Rick Green had an interesting article about the Hartford School System. The opening salvo:

In Hartford, student test scores are up. More children are learning to read. New schools and innovative programs have opened across the city.

Why is Hartford’s cranky superintendent of schools fighting with so many people?

Steve Adamowski hit the trifecta the other day, sticking a finger in the eyes of top legislators, Commissioner of Education Mark McQuillan�and other superintendents with his threat to abruptly shut down transportation for suburban children attending city schools unless he got more funding.

Significantly, Adamowski won the standoff. The state coughed up $3 million — after saying there was no more money.

“He’s just created another chapter of drama,” said state Rep.�Andrew Fleischmann, co-chairman of the General Assembly’s education committee. “I’m tired of it. Defenders of the superintendent and his style have run out of explanations at this point. How do you explain a guy jumping up and stamping his feet, again.”

You explain it with the fact that Adamowski — in a city where it has been OK for poor children to fail to learn to read — delivers.

Much as I’d like to, I can’t argue with this.

“We don’t go around picking fights. Every one of these is meaningful,” Adamowski told me Monday during a conversation in his sparsely furnished office. We talked about the difficulty of bringing change to a school district that, when he arrived in 2006, spent $400 million a year to get the worst student achievement in the state.

“You have to judge us by the results,” Adamowski said. “How long do you want to live with an achievement gap which is the greatest in the nation?”

So what does this say about Norwalk’s Superintendent search? With the new BOE, there rests the opportunity to go for results oriented leadership in the superintendent position. Not someone sitting on the sidelines of Norwalk’s current administration. Read Green’s whole article, there’s some interesting stuff regarding unions in there.

source: Courant,�Despite Conflicts, Adamowski Is Reforming Hartford Schools By Rick Green, November 24, 2009

Wouldn’t it be nice if the policies that the state legislature came up with addressed the entire state instead of just focusing on the failure cities? From the Courant:

The state legislature voted Friday to give the city $12,000 for each out-of-city student attending one of its magnet schools, a lower figure than school officials had sought and one they said could cost them roughly $2.3 million this year.

“We kind of came up with a compromise,” House Speaker Christopher Donovan said. “Pretty much we’ve heard from everybody that they can live with that.”

The $12,000 represents a $1,054 cut from the school district’s request, but is nearly double what the schools received per student last year. City officials said the magnet schools were underfunded last year.

State�Sen. Thomas Gaffey, D-�Meriden and co-chairman of the legislature’s education committee, said the city suffered from a “credibility gap,” meaning that legislators doubted the $13,054-per-student request could be justified.Told of Gaffey’s skepticism, Christopher Leone, director of the district’s Regional School Choice Office, said the higher figure requested came from the state education department. The department’s spokesman,�Thomas Murphy, said that the state arrived at the number in consultation with the city.

“We’re going to have to review where this leaves each of our schools,” Leone said, adding that “making cuts after the year starts” is “not as simple” as doing it beforehand.

Gaffey said that the school district’s numbers came with “excessive administrative costs” and “very large contingency reserves.” He also called the district’s efforts to rally parents this week “obnoxious.”

“Hartford’s going to have to prove its case,” Gaffey said, noting that $12,000 per student was “more than ample.”

“They’ve absolutely not proven their case in my mind or in the minds of the leadership,” he said.

The measure that passed Friday allows the school district to apply to the state for more funding this year for its magnet schools should it need to. But Sen.�John Fonfara, who represents Hartford, said the per-student payment figure has to make sense. Right now, Fonfara said, the $13,054-per-student figure doesn’t.

The Connecticut Science Center in Hartford moved toward power self-sufficiency Thursday when it received a fuel cell to generate electricity.

Constructed in South Windsor, Conn., by United Technologies Corporation’s UTC Power group, the device will produce 200 kilowatts of electricity when it’s installation is complete; enough to meet two-thirds of the center’s daytime power needs. Overnight, when the center’s power demand drops, the fuel cell will feed energy into the power grid.

The nearly 40,000 pound fuel cell was lifted off a flatbed trailer using a crane from Summit Crane Co. in Terryville, Conn. The crane had a capacity of 150 tons.

