Today’s Hour recaps the major local stories of 2007. The biggest missing stories? How about Stuart Opdahl mismanaging construction projects and operations of Norwalk schools? Or how about the lack of qualifications that Bruce Morris has for his BOE job, coupled with the lack of accountability for the hours he supposedly “works” while spending much of his daytime in Hartford during a particularly intensive legislative session? Then there’s the other major unaccountable city employee Sue Gunn, curator of the Norwalk Museum, which may or may not be closed depending on the whim of the curartor rather than the published hours.

[Read more →]

Norwalk can only look to Stamford for a little inspiration on how belt tightening is done, especially when it comes to the BOE. Oh wait, Norwalk Public Schools under Corda don’t believe in the “nickel and diming” that comes from prudently whittling down expenses. Corda believes that a Stuart Opdahl manages money just fine. Corda believes that Opdhal is capable of projecting enrollment accurately. The numbers tell another story. And numbers, is what drives Stamford’s policy decisions. Yet it wasn’t all about the BOE. The Advocate reports:

[Read more →]

Call it New Year’s resolutions or spring cleaning, but whatever you think will make the site better is worth talking about. SO post ahoy! BTW, I tweaked the recent comments, now we have 30 comments with a limit of 5 per post which should give us a little diversity on comment activity tracking.

[Read more →]

Today’s Hour prompts thoughts about what might be in the future of Norwalk, in kind of a a murky snow globe like crystal ball filled with newspapery ideas. The theme –connecting Norwalk — seems so modern it’s positively retro. And so past is prologue, and I turn to a brief New York Times article from 1901.

Norwalk in 1901 was celebrating 250 years of existence. The subhead, “the town which sent proportionately more soldiers than any other to the war of Independence.” In 1901 though, the tremors of today can be gleaned by passages such as this:

[Read more →]

With little fanfare, but with local anticipation akin to a Harry Potter book release, Corda released the hounds, er, the budget to BOE members. The Advocate reports:

The $149.6 million total - $7 million more than this year’s budget -includes hiring additional teachers to meet an increase in the high school population and to serve special education students and English-language learners.

The latter programs, normally funded by state grants, now must be financed by the district, Corda said.

The budget also reflects teachers’ salaries, which are going up by $5.2 million, as well as health insurance and energy cost increases.

[Read more →]

Roodner Court is well known for a number of reasons, the least having to do with the fact that it is public housing. It’s the address that often appears on crime reports, the address that often is whispered as a place to score a drug, the census tract that leads the poverty charts. Roodner Court is short, has many known problems that have remained intractable for decades.

A convicted felon was arrested early yesterday on charges of carrying a loaded .357-magnum revolver after shots were reportedly fired at the Roodner Court public housing complex.

[Read more →]

The democratization of access to data continues to disturb those who discover that no area is left unmashed and repurposed. Mashing, a term very web 2.0, is when an application such as Google Maps is used to display data from another application. Let’s look at an example of this, chicagocrime.org. Everything you wanted to know about a crime in Chicago, right there in a google map. There are hundreds of others, crime just being one of those more easily produced since many police departments use GIS tools to combat crime. Another one, zillow.com, takes real estate sales data and listings and maps it out for you.

[Read more →]

For some, its a holiday. For others its a work day. For the latest in commentary its a slow news day. But that’s not to say that it’s an absent of news day. Dredging, the economy, and crime are the subjects in the local papers. But the tetth gnashing news was in today’s Washington Post, where the subject of superintendent pay packages was the topic of the A section. Naturally I had to read what they are saying about school systems in Maryland. First the graphic, then the article.

[Read more →]

Another 2 minutes of day light added, and another holiday of light posting. Hope everyone is out there enjoying the day with friends and family, but if you happen to check the blog today, we have the 12 Days of Christmas ready for viewing, imbibing the blog sense of holiday spirit.

[Read more →]

Most people think of “It’s a Wonderful Life” as that staple Christmas movie. But, for me it’s always been Miracle on 34th street.

ANd the Christmas Eve scrne, took awhile to find …

[Read more →]