John T. McCarthy, a retired diplomat who has made Woodbury his permanent home since 1996, is running for the Connecticut State Senate seat vacated today by the resignation of Lou DeLuca.

McCarthy worked for the State Department for over thirty years - primarily in Lebanon and Tunisia - and still does consulting work for the State Department; he has also served as Chairman of the International Save the Children Alliance.

Former State Senator Lou DeLuca wasted no time in demonstrating that - although his colleagues in Hartford may be through with him - he is not through with politics.

Today was officially his last day as a State Senator. But, rumor has it that he has thrown his support behind three-term incumbent Watertown Councilman Bob Kane, in opposition to State Representative Arthur O’Neill’s declared intention to fill his seat.

In a post in this space November 16, I said that Kane would not have the support of party and elected officials he would need to mount a campaign in the two months between DeLuca’s announcement and the special election in January 15.

If you’re a Norwalk resident, you can gain free admission to the Norwalk Maritime Aquarium this Saturday, as in tomorrow. From the Hour:

As thanks for the support of its hometown,the Maritime Aquarium is offering Norwalk residents free admission on Saturday as well as discounts on IMAX movies,food and Gift Shop purchases.

Norwalk residents can enjoy their favorite aquarium animals,the amazing “Adventure Under the Sea” exhibit, the new “Frogs!” exhibit and the sixth annual “Festival of Lighthouses” display … all at no charge. (Proof of residency is required.)

I have to admit when I first heard about this I just thought, wow that’s cool real live presidential candidates are coming to Connecticut for a debate. Alas, as I soon learned, it was actually going to be proxies instead. But still, an interesting format all the same. Having watched various televised debates, heavily scripted as they are, this would be a more free flowing debate style. One of the proxies, representing the Obama campaign is Norwalk’s Lex Paulson. Lex serves as the 4th CD chair of the Barack Obama campaign. So quite the Norwalk connection tonight. I’m not sure of Republicans in Connecticut are going to do something like this, but assume that its one of those regular presidential campaign.

By request, here’s a thread to add any events you want to publicize for December. Add them here and I’ll make sure they get added to the calendar on the new site.

It would appear that common council members of all political stripes are singing the same tune when it comes to the BOE. You could say it can be hummed along to “Meet Me In St. Louis”, since meeting with the council, long before Dr. Sal Corda sets pen to paper to bubble in his budget requests, would get the financial machinery in motion. Meanwhile Bruce Kimmel reminds his fellow BOE members that there’s this thing called the finance committee that needs to meet.

Will Susan Hamilton decide to do the right thing? Stay tuned. Your next opportunity apparently is Monday. A BOE meeting at 7PM.

With December right around the corner talk of snow is on the minds of DPW officials. Snow? We still get that? Yes, and in sufficient amounts to require street plowing, and the bane of snow free streets are, cars parked on the street, and snow pushed out from driveways onto the street. What I’d really like to know is how this will impact Osborne Ave. The street basically has an uneven rut running along its west side, offering may opportunities for a plow to catch a corner and then break. Maybe if the first taxing district could spend some money restoring the road instead of paying sacks of cash in the likely endeavor of putting some lawyer’s kids through college over Klondike park, this could be avoided.

After typing that headline, I was ready to list sculling results, but alas, echoing what DPW director Hal Alvord said, the CT DEP claimed the dam removal of a few years ago did not cause additional flooding.

From the Hour:

Building a dike, channel or other device to stem flooding along the Five Mile River would require a cost-benefit analysis, according to state and federal officials who toured the area Tuesday afternoon.
“It has to meet the cost-benefit (analysis),” said Chris Hatfield, a project manager in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ New England District Office, speaking to about 40 residents gathered at the West Norwalk Meeting House. “If the benefits outweigh the costs, the government can get involved.”

At long last I’ve upgraded and tweaked and have a mostly functional new blog to unveil. But I am not running Vista or IE 7, so I’m kinda curious as to whether it holds up or not. If you are running either of those, please let me know if anything garish happens.

The new site offers up some new features. Paged comments for one. But also the ability to edit your comments within 15 minutes. These features come at a price. My anonymous making IP address hack will not work on the new site. Let me know what you think, and if you have any suggestions post them here.

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.

How to put school board’s fiscal house in order

By BRUCE KIMMEL

It’s that time of year again. The various departments that comprise our municipal government are busy working on budget requests for the 2008-09 fiscal year. And, of course, that includes the Board of Education, whose budget makes up roughly 55 percent of the city’s total operating expenses. In order to avoid the acrimony and confusion that characterized last year’s budget debate, I would suggest the following: