The Battle of Gruman Hill: 93 East Ave. Survives Another Day

Norwalk preservationists have won a temporary injunction against the demolition of 93 East ave. That’s the easy part to understand after reading the actual ruling. But the world needs to keep lawyers employed, so the actual ruling is 11 pages because it has footnotes. Footnotes!

So let’s see if I can pry out the important stuff from the legal wordsmith.

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This is part of an ongoing series of guest posts about issues in Norwalk. yourCT.com is a non-partisan site dedicated to airing all sides of a issue. That can’t happen without valuable contributions from our readers.

Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?

By Maribeth Becker

After recent conversations, editorials and blog posts, I feel compelled to express an opinion about the issue of our youth. I don’t usually like to come forward like this because I think it’s more important to just keep my head down and work on issues, but I am greatly disturbed to hear people criticize a grassroots effort, challenge people’s motives for getting involved and suggest that other groups might be better equipped to handle this issue.

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Do I dare disturb the universe? That is the question that political flunkies should be asking before they leap blindly into decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. Today the Hour editorial page pompously declares:

It is promising, however, to see the Common Council’s Health, Welfare and Public Safety Committee come forward with a proposal to hold a forum on youth issues, aimed at reducing violence among city teenagers.

The hope is that the forum would bring together representatives of the schools, after-school programs, police, religious and other organizations to discuss ways of dealing with the problem.

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Who needs Hollywood writers when the Norwalk Police Department provides the storyline of the decade. If it’s about sex, somewhere, somehow, the simple act of criminal investigation gets derailed. Let’s rewind that allegorical video tape.

First we open with the Pagano Seafood, porn on computer shown to child in summer youth jobs incident. The NPD’s role in this was quite simple, investigate whether there was porn on a computer and whether it was shown to a minor. Pretty simple eh? But what happened? According to the police incident report, porn was found and then ….. nothing. Conspire your own conspiracy theories here, but keep in mind that politically connected individuals were in such cover their own asses on this that they failed to see the bigger picture here. Of course it always helps if people try to do the right thing in the first place, but I digress.

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Things look to be a tad more interesting on the State Senate Transportation Committee these days. The Hour reports;

The cause for a Super 7 highway found more prominent footing in a local lawmaker who will become vice chairman of the General Assembly’s transportation committee.

State Sen. Robert Duff, D-25, majority whip, announced the news Thursday he will head the committee but downplayed that particular cause — though his affection for it is well known — and said he would focus on statewide transportation issues.

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Wednesday’s planning commission report by the Advocate’s Alexandra Fenwick contained an important detail.

Before the city spends money on new projects, tax rates will already increase at least 1 percent due to interest on outstanding debt, Hamilton said.

For the first time in many years, Hamilton is advising that the city pay for a portion of its capital improvements by dipping into surplus funds from this fiscal year.

Hamilton is recommending that the city pay for the improvements with $11.6 million from the general fund and $2 million from the city’s $3.3 million surplus, and issue bonds to borrow the rest.

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Why do West Norwalk Nimbies oppose a golf driving range? For the record, Oak Hills totally needs a golf driving range so I don’t have to drive out of town in order to tune up my game. Anywhere else is fine too, but driving ranges and golf courses usually work better clustered together. Oak Hills operates as a municipal owned golf course. Thus, to have a municipal owned driving range would only increase revenue to the city. I guess Bill Krummel sees nothing wrong with demanding city money to prevent yards from getting flooded in West Norwalk, but opposes any means to raise revenue without taxing homeowners out of Norwalk.

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Today’s Hour previews the looming battle over appointments to the new ethics committee. In short, Bill Krummel says he can’t seem to locate any non-political people, presumably Democrats;

“Anybody who is interested in serving has served on the council or been active in party politics,” Krummel said. Barring past political activity “I don’t think it’s a realistic position and that’s one of the holdups. ”

Kelly Straniti says, “I think that, for both sides, it’s very important that we have people who are nonpolitical. We don’t plan to put up anybody who’s on the Republican Town Committee. We won’t put up any former candidates, campaign managers, etc., of course, either.”

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