Tonight, room 231 7 PM, the Public Works Committee of the Common Council meets. The agenda is below:
PUBLIC INPUT
APPROVALS/AUTHORIZATIONS
1. Approve the Minutes of the Public Works Committee meeting of Tuesday December 4, 2007.
DISCUSSION
2. Projects - See attached project status sheet.
3. Tentative schedule update – stormwater-related work.
4. Update on solid waste disposal efforts.
5. Update on recycling efforts.
6. Overview – 2008-2009 DPW Capital budget submission.
OTHER
7. Action on any item discussed herein.
8. Next Public Works Committee Meeting: Tuesday, February 5, 2008
DPW Library, Room 225, Norwalk City Hall
Notice what’s not on the agenda? Why, it’s a status of snow removal and sidewalks. One of the things DPW director Hal Alvord is supposed to be reporting to this committee. The question we must ask is what is Chairman Bill Krummel’s involvement in preparing this agenda. The last minutes posted to the city website is for August 7th. Apparently none of the other committee members bothered to alert Krummel that perhaps, following the blatant disregard for clearing snow form sidewalks, that maybe he should put such an item on the agenda.
Those committee members are, ruh-roh, the city website lists the 2005-07 council members. Transparency and accountability in government begins with actually posting minutes and committee assignments on the city web site. Which includes the minutes to the Common Council meeting of November 20th, which references the appointments to committees as “5. Appointment of Committees See attached.”
Well, if something is stated as “see attached” wouldn’t a link to the attachment be helpful?
One of the things I’d like to compile this year is the attendance record and voting out of committee record of Common Council committees. It’s something that might be handy around election time when it comes to deciding to vote for any incumbent Common Council candidate. Naturally, there are those who might not want that level of scrutiny, and others who would welcome it because they might have pride in disclosing what they accomplish.
Let’s see how quickly we see minutes updated and attendance records posted.
Meanwhile, it is budget season and the topic for tonight that might be of interest is the budget of DPW. Naturally, West Norwalk hit the Hour with a PR campaign on 200 residences who experience flooding … in their yards. True, all flooding is of a concern, but let’s put all of the flooding issues into perspective. Critical flooding is where the flood waters, enter residences. And when you can see water spraying up in geysers from those clearly labled as Norwalk sewer manholes, well then figuring out the number one priority for flooding discussion is rather easy. Committee members would do well to ask how it is that recent flooding has gotten to this state by drilling through the details of how many pipes were examined either by video camera or smoke tests, what the status of illegal storm drainage to the sewer system stands and what meetings have been held between the DEP and the US Army Corp of Engineers. Maybe even a written report of those meeting might be something the council members should be asking about. We don’t know if they managed to ask for such reports, because naturally, the December 4th meeting minutes were not posted. Here’s the preview article I posted on the topic, which naturally links to the March 2007 committee meeting article I wrote contemporaneously to the only time someone drilled for detailed data. That would be Mayor Moccia, who was approaching the issue through an examination of the budget. The committee has had basically a year to follow up with more oversight.
I can’t imagine that they’ve managed to do a better job considering that the snow removal, and actually general cleanliness of sidewalks proved to be a glaring problem. But let’s hope for a surprise tonight, it’s a new year and a new committee roster. Let’s see someone step up to the plate.
