The Hour ran an editorial, readers want action and I opened this thread.

Optimists in the city had hoped the second phase of the decade-long effort would begin this month.

At issue is the need for the city to ante up to $10 million in state aid to move the project along.

The trouble is there is uncertainty in what federal aid will be available to the state and what state help, in turn, will be available to the city.
We are witnessing a classic example of bureaucratic red tape and lack of communication among agencies involved.

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I think this one is easy to sort out despite the thunderclouds of political spin that dot the Hour article. Management 101 says if you are paying overtime you are under scheduled. Finding the sweet spot of labor hours and staffing needs is what employs legions of management layers world wide. But that’s not quite how Rilling and Moccia chose to tackle this 12 officers after 3 am issue:

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General Corda drew up his “surge” plans in a counter offensive to the revelations that he can’t count, fudges statistics and otherwise allows Opdahl free reign to mismanage operations. So we have multiple BOE stories in the papers today.

In the battle of the budget, which will once again loom in early January Corda is taking a proactive communication campaign by fueling the “woe is me” cuts to the athletic departments. The Advocate reports:

In March, the athletic directors, each facing potential $250,000 budget cuts that would have meant elimination of all freshman sports, along with varsity ice hockey, wrestling, golf, tennis and swimming, had considered a pay-to-play fee for athletics, Mones said. Those larger budget reductions were avoided.

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Darien is wrestling with the Whole Foods grocery store plan to open at the former Howard Johnson’s property. That would normally be enough to fuel my ire since Whole Foods has not yet decided to bless Norwalk with a store. But as I read further into the Advocate’s article I discovered, that Whole Foods plans to open a store in North Stamford and in Fairfield. Yegads, the snubbing of Norwalk is killing me.

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The Hour reports that Walter Briggs earned the endorsement of Council 4 AFSCME. Council 4 is the largest AFL-CIO union in Connecticut. Along with Briggs, Democrats Fred A. Bondi, Anna Duleep, Michael K. Geake, William M. Krummel, Laurel Lindstrom, Kevin M. Poruban and Douglas W. Sutton earned endorsements.

Dennis O’Neil, political director for Council 4, said Democratic and Republican town chairmen statewide were mailed a cover letter and questionnaire for them to forward to their candidates. Interviews followed, he said.

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