And for the rest of the news and issues that I haven’t commended on, your Friday open thread extravaganza.

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The Hour is reporting that the BOE knew that the state would likely find problems with the contract for Bruce Morris.

Perosino said House counsel advised the school board to delay voting on the contract, so that state attorneys would have a chance to review the contract.Shortly after the discussion between Perosino and the school board, the board approved Morris’ agreement 6-0-1.

Jodi Bishop-Pullan, board chairwoman, said the call came too close to voting time, when the language had already been worked on by the board attorney.

Bishop-Pullan said she wasn’t sure if, after the agreement was accepted, the state would still seek to examine it.

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The Hour is reporting on the growing stench that permeates East Norwalk and environs. The residents of Eastern Standard Norwalk are naturally upset.

Norwalk resident Pete Johnson, a member of the city’s Shellfish Commission, said a septic odor has hovered in the East Norwalk air from the plant for years, but more recently it has become “unbearable.” The strong stench is now reaching streets up to a quarter a mile away, he said.”I felt sick to my stomach,” he said, describing his reaction to what he smelled outside the plant earlier this week. “That’s how bad it’s been.”

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Jim Amann is getting sucked into the vortex of the Bruce Morris bamboozle. Favors must be paid while the clock ticks on the bonding issues. Or something. And somehow, the ever cautious State Attorney General, Dick Blumenthal who one day wants to be something else is in on the game too. Ears have been whispered in, stories have been told, and in the politics of budgets games are being played. Too bad no one is paying attention to the all important phrase, in the beginning. So I’ll start.

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So this is what everyone’s talking about.

photo credit: one of the miserable 25

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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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