C leaning off my desk to study for labor law, I came across this gem, from the Feb. 21 minutes of the Hartford 2000 Monthly Meeting:

C. Discussion Items

 

1. Mayor's Visit: Folks were glad that Mayor Perez came to the January meeting, spent so much time with us, and had prepared himself to answer our questions. We believe that the relationship between the Mayor and H2K has improved over the past year. Folks were, however, disappointed that he never reached the Group B questions and folks felt he had been less than specific in some of his answers. It was also agreed, however, that we need to be more assertive in focusing his attention on specific questions and in identifying what, exactly, we are asking him to do.

That says it all, really.

 

B aseball season approaches, and the Red Sox players showed today what a good labor organization can do for workers.

 

The Sox are slated to square off against the Oakland in Japan to open the season, but after learning that the trainers, equipment staff and coaches would forfeit a $40,000 agreed-upon bonus, the players voted to boycott the games. They beat management, and the support staff will now get more for a game than I made in the last two years. This is probably the first and only time you will ever this from me, and it hurts my fingers to type the words, but hooray for the Bosox!

 

Elsewhere around the globe, Vice President Dick Cheney is in Oman today fishing on the Sultan of Oman's yacht. The fishing in that part of the world is tremendous. He's over there calming the Sultan's fears of war with Iran and maybe to partake in Oman's glorious health care system, rated 8th in the world according to the World Health Organization. A guy with a heart like Cheney could use some help.

 

Obama's speech yesterday has the pundit class in accolades - the Times editorial board called it a Profile in Courage, ranking it rhetorically with something from Kennedy or Lincoln. I admit that I had tears welling up when I got to the end of his speech and was reading about Ashley and the old man.

 

More on Obama and Israel link...

 

I f I were a judge, I would probably have to recuse myself from writing about J. Stan McCauley and his firing from Hartford Public Access Television. I may be too close to the situation to write about it fairly. I probably shouldn't be poking a stick into this hornet's nest, either.

 

But after I read Dan D'Ambrosio's one-source puff piece in the Hartford Advocate last week about McCauley's internet television station hpatv5.org, and then when I went to Hartford Public Access' website, accesstv.org, and saw that it linked directly to McCauley's website, I said to myself that something was amiss, and I needed to explore it more.

Link...

 

Don't get too drunk. Here's a photo from the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge in Northern Ireland. I have to get back to studying.

 

 

This has got be a new record in audacity: Mayor Eddie Perez appears in 19 of the 21 photos printed in the latest edition of the Mayor's Update, that expensive, four-color glossy taxpayer funded advertisement for the city's chief elected official.

 

And in a new development, the Mayor's wife Maria is prominently featured. Look, there's the mayor with his wife three times, there's the mayor at three different ribbon cutting ceremonies, there's the mayor with a hardhat, there's the mayor on patrol with two cops, there's the mayor wearing a Starbucks barista apron, there's the mayor appearing to teach a young African-American boy, there's the mayor wrapped in the flag, there's the mayor taking the oath of office, there's the mayor taking a bribe.

 

No, woops, sorry. We don't have a picture of that last one, but certainly, the grand jury investigation down in New Britain is trying to develop an image of any wrongdoings that may have occurred on Eddie Perez's watch.

 

Of course, the latest in the collect-them-all series of "The Mayor's Update" makes no mention of the Mayor's legal battles. This frank features a message about the massaged crime statistics "Lowest Crime Rate in 30 Years," something we all know is not the truth.

Link...

 

Who counts the votes for Mayor Eddie Perez and his supporters at the Democratic Town Committee meetings?

 

Eddie won't say who his people are, but before the election for the coveted DTC chairmanship Tuesday, March 11 at City Hall, someone counted and figured out that Perez supporter Sean Arena needed a few more to win and succeed outgoing DTC chair and Perez lieutenant Noel McGregor.

 

Arena's opponent, challenger Jean Holloway, the executive assistant to City Councilman Ken Kennedy, had her team counting, and on Monday night, they calculated she had 30 votes out of 59 Town Committee members, enough to capture the powerful post.

 

But on Tuesday, Arena had the 30, Holloway lost her majority, and she withdrew her candidacy. So Arena won by default.

 

Holloway supporters were crying foul because two of her supposed "yes" votes from the Town Committee's Fifth District, Mamie Bell and Ludella Perry Williams, both resigned Tuesday under somewhat mysterious circumstances.

 

Replacing Williams was North End power broker and Perez ally Abe Giles and taking over for Bell was Giles' grandson Miles Wiles. Giles had resigned from the DTC a few months ago, and was replaced by his wife, Juanita Giles, who napped intermittently during the meeting Tuesday night.

 

Giles has testified in front of the grand jury investigation into the alleged corruption in Mayor Perez's administration.

Link...

 

En the days before the war, activists stuffed Hartford City Hall's second floor Common Council chambers. The protestors carried signs and filled the tiny room to the brim in hopes that their presence would embolden City Council to pass an anti-war resolution before the invasion of Iraq.

 

Unfortunately, then-councilor Elizabeth Horton-Sheff's resolution failed, 5-4. Mayor Eddie Perez didn't stand behind it, and some councilors, even though opposed to the war, said their duty wasn't foreign policy.

 

Fast forward to Monday, March 10, 2008, approaching the fifth anniversay of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and now Working Families Party councilmen Dr. Larry Deutsch and Luis Cotto put an anti-war resolution on the table, item #39.

 

This time, it was a normal Council meeting setting with a few dozen chairs empty in Chambers. A couple of anti-war activists like Green Party stalwart Dave Ionno sat quietly, without waving any signs.

 

But this time, the anti-war motion passed in a 6-0 vote with two abstentions.

Link...

 

The state of the city of Hartford is wonderful, just peachy, so long as you don't ask Mayor Eddie Perez or any of his department heads about the ongoing grand jury investigation into potential corruption in the Mayor's office.

 

Perez delivered a typically wooden state of the city address Monday night at City Hall to a standing room only crowd. His words touched on common themes - education, homeownership, job growth - and predictably ignored the elephant in the room.

 

The fact that dozens of city employees have been called to testify in front of a grand jury in New Britain about potential wrongdoing by the Mayor's office is not something the Mayor or his department heads like Corporation Counsel John Rose, Jr., Finance Department leader Tom Morrison or DPW chief Clarence Corbin will talk too much about.

 

"They are doing their job and I am doing mine," the Mayor said after his speech, in reference to the grand jury.

Link...

 

First time in a long time that I made first chair this morning at Mt. Ellen aka Sugarbush North.

 

We got rained off the mountain Saturday. The mountain website, which uses euphemisms like "non-crystallized precipitation" for such rain, on Sunday told would-be skiers to sleep in because the wind knocked down trees and the cold left a thick blanket of ice across the terrain.

 

So this morning, I knew I wanted to be there. On time. Here are a few more photos of cold and some greenwashing, too.

Link...

 

What are we to make of a chief executive officer of the state who sends out conflicting messages? This issue isn't going away as Gov. Jodi Rell's presses forward on her idea to eliminate billboards from state lands at the same one of her department's has purchased billboard space to promote energy efficiency.

 

I happened to come across a One Thing billboard in Stamford last week. It's funny. It was last Sunday afternoon, and I couldn't believe that laborers were hanging out on a chilly March weekend evening trying to find jobs. Who needs laborers on Sunday afternoon?

 

So I was concentrating on pulling onto the on-ramp and capturing an image of the labor pool men, probably not a safe driving move, but no less than texting while driving. When I downloaded the image, I saw it contained the bonus of Jodi Rell's Snow White mug.

Link...

 

The debate surrounding the GIVE Act in Congress this afternoon is a microcosm of the current stalemate in Congress, according to Rep. Joe Courtney, a Democrat from Connecticut's Second District.

 

The GIVE Act, or HR 2857, which should've pass Congress this afternoon but was pulled from the floor because of partisan bickering, is a $981 million or so appropriation that provides money for community service activities in many forms, like expanding AmeriCorps by 100,000 people, increasing a foster Grandparents Program, and creating a $20 million Summer of Service program, which was Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of New Haven.