�The cell will be�fueled with natural gas, but�will not use combustion. Instead, the gas undergoes an electrochemical process that produces direct current electricity, heat and water.

At noon Thursday a crane was used to lift the nearly 40,000 pound fuel cell off a flatbed trailer�and place it on a concrete�pad�outside the center. The center’s publicist, Edward Main, said it could take up to two months to complete the unit’s installation.

An overview page�provided by UTC Power said it has installed more than 260 stationary fuel cells in 19 countries on five continents. A fact sheet from the center said employing the fuel cell will avoid the annual release of more than 270 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Employees of Keeney Rigging and Trucking in Glastonbury positioned the fuel cell as it was lowered onto a concrete pad outside the Science Center.

The center’s 154,000-square-foot building at 250 Columbus Blvd. opened in June. It’s adjacent to the Connecticut Convention Center and the Hartford Marriott Hotel.

The center’s web site says it was built “GREEN from the ground up,” and is projected to receive a LEED-certified rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. LEED stands for Leadership in��Energy and Environmental Design, and LEED awards are given to projects that show a high level of commitment to sustainability through design and operation.

With the weather finally co-operating repaving is happening all over town. Hartford however provides the cautionary example of what happens when a contractor fails to adequately mark obstacles such as manholes and pits with cones or barricades.�

Heather Machado was driving her minivan home from her second-shift nursing job at Hartford Hospital three years ago when she crossed Park Street — which was under construction — went airborne and totaled her car. She sued the city in small claims court, where she could get no more than $5,000.

But the city decided to transfer the matter out of small claims to civil court. It lost, and was ordered to pay Machado nearly $9,684. The city then appealed, saying the accident was the fault of the street contractor it hired, not the city.

Last week, the state’s Supreme Court ruled otherwise.

And now, instead of the $5,000 the city could have at most been on the hook for in small claims court, the city could be out more than $60,000. Machado’s attorney says the city owes him roughly $54,000 in legal fees, in addition to the original trial court judgment due his client.

“Factually, it was the worst possible case the city could have picked to test the law,” said Neil Johnson, Machado’s attorney. The city, he said, was clearly at fault. “There were no lights, no warning signs, no little swirly things, no tape, no nothing. It was dark.”

The city would not discuss the case.

According to a unanimous ruling officially released July 7, the trial court found that Park Street was defective, the city knew it, and it failed to act. It also concluded that although the fault may have been with USA Contractors, the city was still “100 percent liable for the plaintiff’s injuries because USA was the defendant’s agent,” the Supreme Court ruling said.

source: Courant, City’s Appeal Might End Up 10 Times As Costly, By JEFFREY B. COHEN, July 10, 2009

Over at the Courant, Colin McEnroe waxes poetically about 1934, the year, and Hartford, the city.

Buckminster Fuller’s teardrop-shaped, three-wheeled Dymaxion car pulled up on Hartford’s Main Street and out climbed actress and socialite Dorothy Hale, the writer Clare Boothe — both in shimmering dresses — and the sculptor�Isamu Noguchi. At an after-party over on Scarborough Street, composer Nicolas Nabokov pounded out Russian folk songs on a piano while writer Archibald MacLeish sang, and there was some kind of scuffle involving composer�Virgil Thomson, sculptor�Alexander Calder�and art dealer Julien Levy. Hartford’s own�Wallace Stevens�looked at all the “people who walked around with cigarette holders a foot long, and so on” and pronounced them “asses of the first water.” Walking among them was a very nervous young man named�John Houseman, making his first stab at the world of theater.

It was Feb. 7, 1934.

The man who made it all happen — and I’m just scratching the surface here — was A. Everett “Chick” Austin, the director of theWadsworth Atheneum, who had arranged for Thomson andGertrude Stein’s opera “Four Saints in Three Acts” to make its world premiere in the atheneum’s theater. It coincided with Austin’s opening of America’s first-ever full retrospective of the work of�Pablo Picasso�and the opening of the museum’s new Avery wing.

Austin was some kind of indomitable maniac, not the least bit troubled by two huge obstacles to this huge night.

This was the Great Depression.

This was Hartford.

