Joe Ganim is calling on the Finch administration to provide daily crime statistics following a question raised by Wednesday night’s debate moderator Ken Dixon of the Connecticut Post. Every Friday police officials meet with media representatives to review crime statistics.
Ganim also unveiled his plan to have essential departments staffed during work hours to provide greater citizen access.
More from Ganim news release:
“When violent crimes are spiraling out of control, your concern shouldn’t be about controlling information,” says Ganim. “It should be about providing information in a timely, daily manner so people can protect themselves. It’s something this administration repeatedly fails to do.”
During the debate Dixon himself also lamented the lack of crime statistics availability ahead of the election. The mayor stunned the audience when he replied to Dixon’s queries by stating, “I have three opponents,” clearly adding he viewed Dixon’s concerns as hostile and thus Dixon is also his opponent, in addition to Ganim and Mary-Jane Foster.
Ganim also plans to retool City Hall’s hours to reflect the lives and the needs of the residents who need to obtain permits for a whole host of reasons, from construction permits, to marriage licenses and birth certificates.
“The fact is that people are working longer and harder than ever these days,” says Ganim. “City Hall needs to recognize that and provide services to them at times when it’s convenient so residents don’t have to leave work just to get permits that they need from government only because the government requires them in the first place. It just doesn’t make sense. There’s a better way.”
Ganim pointed to the fact that calls for construction inspection appointments, mechanical, plumbing and electrical questions can only be answered between 7:00-10:00 in the morning. Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing Permit Applications are only accepted in person between 8:00 and 9:45 in the morning. Building Permit, Sign and Demolition Applications Accepted 8:00 am 3:30 pm. And when you’re seeking a marriage license, you have to be in line by 4:30.
Ganim pointed out that his plan will not increase labor costs for the city because workers will be placed on a rotating flex schedule. This will also allow city workers to also do the things they need to in their private lives by providing them regular opportunities to work more cooperative hours.
“The people that work at city hall are truly dedicated public servants,” Ganim said. “They just are lacking the proper leadership needed to best serve our citizens. By making City Hall more flexible we don’t just make it more convenient for people, we create more growth opportunities.”
Exciting stuff, Joe! You want to discuss economic development and how you plan on lowering the taxes via development? Changing city hall hours? What, in the 12 years you were in office it never occurred to you??? Seriously, WILL THIS BE DISCUSSED ON NEWS 12 AS A MAJOR DEVELOPMENT? 🙂
The Finch administration has been limiting everyone’s access to information, not just the news media. Members of the Common Council have been told to pursue FOI requests for public records they need to make informed decisions regarding public policy. The Finch administration, for all of its self-aggrandizement, is still hiding more than a little from the public. This is not right, not moral, and clearly not legal. It is going to come back to haunt the mayor’s re-election campaign.
You may be correct Bridgeport Kid, but when I talk to residents who are supporting Bill Finch, not one person mentions transparency and police reports. I think Mayor Finch realizes he needs to make a few improvements. I think Ganim’s past will haunt his election campaign and Mary-Jane Foster is still fighting with name recognition. Everybody has their own cross to bear as the saying goes. We are all on a different journey.
If the Finch people you’ve spoken to haven’t said anything abouttTransparency and police reports, it is due to ignorance, willful or otherwise. These are important issues to a majority of voters in Bridgeport. To ignore them is just plain stupidity.
Well, we all know Finch/Wood knows stupidity.
“Finch needs to make a few improvements,” eh? That’s as disingenuous as Joe Ganim’s claim he “made a few mistakes.”
Full disclosure, Carolanne Curry is really Maria Pereira. She is embarrassed to come back after she left in a huff the other day! 🙂
Great, innovative stuff, Joe. You are showing real proof your experience during 12 years in City Hall–and your hiatus/sojourn since then–has made you a very, very smart leader and administrator (one who can keep his cool in the heat of the moment, unlike your soon-to-be predecessor, who suffers from impulsiveness and poor judgment, railing at the legitimate questions of the media/moderators during public, high-profile debates, which kind of reminds me of Khrushchev banging his shoe on the podium at the UN during the Cold War.)
Keep up the good work, Mayor Ganim! (When you’re mayor, I won’t have wait more than 30 minutes for BPD to answer a DWI accident on Lakeside Drive (with injuries and an assault by the intoxicated Sacred Heart University students–on a late Friday night in mid-September, 2012). (IT ONLY TOOK THE FINCH ADMINISTRATION ONE YEAR AFTER RE-ELECTION TO DROP THE BALL ON PUBLIC SAFETY/COMMUNITY POLICING AND LET THE BPD UNRAVEL.)
Speaking of Lakeside Drive, I have to put up six. That is six different houses, not one house with six signs. 🙂
Who cares, Steven? Signs don’t win elections.
Kid, you are 100 percent correct, I was just kidding my friend Jeff.