 

Yet at the same time, the almost $1 billion for volunteerism here is merely a drop in the bucket compared to the $2 trillion price tag on the war in Iraq, the latest figure on the cost, according to Bob Herbert in the New York Times this morning.

 

The contradiction isn't lost on Courtney.

 

"I think it is an outcome endemic of a divided government," Courtney said. "That is the problem. There is a complete stalemate about changing course in Iraq that prevents better efforts for this country. Every effort to change policy has run into the math of the present Congress and the White House. We don’t have veto proof margins. We are really just able to redirect priorities in small increments."

Link...

 

This is the best we can do.

 

I joined about 40 other people in the Ayslum Hill Congregation Church Monday night for the monthly meeting of the Asylum Hill Problem Solving Revitalization Association (aka the NRZ), a regular ritual of frustration and futility.

 

This meeting didn't fail to disappoint. Unfortunately, I walked in a few minutes late, which I hate to do. I didn't miss much, though as NRZ chairman Bernie Michel gave the report for HPD Community Service Officer Jim Barrett.

 

Barrett, who is recently back safe and sound from his National Guard tour of duty in Iraq, unfortunately couldn’t be at the meeting. But if this meeting represents the kind of democracy we are trying to export to Iraq, he's better off in Mesopotamia.

 

I first heard Agenda Item number two, Judge Curtissa Cofield, who is the presiding judge at the Community Court on Washington Street. She discussed problems on the street and how her court deals with them.

Link...

 

The last week and a half has been full of law school (labor law paper due on how the National Labor Relations Board deals with e-mail - not to the employees' advantage, I assure you). But I have been mulling some stuff over that you might be interested in, and will have a column tomorrow.

 

In free speech world, Avery Doninger's lawyers argued before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan yesterday. Both Aldon Hynes and Andy Thibault have the goods.

 

Based on the questions I read from the three-judge panel, I fear they are leaning toward agreeing with the school douchebag and upholding the censoring of Doninger. It should go to the Supreme Court, where Doninger will probably lose. How much can we gag and blindfold kids and count on a Constitutional republic in the future?

 

UTC wants to buy Diebold. Gasp. Like George David needs any more money or influence.

 

Upcoming Civil Rights Events: Love Makes a Family will be having an organizing meeting at Asylum Hill Congregational Church Tuesday, March 11 at 7 p.m.

 

"Now is a critical time to be a part of the movement for Marriage Equality in Connecticut. Come join Love Makes a Family's Field team for an exciting discussion of:

* The status of the statewide campaign for equality
* The positions of local legislators
*Upcoming Events and Actions in the area

RSVP to Gannon at Gannon@lmfct.org or 860-525-7777 x314

Link to more stupendous student speech news...

 

The arrogance of power may lead to corruption, but for Eddie Perez, Johnny Law ain't too far behind.

 

In this morning's Hartford Courant, Jeffrey Cohen and Dan Goren explain how deep the state is digging into the Mayor's business. This doesn't sound like a fishing expedition.

State criminal investigators probing possible political corruption at Hartford city hall have asked for payment records related to the city's $1 billion school construction program — the first evidence of a connection between the investigation and the project.

The investigators have asked for and received payment records for Diggs Construction — the city's project manager on several school building projects — and for C&R Development, the construction manager for Noah Webster MicroSociety Magnet School, according to documents obtained by The Courant through a freedom of information request to the city treasurer's office.

The five pages of school payment documents, made available Tuesday by City Treasurer Kathleen Palm Devine, consist of computer-generated lists of payments. The payments to Diggs date from 2002 to 2004; the payments to C&R Development date from 2004 to 2007.

Four executives of Diggs Construction of Kansas, or their relatives, as early as April 2007, had given the Mayor a total of $1,000 in cash towards his re-election bid.

 

Joseph DeSanti, the local operations manager for Diggs, told the Courant he knew nothing. Mary DeSanti, possibly his wife, gave $250 to Perez.

 

The Courant quotes the man known for his obfuscation and silence, City Corporation Counsel John Rose Jr, as saying that "dozens of people from the city have been called to testify."

 

This probe is a drain on city resources and time. How many man hours of labor have been lost trying to determing the extent of Honest Eddie's dishonesty?

 

How long before we have Mayor Calixto Torres?

Link...