Nice piece from Keila Torres of the CT Post:
In 2007, Mayor Bill Finch selected Bridgeport Bluefish co-founder Mary-Jane Foster to co-chair his mayoral transition team.
Read more: www.ctpost.com/local/article/Foster-v-Finch-Don-t-take-it-personally-2180290.php
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Not very flattering to Finch. Especially the part about wanting to punch someone in the nose. Uncontrolled anger is not exactly a quality you’d want in a mayor.
Keila mentions Tom Sherwood in her article and the fact Finch promised he would replace Sherwood upon taking office. Not only did Finch not replace him, but Sherwood has gained more power than ever. Before he was just the wizard of the City General Fund budget. Now he oversees the central grants office as well. He controls ALL the money and no one controls him. Finch allowed this to happen. How can you have one person hold all the cards? Absolutely amazing.
Must read: www .ctpost.com/news/article/MariAn-Gail-Brown-Absentee-ballot-issues-cast-2180472.php
Tom Sherwood was as good as executed after Finch’s win. What happened in less than a month to convert the condemned into Finch’s golden boy? Could it be he knows where all the bodies are buried? And/or if anyone knew Bridgeport’s true financial picture it would cause a virtual revolution with the people, FBI would come a-swarming and the State might even step in? No matter what happens, what info is revealed (take note John Gomes), we must cut out the infection before the whole City dies of gangrene. Scars heal–systemic corruption, greed, and incompetence don’t.
Quick question guys, are absentee ballots counted by a machine or hand-counted in the night?
Absentees are processed through a machine like polling locations but processed at one central location–so they are read just like regular ballots–now here comes too much information–if a ballot is rejected by the machine the moderator decides how the ballot should be handled–sometimes it’s straightforward–voted for too many people for the same office–if voter intent is clear (they filled in the dot but also hand-wrote the candidate’s name) it is counted manually.
Thanks, Common Good. Kinda shocked the machine can count votes that are filled in with a blue or black pen because you know at the polliing place it’s like a black marker you use.
Blue or black hasn’t mattered–they used to be hand-counted and therefore subject to human error–although I used safeguards like adding up the votes for the top ticket office and being sure it added up to the total number of votes received–was a way to insure accuracy.
Can’t speak to whether the actual person voted but the vote received was accurately counted–and always erred on the side of counting the vote.
They say they mailed out 1,100 absentee ballots and 557 were returned, does that include people who went there and voted directly at the office? So much going through my head if my vote will be counted. First I was thinking I saw a stamp sign on the letter but I would not need a stamp because I voted in person.
Does Tom Sherwood live in Fairfield and pay property taxes there? I thought I had heard this but not in Bridgeport?
Do you know Fairfield has a Board of Finance, that operates in between their Mayor (whom they call a First Selectman) and their legislative body representing all the Fairfield districts? And Bridgeport has no such Board of knowledgeable, experienced and talented reviewers of fiscal operations.
Did you realize their Board meets on a regular monthly schedule 12 times per year? And Bridgeport’s Council Budget and Appropriations Committee schedules about 12 meetings but cancels half of them in recent years.
At budget time both the Bridgeport Budget and Appropriations Committee and the Fairfield Finance Board hold an additional dozen or so meetings on the proposed budget. At the Fairfield meetings the public can listen and speak after each agenda line item. In Bridgeport the public may attend and only listen. And Fairfield legislative group the RTM has its own Budget Committee to process the reports from the Finance Board. This is regular oversight.
Fairfield has AAA ratings still. Bridgeport’s Mayor brags about an A rating from Fitch, the lowest assigned rating in all 30 of the Connecticut communities they measure. There are multiple other differences in structure, discipline and fiscal culture.
Somehow Tom Sherwood has eliminated former remnants of an Internal Audit operation, and he sends “monthly” budget reports to the Council and the public when convenient it seems as he has decided with the Mayor’s approval to ignore the language in the City Charter on both issues. Interestingly the B & A Committee was so curious about the first budget reports to come out of his office since March 29, 2011 based on eight months of last year, they cancelled their September meeting. The March-May 2011 and the July 2011 reports have come out but not been reviewed by the Council group. Perhaps they are awaiting the June 2011 year-end report that will show the Finch announced $150,000 surplus??? Reading reports is difficult, boring, and anti-climatic when the Mayor provides you with the bottom-line answer!
And our external auditors report continuing MATERIAL DEFICIENCIES and SIGNIFICANT WEAKNESSES in our financial reporting for 2009 and 2010. And budgets are unbalanced, the public is invited to comment on City finances only one evening all year, information on Capital Projects is not readily available on City website, and more.
