Shakespeare on the Sound presents A Comedy of Errors in Rowayton from June 14 through June 30 and in Greenwich July 5 through July 8. But they’ve decided to stage a traditional version instead of a Norwalk centric version, based on traditional plot about a father looking looking for his lost son, who is is lost, looking for his lost twin brother. This sets up the mistaken identity farce. No twins are involved in the lost bathrooms of Norwalk High. Just a comedy of errors perpetuated by the at a loss Stuart Opdahl. The Advocate writes, that Opdahl is Fletcher Thompson’s Chief Operating Officer. But we are more familiar with the error prone Opdahl as the Chief Operating Office of the Norwalk Public School Systems. But then, holding two jobs, performed during the same hours, is something that the Norwalk Public School System seems to be just a-okay with.
Which brings to the theme of Kevin Rennie’s column in today’s Courant.
`Look the other way” became the new motto of state government during the regular session of the legislature, which ended Wednesday with more recriminations and fewer accomplishments than usual. The phrase was used several times in the debate on the use of marijuana for medical purposes. In order for people to take advantage of the new law, they would have to break some existing statutes on the possession of drugs.
“If police and prosecutors look the other way in this situation,” said Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, in introducing the bill, maybe looking the other way “ought to be the law of our state.”
The legislators looked the other way on more of their business, and on the travails of a senior Senate member, making them appear more isolated than usual from the way life is lived in the rest of the state.
Looking the other way seems endemic on Norwalk. Sal Corda can present school budgets that receive no BOE oversight, Bruce Morris can’t account for the hours he actually spends on BOE business, Sue Gunn can avoid curating the Norwalk museum while taking extended leaves and abandoning basic job duties, and Stuart Opdahl can manage mutli-million dollar construction projects with out any financial oversight to reign in costs and performance. Nothing to see here, just keep moving along.
And in Hartford, there’s the example of former Democratic state Senate majority leader William A. DiBella who garnered “finder fees” to the tune of $374,500, in former State Treasurer Paul Silvester’s scamming the treasury administration. DiBella survived a vote of no-confidence and still is the current chairman of the Metropolitan District Commission. With such an example, no wonder that Lou DeLuca-R Woodbury, Senate Minority Leader seems unfazed with the calls for his resignation. He’s got buddies like Norwalk’s Larry Cafero saying to Brian Lockhart, “As far as I’m concerned, what he’s been charged with and pleaded guilty to has little to do with (his) legislative abilities, It was a matter of the heart.” Cafero’s support comes after the FBI reported that DeLuca never bothered to report a $5,000 bribe, in addition to asking a known mobster to “pay a visit” to his granddaughter’s husband. So much for setting the high standard of upholding the law as being one of those pesky legislative duties.
Leadership in any endeavor is about doing the right and ethical thing at all times. Too often our public officials glaze over the simple clarity with political expedience counting on us to look the other way. “It’s a witch-hunt, it’s political, it’s not fair,” they cry. And for the most part, these public officials are right, we accept these comedy of errors because they have concluded over the years that we the public will listen to the spin instead of the evidence, and that, they think, is exactly as you like it.
source: The Courant, Legislators Didn’t Do The Right Things, by Kevin Rennie, June 10, 2007
