Madeline Dennis, host of www.bridgeportintheknow.com, has launched a Facebook page urging attendance at Tuesday night’s public hearing at City Hall to address a proposed ordinance that would hike salaries for non-classified city employees. See link here.
Madeline has also issued a news release:
Protest City Ordinance Changes which will allow Mayor Finch to increase City Hall managerial salaries. Make your voice heard now before it is too late! This is to be voted on by City Council January 3!
On January 3 the Bridgeport City Council will hold a public hearing on a proposed amendment that will make it possible for Mayor Finch to put 79 non-union managers into higher salary range categories and allow the Mayor to raise their salaries up to as much as 15% above that range, a right he does not now have.
If you believe that Mayor Finch’s proposed salary amendment is fiscally unsound and your hard-earned tax money should be used elsewhere for the benefit of the city and its residents–Come make your voice heard and your presence known at that meeting. Or write to your city council person to express your outrage.
Mayor Finch’s recently proposed changes would increase the salaries of several members of his appointed staff, City Council president and other directors and managers into higher pay ranges and add eight positions to the existing list. Upped into a higher salary ranges will be City Council President Thomas McCarthy, who is also paid as the city’s deputy director of labor relations. Also to get higher salaries would be the Mayor’s Chief of Staff Adam Wood and Chief Administrative Officer Andrew Nunn.
A skeptical ordinance committee passed the proposed changes on to the council Dec. 28. A required public hearing will be Jan. 3 starting at 6 pm before the regular City Council meeting begins. Most likely the proposal will then move directly to be voted upon by the Council that evening.
Make your voice heard on this important issue:
● Come to the City Council meeting Jan 3 in the City Council Chambers, City Hall, 45 Lyon Terrace to speak or stand in protest against the salary ordinance changes. The public hearing on this ordinance begins at 6 pm. There will be a sign-up sheet available prior to and during the public hearing. Prior to closing the public hearing, the chair will ask if anyone else in attendance wishes to address the ordinance committee.
● Contact your city council person before Jan. 3 and let them know you are opposed to this ordinance change, and tell them not to vote for this. You might mention that in this time of record unemployment and municipal layoffs, these proposed changes by the Mayor are not fiscally sound and will take hard-earned tax dollars from the city budget to pay for big raises for high-paid nonunion workers.
Bridgeport citizens can make their opinions known! Don’t believe you can’t!
YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
*** As mentioned in an earlier comment, most members of the city’s ordinance committee are beholding to the city for their own or spouses’ city jobs with some in a supervisor position. Clearly a conflict of interest but then aren’t most of the other committees that decide and vote on city issues in the same boat? And where are the city workers’ unions on this measure? If given the time and effort in studying this admin. measure to make sure it’s not another “hole in the boat” taxpayers’ nightmare, this idea might benefit the city. However like other city admin. proposals it will be rushed through without much thought and end up in time costing the city big bucks in the future! Will there be a large outcry from “in touch” city taxpayers and union workers? Probably not. *** WELCOME TO ZOMBIELAND ***
OIBers should be out in force on this one.
Because City Hall is closed on Monday, how does one sign up to speak? Another barrier to overcome.
I want to post the telephone numbers of Council members so they can get called. Many of them are currently on the City website, and several are not current.
Carolanne,
See the earlier article. Bob Walsh posted all of the Council’s phone numbers.
Thanks for the coverage, Lennie. I hope some of your OIB pundants will come to the public hearing or write to their council members.
Carolanne, as I stated in my release, there will be a sign-up sheet available prior to and during the public hearing. Prior to closing the public hearing, the chair will ask if anyone else in attendance wishes to address the ordinance committee. You do not need to sign up before the meeting.
Here is the link to contact your council members: www .bridgeportct.gov/CityClerk/Documents/City%20Council%20Members/Ald-2011-2013amd2011-12-15.pdf
Dennis the Menace
Okay, thanks.
What’s the matter with you guys?
The Finch administration rolled over you like panzers through Poland only a couple months ago.
No one cares. Why bother?
Mandy’s got to be smiling from the beyond. Bill Finch has more control right now than John ever had with the Common Council. Why should anyone listen?
You should all be lining up for advance tickets for the ferryboat to Pleasure Beach.
Jim, you are wrong. I care.
For those who missed my previous post, home phone numbers and/or cell numbers for council members are:
Home: 203-335-1112
Susan.Brannelly@bridgeportct.gov
Cell: 203-450-1479
Martin.McCarthy@bridgeportct.gov
Cell: 203-727-4768
Leticia.Colon@bridgeportct.gov
Home: 203-612-6242
Denese.Taylor-Moye@bridgeportct.gov
Cell: 203-727-4850
John.Olson@bridgeportct.gov
Home: 203-331-0771
Mary.Brantley@bridgeportct.gov
Home: 203-449-6066
Tom.McCarthy@bridgeportct.gov
Home: 203- 338-0296
Howard.Austin@bridgeportct.gov
Cell: 203-650-5888
Michelle.Lyons@bridgeportct.gov
Cell: 203-610-7620
AmyMarie.Vizzo-Paniccia@bridgeportct.gov
Cell: 203-521-5559
Warren.Blunt@bridgeportct.gov
Home: 203-374-1302
Richard.Bonney@bridgeportct.gov
Home: 203-382-1199
Angel.dePara@bridgeportct.gov
cell: 203-338-1726
Carlos.Silva@bridgeportct.gov
Cell: 203-583-0776
Manuel.Ayala@bridgeportct.gov
Cell: 203-450-1221
Lydia.Martinez@bridgeportct.gov
Home: 203-371-1091
Robert.Curwen@bridgeportct.gov
Home: 203-373-9694
Richard.Paoletto@bridgeportct.gov
Home: 203-332-7559
James.Holloway@bridgeportct.gov
Home: 203- 334-3876
Andre.Baker@bridgeportct.gov
Office: 203-332-3009
Thomas.White@bridgeportct.gov
Start dialing for dollars.