Do you think any of the things that affect the fiscal operation of Fairfield, enjoyed by Sherwood as a taxpayer, might be used in Bridgeport to good effect? Or would open, accountable and transparent process and governance ruin the rigged financial game run by those currently in power?
Who is our External Auditor?
Blum Shapiro?
Fluckarella is correct. The external auditor has been Blum Shapiro. They have reported Material Weaknesses and Significant Deficiencies in the records they have reviewed the past couple years. I wonder what they have said in the private Management Letter they sent to Mayor Finch and Tom Sherwood. And how has the City responded to the Management Letter?
Now, who knows who staffs our Internal Auditor function in the City of Bridgeport?
There is no longer an Internal Audit Department. It was eliminated several years ago. No one does that function. Sherwood likes it that way.
1.3% of Democrats have already voted in this primary.
Ms. Torres left out the part about MJF being hoodwinked by Finch, that Finch was making a major dump into his PAC after retiring his legal debt to John Bohannon.
The Fords, who I hope aren’t in our future, and their EAST END PAC will be having some questions to answer to the SEEC in the next few months.
I think the public should call for the CT Post to retract their endorsement. You hear that, all you letter to the editor writers? If the reporters got to vote instead of the publishers, the CT Post would have endorsed MJF. The reporters are up to their eyeballs in Finch muck; Dixon, Brown, Torres, Tepfer, Mayko and more know all too well the fraud Finch and company perpetrate on a daily basis. Wood, Beccaro, Santiago, Ford, Sherwood, Eversley, Ramos, the “Board of Ed 6” et al. are like vermin crawling in every crack in City Hall Annex. It is time that building is fumigated. Demand a retraction today!!!
You can’t make this stuff up!
Hey Marty (No-show) McCarthy, and Sue (I’m out of the loop) Brannelly, this one’s for you!
Hi All, I received this email this morning from a fellow Block Watch coordinator.
Very important to read. I don’t have details about the robbery yet but will forward them along when I do.
Be Safe and as always be aware.
Betty Calaway
Captains please send out to your neighbors.
Hello, Block Watchers,
Some recent news:
A block watcher tells us that Friday night 9/16 two young women were robbed at gunpoint at Melrose & Ellsworth under a broken street lamp. The police were called and did respond. The police said there was another attempted mugging on nearby King St just before.
A block watcher on Clarkson Street wanted to let people know that Saturday night she had two suspicious people come to her door who turned out to be phony door-to-door salesmen. One, a black man wearing a super hero t-shirt, said he was raising money for inner city children by selling magazines and gave her the name of a web site that looks kind of legitimate but is a known one used by scammers. That had nothing to do with that. Shortly thereafter a black youth in his late teens, with a diamond stud in his ear, knocked on her door and told her to be sure to vote for him by buying magazines.
She did not open her door to either, which of course is the right thing to do. She did call this into the police which is important in order that they know door-to-door scammers are in the neighborhood. Here is a good article that will tell you more about this type of scam: listofscams.blogspot.com/2010/01/door-to-door-magazine-sales-scams-tips.html
Thanks to these block watchers for keeping us all informed.
Remember to always call all crimes into 911 and all suspicious activity into the police dispatcher at 203-576-7671, and then to inform me so I can let everyone know what is going on. Thank you.
Doesn’t Marty Live on King St?
I worked to get Finch elected four years ago and the reason was simple, Caruso was not coming forward with anything other than corruption which he never proved or brought forward.
I had no illusion Bill Finch was a genius but I held out hope he could do the job. I was wrong. I had no clue just how incompetent he was and is.
After the election I learned John Stafstrom had his manicured fingers on the pulse of city hall. If I knew that before the election I would not have voted for Finch.
What has happened in the last four years is ADAM WOOD has become the unofficial mayor of Bridgeport with Finch becoming his mouthpiece. Here is how I came to that conclusion. Wood was at every debate answering all of the questions asked of Finch via text messages to Finch. What that proves to me is Wood knows the answers and Finch does not know the answers, thus the title of unofficial mayor.
With all due respect to my friend tc, the accusation of Wood texting Finch is easy enough to prove. Finch stated at a debate his father was in the hospital and he was getting reports. Well, was his father in the hospital? If so, he should have showed the phone to MJF or the moderator. I don’t doubt the low level the Finch campaign would stoop to but I hope you can prove the accusation. That would make it a smoking gun … and I hope you’re right!!!
If Wood was texting to Finch that would make the latter appear to be unable to think for himself. This article puts the incumbent in an unflattering light and more or less confirms the landswap deal was nearly scuppered by Finch. Thanks, Bill. Thanks for looking after the best interests of the people of the city of Bridgeport. And thanks also for the Columbus School disaster.