Hartford was a tough sell even then. The year before, Austin had somehow persuaded a fellow named�George Balanchine, who was preparing to leave Russia and the Ballets Russes, that Hartford was the perfect place to relocate, to live, to work, to start his School of American Ballet. Balanchine actually showed up in Hartford, intending to do just that!

When he got there, the city was � smaller than he had imagined somehow. And, hilariously, the local Hartford dance schools were up in arms about the idea that some Bolshevik was going to drain their business. (Especially short-sighted were the Angelo sisters, Mary and Carmel, who ran a ballet studio in the city and also sold ballet slippers, which would have been a good business to be in, a few blocks from Balanchine.)

Anyway, the great dance master left, but he came back later and premiered new works at the atheneum in December 1934. This time,�George Gershwin�and�Salvador Dali�made the Hartford trip.

The last bit about the Angelo sisters and the local dance schools strikes that still present�familiar�chord doesn’t it? The timing of McEnroe’s article might have something to do with this the mood up in Hartford when it comes to Arts funding, encapsulated in another Courant article.�

To balance the state budget, Gov. M.�Jodi Rell�has proposed eliminating about $30 million in state arts and tourism grants to local government and arts institutions over the next two fiscal years. Rell has also proposed collapsing the state Commission on Culture and Tourism into the Department of Economic and Community Development. The extent of the cuts will not be clear until final budget proposals are worked out with legislative leaders this summer.

Support for the Arts has become increasingly a public service type of thing. Finding funding from the same sources that venture capital people hunt through is an economic competition that pits clown fish versus shark in chum filled waters. Not a pretty site.

In Hartford, the�Hartford Stage, the�Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art�and the Hartford Symphony Orchestra have all announced cutbacks that include leaving job vacancies open, remaining closed an extra day a week and cutting the salaries of top executives.

Arts groups are particularly concerned about Rell’s proposal to fold the state’s Commission on Culture and Tourism into the Department of Economic and Community Development. In the past, the bulk of federal grants for the arts were funneled through the independent commission, and it’s unclear whether another state agency will qualify to receive federal grants.

Federal arts grants are also predominantly matching programs, meaning the federal government matches dollars spent by the state. But with Rell proposing a sweeping cut in state art grants, Connecticut would no longer qualify for the federal portion of the grants.

Local arts groups say almost $12 million in proposed cuts to statewide and local tourism marketing will also deeply affect the arts.

“It’s important to realize that tourism cuts are almost as bad as direct cuts to arts groups because without those funds, I can’t support groups like the Farmington Valley Visitors Association,” said Martin Rotblatt, the executive director of the Farmington Valley Arts Center in Avon. “They are one of our best ways of letting everyone know about arts events.”

source:�Artists Brace For State Budget Cuts:�Reduction In Funding Hurts Many Ways, by RINKER BUCK,�July 4, 2009

From a press release:

Hartford Children’s Theatre’s partners with�

The National Theatre of the Deaf in “Tree Wise”

2008/09 Family Mainstage Series Featured at St. Joseph’s College

(Hartford, Conn. � February 2009) ��Tree Wise, a production for all ages, offers audiences the opportunity to experience the profound beauty of sign language in theatrical art form.�
A collaboration�between�Hartford Children’s Theatre�and the�National Theatre of the Deaf’s Little Theatre of the Deaf,�Tree Wise�opens on Friday, March 20th at the Carol Autorino Center for Arts and Humanities on the campus of Saint Joseph College in�
West Hartford. �
�
Presented by Lincoln Financial Group Foundation,�Tree Wise,�adapted by Garrett Zuercher from the book by Antionette Abbomante, tells the story of Reed, a boy who has deaf parents, on his first day at school. Through the help of a very special tree, Reed learns how to help his classmates understand more about deaf culture. �Not only do the boy’s new friends learn, the tree teaches the audience some basic sign language in this fun, interactive, brand new play.�

