects caught their attention because they had their hoods up in the middle of the day with high temperatures.

Anybody with information is asked to contact Det. Dave Orr at 203-854-3190 or the Norwalk Police anonymous Tip-Line at 203-854-3111.

Suspect 1

Suspect 1 side

Suspect 2

Suspect 2 back

One of the things that I’ve always wondered about since moving to Connecticut is why the state highways never took advantage of adding rails or trails along side. Now, according to a nice report in the Advocate the reasons behind the inaction have been identified.

“For two decades, we couldn’t apply for grants toward planning the trail because DOT wouldn’t agree to consider that use for the right of way,” Hoza said.

Now, advocates for bicyclists and multimodal transportation said they hope they are on track as theConnecticut Department of Transportation is awaiting word on a $1 million grant application from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Scenic Byways Program to conduct a feasibility study on the proposed path from Greenwich to Stratford.

That process could take two years if the grant is approved, Connecticut DOT spokesman Kevin Nursick said.

DOT engineers gave the Merritt trail low priority over the years because of the challenges routing the path around the parkway’s ornate bridges and appeasing adjacent residents and preservation groups concerned about changing the roadway’s parklike atmosphere, Nursick said.

“Admittedly, in the past, the department has been hesitant and viewed this as a very difficult endeavor to move forward with,” Nursick said.”In the past few years, we’ve been moving forward to a more multimodal approach, and now we’re coming into this with any preconceived notions.”

One preservationist’s park like atmosphere is my weed filled dead zone. Somehow New York State has managed to preserve more historic stuff while modernizing roads and adding trails. Apparently the CT DOT is just getting around to this kind of thinking.

Today’s Hour recounts last night’s planning committee meeting of the Common Council:

The formation of the Norwalk Economic Development Corp. last year may have been done with laudable goals in mind, but it was also done outside the law, according to Corporation Counsel Robert F. Maslan Jr.

“It may very well be a good objective, but it’s up to the council to decide whether to put (the NEDC) in a place,” said Maslan, head of the city’s law department.

Funny thing is that the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency is not a City agency governed by the Common Council. Really, all you have to do is check the City Charter. A Search on “Redevelopment” indicates that the Agency is mentioned only 28 times in the code book. What the City Charter does say, is that the Common Council has designated the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency as the development entity for the City of Norwalk, and various actions under enterprise zones and housing development. In the 1950′s, then socialist Mayor Irving Freese had his council pass a resolution to create the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency as part of his campaign pledge to fix government.

From Time Magazine in 1947:

Citizens of Norwalk, who had long eyed the sound, honest McLevy administration, gave Socialist Freese a thumping total of 8,561 votes, the greatest plurality in the city’s history. In the landslide, Socialist candidates bagged virtually every other office in the municipal government.

Freese had made his campaign headquarters in a barbershop, after selling out his profitable photo-finishing business. He had hit hard at tax-assessment irregularities, the spoils system, and a messy welfare setup. In a post-election speech, the new Mayor said that his “was not a victory for the Socialist party, but for the 45,000 people of Norwalk.”

Next day he moved into City Hall, and before nightfall he fired the corporation counsel and announced that he was thinking of a new fire commissioner.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,804304,00.html#ixzz0sXTrRs5E

Freese created the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency, but according to this entertaining news report about the 1957 election, it was Democratic Mayor Brunjes who funded it. In his words;

“In 1949, Congress passed a law which made urban renewal and redevelopment possible, at a minimum costs, to municipalities. This program was implemented and expanded by a 954 Act. Accordingly, we set to work to take advantage of this aid and spurred the Redevelopment Agency — which had done practically nothing in the previous five years of its existence under another administration– into providing the plans for a $4,500,000 program to improve and revitalize our downtown and uptown business sections so our merchants can compete with outlying shopping centers and keep the Norwalk shopping dollars in Norwalk, where it belongs. As a result of your Democratic administrations negotiations with federal authorities, this $4,500,000 plan of ours will cost the Norwalk taxpayers only $750,000 — or about one-sixth of the total sum.”

Well, we all know what happened next right? Irving Freese came back as Mayor and won the 1957 election, and that wonderful redevelopment to revitalize our downtowns has been bounced around through successive administrations in an endless parade of failure.

The story gets more interesting though, because in 1967 Norwalk CORE (CT chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality,) sued the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency over the lack of public services, chiefly functioning heat and hot water for residents after a redevelopment project displaced them into new housing. Now why would that be? Look no farther than the Republican administrations of John Shostak and Frank C. Cooke. Cooke would go down more famously as the Mayor who wanted to raze Lockwood Mathews Mansion. Naturally, Norwalk was ordered to do a better job via a consent decree and thus was born a new focus on housing for low income people.

With such a stellar track record you’d think that the Norwalk political class of Republicans in charge in the 80s and 90s would have done something,anything for economic development of our downtowns. But no. Is it any wonder that we’ve seen nothing but stalled out projects, ugly architecture and dumb ideas each time Republicans speak about economic development?

Up till this point, Republican Mayor Dick Moccia has avoided the stigma of being so anti-economic development, working hard to move projects forward and reign in the council. But now he’s been saddled with the mini mayors of his own party and everything has ground to a halt. Don’t even try to claim that it’s all about the economy, every other city has managed to keep projects moving forward despite the huge economic meltdown. See Bridgeport, Stamford, New Haven, Westport, Darien, Wilton among many. The Hour continues:

Planning Committee Chairman Douglas E. Hempstead expressed strong concerns over the transfer of employees and $4.5 million in assets from the Redevelopment Agency to the NEDC.

