Bruce Kimmel continues his dogged pursuit to challenge Sal Corda over the budget, and the cuts to teachers that Corda has recommended. Last night he was joined by Norwalk Federation of Teachers union leader Bruce LeVine Mellion.

Kimmel also echoed the complaints of several Norwalk Federation of Teachers representatives, led by President Bruce Le Vine Mellion, who argued proposed cuts in administration should have been included in a budget that cuts teaching positions.

“I do not agree with the decision to exclude administration from the possibility of cuts,” Kimmel said. “I’m not suggesting administration be cut, nor am I suggesting teachers should be cut. What I’m suggesting is to exclude a particular component of our school system sends the wrong message.”

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The Common Council hadda update the ethics code. The old code was vague and did not outline what to do in the event someone filed an ethics complaint. That was immediately apparent when a city resident filed a complaint against a zoning appeals commissioner. There was a small group of people who thought that the hearing and investigation into that ethics complaint shoulda never been held. Under the old ethics code, that coulda been a good argument. The smell test, or if it looks like duck and quack likes a duck suggested otherwise. Many of the same people who objected to that ethics investigation, amazingly, showed up to repeatedly to object to the revised ethics code.

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Common Council Meeting 6/26/07

All present except Nick Kydes. Peter Nolin was absent and Jeffrey Spahr sat in his place

A moment of silence was held for the passing for Steve Oris and the 9 firefighters in North Carolina.

Then there was resolution for the Norwalk High baseball team for winning the FCIAC Baseball championship. Rick McQuaid singled out coach Angelo Bruno for doing such a great job and mentioned that 5 of the baseball players were form Narmanake elementary school. (Nick Cardone, Matt Taliercio, George Savaides and ??????? [check with RMcQ afterwards.])

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Finally the budget bill is on its way to Governor Rell. Not much to add except that freshman Senator Sam Caligiuri-R Waterbury was the lone vote against it due to concerns about the spending cap. From the Courant:

The Senate later approved three other bills Monday that spell out details of the budget package, which would take effect July 1. The House of Representatives is expected to return to the Capitol later this week to vote on one of them.

Both chambers could still vote on bonding bills later this summer.

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Despite the anemic turnout at the inaugural Norwalk Jazz fest, Herb Grant plans to host the festival in 2008. From Matt “Mad Max” Breslow’s article:

Organizers had hoped for a crowd of several thousand, but only about 250 were in the audience at Veterans Memorial Park in the evening of the daylong festival.

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Missing: enthusiastic candidates for both parties. Last night both the Democratic and Republican parties met for their town committee meetings. I opted to cover the RTC meeting. With the July 25th deadline for submitting party nominations not that far off, but don’t expect to hear much about that just yet. For the Republicans, while some districts have more candidates than slots, the Republican A and C district committees acknowledged last night, others like B are still looking. Finding BOE candidates is also proving to be difficult.

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Because we had such an interesting debate about the students who showed up at the prom having consumed an alcoholic beverage or 2,3,4. We have today’s Supreme Court 5-4 ruling that sets some interesting precedent about the rights of a student’s free speech. If you haven’t guessed I’m a big supporter of student rights, which has much to do with the extensive experience arguing for the right to exercise some sort of creative expression in my youth. Some of you are not going to be surprised by this :).

Any hoo, we have “Bong Hits 4 Jesus”:

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Shakespeare on the Sound is till showing A Comedy of Errors at Pinkney park. A $35k grant is fueling a crackdown on speeders in Norwalk, so don’t drive too fast. The International Festival of Arts and Ideas is still going on in New Haven. Ayden’s closet is having a tent sale on Water street in SoNo. Feel free to discuss anything in the comments, but it might be just too beautiful a day to sit in front of the computer today. Enjoy the day.

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I walked over to check it out. The Norwalk High School band was just playing their set. Looks like plenty of people are strolling on in, if you don’t have tickets you can pay at the gate. Great day to sit outside and enjoy some jazz with the Norwalk harbor as a backdrop.

Mayoral candidate Scott Merrill was busy trying to get petitions signed to get a spot on the ballot. He wanted to get in for free but he was told that it was a ticketed event. I’m not sure why he would attempt to get petitions at a music festival. While plenty of people would sign it, you have to be registered to vote in Norwalk for the signature to count.

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Following the ordinance committee meeting of last April, the committee is still struggling with how to standardize the reporting and management of the summer youth program. Common Council member Joanne Romano is working on a draft of guidelines for all city employees who work with children. The ordinance committee debated whether background checks should be required of participants in the summer youth program. Matt Miklave and Carvin Hillaird are against background checks, however Miklave concedes that more supervision through more resources be assigned to the program.

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