The Tony Award-winning�National Theatre of the Deaf, a professional ensemble of deaf and hearing actors, is a highly regarded theatre company. Founded in 1967, the National Theater of the Deaf is the oldest continually producing and touring theatre company in existence in the United States.
�
See, hear and imagine�as�Little Theatre of the Deaf, the family/children’s theater wing of the National Theatre of the Deaf, combines the spoken word with the visually dramatic American Sign Language. Audiences will see and hear every word of a language that is for the eye, ear and mind. �
�
Performing in American Sign Language and the spoken word, Little Theatre of the Deaf creates a dramatic new art form; watch as words leap from their hands into your hearts. For those who know sign language, it entertains and adds to the pride of knowing the beautiful language of sign. �For those who don’t know sign language, it educates as well as entertains by providing an opportunity to learn some signs and have a greater understanding and appreciation of the third most used language in the United States.�
�
Aaron Kubey, executive director for National Theatre of the Deaf, is directing the play. �Four of HCT’s talented students, Thomas Beebe, Madison Chappell, RossAndre LeGrier and Sophie Puriton-Estey, will be acting along with the adult actors from Little Theatre of the Deaf. �
�

“We are extremely excited about our talented cast of youth working with the world-renowned Little Theatre of the Deaf. This important collaboration meets the mission of both organizations to reach and expose more families to experience the beauty and fun of sign language acting and the thrill of live theatre,” said HCT Executive Director�Dulcie Giadone.�
�
The 2008-2009 Family Mainstage Series also includes Len Jenkin’s adaptation of Beverly Cleary’s mischievous�Ramona Quimby, directed by Daniel Fine, which will run during the first two weekends in May.
�
Subscription tickets for the two remaining productions are now available at a discounted rate: adults $32 each, children 13 and under $24 each; students currently enrolled in HCT programs $20 each. Individual tickets are also available for each show: adults: $18 each, children 13 and under $13 each and HCT students $10 each.�Showtimes are 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday evenings (March 20-21, 27-28); 2:00 p.m. matinees on Saturday (March 28th only) and Sundays (March 22nd and 29th).�A talk back session will be held following the Saturday matinee.
�
Reserve your tickets today by calling the box office at 860-249-7970, ext. 12 or visit�www.hartfordchildrenstheatre.org�<http://www.hartfordchildrenstheatre.org> to download a series subscription brochure. Weekday matinee performances are also available for school groups during each show run.�
�
The mission of Hartford Children’s Theatre is to enrich the lives of the children of Greater Hartford by providing access and exposure to high quality theatre for young audiences and related educational opportunities.�

According to the Courant, Hartford Mayor Edward Perez will join a long line of Connecticut politicians when he is arrested as a result of a 15 month grand jury investigation into bribery. The contractor that performed $20,000 worth of kitchen and bathroom remodeling work was already arrested in connection with the case.� The Courant reports:

Perez said he has no plan to resign or temporarily step down while he faces the charges brought by the chief state’s attorney’s office in Superior Court. Santos said he did not know whether more charges were forthcoming.

State criminal investigators have been interested in Perez since early 2007, when news first surfaced about a controversial, no-bid parking lot deal the city gave to former state Rep. Abraham L. Giles. In October 2007, their interest was formalized with the formation of a state investigatory grand jury — a secretive court body led by one judge and with the power of subpoena.

That grand jury has since seen two extensions and is set to expire in April. But while the investigators’ interest is known to have expanded well beyond the work done on Perez’s home, it’s that work that has landed him in legal jeopardy.

State criminal investigators searched Perez’s home on a mid-August day in 2007. Two days later, on Aug. 16, Perez admitted that he had hired a city contractor to do what he said was $20,000 in kitchen and bathroom renovations. The work was done without proper permits and some of the work was done by an unlicensed contractor.

Costa completed most of the work in 2006, and Perez said he looked into a mortgage to pay for the work in 2006. But it wasn’t until early 2007 that Costa billed him $20,217, Perez said. He said he paid Costa in July 2007 — after investigators had begun asking questions.

Reached in his office Monday, Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane declined to comment.

Gerace said he has told Costa, his client, not to worry.

“I feel that Carlos is in a great position to prevail here, and I’ve told him not to worry,” Gerace said. “His conduct was minimally offensive in the whole scheme of things.”

Santos said he will seek a speedy trial that could bring the mayor before a jury within to two to three months.

