Tagged: Hartford

Hartford Gets $1.7 Million Fed Grant to Improve Pedestrian Access

How frustrating is it to residents in Norwalk when the only grants that ever get applied for are "planning" grants while other cities in Connecticut manage to land implementation grants?

 

Hartford: City Gets $1.7 Million Federal Grant For Street Improvements Near Union Station

The city has received a $1.7 million federal transportation grant to help improve pedestrian access to Union Station.

The grant will pay for improvements to a 1,620-foot stretch of Asylum and Farmington avenues. The upgrades will help create “safer, convenient and attractive routes to the station from surrounding residential, shopping and employment districts,” city officials said Wednesday.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Data Should Drive Policy

It’s always nice to see other cities adopt tech tools to inform policy decisions. Here’s the story from The Courant about Hartford’s initiative:

Influenced by statistics-driven management tools used in New York City, Baltimore and a few dozen other cities, Hartford officials are seeking to dramatically improve the way city hall responds to neighborhood problems.

The idea is to track complaints and create a priority system that consistently targets the worst areas with the most resources. But what if the list is so long that it outstrips Hartford’s budget-strapped agencies? Are we then back where we started? If Mayor Pedro E. Segarra were to lose in November, would the next administration embrace the data-driven management approach, the computer software that can measure the performance of city staff members, the monthly analysis meetings?

These are some of the unknowns as the city embarks on HARTSTAT, its own version of New York’s CompStat and Baltimore’s CitiStat.

“There are always going to be problems that outstrip resources, and there is always a need to improve response,” said David Panagore, Hartford’s chief operating officer and lead development official. He was appointed in 2008 and was retained by Segarra after the mayor succeeded former Mayor Eddie A. Perez in the summer of 2010.

“It’s not even about working harder. It’s about working smarter,” Panagore said. “It’s letting the data drive the allocation of resources; it’s working interdepartmentally — police supporting housing code, supporting public works, supporting, health, supporting fire.”

There are nearly 11,000 dots plotted on the easel-sized map in Panagore’s office. Each dot represents a complaint or a minor criminal incident logged at city hall or the police department in a 10-month period, from July 1, 2010 to April 30.

 

Of course in order to do this, you need to have tech savvy employees, which is not always the case in most governmental leaders who came of age in the era of rotary dial telephones, black and white television with three channels, and AM radio. Throw in an abacus and I think you get my point. The digital era, circa the 1980s through now, is the not merely the future it is the way the world works now.

Never breaking stride, Malloy makes candidacy official.

One week ago today, Dan Malloy officially became a candidate for Governor.
Video:


Malloy continued his torrid pace of appearances, appearing on WFSB’s Face the State, answering questions from panelists Daniela Altimari of The Hartford Courant, Ted Mann of The Day, and host Dennis House.
Video (thanks to ctblogger):


Malloy’s Sunday appearances included a conversation with Connecticut Newsmakers host Tom Monahan.
Video (thanks again to ctblogger):


There’s more after the jump…
Continue reading →

Hartford’s Adamowski Delivers Results

Rick Green had an interesting article about the Hartford School System. The opening salvo:

In Hartford, student test scores are up. More children are learning to read. New schools and innovative programs have opened across the city.

Why is Hartford’s cranky superintendent of schools fighting with so many people?

Steve Adamowski hit the trifecta the other day, sticking a finger in the eyes of top legislators, Commissioner of Education Mark McQuillan and other superintendents with his threat to abruptly shut down transportation for suburban children attending city schools unless he got more funding.

Significantly, Adamowski won the standoff. The state coughed up $3 million — after saying there was no more money.

“He’s just created another chapter of drama,” said state Rep. Andrew Fleischmann, co-chairman of the General Assembly’s education committee. “I’m tired of it. Defenders of the superintendent and his style have run out of explanations at this point. How do you explain a guy jumping up and stamping his feet, again.”

You explain it with the fact that Adamowski — in a city where it has been OK for poor children to fail to learn to read — delivers.

Much as I’d like to, I can’t argue with this.

