UPDATE
: Veteran City Councilman Bob Curwen, co-chair of the Budget and Appropriations Committee, took a city job in February. Two months ago the mayor’s office announced this:
Longtime City Councilman Robert Curwen will be resigning his council seat to fill a temporary position of project manager in the Construction Management department while project manager Arthur Harris is on medical leave. In addition to resigning his council post, Curwen also will resign from his employment with DiNardo Enterprises. In this temporary position, Curwen will help ensure that several citywide construction projects continue to move forward during Harris’ absence.
Curwen has not resigned his council seat, but he has resigned his city employment position. What gives? Bob, feel free to let us know.
As a member of the 138th town committee I for one am glad Curwen resigned his city job. This means he stays on as councilman and puts an end to District leader Martha Santiago’s dictatorial attempt to name out-of-towner Mike Marella to fill the Curwen vacancy.
If you look at the 138th town committee you will see what is wrong with it and many other town committee districts. We have too many city workers on our town committee. We have Santiago who head the city’s Spanish senior center, Paoletto who heads housing code enforcement, Monks a city painter, a lunch program worker and Anastasi who works for CitiStat. This leaves an older women appointed by Santiago, myself and Ann Barney with no direct ties to city employment. Curwen’s wife works for the city.
We get nothing up here in the 138th, no commissions or board memberships, no NRZ, no nothing. What we do get is marching orders from the administration which are dutifully carried out by the city employees on the TC. You can’t get people to run for these spots up here.
With a change of administration it will show people the machine can be beaten and their participation in the process will mean something.I can’t wait until September rolls around and we can send a clear concise message to the people of Bridgeport. Everybody get on board and let’s ALL move this city forward.
I’m still trying to figure this out, Mary-Jane Foster wants to be Mayor of Bridgeport, while running without a slate of candidates for other offices. If she wins, she’ll have the same old City Council members giving her the business every inch of the way, dictated by Il Duce.
So what will she accomplish?
MJF. get a slate of candidates!
Jimfox // Apr 19, 2011 at 11:39 am
to your posting
Jimfox,
I worry about that as well. A Madison Ave restaurant owner could still run the politics of city government protected by his city council contingent of “yes Mario, yes Mario, how high Mario.”
It’s a daunting task for first-time candidates to take care of their own campaign let alone encourage 20 other new candidates to be out there.
But it has to be done for Bridgeport to get out of the current mess.
Ms. Curry,
You make many contributions to this blog. Most of them fall into the advance publicity category. We’ve been waiting and waiting for your candidate to put up or shut up. I looked at the website. He said he was going to do a lot of stuff. How is he planning to accomplish this? It’s all fine and good to make all kinds of claims (“A chicken in every pot! A TV in every room!”). If there is no plan to accomplish the stated goals what is he going to do, call Ghostbusters?
Kid;
I might be new here, but would like to make a observation.
You have half the comments on here, and those comments are usually of a looong-winded nature.
And my main gripe is:
Who do you think you are?
If you want to hear Mr. Gomes speak, go to his office on the corner of Park and Wood, buy a Subway and a coke, and sit down like a man and talk to him.
Why the hell would he come out and speak on this blog if he doesn’t want to?
I’ve never seen Ganim, Fabrizi or Finch speak on here.
Your new idol Mary-Jane doesn’t speak on here.
Ms. Curry does and that’s more than other candidates do.
So with all due respect, please shut up and stop begging the man to speak ’cause you want him to, go to one of his fundraisers and hear him speak.
Or like I said before, man up and go to his office.
Ms. Foster has offered a clear direction for the city. She is not just saying I will do this, I will do that. She explains how she plans to accomplish all of it, beginning with the creation of long-term jobs for the city. I’m not questioning Mr. Gomes’ credibility. He is a man of great integrity, intelligence and goodness. As the administrator of CitiStat he was doing his job to the highest ethical standards. Problems arose only when it was obvious there were many Bridgeport municipal employees who were hired at the behest of Mario Testa, not the Mayor’s office or the Civil Service Commission. (If Mr. Testa believes in giving convicted felons a second chance, why is he not hiring them to wash dishes and sweep floors at his palace on Madison Avenue?)
If you believed everything Ms. Curry has said, John Gomes can walk on water, heal the sick, raise the dead, and reinvent the wheel. There’s not much substance in what she has been saying, only so much effluvium.
By the way, I’m not “begging” Mr. Gomes or anyone else to speak. Take a pill and get over yourself. Pronto.
Hi Carolanne, I still think you look like Blossom Dearie.
A daunting task? He can ask, invite and encourage everyone he meets on the campaign trail.
