09/09/09 … Oh Nurses! Plus: UBelong Here, And Finch Development Announcement

3:30 p.m. update:

Why are city school nurses getting screwed?

Not a freaking paycheck all summer. As a result, many couldn’t pay their mortgages, car loans and rents. Some faced eviction. Their lives have been turned inside out.

This started when city nurses were transferred to the Board of Education more than one year ago. City nurses, like so many other union workers, stepped up to the table during the city’s budget crunch. They agreed to no pay raises for four years, saving the city a boatload of dough. In exchange they wanted to have summer months off, just like teachers, and the option to have their base salary spread over a 52-week pay period. Sounds reasonable.

Labor negotiators for both the city and Board of Education agreed to this. Mayor Bill Finch was also on board. The City Council budgeted the money.

So what happened? Superintendent of Schools John Ramos decided he wasn’t going to pay them for the summer. Did the Board of Education collectively say hey John, pay them! Nope. Ramos receives $220k a year. How would he feel if the BOE said hey John, we’re not paying you this summer? But yes, let’s screw the little people.

Ramos will say it was the union negotiators on the city side that cut this deal and try to intellectualize through it, yadda, yadda, yadda. Well, it was the BOE negotiators too.

And here’s where it gets even better. The nurses have been informed they’ll be receiving less than what they negotiated! Grievance time.

I love chief executives that pass the buck when it’s not their personal buck. Ramos decided it was better to spend money on other things. It’s simple. If Ramos wants the nurses paid in full they’ll be paid. All he has to do is pick up the phone and call BOE payroll. That’s it. Anyone want to volunteer to dial the number?

Ramos is going to be playing with a new BOE later this year. Paging Pat Crossin. Paging Leticia Colon. That should be fun.

UBelong

Okay, the header UBelong Here is my shameless ripoff of the UB slogan, but it fits perfectly for the Hartford Courant piece below about educational contributions to the region including the University of Bridgeport. Hey mayor, you getting any of this?

No one would doubt that in a survey of college towns, Boston, San Francisco, Austin and Ann Arbor would rise to the top in their respective categories for large and small cities.

But Hartford and Bridgeport? And if they are near the top of those lists, who would expect New Haven to be an also-ran?

That’s what happened when the American Institute for Economic Research looked at 360 U.S. metro areas and towns, dividing them according to size and then crunched the data on everything from student concentration, restaurants and cultural establishments to unemployment, cost of living, accessibility, research capacity and entrepreneurial activity.

In the category of mid-sized metro areas, Hartford ranked third, just behind San Jose, Calif., and Austin, Texas. Hartford beat out places such as Denver, Portland, Ore., New Orleans and Providence, home to Brown University and other colleges.

In the small metro division, Bridgeport ranked second, right behind Boulder, Colo. Ranked below Bridgeport were Ann Arbor, Mich.; Gainesville, Fla.; Madison, Wis.; Durham, N.C.; Albany, N.Y.; and, at number 18, New Haven.

If the results are surprising to those who know college towns, it’s partly because this study looked at whole metro areas, going well beyond the limits of the central cities.

The Hartford metro region included Storrs, where the University of Connecticut is located; New Britain, with Central Connecticut State University; and Middletown, with Wesleyan University, along with other colleges.

In the case of Bridgeport, Stamford and Norwalk were also included.

The New Haven area included Milford.

The study also doesn’t take into account the more ineffable elements that make a good college town: that special youthful energy. “Let me know if you have an idea how to measure that,” said Kerry Lynch, a senior fellow at the Great Barrington-based independent research institute. The study “gives you a starting point. It gives you more information than you had, some basis for comparison.”

Trinity College President James F. Jones Jr. said he was not surprised to hear the results, saying he has always thought that “one of the great selling points for this entire geographic region is the number of schools of all kinds that are in the metro Hartford area.”

With cultural institutions like The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art and others, Jones said, as well as restaurants of many ethnic types and lots of opportunities for internships, “it is only logical” that the Hartford area would be considered “a huge college destination.”

John Carson, vice president for university relations at the University of Hartford, said the metro area may not have the rural vistas of North Dakota or Iowa, but it has “many opportunities whether it’s for artistic activities, cultural activities or doing internships at Fortune 100 or 500 corporations and ultimately getting recruited into these companies. That’s what I think we can sell.”

Vanessa Savard, a University of Hartford student who lives in a pod of housing for 170 students in downtown Hartford, off Market Street, said the area is “not good but not bad” as a college environment.

“There’s not much in downtown to do unless you’re 21 and can go to the bars,” said Savard, a radiology major who is from northern Vermont, and hits 21 next month. “I have fun here,” she said, adding that the townhouses are a great environment, “but I’d rather be like in Burlington (Vt.) or something like that.”

At the University of Bridgeport, Mary-Jane Foster, vice president of university relations, said she is “delighted” by the survey results, and wrote in an e-mail: “Bridgeport, not unlike UB, has been underestimated and undervalued, but in the last 10 years, there has been significant redevelopment throughout the city.”

Of course, not everyone is pleased with the rankings, and some have raised questions about the researchers’ methods upon hearing that the New Haven area was ranked 18th in the small city category, well below Bridgeport, and with a significantly lower number rating for restaurants, recreational and cultural establishments per capita than Bridgeport. (The New Haven area was rated at 35.5 establishments per 100,000 people, compared to Bridgeport 62.2.)

This Looks Interesting … From Mayor Finch

Seaview Plaza Developer Chosen; Mayor, City Officials to Announce on Thursday, Sept. 10

WHAT: Two premier East Coast developers have been selected by the Bridgeport Port Authority and the City of Bridgeport to develop the former Carpenter Steel site into a 152,000 square foot retail and office lifestyle center to be known as Seaview Plaza.

The project, located on a 15.8-acre parcel at the corner of Seaview & Stratford Avenues adjacent to I-95 at Exit 29, is expected to generate new job opportunities, provide significant tax revenues and lease fees to the Port & City, and adds much needed retail services to the residents in adjoining neighborhoods.

WHO: Mayor Bill Finch, Donald Eversley, director of the Office of Planning and Economic Development, Andrew Nunn, Chief Administrative Officer and Acting Director of the Bridgeport Port Authority, members of the City’s East End Neighborhood Revitalization Zone and the selected developers for the former Carpenter Steel site.

WHERE: Mayor’s Office, 999 Broad St , Bridgeport

WHEN: Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 2 p.m.