Though not quite as illustrative as Tolstoy might have penned, last night offered up the usual dramas that make some days very easy to post about. At City Hall we had a trio of meetings that continued the ongoing saga over whether the BOE will ever create an understanding of the 07-08 budget amongst its own members. The BET, unanimously adopted their recommended budget which came under the cap set by the Common Council. Which means that the remaining Norwalk-outers (although unidentified in The Hour) who said they were poised to ask the council to raise the cap, have demonstrated a complete failure to grasp the budgeting process. The BET set the budget allocations, not the Council, and so raising the cap doesn’t really do anything, particularly since the BET came in with a budget under the cap, unanimously.
Over in another room Council member Bill Krummel recognized that fixing the flooding is the top priority. On hand were Council members Nick Kydes, and Carvin Hilliard who each expressed support for the flooding victims. The only issue still being hotly debated here was over the pace of fixing the problems. Diane Cece rejected DPW director Hal Alvord’s contention that the $15 million requested couldn’t be spent in one year to alleviate the flooding faster. Strangely while Moccia contends that federal and state funds are not available for fixing the flooding issues, the town of Fairfield’s State Reps have House Bill 5454: a $17 million state bond issuance for the DEP to fund the Rooster River Flood Control project which includes a new drainage system for Southport. Maybe its easier to tie the Fairfield flooding issues to the river and thus make it a state issue, but it sure looks like Fairfield is on the ball about about getting state funds for drainage system improvements.
The third meeting concerned the Ethics Committee review of the mess that Anne Carbone wrought. As usual, the details reveal serious judgement issues, with Carbone at first denying that the she had lodged a zoning violation complaint and then later admitting to it.
The other event of yesterday evening was the Democracy For America (DFA) meeting held at the Silver Star Diner. The DFA is one of the growing grass roots organizations that sprang from Howard Dean’s presidential run. The group hosted two students from Wilton High School to discuss the details of what happened to their play “Voice in Conflict” that was unceremoniously banned from production by Wilton High School Principal Tom Canty. According to the students, while military recruiters roam the cafeteria in hopes of recruiting students to join a branch of service, the Principal prefered that the students not talk about the Iraq war. It seems that Canty hasn’t quite understood the idea of freedom of speech, and censorship. But the blame lies with the 1988 Hazelwood v. KuhlmeierSupreme Court decision that said school officials have some grounds for providing editorial control over student speech as long as it related to pedagogical concerns. Some states have sought to explicitly protect student free speech by passing “anti-Hazelwood” laws. The play will be produced, but not at Wilton High School. The Culture Project has agreed to product an off broadway show on June 3rd and 10th. Michael Geake offered a venue in SoNo on memorial day to the students.
The other speaker, was Democratic State Party Chair, Nancy DiNardo, who weathered the complaints from DFA members that the Democratic party didn’t do enough for Ned Lamont. Despite the remaining hard core Lamonistas, there were enough people who recognized that it was time to move on, and focus on the activities that will unite Democrats towards legislative achievements and election wins. With the presidential primaries looming on the horizon that will be a tall task.
The chief complaint for the DFA members seemed to be access to the Democratic town committees and to the state central committee. DiNardo explained the process, and held a back and forth conversation with audience members about specific towns who are alleged to be “less than openly democratic.” Norwalk Democratic Town Chair Galen Wells decided to open up the Norwalk State Central Committee positions on the spot by announcing that they were open, and that anyone could call her to seek the position. This will probably be news to current State Central position holders Gwen Briggs and Ken Slapin.
I suspect that Ken Slapin will not be happy about Galen’s recent conversion to an open selection process. I was surprised to see Alex Knopp make a brief appearance at the event. Since one of the subjects was about who was going to challenge Congresscritter Chris Shays, I was curious to see if Knopp was going to chase after that spot. Instead DiNardo indicated that Greenwich DTC chair Jim Hymes and Stamford State Rep Jim Shapiro were the only ones still expressing interest.
source: The Hour, Moccia: No ‘rainy day’ draw for ed budget, By ANNA GUSTAFSON, April, 5, 2007
source: The Hour, Residents:Boost city funds to halt flooding, By ROBERT KOCH, April, 5, 2007
source: The Hour, Zoning official subject of Ethics Committee probe, By PATRICK R. LINSEY, April, 5, 2007
