Alanna Kabel, who had served as deputy chief administrative officer in charge of the Community Development Block Grant Program, is returning to the city as assistant chief administrative officer at an annual salary of $126,000. Kabel left the city early this year for a position with the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority.
Kabel is something of a lightning rod in City Hall, highly regarded by Mayor Bill Finch and city managers, not so by those who worked for her. Very few in City Hall refer to her as Kabel. Say Alanna and that sums it up. In her return, Kabel will take on a larger administrative role.
Kabel’s return is one of several personnel decisions made by the city the last few days. Deputy Chief of Staff Ruben Felipe will also take on added responsibilities as the city’s point person for East Side redevelopment projects including the General Electric property on Boston Avenue and Seaview Avenue corridor.
Jorge Garcia, former director of facilities for the Bridgeport Board of Education, has been named deputy director of Public Facilities. Erin McDonough joins the city as an assistant projects manager working with Chief Administrative Officer Andy Nunn. She was a communications and special projects manager at the Bridgeport Regional Business Council.
Oh My God,
Let’s see what the spineless City Council does about this!
Effective Monday, Ruben Felipe, Finch’s deputy chief of staff, will be promoted and retain his title, getting a bump in his annual salary from $71,000 to $90,000.
Alanna Kabel left city employment in February to join the CHFA. Kabel, the city’s former deputy chief administrative officer in charge of central grants and community development, will come on with an annual salary of $126,000 as assistant chief administrative officer, effective Dec. 12. It was unclear what Kabel’s duties would be in the newly created position.
Jorge Garcia, former facilities director for the city Board of Education, will become deputy director of public facilities on Dec. 19. He is expected to facilitate a proposed merger of the city and school board public facilities operations. He will be paid $123,000.
Erin McDonough, a communications and special projects manager at the Bridgeport Regional Business Council, will join the city as an assistant special projects manager effective Monday.
This is the shake-up??? These are just additions to staff. More wasted tax dollars on grossly overpaid individuals.
And the council will sit back and do nothing and Tom McCarthy, another grossly overpaid individual will say the council is not in charge of running the city on a day-to-day basis.
Congratulations Bridgeport voters and taxpayers. You got what you deserved.
Less a shake-up, than just another shakedown performed on the silent mass of B’port’s uninterested voters and taxpayers.
And let’s give a special shout out to the hard-working rank and file union employees of the city of Bridgeport. Without their wage and benefit concessions this close to half a million dollar ripoff would not be possible.
And let’s not forget to thank their union leadership who played an integral role in this fiasco.
And to Dr. Ralph Ford,
Do you need a PhD to keep count???
One high-ranking African American out and two newly created positions for Latinos and whites.
Thank you and the hard work of the black community without whose help these changes would not be possible.
Grin Reaper, this is nothing new for this mayor, it’s obvious Mayor Finch cannot find qualified blacks when it comes to these good paying jobs but he has no problem popping up in black churches during election time seeking their vote. This is business as usual for this mayor, and please, don’t even think about Mario Testa suggesting someone black for one of those positions.
Ron, it’s business as usual for the ministers. They keep telling their parishioners to vote for the sitting mayor and they keep getting screwed by these mayors. It’s insulting he can’t or won’t find competent blacks to fill some of these spots.
Yet the ministers never wise up. Shame on them.
Ron,
It doesn’t look like Finch can find qualified whites for these jobs either. Look who he has hired. Alanna Kabel … dreadful waste of my tax dollars.
If a mayor is not qualified, why should he be expected to hire qualified personnel?
Alanna is one of this group of political insiders who travel around patting each other on the back, insulating one another from real people, who along with Finch rule by intimidation. She has earned her positions by sneakily undermining people and being blindly loyal to the powerful few, whoever they happened to be at any given time. It’s too bad because she knows better.
And my condolences to the Bridgeport Board of Education and whomever is running the show.
This is Mayor Finch’s way of proving he has had no extra money for education for the four years he has been mayor.
The laughter you hear in the background is Adam Wood and Tom Sure-wood. The joke is on the rank and file members of the Bridgeport Democratic Party.
And here is the coble, I mean cable, from the Finch admin to the Bridgeport voters and taxpayers.
FU STOP.
The age of arrogance has officially begun STOP (your complaining; no one is listening).
Tom McCarthy, who is the City Council President, Deputy Director of the City’s Office of Labor Relations, District leader of the Democratic Town Committee; and Alanna Kabel are cousins.
lololololololololololololol
Is this Bridgeport, ARKANSAS??? Or does the DTC just promote kissing cousins???
Speechless!
For now, that is!
Here we go again, the same old bullshit. Ruben Felipe gets a $19,000 raise and a new title and bullshit new duties. The Seaview Ave corridor is a pipe dream that is going nowhere because no one can afford to move the railroad bridge on Seaview and Crescent. 700 acres at GE are now his responsibility. They are nowhere near finished taking down those buildings. We are paying for an economic development director aren’t we?
