Former City Councilman Tom Mulligan, way back in the day, referred to City Council meetings as the “Monday night fights.” Well, seems like the poop is really flying now between members of a council committee and City Attorney’s Office over Water Pollution Control Authority collections.
CT Post reporter Brian Lockhart has more:
Frustrated City Council members have proposed a six month moratorium blocking City Hall’s controversial efforts to collect late sewer use fees through property foreclosures.
“You wanna hold us up, we’ll hold you up,” Councilman Marcus Brown told two municipal lawyers Tuesday during a tension-filled ordinance committee meeting, which Brown co-chaired.
That committee has launched an aggressive–and at times seemingly unwieldy–probe into the city’s longtime use of private collection attorneys, the courts and property foreclosures to go after bills owed the Water Pollution Control Authority. The council hopes to reform that process and set up an improved mediation program for homeowners who have fallen too far behind.
Full story here.
The sewer tax was originally intended to pay back the feds for money sent to Bridgeport to update the sewer systems. Mayor Mandanici used the money for other purposes.
The Feds came looking for their money and thus the sewer tax started . It was originally intended to stay in place until the Feds were paid back. Well the politicians in Bridgeport saw a money tree that will give forever and reused to get rid of the tax.
As far as the city attorneys office goes they are a bunch of hacks that could not make it in private practice.They farm out any complex litigation and handle the slip and fall cases. they are a total rip off. Talk about robber barons
The city of Bridgeport’s infamous leaders should be ashamed of themselves for taking people’s homes, hopes and dreams because they can’t pay a bill. The WPCA needs to be considered a public utility that falls under the governance of the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority like all the rest of the public utility’s in Connecticut.
The question that hasn’t been answered by these dastardly rascals is how many people have lost their homes because of this dream breaking policy.
If Mr. Anastasi and Ms. Toms don’t appreciate condescension they ought to do their jobs. Residents are losing their homes to an immoral greedy lawyer manipulating the system for his own finacial gain. “We’re short staffed and overworked!” sounds like a an excuse along the lines of “my dog chewed it up and barfed it on the kitchen floor.”
Unless the city council authorized the contract with the third party to handle collections, it has no authority to interfere. The city attorney has authority to enter into agreements with third parties.
The city council has authority to order departments to provide information. This appears to be what they have done. The city council does not have authority to order the city attorney’s office to prioritize the work it does.
Perhaps the city council should offer to pay part of the cost of this extra work. The city council could authorize use of their ‘Other Services’ line item in ‘Legislative Services’ to expedite the data gathering. Of course, this would reduce the funds available for the city council president to pay for city council members to attend parties and community events.
Looking ahead, what will the city council do with this data? Do they have the ability to analyze it? What are they looking for?
The city council better get their own attorney and fast!
Tom,
I have been told that at last night’s BRTC meeting the person who I believe to be Bridgeport’s leading racist, you know the guy who supported having known racist Carl Higbie as keynote speaker for the 2018 Lincoln Day Dinner, your good friend Mike Garrett, had suggested that there is a need to find a way to get black people to attend the dinner now that the replacement keynote speaker is a black woman who tells black people how stupid they are. Oh were you one of those people who at first chose Higbie? Any way why don’t you show how resourceful you are and offer Ron and Donald free tickets. Sadly Tom I’m sure they would decline as would most self respecting African Americans. You probably could not get Bridgeport African Americans to attend if you paid them. But keep trying, because you are the smartest guy in the city and if anyone doesn’t believe that all they need to do is ask you.