I’m guessing the mayor has a lot of headaches right now. The Finchies are warbling the primary is “in the bag.” That is true. The only question is, which bag? The state’s takeover of the BOE is unconstitutional. That matter is before the Connecticut Supreme Court.
And then there are a few other items in Finch’s debit column. That promised-but-never-delivered $600 tax rebate, for one thing. Another is the money that flowed into and out of the coffers of a PAC administrated by Attorney Bill Beccaro. And the PCB contamination of Columbus School.
I know I can FOI the information but I already have an FOI inquiry out there about the FD new pension. I have been waiting 6- plus days so far and no answers. The primary is close at hand and I will not get the information in time.
I sat behind Stafstrom at the HCC debate; he was texting when Finch was reading and Nunn was feeding Stafstrom and Charlie Coviello was taking pictures with his phone.
hahahahaha Finch is soooooo desperate he is combing through obituaries to send condolence cards! The oldest political dirty trick in the book. Insincere asshole.
www .ctpost.com/opinion/article/Foster-You-can-count-on-me-2181771.php
Twice in the last three months, Mayor Finch has been at the heart of efforts to silence Bridgeport voters.
The act of a desperate man …
I want to know if it is true she supported John McCain in his presidential run against Obama. She needs to be mindful that when voters have unanswered questions about a candidate they tend to stick with what they know, for better or worse. (I would like to know myself because I really wish this does not bite her at the end.) I have spoken to few friends who claim Foster is a Republican.
Read more: www .ctpost.com/news/article/Questioning-endorsement-in-primary-2181856.php
donj. These are charges being made by desperate people. If MJF’s husband made contributions that’s his business not hers. My wife and I are two separate people, she has her thoughts and I have mine. MJF has been a registered and active Democrat for years. Remember she ran a fund raiser for Finch when he was first elected to retire his campaign debt. Does that sound like a Republican to you?
donj,
Mary-Jane Foster is most definitely NOT a member of the GOP.
donj, if you believe what you are hearing and reading then vote for the mayor. This isn’t rocket science, you vote for the person who you think will do the best job. Who did the mayor support in the last primary election for governor? He supported the loser, so does that hurt Bridgeport in getting state aid?
Ron, I believe donj has registered his primary vote already and announced it multiple times on this blog. The version of the story I heard from a community active voter from the East End is Mary-Jane Foster is a Republican and sent $250,000 to support Sarah Palin along with her husband, Jack.
It took me a couple minutes to get my head around that one. The man is a religious leader as well as holding down a job, and I have found him to be a good panel member as we have served for two year in a City activity. I also saw the card handed out by the East End Pac (sic) that has Obama and Finch with Federal Dollars on one side and Mary-Jane and the Republican accusations on the other. Of course the card I saw was handed out in the South End near the UB campus. Interesting.
My confusion stems from the fact some voters are so Party averse that they fail to see the incumbent Democratic candidate is electorate averse. Bill has been attempting through limitations on City process and public info to gather more control over every City function including education and not share the actual financial truth about the stagnancy of the City development efforts. How many City properties will remain unsold, undeveloped, or ultimately transferred at less than 50% on the taxpayer dollar for all of us to wake up and say Bill Finch is incapable of handling the City work at hand?
MJ volunteered her time to help victims of domestic violence. Does that sound like a Republican to you?
Ron, I already voted for Foster. Second of all, that’s not my concern; my concern is people spreading this to Bpt voters and this could make us lose. For crying out loud, now they have it in the Post!!!
All MJF supporters, Chris only lost by 240-odd votes, none of the people who voted for Chris will vote for Finch, they hate him and the machine more now than they did then with what Finch has done to our city. MJF has a strong loyal group plus city employees who have been screwed by the city, and many more who don’t see the state of our city through Finch’s fogged glasses and the smoke screen he puts up. Be positive, we will prevail there are more of us than them. Those who voted against Finch and the machine four years ago will rise up and “Rage Against The Machine.” MJF will prevail, pick up your heads.
donj, focus on the positive, don’t get caught up with whether she supported John McCain in his presidential run against Obama. Don’t major in minor issues.
Again MJF supporters forgive me but I forgot a very strong group of supporters; very formidable group brought to our ranks by Mr. John Gomes, the numbers will not lie when we take back our city for our families and their children’s future, for generations to come, because this time we will make a difference. We the people shall prevail. “DOWN WITH THE MACHINE AND ITS TYRANNY.” Their greed will be their DOWNFALL. RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE.