Hernan Illingworth, a supporter of Mayor Bill Finch, is the seventh appointment made by acting State Education Commissioner George Coleman to the state-controlled school oversight board. He is the outgoing president of the Parent Advisory Council. Illingworth is the second Finch campaign supporter Coleman has named to the board. Finch’s campaign treasurer Kenneth Moales is also a member. Coleman caught heat from a variety of sources including the mayor for not appointing a Latino to the board. The mayor issued the following statement regarding the appointment:
“The appointment of Hernan Illingworth to the newly constituted Board of Education by Commissioner Coleman is great news for the future of our schools in Bridgeport. Mr. Illingworth is a Bridgeport resident and parent of a child in Bridgeport schools who has demonstrated passion and leadership for education reform as a Parent Advisory Council (PAC) President. I’d like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to Hernan, and commend Commissioner Coleman for this appointment.”
The mayor’s campaign site www.finchformayor.com features the following testimonial from Illingworth on the mayor’s behalf:
“Being both the Mayor and a father to children in Bridgeport Public Schools puts the Mayor in a unique position. His commitment and dedication to improving education shows.”
Who is Illingworth? Linda Conner Lambeck of the CT Post reports this:
Acting Commissioner George Coleman named Hernan Illingworth, the outgoing District PAC as the seventh member of the newly constituted Bridgeport Board of Education, a week after Hispanic leaders criticized the panel for lacking a voice to represent more than 40 percent of the student population.
Coleman met with Hispanic leaders Tuesday at St. Luke and St. Paul Church. Illingworth has tried to win a spot on the board three times, first last winter when a spot opened up. He was planning to run this fall before the school board was put in the hands of the state. He also was one of 53 individuals to seek appointment to the new board, but apparently was passed over in the first round.
Last week, Illingworth, along with Korene Garcia, who is the new District PAC president, co-wrote a letter decrying the lack of a Latino and a parent. Illingworth fulfills both requirements. He has a daughter who will be a freshman this fall at Central Magnet and the district’s regional Aquaculture school.
Illingworth said he got a call late in the afternoon Tuesday telling him he was on the board. He was not expecting it but said he is up for the challenge. In addition to being a voice for the district’s large Hispanic population and for parents, Illingworth said he brings a sense of reality to a board that includes several business folks, a college professor, a minister and charter school advocate.
The board will start with a two-day orientation session, beginning at 8 a.m. Thursday in Room 287 of Beacon Hall at Housatonic Community College. They will also hold a business meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday, August 23, at Geraldine Johnson School.
Surprise, surprise. Yes this is indeed the most corrupt State in the US. To the career politicians: Have you been watching the public reactions in Greece, Italy and England? Are you next?
Vote Bill Finch for Mayor.
All I can say is: “Surprise, surprise. Yes this is indeed the most corrupt State in the US. To the career politicians: Have you been watching the public reactions in Greece, Italy and England? Are you next?”
Not a chance.
“Despite cuts in state funding, Mayor Finch has done what no other city government has been able to do–balancing the city budget while holding property taxes down.” Good job Mayor, you have earned my vote once again. I smell victory September 13, 2011.
Great answer, NORTH45, maybe I missed it but did you say the mayor is up to date in making payment to Pension Fund “A” to the State? And can we all check our mailbox for that $600 rebate check?
Ron,
You are on target with your comment. NORTH45 wants Finch to get credit for ‘balancing the City budget.’ Bill has not done that in reality, no matter how many claims he makes. He can say he has done that, and he does say that, but when necessary current financial liabilities are not paid currently, but rather shoved to a future date, especially without acknowledging that is what you are up to, you have not delivered a balanced budget.
In the case of Pension Plan A, the same actuarial firm informed Ganim, Fabrizi and then Finch to contribute certain significant levels of the City budget each year, in addition to the lump sum provided around 2000 by the Pension Obligation Bond proceeds. Ganim and Fabrizi did not pay attention. The Finch administration, faced with a fund decreased to around $150 Million, ran to Hartford to get a waiver (or blessing) for his avoidance activity (but no money to assist us taxpayers now or in the future.) He did this by crying very, very poor. (Meanwhile he was feeding a line to the Fitch people. I’ll bet they did not see Feeney’s 2010 letter to the State or Finch’s 2011 letter showing what a dire financial situation the City was in. Might have changed their mind quickly.)
Pension Plan A for the benefit of mostly retired former public safety employees, costs the City over $30 Million each year currently and will for more than 17 years into the future as REPAYMENT FOR BORROWING $350 Million 12 years ago. That lump of money needed supplementing with regular PLAN PENSION CONTRIBUTIONS annually because of known and current annual benefit payments of over $32 Million that reduce the fund principal. Investment losses have also diminished the amount borrowed. The Mayor has ignored actuarially necessary funding of more than $10 Million per year during his term. That does not give you the right to claim a “balanced budget!”
The larger issue is the retiree healthcare morass. In 2007 the Municipal Accounting Standards Board, a national regulatory authority, required that each government report this liability on its balance sheet for Other Post Employment Benefits. Look at the City 2010 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (Annual City audit) and you will see the $800 Million liability THAT HAS INCREASED EACH FINCH YEAR BY $20 Million because the City has not paid $60 Million or more as called for by its OPEB actuaries, but rather deferred it into the future.
This also is not a sign of a balanced budget. To call a budget balanced when it has at least $30 Million of current expenses which are not paid currently is not truthful. Not to understand or comment upon this untruth further keeps the lie alive. The taxpayer gets to pay the bill ultimately. Perhaps NORTH45 is not a taxpayer? And therefore as Alfred E. Newman used to profess, “What, me worry?”
I smell something else coming from City Hall, and it is a bit stinkier than cutting the cheese.
You smell excrement on your shoes from waddling through Finch’s horseshit. Be patient, it won’t last for long.
Please watch www .cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7371338n
NORTH45, the key word is Mayor Bill Finch is hoping, just like the residents of Bridgeport were hoping Mayor Finch would keep his word when he told us we would get our $600 rebate. Why should we trust what the mayor tells us?
If Foster were Mayor she would have given up already. Vote Bill Finch September 13, 2011.
So is Finch counting on B’porters to just give up and let him and his cronies continue to feed off the teats of city residents for four more years? Jeez!
REASONS TO NOT VOTE FOR BILL FINCH:
• A $600 tax credit that never materialized–it was only a lie
• Pension Fund A
• “Democracy doesn’t work, it doesn’t work in all cases” because many Bridgeport parents are illegal immigrants or criminals, according to Bill Finch
•Bill Beccaro’s money-laundering operation, also known as a political action committee ironically named “People for Excellence in Government.”
NORTH45, sounds like you’ve been drinking too much Colt45. Finch is the “village idiot,” you have to be the “village AH.”
It is one thing to be a resident active in school affairs, be appointed to the BOE and support Bill Finch (Illingworth). It is another thing altogether to be appointed to the BOE and be actively involved in the campaign mechanism of Bill Finch (Rev. Moales). It appears to me Illingworth is what this board needs (and many more like him).
And why did Illingworth fail 3 times before to gain membership on the BOE? Is it because he is eminently unqualified? Does having a child in this failing system make you eligible? Or is there a cronyistic reason for his appointment?
Illingworth has tried to win a spot on the board three times, first last winter when a spot opened up. He was planning to run this fall before the school board was put in the hands of the state. He also was one of 53 individuals to seek appointment to the new board, but apparently was passed over in the first round.”
I guess the fourth time is the charm.
I hear one of Bill’s children hit the jackpot and will be attending the new Discovery School. Seems apropos as the Feds will soon be making discovery into the Clean and Green Mayor and his cleaning of the green crew.
NORTH45, what an intelligent analysis, “Vote Bill Finch, he will win.” Are you always that clever? I bet you make millions with campaign advising like that. I sure wish I had such a keen grasp of the situation. Finch is implicated in a huge PAC conspiracy, has been either paying his wife or letting her rip off campaign funds, conspires to prevent an election where the WFP could win a majority and now appoints some guy who couldn’t get elected, further suppressing the will of the people, is going to win. Such insight! Such brilliance …
Finch has hired almost anyone who gave him serious campaign contributions or their spouses, girlfriends or cousins. He spends NO money on education for four years. He is so thrifty, so wise. He intentionally choked off the schools letting them sink into the mire for everyone else’s kids (those of the apathetic, illegal immigrant felon kind) and then gets his kid into the Discovery School. This guy is scum. And the fact he doesn’t get he is scum makes him even more disgusting.
Anyone selected by Finch isn’t ‘worth’ the recognition.
The news media have used the neutral language of the reporter’s trade to call the mayor a liar and a crook. All that’s left is to have it proven in a court of law.
Bpt politics has come a long way since the AB stuffing days where dead people voted fifty times in an election.
Running out’a ballots on purpose to help Republicans, rigging a BOE and handing it to the state so they can appoint the BRBC and Finch’s players. Gotta give credit where it’s due. There’s so much money on the streets to BUY votes it’s amazing. Like Bobby DeNiro said … “You, you are good.”
In charter, a BOE is empaneled to be comprised of “ordinary” citizens who shall band together for the common good of the children for which they have charge.
Hernan is certainly ordinary.
But what powers under state control do the individual BOE members have? I don’t believe proposals are put forth for definitive vote.
The acting chair has all the power. So ordinary people like Hernan are merely advisers.
My problem with Hernan is he has failed in all of his legitimate attempts to gain membership to the BOE. Now he is appointed simply because he is “Latino.”
Shameful. We could do a lot better than him from the Latino community.
I really miss Cesar Batalla. We need people like him.
The appointment of Hernan Illingworth is nothing more than tokenism at its best. The Hispanic residents rightfully so were up in arms over the lack of a Hispanic on Coleman’s magical board.
Hernan Illingworth originally had received a letter from Coleman saying he was not among those chosen to be on this magical board. What transpired in the time period when Hernan Illingworth recieved a rejection notice and then was appointed to the board?
This whole appointment process is a joke and a sham and the city kids will continued to get shortchanged.
Half of the students in the Bridgeport school system are Latino, half, but now as an afterthought Commissioner Coleman decided to throw the Latino community a bone by appointing the last spot to a Latino. But that’s not the issue that the Latino community should be upset about, they need to be upset their right to VOTE for the BOE has been taking from them.
Are we forgetting the fact the past Boards of Education HAVE been empaneled by election? We don’t pick good.
Ron, what they/I should be upset about is why none of the Puerto Rican currently elected officials were invited to the table when the takeover was first discussed. Someone was asleep at the wheel.
Hector, you know the answer to that. They or some relative work for the BOE or the City of Bridgeport–one in the same.
Ron Mackey is right. The bigger issue is not Latino representation on the BOE; it’s the deliberate disenfranchisement of the voting public. The parents of the Bridgeport school system have a constitutionally guaranteed say in how their children are educated. There ought to be a referendum on this issue. It is unfathomable Bill Finch thought a backroom conspiracy was the best way to resolve the educational crisis in Bridgeport. tc is also right; the appointment of Hernan Illingworth is nothing more than a token gesture. Mr. Illingworth has made his allegiance to the Finch administration perfectly clear. He’s a clown in the dog-and-pony show that is the Finch administration.
It is time for this corrupt political machine to be removed. Bill Finch cares for the paycheck and the benefits and the privileges that come with elected office. Mario Testa, the grand poobah of the Bridgeport Democratic Town Committee, is more interested in politics as sport. Under his leadership the city’s infrastructure has continued to deteriorate. Gaping potholes pock streets that are already cracked and bulging. The downtown area is scabbed and scarred by vacant buildings collapsing beneath the weight of abandonment. Steel Point is a weed-choked field inhabited by wharf rats and seagulls. The Congress Street Bridge is nothing more than a rusted memory. All the while Mr. Finch has been laundering money through a political action committee, the ironically named “People for Excellence in Government.” The committee is operated by an attorney, William Beccaro, who has billed the city for a lot of outsourced legal work. Mr. Beccaro, an officer of the court, ought to know better. He’ll be lucky if his license to practice law is not revoked. It is glaringly obvious none of these greedy, avaricious cretins gives a damn about the people of the city of Bridgeport.
It’s time for this to end.
Politics at primary time is amusing. We have Joel; they have NORTH45.
The problem with the BOE was the management after Ramos and the mayor won every voting decision 6-3. Those two didn’t know what to do, they WON but then what?
*** Just do the job & forget about who he supports already, no? *** HOPE ***
Remember, the BOE, Ramos and the mayor WON every voting decision 6-3. THEY didn’t know what to do, they WON but then what?