For some reason, there’s a fascination with garbage over in District B Democratic headquarters. Wait, do they even have a legal headquarters? Today the Hour reports that Bobby Burgess held a press conference to announce that he was angry. The Hour used “blasted” the press release said “Mayor of the city of Norwalk and others are engaged in a flagrant violation and contempt of the Freedom of Information Act due to continued non-compliance with the FOI request dated August 8, 2008.” Funny, the city of Norwalk’s response was pretty straightforward at the time. Something along the lines, of tighten up the scope please, and you are asking for many dead trees of stuff are you sure you want it.

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The New Haven Independent reports that former Branford Corporate Counsel, The Marcus Law Firm, is being sued by the Town for legal malpractice.

…This lawsuit comes against a backdrop of an ongoing political fight between two Democratic factions in Branford;…

It is not every day that a law firm gets sued, especially when the moving party is a town. Ed Marcus issued a furious statement aimed at the town for filing the suit. Specifically he targeted the town’s first selectman, Democrat “Unk” DaRos … DaRos regained his job in a three-way race last year riding in part on anti-Marcus sentiment.

[Marcus’] close ally, former State Sen. Bruce Morris, is married to Cheryl Morris, the candidate who beat [Republican John Opie] in 2005 and then tapped Marcus to become Branford’s town counsel. (Morris was the person DaRos subsequently unseated in 2007.)

Following this? It took me a few reads.
Complicated, but there is a whole lot going on here.
Marcus is a serious and dangerous opponent. That is why I’m not going to say much that might be characterized as critical of him, for fear of being sued. I’m not kidding:

Marcus said that after he successfully defends this “political lawsuit,” he will “unfortunately for the town seek damages against the Town and other parties that may be appropriate, for defamation, slander and the increase that may occur in our professional liability insurance.” He has made similar threats in the past.

Feel that - this is the real deal.
The Independent piece includes:

…the Marcus lawsuit, … may well shine light on the inner workings of the lawyering [in the subject case]. This could be accomplished through the discovery process, as the town seeks documents, emails and other material to establish its case. But Marcus gave every indication he would fight such a move. “We are not going to be bullied or intimidated by DaRos and company and we will do whatever is necessary to protect our position in this matter.” [Emphasis added]

This may prove to be a rare opportunity for us average folks to learn how the game is played. We’ll be following it closely.
Source: New Haven Independent.

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District B Dems, have “gone all in” on the latest political round of Texas Hold ‘Em. They delivered to City Hall a FOIA request that so broad that, well, let’s paraphrase, and then you can look at the actual document.

Please give us a copy of anything that contains the world trash in it, electronic or paper that anyone who walked through City Hall doors has received or created.

See for yourself:

dems-foi.pdf

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I’ve gathered all the trash posts into this handy list o links. Just to make it easier to find them all as various people piece together the story. Start at the bottom and work your way up.

http://www.yourct.com/new/2008/08/05/holy-confidential-batman-morris-blasted-for-meddling/
http://www.yourct.com/new/2008/08/01/norwalk-dems-need-to-look-at-the-real-trash/
http://www.yourct.com/new/2008/08/01/brown-reveals-morris-gave-her-crra-letter/
http://www.yourct.com/new/2008/07/31/brown-keeps-digging-a-hole/
http://www.yourct.com/new/2008/07/29/lionel-hutz-strikes-again-political-silly-season-arrives/
http://www.yourct.com/new/2008/07/25/norwalk-rtc-goes-after-brown/
http://www.yourct.com/new/2008/07/22/common-council-meeting-of-july-22nd/
http://www.yourct.com/new/2008/07/22/lawsuits-and-prayer-vigils/
http://www.yourct.com/new/2008/07/21/council-now-has-to-vote-tommorrow/
http://www.yourct.com/new/2008/07/18/transfer-station-hearing-thoughts/
http://www.yourct.com/new/2008/07/17/yet-another-public-hearing-on-a-garbage-contract/
http://www.yourct.com/new/2008/06/24/poop-happens-ii-and-more-on-garbage/
http://www.yourct.com/new/2008/06/23/the-truth-about-trash-and-nimbys/
http://www.yourct.com/new/2008/06/19/much-odor-about-trash/
http://www.yourct.com/new/2008/06/11/common-council-meeting-of-june-10th/
http://www.yourct.com/new/2008/06/10/biggest-whopper-of-the-year/
http://www.yourct.com/new/2008/06/04/trash-is-in-the-news/

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Today the Mayor held a press conference to announce that at long last, the Solid Waste disposal contract was signed with City Carting. Technically, the Mayor did it yesterday, but today he announced it. So no staged ceremonially signing. Instead, the Mayor was armed with documents and ain’t-got-no-statisfaction with State Rep. Bruce Morris. And Amanda Brown too.

“As you know we had a long process to determine who would handled our trash over the next five years,” explained Mayor Richard Moccia. Moccia explained that the contract was signed after a thorough review by Holland and Knight, the law firm hired by the Common Council.

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Galen Wells just had to write a letter to the editor published in today’s Hour. I will post it first, and then explain just how bad this letter is making Norwalk Democrats look.

Is dumping everything on South Norwalk latest strategy for GOP?

To the Editor:

On July 22, the Common Council voted to reject the mayor’s proposal to send all of the city’s garbage to the Meadow Street transfer station. With the mayor casting the tie-breaking vote, the council approved a bid by City Carting to transfer this garbage at the Crescent Street station. In connection with debate on the latter proposal, Democratic Councilwoman Amanda Brown read from a letter from CRRA citing its proposed cost per ton of garbage if the city decided to continue with CRRA.

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Quite the can of worms now wiggling out here. In responding to the FOIA request by Art Scialabba, Amanda Brown provided emails and voice-mail documentation that she obtained the CRRA letter she used on the floor of the Common Council meeting from State Rep Bruce Morris. Kinda interesting how that turned out since I outlined that this was the likely scenario last Wednesday.

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