I’m a broken record on this, a city such as Bridgeport must promote its assets, destination points, business successes. The strategy behind rolling out a campaign must also complement the creative presented to the public.
The city, in conjunction with the Bridgeport Regional Business Council, has financed a three-month marketing campaign with most of the dough dedicated to cable television. The city is investing $240K. The business community has raised $100K. To some this sounds like a lot of dough. In the big picture, it’s a modest investment. And it is an investment.
The city spends money on all kinds of crap, including millions through the years on lawyers for a variety of idiotic cases. That’s another story. [Read more →]
Hey, wake up! The general election is just two months away. What? You want to enjoy the Labor Day weekend without the annoyance of phone calls, mailers and blowhard political junkies like me?
Can’t blame ya. But it’s been awful quiet out there. That’s to be expected with an August primary. There must be a lull in the action, although there wasn’t much action judging from the pathetic August turnout. So now the attention switches to November and state and national media are picking up that freshman Congressman Jim Himes has a battle. [Read more →]
Anyone read CT Post reporter Keila Torres’ piece on recent city hires? A snapshot:
More than 100 jobs were added to the municipal and Board of Education payrolls from January 2009 to June 2010, the same time period during which city unions were warned of massive layoffs if they did not grant concessions to help balance the city’s budget.
In the 18-month period, 106 jobs amounting to more than $3.8 million in salaries were added to the city’s budget, not including benefits and pension contributions for the full-time employees. [Read more →]
So says developer Sal DiNardo who told OIB Monday afternoon he had divested himself of interest several weeks ago in a company (RemGrit) that controls the former Remington Arms plant on Barnum Avenue where city fire personnel are trying to contain a blaze that began on Saturday.
DiNardo says RemGrit was placed into bankruptcy court several months ago after he was unable to reach agreement with city officials on a condemnation plan that would have included the city forgiving millions in back taxes he says he inherited when he gained control of the company.
“The city can take the property,” DiNardo said. “I no longer have an interest in it. They should have let me tear it down.” [Read more →]
Strategy. Anticipation. Communication. Strong department heads. They’re all factors in effective governing.
Every few months we go around and around on this issue: what to do with the former Remington Arms plant on the East Side, controlled by developer Sal DiNardo, that caught fire (again) on Saturday.
The place is a shithole. It’s been a shithole for years. As I’ve written here before, if the city called Donald Trump, Steve Wynn, Bill Gates or General Electric and said we’ll give you this property, ya know what they’d say? No, thank you. Why? Because the clean-up is $5 to $10 million, depending what you do there, maybe even higher. [Read more →]
Okay, okay, turning this hotdog vendor into sausage has some of my friends thinking (they’re just as warped as me) hey how far is the state courthouse setback from the city sidewalk?
In other words, where does the city lose jurisdiction to the state? The Marzan family Snappy Dawgs cart was flagged by city police as a result of a protest by former city development director Nancy Hadley for pulling up its hotdog cart on the city sidewalk (where it had been for years). So why not pull the cart right up to the steps of the courthouse and draw a wiener line, or a mustard line, or a relish line, or any kind of line you wanna call it. I’m on state property, you colon heads, so until the state tells me to get lost I’m selling dogs to jurors and judges, and yes, all those lawyers that didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to be doing business here. [Read more →]