Connecticut once again earns its reputation as Corrupticut. The issue in short is that Perez hired a city contractor to do work on his home around the same time that the contractor was having trouble completing a $5 million Park Street streetscape job. See the timeline here. Forget about the part where the billingon the project in Perez’s home was delayed. Forget about whether the contractor even had teh necessary licences to perform the work. Forget about the lack of permits filed to even do the work in Perez’s home. Hiring a city contractor to do work, with no documentation, is the problem here.

source: Courant, Hartford Mayor Perez Facing Bribery Charges, Will Turn Himself In Today, By JEFFREY B. COHEN And MARK PAZNIOKAS, January 26, 2009

The problem with legislators in Hartford is that when it comes to thinking about infrastructure spending they� treat every part of the Connecticut as if it is exactly the same. The only thing they should be looking at is which parts of Connecticut generate the tax revenue that they insist on spending fecklessly. Fairfield County is generates the most tax revenue, has the most population and gets the least back in the form of infrastructure spending. There’s a huge disconnect in Hartford when it comes to allocating state dollars. So Super 7 languishes, and route 66 gets built. We repave I-95 in Fairfield County every 5 years or so, add some extended exit lanes, oh I’m forgetting the 15 year widening of I-95 in Bridgeport. Lucky us.

It is a colossal failure that we haven’t figured out how to link aviation, high speed rail, mass transit, and commuter rail networks. Legislators will dump millions into Bradley airport, and ignore the fact that outside of Hartford, Bradley is annoying to get to. And despite years of evidence that commuters who use Metro North all don’t go into Grand Central, nothing in the way of getting people from the station to the downtown office buildings. In Norwalk, we have barely figured out that having office buildings near the train stations might be a good way to relieve traffic congestion.

Not that the federal government does much better. Despite that facts that according to a recent Brookings report, the top 100 metropolitan� areas account for 65 percent of our population live generating 75 percent of our GDP, 93 percent of rail passengers travel, 78 percent of interstate miles are traveled and� infrastructure investment is targeted at the largest 100 metropolitan areas. These places house 65 percent of our population, and produce 75 percent of our nation’s GDP because 68% of our jobs are there. They are also where 75 percent of the seaport tonnage arrives, 78 percent of patents are created,� where 98 percent of air cargo is shipped, where 92% of airline boardings happen, 95 percent of where rail passenger tranist happens.

Metropolitan areas are the engines of our economy, and the places where the need, and the potential return on investment, is greatest. Which is why Connecticut keeps missing the forest, because while New York City is Connecticut’s original main Metropolitan area, Westchester County and White Plains should be the real focus. Amazingly there’s no way to take a train to White Plains from Fairfield County. Which shouldn’t be a surprise because we haven’t figured out how we can get people to take a train from Fairfield County to Hartford.

Meanwhile Hartford is debating tolls and taxes.

At least two area legislators, State Senator Bob Duff-D Norwalk and state Rep Gerald Fox-D Stamford,� have the right idea though:

While revenue from Connecticut’s 25-cent flat tax and the 7 percent gross receipts tax on gasoline have dropped steeply this year, those sources of revenue for transportation projects have been diminished in past years by legislators who allocated them to cover other budget needs, said state Sen. Robert Duff, D-Norwalk.

Duff, vice chairman of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, said depletion of those funds has contributed to infrastructure problems.

“The fact of the matter is we have plenty of money coming in from the gross receipts tax and gas tax to pay for transportation needs,” he said. “But we’ve been taking $200 million out of the transportation fund and putting it in the general fund.”

Americans drove nearly 100 billion fewer miles between November 2007 and October 2008 than the same period a year earlier, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Duff and Fox said that proposals to reinstitute tolls on Connecticut highways to reduce congestion may not be effective or generate revenue.

Past proposals have focused on putting tolls at state borders, a move that would tax Fairfield County drivers to fund improvements statewide, Duff said.

“My fear is we would be generating all this new revenue, taxing people even more, and we’d still be in the same place in terms of funding transportation,” he said.

Meanwhile here’s what the rest of Hartford is actually working on; a busway from New Britain to Hartford, a commuter rail from New Haven to Springfield, and a commuter line from Waterbury to New Canaan.