“I think the largest concern is that we’ve taken the assets of a huge agency, public agency created by government, and transferred all those assets to a corporation,” Hempstead said. “It may be the same players, but it’s an arm’s length from our jurisdiction.”

Grenier said a misconception exists that the funds were lost.

“Those are agency funds and (the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) has oversight,” Grenier said. “Those funds are restricted to specific purposes.”

As for the Norwalk Economic Development Corporation, that certain Republican Council members seem so confused about, well, a simple trip to the by-laws of the EDC, which unlike most City of Norwalk Common Council  information, is easily obtained off a web site, reveals that the one member of ownership of the NEDC is the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency. Which means that the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency owns, lock, stock and barrel the Norwalk Economic Development Corporation.

If you don’t understand the basic structure of what a corporation is, then maybe you shouldn’t be on the Common Council. Just saying.

A debate was held in Stamford featuring all 5 major party candidates for Governor? Yes indeedy there are are five.

For the Republicans we have:

Tom Foley – the Republican convention nominee

Mike Fedele

Oz Griebel

For the Democrats we have:

Dan Malloy – The Democratic convention nominee

Ned Lamont

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A long time ago, 2007 to be exact, people running for common council got to answer these questions in a real debate hosted at the old townhouse on Mill HIll:

1.   This year’s flooding problems showed that infrastructure should be more of a priority in Norwalk’s spending.  Where do you think we should be spending our money?

2.   We have several different redevelopment projects planned for the urban corridor.  What will you do to ensure that the developers work together so the end result will benefit the city?

3.   The past budget cycle was contentious about funding for education.  Do you philosophically support funding Norwalk’s education more or less – and why?

4.   What will you do to address quality of life issues such as crime, traffic, housing, etc.?

5.   If elected, what would you do to reach out to the community?

6.   The year is 2030 and aliens from outer space have just landed in Norwalk.  How would they describe what they see?

Most of these issues are still relevant because, well, government moves slowly and some of the council members just aren’t effective at anything.

But to grab a page out of one my favorite president’s playbooks, are we better off now than we were in the fall of 2007?

Why is flying so painful? Other than the crowded cabins, and inane policies? How about the security to get on the plane? Since they can’t keep weapons out of maximum secutiry prisons, why do we accept the screenign procedures they makes u sgo through, including removing shoes? The answers can be found in the new movie, Please Remove Your Shoes. It debuts in D.C. tomorrow night.

Check out the trailer of this movie here.

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If I were a real estate developer I would be concerned about the events at last week’s planning committee meeting of the Common Council. On the table, er agenda, was a discussion about the state of the redevelopment projects. Status updates are always a good thing, its the lingua franca of business project management. But the questions and statements actually made tell a different story.

So let’s go to the MP3:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

At around 14:37 minutes we have the discussion about 95/7 and confusion about when construction begins. At around 25 minutes in we have discussion about POKO development and confusion about “handing over parking lots”, something that keeps getting discussed in Republican circles over issues of how much parking revenue is being made and how much property taxes are being paid. “We gave away a parking lot and the guy didn’t build anything,” is what Richard Bonenfant said is indicative the questions he’s getting hammered with, at around minute 35:16.

Sheehan’s response is that the parking lots (Isaacs street) were sold and that the developer has to replace one for one all the parking that was on the surface lots. A deadline looms at the end of July for next milestone on the POKO project LDA agreement.

Waypointe’s LDA remains unsigned, and that discussion begins around 37 minutes in. John Tobin wants the public to know that Seligson doesn’t have $100 million of tax payer money. That would be because if the public actually paid attention to the project there were significant performance milestones that have to be met to trigger the bonding and transfer of parking garages. They discuss the letter around 38 minutes in.

Terroire is as deeply ingrained in French culture as is liberty, fraternity and egalite. So it isn’t surprising that the farm is still the topic of the day in Paris. No wories about farmers’ markets in France afterall, everyday there is the local market, stalls filled with local produce, meats and cheeses. This weekend though, the avenue known for luxe shopping has been transformed into a celebration of the farm.

The BBC reports:

… the Champs-Elysees, has been covered in earth and turned into a huge green space in an event staged by young French farmers.

They want to highlight their financial problems, caused by falling prices for agricultural produce.

Plants, trees and flowers were brought in by lorry overnight to transform the avenue into a long green strip.

More than a million people are expected to visit over the next two days.

The event, which cost 4.2m euros (£3.6m; $5.3m) to stage, has been organised by the French Young Farmers (Jeunes Agriculteurs) union over the holiday weekend in France.

It will serve as a showcase of farm production from sheep breeding to crop growing.

The union, which represents some 55,000 farmers under the age of 35, wants to impress on the public – and the government – the efforts required to produce what goes on the table.

“It’s about re-establishing contact with the public about what our profession is and what they want from it,” William Villeneuve, president of the Jeunes Agriculteurs, said on Friday.

“Do they want the cheapest products in the world or do they want products that pay producers?” he added.

You may have noticed a few things lately. Posting new stories has been light. The site has been slow. And now, ta-da, all is revealed. A new look for yourCT.com, and a few new features. Like featured stories. And some other stuff, that will roll out when I’ve debugged them. Fire away your thoughts in the comments.