Jim Callahan, you have sized things up in Bridgeport pretty good.
The biggest difference between Mandy and Finch is the number of city employees and families on the payroll.
The City Council is bought and paid for with taxpayers’ money.
So. If you know about these raises, can you imagine what you don’t know?
The city’s financial position is tenuous at best. I hope all of you plan to attend the January 12th hour presentation on municipal finances at the North End Library by John Marshall Lee and Andy Fardy. These guys attended almost every budget meeting last year and have taken the time to research the topic. A large tax increase is possible this spring so get informed and then get involved.
The Council people are up for re-election in less than 2 years. Some of them could be vulnerable, especially if they vote for these raises. I say keep up the pressure at every council meeting. Then pick your most vulnerable districts, put up credible candidates and attack, attack, attack. Even if we pick them off one by one it is a start.
So you’ll be at the hearing tomorrow, right?
city hall smoker // Jan 2, 2012 at 9:16 am
To your posting
chs,
Glad you have the day off …
Keep up your valuable postings for us … At OIB every opportunity is precious … DTC elections, city council elections and the voting public given a reason to vote.
I worry about Jim Callahan. We have to give him a reason to believe.
Happy New Year to OIB Friends … 2012 … let’s look at the opportunities upcoming … and focus on those having to do with money … Tuesday night the Ordinance Committee has scheduled a hearing where the public can come to listen, to question and to speak their minds. Most OIB posters speak their minds on this venue, but we need the Bridgeport residents and taxpayers to come before 6:00 PM and sign up to address the ordinance.
It appears to be a rush job. Shouldn’t our representatives take their time to understand what is being requested (rather than by whom it is being requested), how little real preparation has been done by the administration to lay the groundwork for the ordinance, and how little has been provided to the appropriate Committees of the Council???
For instance, where will the money for raises come from??? I think the City has said there is enough in the current year budget. Does the Council understand it is only because they have funded unfilled job slots in such great number in the past as well as provided dollars into accounts that sit unexpended for 11 months a year, that the money was there last year, and then again this year??? Is the Council well served by failing to know how June, 2011 closed out the last fiscal year??? Does the Council have a template with the location of all current employees (filled positions), potential employees (unfilled positions) and a modification that would bring those two templates up to date with what is proposed??? Does the CT Post? Does anybody??? How can you make a decision to spend public money without seeing where the funds will go and what is expected to change in return???
(I have raised an issue about City internal auditor function previously. Do we have such a person today? Who else makes up the internal audit staff claimed in City documents? Whom do they report to? What work have they been responsible for in the Finch years? Have all of their Charter/ordinance duties been met? Why does this list only mention an “assistant internal auditor?” To whom would such a person report and what duties would be expected?) That is only one of the positions. Need I say more?
So the approval of Committee and Council resolutions by the majority when they are confused or in doubt is only testimony to their willingness to be guided by trust in an administration that does not prove trustworthy. The interest of too many Council persons is financial and personal and that leads to bad decisions for the majority of people, whom they are supposed to represent.
What harm would occur if the administration had to wait for the Ordinance Committee to ask the Budget and Appropriations Committee to confirm where the money will come from and that it is affordable? Where is the backbone of our representatives? What problem is created in that educational moment when 19 Council persons realize they not only have approved unbalanced budgets for years (because of what is not funded currently but is still a cost) but that they also have regularly approved funds that get spent without their approval, oversight, review, comment, knowledge, intent, concern, and care for the best use of taxpayer funds???
And how many of them feel they are well equipped to exercise a valuable check and balance to our fiscal system of governance in the City??? Will anyone speak up to let me know they have a handle on $500 Million of annual spending and grander numbers of City liabilities??? Why not postpone this decision until after the City external audit of the 2011 year comes out in the next few days or weeks??? Even better, why not wait until the City budget is proposed as an entirety within the next two months??? That document should show where the people are and what is needed to run the City well. What is the rush, folks??? Who are we going to lose in the meantime and is that loss a concern to most of us???
Be there. Write your thoughts and feelings down now. Oration is not required. Well considered statements about your impressions of our current process, about solid consideration of overall City employment needs, and your dissatisfaction with City Attorney and Office of Policy Management spokespersons rather than the Mayor coming front and center to advance his own brainchild? I have watched him in person and on TV replay asking the Council members “what is your mind?” and it would be well for them to use their minds on this one.
What does your gut. your nose, and best of all your common sense tell you about this Ordinance??? Put it in words. Speak them to your Council persons. If enough people speak, the broad outrage will become apparent … and then we can really see what motivates Council people!!! Time will tell.