Despite the beckoning warm weather and sunlight, I found myself drawn to the mayoral debate like a moth to the flame, and slipped in just a few minutes before the debate started. The political flunkies were out in swarms, conveniently food grouped by party clumps. By my audience count the Dems showed more candidate support for Briggs than Moccia got from the Republicans.

The setup was th same as previous years, this yeas question panel was Donna Bertoli, Kristi Faccenda and Wendy Corey from The Hour, News 12 and WSTC/WNLK respectively. They asked good clear questions, often about the same issues that drive the comments here. Fortunately none about the town clerks’ race though

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Last week, following my rant about the debates, I asked if any civic minded groups would be wiling to stage another debate. There’s a possibility that we might get one. The details are being worked on, but if all goes as planned Monday October 29th is the day. The debate will only be for common council candidates, both at large and in district. I’ll post the details as soon as I get word, but please use this thread to pose questions/issues that you might like to see asked of the common council candidates.

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Tonight will be the last council meeting where the council members will be actually voting to do something. From here on in it is the countdown to the November 6th election. Naturally, like anything else, council members are making decisions much more rapidly about what to do, just in case they won’t be coming back. Tonight there are two issues, the Demolition Delay ordinance, and the Mill Hill Historic District Study Committee that are attracting attention due to last minute pace of introduction.

Common Council members appear divided on whether to double the city’s demolition delay period and create a local historic district at Mill Hill Historic Park.

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One of the things that came out of last year’s budget process was how much the “status quo” is relied on to formulate budgets. Each department, and especially the BOE operates under the assumption that is has spent all of its budgeted money from the previous fiscal year and asks for an increase or decrease (though I’ve yet to see one) based on perceived needs and demands. Mayor Moccia started down the path of asking department heads for the status of unspent funds, famously circling around the number of trees taken down by DPW compared to the budget allocations.

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It looks like the Mill HIll and YMCA festivals were a big hit today, and by the light comments I hope you were all enjoying our Indian Summer. Below a few photos I took of the Mill Hill Fall Festival. I missed the the POKO announcement, something to do with beer and football, but I heard that the name of the development will be Wall Street Place.

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It’s a beautiful day out there. Go out, get off the keyboard and rant at your fellow citizens at large. But if you must, simply must, continue the fresh pace of political piques, here is your open thread for the day.

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Maybe I’m too much of an idealist when it comes to expecting that the wheels of government grind slowly but surely in the direction of progress. Its taken me several days of detoxification to tackle the subject of the Norwalk Museum. Part of that had to do with the total disgust I felt after attending the Thursday night common council committee meeting of Land use & Building Management. That meeting demonstrated in so many ways what is wrong with Norwalk’s government. All the committee had to do was vote on whether pass a proposal from the Friends of the Museum to the Law and Personnel Departments for review. It seems so simple, doesn’t it, when I express it that way. But getting it expressed in the form of an action is something I learned from School House Rock. I’m not sure where these committee members learned their governmental process, but a refresher course in getting the business of government done seems to be desperately needed.

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There are three events happening Sunday that might be of interest to readers here. The Norwalk Y, and the Norwalk Historical Society are both hosting events to raise money for activities. POKO development is unveiling their Wall Street Development Plan at a street fair. All three events highlight the growing activities in the central Norwalk area. So park and walk, and start contributing to the renaissance of Norwalk.

Fall Fun Festival
Sunday October 21st, 2-6pm
YMCA
230 West Ave.

Contribution: $10 Adults, $5 Kids (12 and under)
Contact: (203) 866-4425 ext 318

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Brian Lockhart at the Advocate is reporting that a new bonding package might be in the making.

State Sen. President Pro Tempore Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, said he hopes to have a new, two-year borrowing package for the legislature to consider by early next month.

“We hope to settle on something within the next two weeks,” said Williams, who spent the afternoon in Norwalk meeting with state Sen. Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, and members of the city’s AfterSchool Alliance. He also visited the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk.

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Norwalk has received $80,160 and should be getting about $240k more according to a report in The Norwalk Advocate. Total claims were $482,900. From Kerry Willis’ story:

Alvord said he was disappointed by how long reimbursement took.

The Norwalk DPW director said he met with a FEMA representative for several weeks, taking the agent to each site that was flooded or otherwise damaged.

“The information we were required to file for these claims was, in my opinion, ludicrous,” Alvord said.

FEMA needed details such as the horsepower of each vehicle DPW used in storm cleanup and the vacation days taken to date by staff who participated in the effort, Alvord said.

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