From Dan Tepfer, CT Post:
Who is better than millionaire developer Manuel “Manny” Moutinho?
On Thursday a Superior Court judge approved a settlement that will add $122,302 of city tax payer money to the nearly $400,000 the city has already paid Moutinho to build the 1,200-foot gravel driveway across city airport property in Stratford to Moutinho’s seaside mansion.
“I don’t blame Manny Moutinho,” said city activist Maria Pereira, who sat wide-eyed in the back of the courtroom during the hearing Thursday. “I blame the people who are responsible for spending taxpayer dollars for this, City Attorney Mark Anastasi and certainly this falls at the feet of Mayor Bill Finch.”
Full story here.
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This is Finching pathetic.
You read it here first on Jul 9, 2013.
Grin Ripper // Jul 9, 2013 at 2:11 am
If Candee had come in at the lowest bid this would still end up being a circle jerk by the mayor and his legal staff. The truthers on this site will next be coming up with the conspiracy theory Ricci orchestrated the zoning appeal turnover with the Judge.
Furthermore, Moutinho had no plans to build an access road until the appeal had been heard. In fact the city attorney’s office knew full well they were going to be at risk and recommended to go full steam ahead. City failed to ask for intervenor status and now is left holding their hand on their asses because of shoddy legal work by the city’s Clarence Darrow.
Follow the Money // Jan 15, 2014 at 10:14 am
“What is not yet clear are other potential associated costs of the project, including construction plans, engineering inspection and testing fees and an additional fire hydrant with a price tag of roughly $90,000. Are they part of the $389,000 road construction cost paid to Moutinho, or in addition?”
The city has now filed an intervenor status request with Judge Radcliffe for the settlement process. Moutinho is on the hook for his legal bills to the tune of $35k because of Bridgeport’s legal negligence. Lisa Trachtenberg has been replaced on this project by city attorney Ron Pacacha. Shouldn’t Anastasi be canned tuna, too?
Finch and company do what they want when they want and spend whatever they want with no repercussions. The idiots in this city elected this idiot and his band of thieves to a second term.
JML and I spent countless hours showing the people of this city how this administration was cooking the books, all to no avail.
The Connecticut Post is complacent in its coverage of this administration. They have two reporters covering city hall, Lockhart and Keila Torres, both good people but because of management decisions these two reporters are ineffective and worthless to the residents of this city. The Connecticut Post is in the business of feel-good reporting.
Here is another example, the people of Bridgeport voted to give the library 1 mil of taxes every year. They are two years behind in paying the library, so even when the people vote for something, if this administration does not like it they just don’t follow what was voted for.
Anyone waiting for the FEDS to come to Bridgeport is wasting their time, sad but true.
Finch is loving this decision. Manny will funnel some of his profits back to Finch now. This city is in trouble, this is what happens when someone is in power too long, they feel invincible and start doing whatever they please. It happened in Shelton with Lauretti, and is happening in Trumbull with Herbst.
Harvey, you don’t need to leave Bridgeport for your examples, just look to Joe Ganim.
This is either criminal or gross negligence and incompetence. Any mayor in any city with any balls who was not slightly involved in any of this would fire his city attorney before the judge’s ink fired on his judgement.
Forget what the city owes Manny. After all of this BS, I believe the city owes something to John Ricci besides an apology.
John Ricci will be paid a great deal of money when this is all over. They had no right to fire him. The person they should have fired was the associate city attorney who was covering the airport, Lisa T. So far nothing has happened to her and we are still paying. The motto of this administration should be “Everything we touch turns to shit.”
King Midas in reverse.