One of the things that struck me as being out of sync with the BOE budget was the figure cited by Corda of 71 Special Ed students accounting for 4.1 million in the budget. I think it was Fred Wilms Mike Lyons who asked about best practices from other school systems in reducing the per student average, but Corda deflected that line of inquiry.

It seems that the former Norwalk superintendent had some questions about that special education numbers too, and in this 1999 article from Reason examined (emphasis mine):

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With the recent talk about security cameras at Calf Pasture Beach in Norwalk, I think it’s interesting to note that in Britain, which has deployed over 4.2 million CCTV cameras, according the Evening Standard, one for every 14 people in the country, there are studies that show that the average person is recorded on camera 300 times a day. Bringing Britain to that awkward point where fiction has become reality. And no greater irony in a map displaying the position of all those CCTV cameras surrounding the apartment where Orwell had lived.

From the Evening Standard:

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Knowing what the actual population count in Connecticut is very important. Federal grants and funds are tied to the population counts. And when it comes time to draw up congressional districts, those population counts are important too. COnnecticut lost a congressional district in 2000 because of a lower population. The Courant reports:

Developing the state’s own population figures is part of the role of the Connecticut State Data Center, which began operating at the University of Connecticut with Rodriguez as director last July 1.

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Norwalk is at a crossroads. You have all these huge office buildings on Route 7 and Glover ave. Huge office buildings with people who drive cars into Norwalk. You have the Merritt Parkway which represents, the route 7 connector, and I-95 all representing different stages of traffic snarls because none of these connections works well. You would think the the CT DOT would be prioritizing it’s workload to address the transportation improvements that fairfield county needs. But no, it’s another sign of bacon bits being sprinkled as the DOT now says they might delay the completion of the Merritt route 7 interchange another year.

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