According to the National Register of Historic Places from the US Department of Interior, the house at 93 East ave is a contributing structure to the nationally recognized Norwalk Green Historic District. And there’s a map showing the boundaries of that district and with the identification of the buildings that are included.

Historic Distric Listing

That would be lot 13 according to the map

Buildings in this historic district can get a 20% federal tax credit. The guidelines for what can be done with federally designated historic buildings, according to the Dept. of Interior website, are administered locally, and can be viewed here..

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Last night Thomas Vetter presented a spreadsheet to the Common Council members that outlined 3 important items. One that he claimed that the number that is being used to start this years BOE budget is the wrong one, and not based on actual expenditures of the BOE. Two, that he very much agreed to and supported the monthly meetings to go over the BOE finances with the BET. And Three, that $2 million is savings, without program cuts had been achieved, and that the BOE was really looking for $1 million more than what the BET was recommending.

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Tonight’s common council meeting was moved to the concert hall. Given that the BET meeting filled the room, it was surprising that the room was hardly filled. I would say that there were fewer people than your typical common council meeting. The usual suspects of speakers spoke on behalf of the BOE budget and raising the cap, and against raising the cap and for supporting the flooding victims.

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Well what else would you expect? The Courant reports the obvious in today’s article about the proposed Democratic Health Care plan. To put a price tag on the proposed plan, that would offer medical insurance to all people in Connecticut under 65, legislators took population numbers and multiplies by an estimated $4000 or $6000 cost per year. That came to to 11 billion and 18 billion respectively. And legislators were shocked.

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After 40 years, it’s finally time to tackle an ethics code applicable to Norwalk’s public officials, both elected and appointed. Recent events and allegations show that not all incidents are so egregious that “a caveman could do it”, that is, figure out if there was a ethical breach.

Thus the stage is set for revisions to the code. From the Hour:

Norwalk’s current ethics code is nearly 40 years old. Over the last two years, the council’s Ethics Committee has worked with city attorneys to draft a new document more in line with norms used by other Connecticut cities.

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By popular request, (ok just one recent commenter) the posts have been rather limited to the BOE these days, so comment away on anything else on your minds.

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Why is it that Corda and the BOE have ignored DPW requests to reduce costs associated with support services? Back in January of this year, Hal Alvord met with Corda and others to hammer out a work plan that would allow DPW to manage its’ costs and plan maintenance and snow removal budgets. In addition to not wanting to cut back its own budget, the BOE does not want to work with DPW to help manage the city side of services that the BOE receives.

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The latest from Bruce Kimmel, from the BOE (sort of) blog.

Note that he’s only asking for an extra million now. For some reason he wants to raise the cap by a million. But then the Common Council could raise the CAP by a billion, but its the BET that divvies up the CAP to various departments. As in, most of the pie goes to the BOE and slim since goes to the city.

But here’s Kimmel in his own words:

There is a solution to the budget crisis

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Today’s advocate promotes the Norwalk Board of Ed’s blog. Which has few posts that of course lack any details. They should be applauded for embracing the blog medium, but in doing so they should be posting the budget and examining that, rather than relying on the platitudes of Dr. Corda. Remember, we identified plenty of lines items to cut that are not student programs. They keep circling back to the scare tactics. Why is that? Is it really so hard to agree to cut postage usage? Or have the admin staff pay for their own memberships? Is it really so difficult?

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It was a month ago that Bruce Morris came under scrutiny for the apparent lack of time keeping by the BOE.

Two months after the school district’s human relations officer was sworn in as a state representative, the tax and school boards are evaluating his ability to juggle both jobs.

So that makes three months now, since he’s been elected. Does it really take this long to craft a policy that says, “we will only pay you for the hours you actually work?” Gee, I crafted that sentence, admittedly one of those generic ones that can be found in countless employee manuals that exist in the corporate world, in less than a minute. And it complies with all those regulations too!

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