The lure of fatherhood or something else proved to be too much to keep Mike Coffey in the mayoral race. He released a statement Saturday announcing that we would not be seeking any elective office. This will put District E Dems scrambling to find another at large candidate to run. They might want to want to try some young unknown behind the wheel to complement the well seasoned candidates of Bill Krummel and Gwen Briggs. Of course it will get interesting to explain just why the Dems would want to have a husband and wife team of mayor and council candidate running this year. but we’ll see how the lineup looks in a few weeks. As of yet the Dems haven’t raised any money for the mayors race, and Moccia is off to a great start.

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Don’t forget that stuff for the troops drive at the Pasttimes Club today between 11-3. Rowayton is hosting their 4th of July fireworks on Sunday and Bayley Beach around 9:15pm. The Apple iPhone was released into the wild yesterday, anyone here using it yet?

Corda may be getting off the hook about having to figure out what to do about the racial imbalance at Kendall and Jefferson schools.

What else is going on?

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Mayor Moccia announced that Norwalk and Darien will jointly ask the State Traffic Commission to ban through trucks on route 136. This tactic might have a better chance of being successful. From the Norwalk Advocate:

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It must be all those rising costs associated with bad road patching or something. The Courant reports:

Connecticut Light & Power will ask regulators in a filing today to increase what customers pay by 4.6 percent - about $6.25 a month for a typical household - starting Jan. 1.

The utility company says it needs the increase to offset rising costs, boost company profits and pay for improvements to the state’s aging electric system.

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The house voted to send the budget bill to Governor Rell along with, what are called budget implementor bills. The Courant’s Mark Pazniokas refers to the 144 page, 123 section bill as a “a legislative buffet.” And so it is, cramming all sorts of items through a process that allows laws that did not pass on their own to be rolled into one that is used to fund legislation. And so, the Old State House in Hartford becomes the financial responsibility of the legislature since the Connecticut Historical Society can no longer afford its $600k upkeep. And, for the second try, 16 and 17 years olds are to be tried in juvenile courts for non-violent offenses instead of adult courts.

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This Saturday, Joanne Romano and the Pastimes Athletic club is holding a supplies for the troops drive
as part of “Operation Adopt-A-Platoon”.

The Pastimes Club is right by Vets Park and is located a 59 Seaview Ave, in East Norwalk.

The drive is between 11am and 3pm, so come on down, bring your stuff for the troops.

For more info check out the program website: here.

And for a list of what troops have requested, click here or here.

If you have any questions please contact Joanne Romano, (jtromano1@yahoo.com 203-554-6071).

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In the weeks that Norwalk Museum curator, and staff person to the Historical Commission, has returned to work after a long absence, not much has changed. The contentious relationship between Gunn and the Historical Commission has always centered on the work performed falling well short of the work required. Last night’s Historical Commission meeting was no exception. Gunn didn’t show. Instead a written report was read to the commissioners. I kid you not. Apparently, although Gunn could spend time responding to emails and phone calls as one of the oh so important tasks accomplished, sending out the Curator report was not one them.

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Monday night Fred Wilms, Chairman of Norwalk’s BET held a round table discussion about municipal finance issues. Last year Wilms’ held a similar discussion to great acclaim. Because Connecticut doesn’t have a county government system in place, regional issues seemingly get ignored. With all coastal towns suffering from major flooding these days, one would think that a regional flooding discussion would be a worthy examination. Traffic, and emergency issues would be other good examples.

While not as much a hot button item, municipal finances practices are just as important. From the Hour:

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For some reason, the buses that transport groups of kids to the Maritime Aquarium head over to Vets Park for parking. Before the Parking Authority Parks and Rec charged out of towners with a $5 fee, this arrangement seemed to have worked. Since the $5 fee though, buses are opting to circle around Vets park and park on the streets. Not surprisingly this has residents eager to ban bus parking on the narrow streets. The solution seems to be rather simpler, the Maritime Aquarium should work out a deal to obtain a special bus parking pass to give to bussed groups. The Maritime Aquarium likely has records of how many groups come in each month by bus, and thus can estimate how many passes it would need, and based on that number, the Parking Authority Parks and Rec could determine whether it would offer these passes at full price, discounted or free.

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Oyster Shall park is a former landfill, apparently still not capped. Thus, rehabilitating the land for public use needed some serious funds. Enter State Rep Larry Cafero. From the Hour:

The state will likely contribute another $375,000 for improvements to Oyster Shell Park, House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero announced Tuesday.

The city has planned $4.8 million-worth of improvements to the park, which is bordered by Norwalk Harbor and Interstate 95 in South Norwalk. The $375,000 was added to the state Bond Commission’s agenda by Gov. M. Jodi Rell and is expected to be approved by the commission at its Friday meeting.

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