In college football, there is no playoff to determine the national champion. Instead a series of bowl games settles the score, or not, as the convoluted formula deployed by the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) administrators, ranks and revises the pecking order of the top 25 college football teams, and then messes with who gets to play who in the bowl games. The Connecticut legislature in Hartford has much in common with the BCS, which is why there is debate about just who is the real national champion in college football, and in Hartford, just who is getting state funding.

The eight largest cities in Connecticut are Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven, Stamford, Waterbury, Norwalk, Danbury and New Britain could be Big 8. Except that the bottom 5 don’t have much in common with the big 3. For the leaders of 17 mid-sized towns, the big 3 are the haves, at least in terms of state funding and state legislative priorities. The 17� have banded together to� seek relief from Hartford’s penchant for unfunded mandates.

Invited by the mayors of West Hartford, East Hartford and Middletown, a group of 17 communities from throughout the state and representing a mix of Democratic and Republican administrations has met twice so far. They are completing a list of priorities this weekend to give to their legislators and plan a news conference at the state Capitol Jan. 6.

Joining the lead communities at the meetings this month were Bristol, Meriden, Fairfield, Hamden, Manchester, West Haven, Stratford, Enfield, Groton Town, Groton City, Torrington, Vernon, East Haven and New London.

The principal theme is this: The group simultaneously wants to distinguish itself from the eight largest cities Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven, Stamford, Waterbury, Norwalk, Danbury and New Britain while emulating what the top three do best: cooperating on a legislative agenda.

The state is saddled with a gaping deficit and local aid is likely to drop next year. As a result, all these communities are faced with the prospect of raising taxes again even if spending is cut.

Perhaps the bottom 5 of the top 8 might want to get around to co-operating on legislative agendas. Co-opting the fight against unfunded mandates would be one. And the mid-sized city conference, in keeping with football analogies, has identified a few unfunded mandates.

The group’s priorities include: changing the way housing values are determined, from computer-driven mass assessments to a formula based on actual sale prices; fast-tracking state approvals on millions of dollars worth of development projects that are ready to proceed; delaying a new state law extending juvenile-court jurisdiction to 16- and 17-year-olds, which would require staffing and facility changes at local police stations that could cost as much as $100 million statewide; and putting off a new requirement for in-school suspensions, which would take up staff time and space.

So let’s see what school systems have triggered the in-school suspension law. According to a report issued by Connecticut Voices For Children, an education advocacy group,� Bridgeport reported 22 percent of its school population received at least one out of school suspension, followed by Hartford at 19 percent, New Haven, New London and New Britain coming in at 17 percent. The state average was 7 percent. Note that the schools with the highest out of school suspension net the greatest amount of state aide for education. The school systems that don’t, rely in property taxes to fund their schools. And so the burden of a legislative decision to target a select group of school systems with endemic problems falls to tax payers of school systems that would rather, we hope, put their tax dollars into classroom instruction.

Then there’s the DOT. This dysfunctional state agency squanders millions and in addition sits on project approvals so that cities have to contend with loss of property tax revenue because projects are delayed.� Rell and the legislature, essentially tut tut, about the agency but haven’t managed to split it, streamline it or even prod it into the 20th century.

Undoubtedly there are more unfunded mandates that could be addressed, more cost controls that the legislature could be addressing. But there’s an absence of discussion that continues.

source: Courant, Mid-Size Connecticut Towns Seek Power In Numbers, By JOSH KOVNER, December 27, 2008

Journal-Inquirer Managing Editor Chris Powell weighs in this weekend with an editorial critical of plans under consideration by the Hartford City Council to adopt a sanctuary policy like the one in place in New Haven.

Excerpt:

Forbidding police from inquiring about citizenship when it has no relevance to the investigation of crime is one thing. Giving identification documents to people who are in the country illegally, precisely to facilitate their remaining in the country illegally, and refusing to cooperate with the national government’s enforcement of immigration law are something else — subversive and treasonable.

Is there a failure of immigration policy in this country?
Should it be strengthened and better enforced, or should it be liberalized?
How much of an impact does illegal immigration have in Fairfield County?
Should local law enforcement be deputized or trained for immigration enforcement?
Are you more in tune with Danbury; or New Haven?
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