A chart, ye gads, now I have something to rant about! And let’s start with this 1 through 6 listing of the 10 largest cities in Connecticut.

10 largest cities (2005 est.):

1. Bridgeport, 139,008

2. New Haven, 124,791

3. Hartford, 124,397

4. Stamford, 120,045

5. Waterbury, 107,902

6. Norwalk, 84,437

7. Danbury, 78,736

8. New Britain, 71,254

9. Bristol, 61,353

10. Meriden, 59,653

And now let’s look at the same list but by proposed 2009 “do nothing” budget spending from Hartford.

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Fresh from the fields of finance, the operating budget. Overall a B+. The members of the BET, Common Council and BOE deserve some kudos for keeping the budget within the umbrella of inflation. That’s been no easy feat considering revenues these days are somewhat precarious. So the Hour identifies the following:

Look for several more police officers and firefighters, but otherwise restrained spending in the $273.7-million operating budget headed toward adoption by the Board of Estimate and Taxation.

On May 5, the Board of Estimate is set to adopt the city’s 2008-09 operating budget.

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Tonight the ordinance committee will consider adopting some sort of path to getting the BOE to meet on a regular basis. This was the idea behind the movement last year, which resulted in … no meetings. Mostly due to Corda being unavailable. Alexandra Fenwick reports:

A Common Council committee tonight will consider whether to create a joint panel with the school board to improve communication.

Better cooperation is a perennial topic that tends to come up at the end of budget season.

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Last night I attended the Republican open meeting. It was well attended by a mix of the old, ruh-roh some may take offense to that, and the new. The new people were the focus of course, since registration in the Republican party has been declining in Norwalk for a number of years. It’s not much help that the national field of Republican flavor is so inexcusable. But like Christine Todd Whitman has said, it’s my party too.

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But wait there’s news out there. But a tight schedule reduces me to provide this hillarious youtube clip instead:

More news later, and stay off the crime.

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