The full operating budget is online at the city of Norwalk web site. Here’s the link: 2009 Operating Budget
The Common Council has until February 26 to set the budget cap. The Hour reports that they will be accepting written comments till then. So who to send comments to?
Michael K. Geake 722-8909 mike@mgeake.net D
Richard A. McQuaid 838-0454 ricksly56@yahoo.com R
Amanda Brown 545-4706 amanda.brown1000@yahoo.com D
Douglas W. Sutton 846-9862 dsutton@optonline.net D
Fred A. Bondi (Council President) 853-0793 fabondi@att.net D
Council Members in District A
Representing residents of Central Norwalk
Steven Serasis 451-0463 floppy71@optonline.net D
Richard Bonenfant 838-7751 rjb989@aol.com R
This is a sweet short film, part of the portable film festival, which on name alone, is a wonderful concept. The portable film festival is just like any film festival except that its completely online designed to be distributed via portables — iPods, mobile phones and laptops. Which means that the Dick Tracy TV watch is about here, and how cool is that? To really get the impact of that last bit, think of how hard its been to get a movie out to be seen by the public.
The absence of Monday Night Football will not be missed when the Norwalk City budget becomes a political football. The BET will hold a meeting on the operating budget review.
Last year, the BET approved a $262.3 million spending plan for the current fiscal year, a $12.5 million, or 5 percent, increase on the previous year’s budget.
The 2007-08 budget required a $207, or 3.9 percent, tax increase, resulting in $5,458 in taxes for the owner of a median single-family home in the central Fourth Taxing District, where residents receive all city services. The previous year, taxes were raised 3.6 percent.
At the Monday night BOE meeting, it was announced that Karen Lang the embattled Director of Curriculum is to resign at the end of the school year. Could it be related to the dismal state of instruction in our Norwalk schools? Maybe. Or maybe the weird relations that keep cropping up is just another ice berg that Corda is suddenly trying to avoid.
Tom Hamilton sharpened his pencil and reduced the department requests to the capital budget. Below for your enjoyment:
(click the full post for the last two columns, some weird display problem here)
If it comes from MUNIS, the City of Norwalk accounting system, it is a fantasy number. With this startling response to queries by Fran DiMeglio and Torgny Astrom, DPW director Hal Avlrd set the tone for the DPW part of the capital budget review last Wednesday night.
Granted, to some extent the way in which projects get executed play a big role in when funds disperse from the city coffers–but, the problem here wasn’t that commissioners didn’t understand that — after all they’ve collectively been approving capital budgets for years. This is why some specific line item requests seemed to stick in the craw.
Apparently the Historical Commission reached for new levels of incompetency with the latest retrenchment to protect errant curator Sue Gunn. Rather than looking at the operation of both the Museum and the commission as a business, the politics of stupidity have joined forces to further kill off any hope of normal business decisions.
I will be writing more on this subject, but business stuff rules my time today, and it would take too long to deliver my rant about our local Island of Misfit toys. I hope that the political flunkies are happy with this there decisions these days ….
anonymous 58: Too much pot kettle for me to... 
