The official swearing in of the Common Council is on Tuesday but Doug Hempstead is out of the gates early with a priority list for members to focus on.

From the Hour:

The Republican representative of District D said he supports an improved demolition delay ordinance, finishing the master plan and also a stronger focus on infrastructure issues.

“We have some serious unfinished business and hard economic decisions which we should immediately take up,” Hempstead said. “I am asking all members of the new Common Council to pull together and address the unfinished business of the past council. We need to work together and establish and act on our priorities in the first 120 days of this term.”

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The DOT has finally gotten around to addressing the Merritt/Route 7 interchange rock pile and as a bonus will also blast away the rock wall at the end of the Route 7 connector.

From the Hour:

The state transportation department has signed a $671,550 contract with M. Rondano Inc. of Norwalk to remove the rock wall, an often fatal fixture at the intersection of the expressway and Grist Mill Road, as well as the rock pile, an eyesore that has sat unmoved since the department halted its overhaul of the parkway in the wake of a lawsuit.

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The Hour is reporting that work to drede Fitch pond will being in 2008.

$350,000 plan to reduce flooding in the Olmstead Place neighborhood will get under way early next year with the dredging of Fitch Pond, according to Department of Public Works officials.

“There’s multiple parts to (reducing) flooding at Olmstead. Part of it is dredging the pond and increasing its capacity. Part of it is increasing the 30-inch (outlet) pipe to a 36-inch pipe and making sure that pipe remains clean. Part of the solution is cleaning the culverts,” said Harold F. Alvord, director of public works. “Current (pond) retention is a one-year storm and what we’re proposing here would take it to a five-year storm.”

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Peter Nolin is stepping down as corporation counsel. Mayor Moccia has said to the Hour, “I’m going to miss him. I think he was just absolutely invaluable to the administration.” I’ll add to that, the City of Norwalk is going to miss him. The position of corporation counsel is not one of those governmental positions that you notice until something goes dreadfully awry. That was the situation that Norwalk was facing in 2005 with the shift from über secrecy in all departments. Nolin encouraged the law department as a resource to all city departments, not just the mayor’s office.

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State Representative Arthur O’Neill (Southbury, Bridgewater, Roxbury, Washington) will be the Republican nominee to fill Lou DeLuca’s seat in the Connecticut State Senate, and the odds-on favorite to win in January’s special election.

Three other candidates have reportedly indicated their interest in DeLuca’s seat.

Hailing from Seymour, Republican Town Committee Chair Brian Koskelowski, who drives the local senior citizens bus and whose father is the 7-term Republican incumbent First Selectman, and has served on the Library Board, is said to be interested.

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State Senator Lou DeLuca’s departure will require a special election in January. Those of us who like to keep tabs on these things expected the Special to pit DeLuca’s anointed successor - Watertown State Rep Sean Williams - against a to-be-named opponent (Bethlehem Democratic State Central Committeeman Ken Curran is rumored to be seriously considering a run). But this week things got kinda weird.

Williams stood with DeLuca at the podium as DeLuca made his announcement, an understandable (even admirable) display of personal loyalty one might say. But then, Williams publicly stated that he will not run for the seat in January, which is strange enough, but is rumored to have also said that if DeLuca chose to run again, he would fully support him.

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I was hoping that somehow the elections had settled things for the majority of the political flunkies in town, but apparently not. Today’s Hour has a Robert Koch story about the outgoing council and contained this gem tucked at the end:

“Going forward, I hope that we have a united group of Democrats on the council that can pass constructive legislation and also be an effective opposition to the Moccia administration when the Moccia administration takes positions that the Democratic Party does not endorse,” Wells said. “Looking forward, we can look to constructive, united Democratic action.”

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It seems that there’s some hot hot hot issues in the comments, so reflect upon them here.

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Yesterday I attended a seminar on smart growth, touching on all of my favorite topics, economic development, roads and property tax reform. These were the topics that bubbled up from discussion panels more loftily declared to be about sustainable development for today’s and tomorrow’s citizens. What struck me most is that Connecticut is really choking under the property tax financing of infrastructure and education. All over the state.

State Senators Len Fasano-R and Jonathan Harris-D had some really interesting thing to say about the problems of regionalization in a state of 169 “fiefdoms.” The data, for the policy wonks amongst you, is in this CERC Executive summary here.

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With the recount affirming the election results earlier in the day, the last council meeting of the 2005-07 council was held. I figured that we’d get a night of congratulations and thanking, sort of a Thanksgiving preview, but without the turkey. I wasn’t disappointed. The consent calendar had its usual contract authorizations, and except for the Demolition Delay Disapproval issue, it was going to be a short night, except for the rounds of thanking and record noting. So we being, I’d like to thank the academy ….

Non partisan Meeting:
Attending: McQuaid, Hempstead, Bondi, Grant, Coffey, Bolden, Briggs, Krummel. Miklave, Kydes & Romano.

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