Alana Kabel was a do-nothing in grants and was one step from being fired. Lo and behold a rejuvenation and promotion to a job with no meaning for $126,000. Great. I wish I were related to McCarthy.
Now we have Garcia named as deputy director of public facilities for $123,000. No training, no college, claim to fame related to Rosa Correa. Great!!! Plus it gets better, a stooge from Timpanelli’s group is now a special projects coordinator which means they don’t know what the hell they will do with him. Add these four salaries together and figure just $65,000 for Timpanelli’s boy and you have four people who basically do nothing making $404,000 not counting benefits. Way to go Bill, you are still full of shit!!!!!!!!!
omg!!!!!!!!!
The first year of a four-year term often brings a huge tax increase on the theory the voter will forget the pain when reelection comes around. Expect a huge tax increase this spring. The questions have to center around why? Promotions and new hires will contribute to the justification for a tax increase. Voters beware.
Gee, who thought this might be coming? Surprise, surprise–NOT!
They throw around $100 grand like it’s monopoly money.
Garcia is the nephew of Rosa Correa, the same woman who was put on the Civil Service commission to oust Ralph Jacobs. Rosa was successful in her ousting and this is her payback. Now this kid with no experience or college degree will be making big bucks. I heard Nunn is unhappy with some of the acting foremen in PF and they will be demoted when the merger occurs. Incidentally, Rosa and her family are Republicans.
The merger does not happen if the Supremes put the old board back in, no? One of the main reasons the board was sold to the state.
Good point. But Garcia will still have a job regardless of the court decision because he is being hired by the city side, not the BOE. At least two foremen will have to be laid off to pay Garcia’s salary. Wait and see.
The Supremes need to shit or get off the pot. Make a decision already.
5393 Democratic Bridgeport voters on September 27, 2011 determined this course for the 143,000 City
residents and taxpayers …
Simply amazing.
Pathetic, really.
Did anyone read this crap in the CT Post?
The next four years: How Finch sees it.
The man is delusional!!!
Walmart on Steel Point, pay raises in City Hall, higher taxes, more unrealistic development proposals. Hey Auerbach; he’s your man. Time to start defending him.
Can hardly wait for the Blue Light Specials at Wal*mart; what a step up for Bridgeport.
What a vision Mayor Finch has:
Q: Do you plan on taking on the $900 million in unfunded retiree health obligations?
Finch: We’re going to have to. It used to be that GASB (Governmental Accounting Standards Board) never made you account for those obligations in your budget. Until last year, I think. What it means is that every city is really in the red. We are showing those liabilities hanging out there. The next step is to try to figure out if there is a way to budget for them. It’s hard to budget for something that hasn’t happened yet because we don’t even know if you’re going to live long enough to need health benefits when you’re 69 and we don’t even know if you’re going to retire when you’re 69. People keep working. So it’s hard to know. And in a way we put a burden on local governments that is a little unrealistic. But, having said all that, it is a huge outstanding obligation and we really need to get a grip on it. Just like the whole country, we’ve been putting too much on our credit card.
Apparently he is a complete idiot. Insurance companies do this all the time. The job title of the person who does this at an insurance company is “Actuary.” The actuaries don’t know who is going to die, but they know how many are going to die and when, in a large population.
Isn’t that what a budget is all about? Putting a price tag on things that hadn’t happened yet?
The mayor had no problem putting a price tag on union concessions when it came to keeping the budget down but when it goes the other way, well hell, how do we know all retirees aren’t going to die before we have to pay for their health care??? Isn’t that how the city is funding their other benefits? Betting they will die before the city has to honor the pensions?
So Ron, what are you doing still kicking around?
Good time to move to the ‘burbs, wonder if my house is worth a damn thing. Nope.
There is very little doubt Finch will submit a budget with a significant tax increase in it. He has to. Finch and company have been submitting false budgets for the past three years and the dumb-ass council has been passing these budgets unopposed except for Walsh and Baker asking questions and getting no answers.
This year the budget and appropriation committee will do their usual dog and pony show which is ask dumb-ass questions that really don’t pertain to the budget and then they will all vote for a budget they changed no part of.
Beacon & I plus others will again monitor these hearings but will not be able to ask any questions.
The budget hearings are a closed-door affair with absolutely no public participation. Sure they have a public hearing at the end but the committee will not answer any questions, will not justify their decisions making the public hearing a JOKE.
It’s time to take the budget out of the council hands and institute a board of Finance made up of people who understand budgets.
You got two choices … leave or deal with a dictatorship city.
UN-qualifications are the job priorities. An electrician and a low-level custodian are now fully in charge of our public facilities dept. I enjoy my nice downtown apt … but the ‘burbs do look promising when my lease is up.
If Foster wouldn’t have put her credibility on the line by supporting Tito Ayala, Ernie Newton and Charlie Coviello, known for their let’s make a deal politics, we could have had a new Mayor who could have shaken up City Hall with better hires …
Celia Cruz, you’ve got to be joking to blame MJF’s loss on Tito Ayala, Ernie Newton and Charlie Coviello.