“We don’t go around picking fights. Every one of these is meaningful,” Adamowski told me Monday during a conversation in his sparsely furnished office. We talked about the difficulty of bringing change to a school district that, when he arrived in 2006, spent $400 million a year to get the worst student achievement in the state.

“You have to judge us by the results,” Adamowski said. “How long do you want to live with an achievement gap which is the greatest in the nation?”

So what does this say about Norwalk’s Superintendent search? With the new BOE, there rests the opportunity to go for results oriented leadership in the superintendent position. Not someone sitting on the sidelines of Norwalk’s current administration. Read Green’s whole article, there’s some interesting stuff regarding unions in there.

source: Courant, Despite Conflicts, Adamowski Is Reforming Hartford Schools By Rick Green, November 24, 2009

Hartford Magnet Schools Get $12k Per Transfer Pupil From State

Wouldn’t it be nice if the policies that the state legislature came up with addressed the entire state instead of just focusing on the failure cities? From the Courant:

The state legislature voted Friday to give the city $12,000 for each out-of-city student attending one of its magnet schools, a lower figure than school officials had sought and one they said could cost them roughly $2.3 million this year.

“We kind of came up with a compromise,” House Speaker Christopher Donovan said. “Pretty much we’ve heard from everybody that they can live with that.”

The $12,000 represents a $1,054 cut from the school district’s request, but is nearly double what the schools received per student last year. City officials said the magnet schools were underfunded last year.

State Sen. Thomas Gaffey, D- Meriden and co-chairman of the legislature’s education committee, said the city suffered from a “credibility gap,” meaning that legislators doubted the $13,054-per-student request could be justified.Told of Gaffey’s skepticism, Christopher Leone, director of the district’s Regional School Choice Office, said the higher figure requested came from the state education department. The department’s spokesman, Thomas Murphy, said that the state arrived at the number in consultation with the city.

“We’re going to have to review where this leaves each of our schools,” Leone said, adding that “making cuts after the year starts” is “not as simple” as doing it beforehand.

Gaffey said that the school district’s numbers came with “excessive administrative costs” and “very large contingency reserves.” He also called the district’s efforts to rally parents this week “obnoxious.”

“Hartford’s going to have to prove its case,” Gaffey said, noting that $12,000 per student was “more than ample.”

“They’ve absolutely not proven their case in my mind or in the minds of the leadership,” he said.

The measure that passed Friday allows the school district to apply to the state for more funding this year for its magnet schools should it need to. But Sen. John Fonfara, who represents Hartford, said the per-student payment figure has to make sense. Right now, Fonfara said, the $13,054-per-student figure doesn’t.

Fuel Cell Moves Science Center Toward Power Self-Sufficiency

The Connecticut Science Center in Hartford moved toward power self-sufficiency Thursday when it received a fuel cell to generate electricity.

Constructed in South Windsor, Conn., by United Technologies Corporation’s UTC Power group, the device will produce 200 kilowatts of electricity when it’s installation is complete; enough to meet two-thirds of the center’s daytime power needs. Overnight, when the center’s power demand drops, the fuel cell will feed energy into the power grid.

CT Sci Ctr -- raised crane
The nearly 40,000 pound fuel cell was lifted off a flatbed trailer using a crane from Summit Crane Co. in Terryville, Conn. The crane had a capacity of 150 tons.

 The cell will be fueled with natural gas, but will not use combustion. Instead, the gas undergoes an electrochemical process that produces direct current electricity, heat and water.

At noon Thursday a crane was used to lift the nearly 40,000 pound fuel cell off a flatbed trailer and place it on a concrete pad outside the center. The center’s publicist, Edward Main, said it could take up to two months to complete the unit’s installation.

An overview page provided by UTC Power said it has installed more than 260 stationary fuel cells in 19 countries on five continents. A fact sheet from the center said employing the fuel cell will avoid the annual release of more than 270 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

CT Sci Ctr -- positioned
Employees of Keeney Rigging and Trucking in Glastonbury positioned the fuel cell as it was lowered onto a concrete pad outside the Science Center.

The center’s 154,000-square-foot building at 250 Columbus Blvd. opened in June. It’s adjacent to the Connecticut Convention Center and the Hartford Marriott Hotel.

The center’s web site says it was built “GREEN from the ground up,” and is projected to receive a LEED-certified rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. LEED stands for Leadership in  Energy and Environmental Design, and LEED awards are given to projects that show a high level of commitment to sustainability through design and operation.

CT Sci Ctr -- measure
Final positioning of the fuel cell required use of tape measures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Further information about the center can be found at its web site: ctsciencecenter.org.

Wall Street Is Being Repaved

With the weather finally co-operating repaving is happening all over town. Hartford however provides the cautionary example of what happens when a contractor fails to adequately mark obstacles such as manholes and pits with cones or barricades. 

Heather Machado was driving her minivan home from her second-shift nursing job at Hartford Hospital three years ago when she crossed Park Street — which was under construction — went airborne and totaled her car. She sued the city in small claims court, where she could get no more than $5,000.

But the city decided to transfer the matter out of small claims to civil court. It lost, and was ordered to pay Machado nearly $9,684. The city then appealed, saying the accident was the fault of the street contractor it hired, not the city.

Last week, the state’s Supreme Court ruled otherwise.

And now, instead of the $5,000 the city could have at most been on the hook for in small claims court, the city could be out more than $60,000. Machado’s attorney says the city owes him roughly $54,000 in legal fees, in addition to the original trial court judgment due his client.

“Factually, it was the worst possible case the city could have picked to test the law,” said Neil Johnson, Machado’s attorney. The city, he said, was clearly at fault. “There were no lights, no warning signs, no little swirly things, no tape, no nothing. It was dark.”

The city would not discuss the case.

According to a unanimous ruling officially released July 7, the trial court found that Park Street was defective, the city knew it, and it failed to act. It also concluded that although the fault may have been with USA Contractors, the city was still “100 percent liable for the plaintiff’s injuries because USA was the defendant’s agent,” the Supreme Court ruling said.

source: Courant, City’s Appeal Might End Up 10 Times As Costly, By JEFFREY B. COHEN, July 10, 2009

Thinking Big

Over at the Courant, Colin McEnroe waxes poetically about 1934, the year, and Hartford, the city.

Buckminster Fuller’s teardrop-shaped, three-wheeled Dymaxion car pulled up on Hartford’s Main Street and out climbed actress and socialite Dorothy Hale, the writer Clare Boothe — both in shimmering dresses — and the sculptor Isamu Noguchi. At an after-party over on Scarborough Street, composer Nicolas Nabokov pounded out Russian folk songs on a piano while writer Archibald MacLeish sang, and there was some kind of scuffle involving composer Virgil Thomson, sculptor Alexander Calder and art dealer Julien Levy. Hartford’s own Wallace Stevens looked at all the “people who walked around with cigarette holders a foot long, and so on” and pronounced them “asses of the first water.” Walking among them was a very nervous young man named John Houseman, making his first stab at the world of theater.

It was Feb. 7, 1934.

The man who made it all happen — and I’m just scratching the surface here — was A. Everett “Chick” Austin, the director of theWadsworth Atheneum, who had arranged for Thomson andGertrude Stein’s opera “Four Saints in Three Acts” to make its world premiere in the atheneum’s theater. It coincided with Austin’s opening of America’s first-ever full retrospective of the work of Pablo Picasso and the opening of the museum’s new Avery wing.

Austin was some kind of indomitable maniac, not the least bit troubled by two huge obstacles to this huge night.

This was the Great Depression.

This was Hartford.

Hartford was a tough sell even then. The year before, Austin had somehow persuaded a fellow named George Balanchine, who was preparing to leave Russia and the Ballets Russes, that Hartford was the perfect place to relocate, to live, to work, to start his School of American Ballet. Balanchine actually showed up in Hartford, intending to do just that!

When he got there, the city was … smaller than he had imagined somehow. And, hilariously, the local Hartford dance schools were up in arms about the idea that some Bolshevik was going to drain their business. (Especially short-sighted were the Angelo sisters, Mary and Carmel, who ran a ballet studio in the city and also sold ballet slippers, which would have been a good business to be in, a few blocks from Balanchine.)

Anyway, the great dance master left, but he came back later and premiered new works at the atheneum in December 1934. This time, George Gershwin and Salvador Dali made the Hartford trip.

The last bit about the Angelo sisters and the local dance schools strikes that still present familiar chord doesn’t it? The timing of McEnroe’s article might have something to do with this the mood up in Hartford when it comes to Arts funding, encapsulated in another Courant article. 

To balance the state budget, Gov. M. Jodi Rell has proposed eliminating about $30 million in state arts and tourism grants to local government and arts institutions over the next two fiscal years. Rell has also proposed collapsing the state Commission on Culture and Tourism into the Department of Economic and Community Development. The extent of the cuts will not be clear until final budget proposals are worked out with legislative leaders this summer.

Support for the Arts has become increasingly a public service type of thing. Finding funding from the same sources that venture capital people hunt through is an economic competition that pits clown fish versus shark in chum filled waters. Not a pretty site.

In Hartford, the Hartford Stage, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art and the Hartford Symphony Orchestra have all announced cutbacks that include leaving job vacancies open, remaining closed an extra day a week and cutting the salaries of top executives.

Arts groups are particularly concerned about Rell’s proposal to fold the state’s Commission on Culture and Tourism into the Department of Economic and Community Development. In the past, the bulk of federal grants for the arts were funneled through the independent commission, and it’s unclear whether another state agency will qualify to receive federal grants.

Federal arts grants are also predominantly matching programs, meaning the federal government matches dollars spent by the state. But with Rell proposing a sweeping cut in state art grants, Connecticut would no longer qualify for the federal portion of the grants.

Local arts groups say almost $12 million in proposed cuts to statewide and local tourism marketing will also deeply affect the arts.

“It’s important to realize that tourism cuts are almost as bad as direct cuts to arts groups because without those funds, I can’t support groups like the Farmington Valley Visitors Association,” said Martin Rotblatt, the executive director of the Farmington Valley Arts Center in Avon. “They are one of our best ways of letting everyone know about arts events.”

source: Artists Brace For State Budget Cuts: Reduction In Funding Hurts Many Ways, by RINKER BUCK, July 4, 2009

Hartford: Tree Wise opens on Friday, March 20th

From a press release:

Hartford Children’s Theatre’s partners with 

The National Theatre of the Deaf in “Tree Wise”

2008/09 Family Mainstage Series Featured at St. Joseph’s College


(Hartford, Conn. – February 2009) – Tree Wise, a production for all ages, offers audiences the opportunity to experience the profound beauty of sign language in theatrical art form. 
A collaboration between Hartford Children’s Theatre and the National Theatre of the Deaf’s Little Theatre of the Deaf, Tree Wise opens on Friday, March 20th at the Carol Autorino Center for Arts and Humanities on the campus of Saint Joseph College in 
West Hartford.  
 
Presented by Lincoln Financial Group Foundation, Tree Wise, adapted by Garrett Zuercher from the book by Antionette Abbomante, tells the story of Reed, a boy who has deaf parents, on his first day at school. Through the help of a very special tree, Reed learns how to help his classmates understand more about deaf culture.  Not only do the boy’s new friends learn, the tree teaches the audience some basic sign language in this fun, interactive, brand new play. 

The Tony Award-winning National Theatre of the Deaf, a professional ensemble of deaf and hearing actors, is a highly regarded theatre company. Founded in 1967, the National Theater of the Deaf is the oldest continually producing and touring theatre company in existence in the United States.
 
See, hear and imagine as Little Theatre of the Deaf, the family/children’s theater wing of the National Theatre of the Deaf, combines the spoken word with the visually dramatic American Sign Language. Audiences will see and hear every word of a language that is for the eye, ear and mind.  
 
Performing in American Sign Language and the spoken word, Little Theatre of the Deaf creates a dramatic new art form; watch as words leap from their hands into your hearts. For those who know sign language, it entertains and adds to the pride of knowing the beautiful language of sign.  For those who don’t know sign language, it educates as well as entertains by providing an opportunity to learn some signs and have a greater understanding and appreciation of the third most used language in the United States. 
 
Aaron Kubey, executive director for National Theatre of the Deaf, is directing the play.  Four of HCT’s talented students, Thomas Beebe, Madison Chappell, RossAndre LeGrier and Sophie Puriton-Estey, will be acting along with the adult actors from Little Theatre of the Deaf.  
 

“We are extremely excited about our talented cast of youth working with the world-renowned Little Theatre of the Deaf. This important collaboration meets the mission of both organizations to reach and expose more families to experience the beauty and fun of sign language acting and the thrill of live theatre,” said HCT Executive Director Dulcie Giadone. 
 
The 2008-2009 Family Mainstage Series also includes Len Jenkin’s adaptation of Beverly Cleary’s mischievous Ramona Quimby, directed by Daniel Fine, which will run during the first two weekends in May.
 
Subscription tickets for the two remaining productions are now available at a discounted rate: adults $32 each, children 13 and under $24 each; students currently enrolled in HCT programs $20 each. Individual tickets are also available for each show: adults: $18 each, children 13 and under $13 each and HCT students $10 each. Showtimes are 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday evenings (March 20-21, 27-28); 2:00 p.m. matinees on Saturday (March 28th only) and Sundays (March 22nd and 29th). A talk back session will be held following the Saturday matinee.
 
Reserve your tickets today by calling the box office at 860-249-7970, ext. 12 or visit www.hartfordchildrenstheatre.org <http://www.hartfordchildrenstheatre.org> to download a series subscription brochure. Weekday matinee performances are also available for school groups during each show run. 
 
The mission of Hartford Children’s Theatre is to enrich the lives of the children of Greater Hartford by providing access and exposure to high quality theatre for young audiences and related educational opportunities. 

Hartford Mayor Perez Stung By Bribery Charges

According to the Courant, Hartford Mayor Edward Perez will join a long line of Connecticut politicians when he is arrested as a result of a 15 month grand jury investigation into bribery. The contractor that performed $20,000 worth of kitchen and bathroom remodeling work was already arrested in connection with the case.  The Courant reports:

Perez said he has no plan to resign or temporarily step down while he faces the charges brought by the chief state’s attorney’s office in Superior Court. Santos said he did not know whether more charges were forthcoming.

State criminal investigators have been interested in Perez since early 2007, when news first surfaced about a controversial, no-bid parking lot deal the city gave to former state Rep. Abraham L. Giles. In October 2007, their interest was formalized with the formation of a state investigatory grand jury — a secretive court body led by one judge and with the power of subpoena.

That grand jury has since seen two extensions and is set to expire in April. But while the investigators’ interest is known to have expanded well beyond the work done on Perez’s home, it’s that work that has landed him in legal jeopardy.

State criminal investigators searched Perez’s home on a mid-August day in 2007. Two days later, on Aug. 16, Perez admitted that he had hired a city contractor to do what he said was $20,000 in kitchen and bathroom renovations. The work was done without proper permits and some of the work was done by an unlicensed contractor.

Costa completed most of the work in 2006, and Perez said he looked into a mortgage to pay for the work in 2006. But it wasn’t until early 2007 that Costa billed him $20,217, Perez said. He said he paid Costa in July 2007 — after investigators had begun asking questions.

Reached in his office Monday, Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane declined to comment.

Gerace said he has told Costa, his client, not to worry.

“I feel that Carlos is in a great position to prevail here, and I’ve told him not to worry,” Gerace said. “His conduct was minimally offensive in the whole scheme of things.”

Santos said he will seek a speedy trial that could bring the mayor before a jury within to two to three months.

Connecticut once again earns its reputation as Corrupticut. The issue in short is that Perez hired a city contractor to do work on his home around the same time that the contractor was having trouble completing a $5 million Park Street streetscape job. See the timeline here. Forget about the part where the billingon the project in Perez’s home was delayed. Forget about whether the contractor even had teh necessary licences to perform the work. Forget about the lack of permits filed to even do the work in Perez’s home. Hiring a city contractor to do work, with no documentation, is the problem here.

source: Courant, Hartford Mayor Perez Facing Bribery Charges, Will Turn Himself In Today, By JEFFREY B. COHEN And MARK PAZNIOKAS, January 26, 2009