From the non-partisan meting:

There was very little public participation in this meeting which is shame, because not only do the council member provide pizza, but it gives you an opportunity to talk about just about anything. For some reason the editorial cartoons I’ve published were a popular topic tonight.

At the start of the meeting, once pizza was consumed, and chat about whether to have the council make a rule about pizza being allowed in the council chambers, Fred Bondi announced that when you see oil on your pizza it’s a sign of cheap mozzarella cheese. Which just goes to show you what interesting information can be learned by attending these things.
Long Term Planning Committee:

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According to the Wilton Villager, the widening of route 7 through Wilton is about 11% complete. The CT DOT held a progress report on the project. From the article:

The contractor, New Britain-based Tilcon Connecticut, is 90 days into its 824 day contract, or 10.9 percent complete. Tilcon has spent $4.45 million of its allotted $35 million.

“I’m happy to say the state of the construction is good,” said Brian Mercure, the department’s project manager, though he acknowledged problems the department has run into.
There have been some utility conflicts, where water mains have been located in places where storm drains were planned. There was also a conflict when outlets had to be run across train tracks. DOT got around that by working during an existing Metro North outage.

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As a result of stating the obvious, the Feds will not contribute $5 million in federal highway dollars to Connecticut. From the Courant:

Concerned by threats to public safety from extensive construction failures on a stretch of I-84 outside Waterbury, federal regulators are holding up $5 million in highway aid in an effort to press the state to quickly prepare a plan to address potential hazards.

Although transportation officials have said nothing to indicate that there is any immediate hazard, the Federal Highway Administration is concerned that what experts call “stunning” failures in the highway drainage system may be creating underground washouts that could lead to road collapses.

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If you’ve been coveting an LCD computer screen, here’s a good reason to get one. They burn at least half the wattage of a CRT monitor. Yep. Someone out there measured the wattage and then posted on a blog about it, here.. You can also change your desktop background color to something that uses less wattage by looking at the following chart.

This is also true of old fashion TV sets, which operate on CRT technology. I have been coveting a flat LCD screen, but stubbornly have held onto my circa 1987 TV set. Maybe I will upgrade in the name of electricity savings.

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Another spring day. Feel free to discuss anything.

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When the Norwalk-outers called for open debate on the council floor at last weeks special common council meeting, it prompted me to wonder why there was such concern over debate on the floor, when most of the debate about issues occurs at committee meetings.

Committee meetings, for the uninitiated, are the work sessions where relevant issues are brought up for consideration and potential action by the full council. For example, the BET committee meetings that were held drilled down to the granular issues that drove what budget line items were made of. The way committees work is basic, any committee chair or member can put something on the agenda for either study or action by the committee. The committee chair is responsible for placing action items on the council agenda at the appropriate time.

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Although its early, the state fiscal year begins July 1, the battle lines are emerging on the state budget. Earlier in the year Governor Rell proposed a constitutional budget cap busting budget that focused on delivering more money for education. The legislature, crafted by the Democratic majority revealed a budget that broke the cap that included more money for health care. That’s the simplified version.

Each side claims high ground over the philosophical issues that line up Democrats with preserving services and tax reductions for the middle class and the Republican proposing property tax reflief for all and concerns over over-taxing “the rich.”

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The Courant reports on the the difficulties in changing the culture up in Hartford with Citizen’s Ethics Advisory Board. At the helm, Ben Bycel, revels in a watchdog role that causes some state lawmakers to be a little more circumspect. The Ethics board was created by the legislature in 2005, following the Rowland administration scandals. Bycel was hired to set up the department, and after some clashes with the entrenched way of doing business in Hartford, he has largely succeeded, at least, according to him. But Bycel, who set up  the ethics agency in Los Angeles, knows that it is inevitable that he will be fired not too far in the future.

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This is part of an ongoing series of guest posts about issues in Norwalk. yourCT.com is a non-partisan site dedicated to airing all sides of an issue. That can’t happen without valuable contributions from our readers.

by Jack Chiaramonte

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Transportation is the hot issue this weekend, with earth day stuff going on and a general focus on mass transportation issues. CT-N has been airing a regional transportation presentation about high speed rail in the northeast corridor and Transit for Connecticut is asking for $2.79 million to study bus transportation.

The weather looks wonderful, not a drop of rain in sight, but use this thread for any topic you’d like to discuss.

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