Finch lets Cat out of the Bag!
blog.ctnews.com/connecticutpostings/2011/04/18/the-mayors-cat/
He’s such a pussy …
Hey Bridgeport Kid: Looks to me and many other Bpt residents like JOHN GOMES is doing a lot actually!!! www .ctpost.com/local/article/Gomes-hits-the-streets-in-his-Bridgeport-mayoral-1342383.php
Good job Unionless. I am sure if MJF did that interview it would be on the front page and posted on here by the boss. Gomes got page 5. He has the Hollow and the forgotten people excited and we will vote in record numbers.
As I said above, I believe in John Gomes’ integrity and dedication to improve the quality of life for the people of the city of Bridgeport. If he wins the primary he will have my vote in November. If MJF wins it would behoove her to find a high-ranking position for him in the administration. I read that Post story and was quite impressed, actually.
This will be a decisive election in the history of Bridgeport.
Gee, with this gang, why is it taking so long for comment on the interview with Mario in the Connecticut Post?
Professionally speaking, the reporter did a helluva job.
That he did. The article does not bode well for Finch’s re-election chances. From the look of the story (which appeared above the fold on the front page of the morning paper) it would seem it is Mario Testa who is making decisions about the city’s welfare, not Bill Finch.
Tim Loh did a great job on Il Duce.
He did. Hats off to Loh. We can only hope the Post’s readers will be able to connect the obvious dots without the assistance of a tutor.
The article was online Sunday afternoon. We commented on it then.
Jim,
I remember one prominent member of the Financial Review Board told me one of the major goals of the reform was to create a “strong mayor” form of governance. They eliminated the Board of Taxation and Apportionment that often got in the way of the previous weak mayor form of governance. We still have that form of governance today. And it is not good necessarily for budget review if truth be told.
What the Charter reformers did not realize, I guess, was the dominance of the Democratic Party with District Committees representing Bridgeport employees rather than a broad base of Democratic voters, weakened the Council and its mechanisms as a potential check and balance, made most employees pay up (incumbent contributions), shut up (about major or petty activities that are inefficient, ineffective or do not benefit the City as a whole) or give up (stew, sue or remove themselves from their job).
What the DTC has accomplished is to give an unelected individual (a former member of the City’s “finance board”) enough power as to seemingly have the last word. In this Holy Week I am moved to consider another organization of Italian culture with a leading man, unelected by the bulk of the people he stands in front of. Of course, Mario is not infallible! But then in practice neither is the other guy as he tries to get unstuck from the worldwide sexual abuse scandal. Mario seems to have similar teaching authority among the City adherents as the former professor in Rome. Or at least some think so. Il Papa offers a promise of ultimate rewards not of this world, while Mario has the promise of … a smile … someone who will listen to you … something more pastoral? If there’s more than that available, then those who have looked at him for years have not discovered it.
But the point I am making is since Mario is “the” ultimate Bridgeport jobs agency, why don’t we just close down all of the other folks in the region who help to place or hire folks? Mario does it for free!!! Doesn’t he? Or is there another expectation that stands as a quiet “obligation to be settled in the future.” So if a political scientist were to sketch out our governance structure in Bridgeport, there would be no one higher than Bill Finch as Mayor in the top slot. However, as the CT Post indicated, Mario Testa is a skillful people manager who has managed to create an informal network that is superimposed on the formal elected system. That so many people report to him is proof this ‘barnacle’ is very important to the ‘clamshell’ containing the Mayor. Nothing official! Nothing too public!! Just known by the important people! And don’t unspoken obligations and paying jobs create multiple layers of conflicted interests when an individual is in an elected position or a decision-making position within the City structure?
Individuals have to refer to personal conscience to come up with truly ethical discernment and decision making. In the meantime the CT Post story of Mario is a real winner. (The Democratic Town Committee elections are in March 2012, I believe, after the Mayoral election. Under the circumstances, class, we have one multiple-choice question for today. Which upcoming election in the next 12 months is most important for the future of Bridgeport?
A. The September Democratic Primary 2011
B. The November Mayoral and Council Elections 2011
C. The Bridgeport Democratic Town Committee 2012
D. Any election where a Republican has a chance
E. None of the above.
B2, for now it’s (A).
Recently at one of those good Black Rock Library events in which Curwen sat on a panel … I asked what’s the deal with getting businesses to come to the Park City, what’s holding them back? Brownfields. Ok, and now the GOP gonna cut out our aid we get from the EPA? Well, today Finch and Himes took a field trip to show they want to hold on to the helpful fed money to remediate.
Press release today: Himes & Finch Say EPA Help Critical to Economic Development, Job Growth to Celebrate Earth Day early with tour of brownfield redevelopments
BRIDGEPORT, CT—In recognition of Earth Day, Congressman Jim Himes (CT-4) and Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch today toured three Bridgeport brownfields in various stages of revitalization. The tour followed a roundtable discussion with local businesses and officials from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that examined the role governments can play in leveraging investment to help spur economic growth and create jobs. The City of Bridgeport has experienced great success with its brownfields program, but recent budget-cutting efforts in Washington have targeted many of the programs that are key to this effort.
“Budgeting is about priorities, and while we need to cut spending, we need to make sure we don’t do so at the expense of opportunities to create jobs. Just because the private market doesn’t find it independently profitable on the front end to clean up an existing toxic waste site doesn’t mean it’s not a smart thing to do,” said Himes. “The increased tax revenue and job creation opportunities that result in the long term from a brownfield cleanup more than make up for the reduced interest on a loan, not to mention the public health benefits of removing toxins from our neighborhoods.”
Finch explained that many of Bridgeport’s most successful economic development projects would not have been possible without assistance from the EPA. The Arena at Harbor Yard, the Barnum Business Center where today’s meeting took place, and the new West End Industrial Park on the former site of Bryant Electric are all redeveloped brownfields. The city’s supply of clean, development-friendly sites is limited, but businesses need financing assistance and environmental guidance if they are going to take on the challenge of changing toxic waste sites into usable land.
“To bring jobs to Steelpointe, the former Carpenter Steel site and the new train station, we need even more vigorous support from federal and state agencies like EPA, and that is why today’s meeting is so important,” said Mayor Finch. “We want to keep the momentum going, with sites that are ready to go so we can take advantage of the economic upswing to bring development income to the City.” (end of press release)
Cuts also are affecting public-access non-commercial TV also. Tonight on Bridgeport Now Live, we are fighting to save public access TV since a Hartford bill wants to shut it down: HB 6460. Apparently there have been some misstatements by Fairfield politicians and we will show some of her comments and how she was mistaken.
Bottom line on public-access situation. All funding nationwide is at risk due to cuts. Also, keep in mind Bridgeport public access includes Fairfield, and those folks want to take money away from Bridgeport. I am not saying Fairfield folks don’t want to come to Bridgeport to use the facility there, though I wonder how many Fairfield people do come to Bridgeport. What I can’t believe is with all the wealth there, why would they push to cut the Bridgeport budget?
B2:
I covered the charter revision commission of the late 1980s for The Bridgeport Light.
The commission did indeed attempt to create a stronger mayor.
They wanted a stronger executive. They got it.
How that mayor uses those powers depends on the skill of the individual who is elected mayor. A charter commission cannot dictate that.
The number of municipal employees in elected positions, with party positions, was not raised. It was not really an issue in the 1980s.
In the context of that time, or even this time, there is a presumption–at least by this former reporter and editor in that position–that this is an issue for the electorate, either in a primary or general election.
From observation, this issue does not appear to have traction with voters.
Mario, a good politician, is playing the cards he is dealt as party leader. All cards appear to be on the table and in legal play, face up.
As I learned many years ago from some very good politicians in Bridgeport, you either got the votes or you don’t. Mario has the votes on town committee. The mayor has them on city council.
That’s the way it crumbles, cookie-wise, as Miss Kubelik says.
The beefs here should be expressed to the electorate. Thus far, the electorate has largely been satisfied with the status quo, if my reading of the recent election for state representative is correct.
Phil Smith, who was the charter revision director in the late 1980s, has a better read on what was proposed, debated and adopted by the revision commission. He did the prep work for the commissioners. For their time, and dealing with the crisis of finances and organization in city government, the commission did an outstanding job, in my opinion.
Any debate on the need for revisions in the structure of city government needs to be in the context of THESE times.
Does anyone have an idea if the voters are interested?
B2: I’m sorry, I forgot to answer your quiz.
From what I learned as a newspaperman and listening to politicians, the most important election is always the next election.
WHAT AM I MISSING HERE? That blowhard Curwen resigned from a FULL-TIME position with the city JUST SO HE COULD RETAIN HIS CITY COUNCIL SEAT? Why are we not shouting through the rooftops this political hack has got to go? Those of you who live in his district need to start looking for his council replacement. MJF and the other invisible candidate should be building full slates. They may stand a “reasonable” chance at being elected but with a council filled to the freaking brim with calamarians they won’t get much done.
I can’t complain about the City Councilmen representing the 130th district. Neither of them is employed by the City of Bridgeport. That doesn’t mean they won’t do the master’s bidding, however …
About the same time Bridgeport was doing its last real charter revision, a similar commission up the road in New Haven asked a once and future city official whether that city had a weak mayor or strong mayor form of government.
His response: “It depends who is Mayor.”
I think there is a lot of truth to that. The office and its powers depend in large part on how the person in the office uses that power and authority.
By the way, that out-of-work public official from New Haven was named John DeStefano.