Alanna Kabel, deputy chief administrative officer in charge of the Community Development Block Grant Program, has notified the city she is leaving for a job with the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority. www.chfa.org
I don’t know Alanna well. She has been, from time to time, a lightning rod on OIB. Email alerts came hot and heavy about her notice. She works in City Hall Annex on Broad Street.
“Ding dong the witch is leaving.”
“She finds more value in ass kissing than actual knowledge.”
“Oh, happy day,” wrote another.
The person in charge of grant writing can be the difference between crumbs and a windfall, and Alanna was the czar for state and federal grants. I have admiration for anyone who administers the Block Grant program. The line is long for folks in need, and the paperwork exhaustive. It is not a job for an ordinary mind. Alanna developed a reputation, at least on OIB, as a suck-up to the mayor and a hard ass to her underlings. Seems like management liked her, but staff wasn’t so inclined.
Talk to management and they say we’re losing a good person. Talk to just about anyone else who dealt with her and they’ll say, “toast her departure.”
Central Grants & Community Development description from city’s website:
Central Grants & Community Development Mission Statement: To further the Administration’s mission to make Bridgeport the cleanest, greenest, safest, most affordable city with schools and neighborhoods that improve every year by strategically applying for both formula and competitive funding and increasing community collaborations and regionalism where cost effective and appropriate in order to provide quality services to the public without increasing the tax burden of city taxpayers.
Jesus, did Bill Finch write that description? Of course. The mayor needs an editor.
*** Could the writing be that plain on the political wall? *** Time will tell ***
Lennie–Are you saying the above was a run-on and on and on sentence?
I need oxygen!
Are the HUD goals and deadlines being met? Rumors are floating about things being a mess and needing to be cleaned up in the next few months or else. Maybe it is time to go.
They are rats jumping off the ship. This administration is OVER. DTC-endorsed candidates are OVER. THIS CITY IS FED UP! Whoever doesn’t jump now will be put out to pasture by Gomes. REAL QUALIFIED PEOPLE WILL TAKE THEIR PLACES.
TAKE BACK OUR CITY!!!!!!!!!
You are known by the company you keep, so who are the REAL QUALIFIED PEOPLE working on the Gomes campaign?
I don’t know of anyone beside Carolanne associated with Gomes.
Grin Reaper // Jan 28, 2011 at 8:29 am
To your posting
Grin,
It’s something first to be able to say there is a real qualified candidate and then it’s something else again to say perhaps you don’t recognize the real qualified personnel working on the Gomes Campaign because they are not MACHINE-MADE personnel. And if they are working because they believe in the rightness of this campaign, so much the better, because an awful lot of money is wasted spent on people who don’t give a damn about message, intent, integrity and allegiance to the people of Bridgeport.
So come keep us company, Grin. Join a new community of people who understand that their purpose in volunteering for the Gomes campaign is to work for the removal of Bill Finch as Mayor, and provide Bridgeport voters with a choice to move in a direction not dictated by one or two people sitting in a restaurant kitchen somewhere …
Mr Bpt, when you mention DTC-endorsed candidates are you including our complete legislative delegation, our council members, our BOE commissioners etc.? They have all been chosen by the DTC and more than likely if MJ Foster decides after her exploratory comm. to run, she too will seek the endorsement. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if, through her husband, she sought the RTC cross-endorsement. That way any insurgent candidate would get eliminated. Again, smiling faces sometimes pretend to be your friend. Mojo, can you dig it?
Hec – I respectfully beg to differ in that Chris Caruso has never been endorsed by the DTC in many of his past elections. In fact, the DTC ran candidates against Chris. Get your facts straight.
Good point, Mountain Man. Every time Mario Testa ran a candidate against Caruso for his state rep seat Caruso kicked Mario’s ass. When John Stafstrom was in charge of the party he got his ass kicked plenty of times as well.
I wasn’t endorsed my first term either. Chris was just endorsed last election. You might want to CHECK your facts. LOL, did you write never and many in the same sentence, regarding the same person?
10th Mountaineer, Chris Caruso received the DTC endorsement in 2010 and accepted it. While this was a first and he his own person, he did accept it.
She sees the handwriting on the wall. Bill is no longer her “Kabel Guy!”
Nothing personal against her but she single-handedly ruined the grants dept. The turnover in that office since she arrived was close to 100%. She was not competent in that field and many good people left because of her unreasonable management style. She is more suited for the CHFA job but Beware CHFA employees!!!
Nothing personal, but “she single-handedly ruined the grants dept” sounds very personal.
100% turnover among, what, 4 or 5 employees?
Grin Reaper // Jan 28, 2011 at 8:19 am
To your posting
Sorry Grin,
But City Hall Smoker has it right … the departing Director of Grants, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer and whatever other title she’s held during the years she’s drawn a city salary, single-handedly ruined the Grants Department. There occurred on her watch the loss of competent and experienced personnel, loss of vital, productive City programs sustained by grant monies … Some of these programs had 20 years or more history of help in the City. Some amazing losses in grant dollars that had been nurtured for years by people who cooperated, not ignored, the Feds.
Grin,
Nothing personal … but this woman did some serious damage … and all that time she had a City car for her private use as well …
City Hall Smoker know of what he/she speaks …
Grin, I lost track of the number of employees who were forced out due to Alanna’s reign of terror. I believe it’s somewhere around 15. In any other place there would have been a full investigation as to what the hell was going on. But given her political connections with Cuz/Prez and the administration’s ignorance, it was ignored.
Does this mean everyone who buys a home will get free kabel service?
Opportunities at Bridgeport Public Library
Working for the Bridgeport Public Library
The BPL is seeking candidates for the following positions:
CONTINUOUS RECRUITMENT
PART-TIME LIBRARIAN – Bridgeport Public Library.
Join our talented team as an entry-level, part-time (up to 19 hours per week) professional librarian. The Bridgeport Public Library consists of the downtown central library, four branches and one bookmobile. You will be working in one or more of these following service areas: Customer Service, Neighborhood Services, Reference and Research, Volunteer Services and Youth Services. Your responsibilities may include collection development, Adult, Children’s or Young Adult programming, and Internet and computer-assisted reference services. You may also supervise non-professional staff and will be under direct professional supervision.
Qualifications and skills required include a Master’s degree from an American Library Association (ALA) accredited library school; strong interpersonal, verbal, written and online communication skills; flexibility; and firm commitment to public service within a diverse population. The position’s salary is $27.36 per hour. Some evening and weekend hours are required.
Application: To be considered, submit your resume, cover letter, and names of 3 professional references to: Bridgeport Public Library, Attn: Recruitment, 925 Broad St., Bridgeport, CT 06604-4871. Please direct questions to (203) 576 – 7777. Bridgeport Public Library is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer.
bportlibrary.org
11.17.2010
Part-Time Library Assistant – Bridgeport Public Library.
Join our talented team as an entry-level, part-time (up to 19 hours per week) support staff member. The Bridgeport Public Library consists of the downtown central library, four branches and one bookmobile. You will be working in one or more of these following service areas: Customer Service, Neighborhood Services, Reference and Research, Volunteer Services and Youth Services. Your responsibilities will include performing many of the clerical and library support work of ordinary difficulty and responsibility involving performance and carrying out relatively simple technical tasks and standard routines of library operation; related work as required; performed under direct technical professional supervision.
Qualifications and skills required include graduation from high school and up to one year of prior experience in a public library at the clerical level or any satisfactory equivalent combination of education and training; familiarity with general library routines; strong interpersonal, verbal, written and online communication skills; flexibility; and firm commitment to public service within a diverse population.
Application: To be considered, submit your resume, cover letter, and names of 3 professional references to: Bridgeport Public Library, Attn: Recruitment, 925 Broad St., Bridgeport, CT 06604-4871. Please direct questions to (203) 576-7777. Bridgeport Public Library is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer.
bportlibrary.org
This is either an inside deal or a joke.
Part-time position for someone with a master’s degree @ $30.00 an hour? An hour under the requirement for benefits? Are retirees coming back?
The voters approved a huge budget increase for the library and what are they doing with the money? Union busting?
Maybe someone can investigate whether those posted jobs will actually be filled.
Is this a Malloy deal?
Doubt it. Alanna is cousin to Council Prez Tom McCarthy. Therefore she backed Lamont like every good Calamarian.
I agree with City Hall. This position was advertised on CHFA’s site a while ago. Big bucks if I recall. Good luck!
Where is John Gomes when you need him?
If John didn’t blow up and blow up the Citi Stat Dept at the same time, he could tell us who was more productive, Alana or Rena.
But he would have to have a way of discounting some of the grants that are automatic and placing lower weight on grants that are renewed versus new.
But maybe John has all of this info at his fingertips if he was doing something more than complaining about who would make copies for him.
Grin Reaper // Jan 28, 2011 at 8:42 am
To your posting
Don’t be silly, there is no comparison between these two women.
And with your gift of sarcasm, you may not even want to know that John made his own copies, what Lisa would not do was tell him where the paper storage was because the machine ran out of paper while HE was copying. Lisa never copied anything for John Gomes and he never complained about that because Andy Nunn made it very clear that Lisa was there to serve Andy, and by default, Charlie Carroll.
John Gomes blew up and took CitiStat with him? More like John Gomes expected the administration to act on CitiStat’s recommendations, including that secretaries sleeping with their bosses should do their jobs. And rather than act on those recommendations, the administration instead got rid of Gomes in the most publicly humiliating way possible. Doing so killed two birds with one stone. Not only were they rid of him but the way it was done undermined his credibility as to anything he might have uncovered.
CitiStat was supposed to transform Bridgeport as it did Baltimore. Too bad John Gomes believed that when he took the job. Unfortunately, transforming Bridgeport was not on this administration’s agenda. Gomes was supposed to take the job, play the game and collect his paycheck. Too bad for him he is not built that way. So now CitiStat is what this administration wants it to be–a place to park Calamarians who need jobs.
Knowing many long-term City employees, I have found there are real workhorses, “go-to guys” and there are many lazy, apathetic do-the-least-possibles. Reading City Hall Smoker and others, they come across like the latter. If that’s the case, who gives a damn whether they left or didn’t like Kabel?
Let’s see … Norwalk seems to do pretty well and she was heavily involved in Norwalk development for some time, comes to Bridgeport and pisses off the lazy bastards and now goes to a significant State job … Yeah, City Hal Smoker and their buddies must be right and Norwalk Mayor, Bridgeport Mayor and State are all wrong.
Nothing and nobody’s perfect but this bitching does not ring true.
Frustrated and Grin, sadly it is the workhorses who have left … in both grants and community development some who were there a long time and some new who she brought on. More than 4 or 5 but that is not the point. Also, the department shifted to mostly formula grants and renewals. Unfortunately, with the millions flowing from the FEDS the last few years, Bridgeport only got a small amount compared to New Haven, Hartford and other bigger cities. Bridgeport didn’t seize the opportunities. They went after a few and were happy at that. Maybe that was the directive, don’t know. Congressman Himes was key to the Steel Point money and the only other large grant was for cops which they have gotten before. Bridgeport missed out on many millions at a time when the stimulus was needed more than ever. Good luck to Alanna in her new position. She probably wanted to move on to something that was a better fit for her skills.
RedWhiteandBlue // Jan 28, 2011 at 10:27 am
To your posting
Something like the Peter Principle?
I agree. Most of the grant money she boasts about were earmarks or stimulus money that Bpt would have gotten no matter how mediocre the application. Not to put down the grantswriters as they have had no guidance, direction or support since Rina left.
Are there any women in leadership roles left?
Is there anybody in leadership in city hall?
There are leaders in City Hall but none are in leadership positions. Finch frowns on that.
city hall smoker // Jan 28, 2011 at 6:21 pm
To your posting
CHS,
You couldn’t have said it any better.
THIS JUST IN:
MY LEFT NUTMEG, a highly respected Connecticut political blog will not edit any posting for any reason.
Interesting. Isn’t (notice the proper use of an apostrophe) it?
BFD. If yahooy likes MLN so much, he can stay there.
No wonder you’re so nasty. 10:55pm on a Friday night you’re posting blogs. I would think an exceptionally good-looking woman like you would have better things to do.
Reaper
It’s highly obvious you must work for the Finch adm. since you feel the need to trash Gomes and back the Calamarian regime. Or if not directly working for Mayor Finch, a employee who feels he must be a Calamarian lemming.
Do please take note your attacks have been responded to by many posters and you lose each and every time.
Please take your Mom’s advice and if you have nothing good to say, don’t say anything.
Hold on. If you’re going to have an apostrophe catastrophe, I couldn’t think of a better place than OIB.
yahooy: when you get home from ballet school (take off your slippers), we can sit on the tailgate of my pickup truck and I’ll tell you about how I wrestled alligators at two tourist spots in Florida during the early ’80s.
(wink)
Have you ever been asked to leave a Community College?
Her picture tells it all, but what she did in Norwalk was not what she tried to do in Bpt. They gave her a title that went to her head. She blew smoke up Fabs’ ass which wasn’t too hard to do, he hired her for a job she was not suited to handle, she was confrontational and would not own up to her shortcomings. It was always someone else’s fault or she didn’t want to take advice from anyone, no matter what these people with exp. had to say it was her way or the highway and she had Finch’s and Andy Nunn’s ear, two equal do-nothings who love passing the buck, unlike Truman’s saying The Buck Stops Here they say we pass the buck from here. Andy Nunn, what a joke this guy is another political you take ours we’ll take yours, just like Feeney who’s father-in-law Barry Knott got him a job back in Stratford with his strong Republican connections in that town. So it’s just a merry-go-round same sad sacks at different jobs rehash.
Hey Guy. Though sometimes your run-on sentences confuse me (smile) … the content of your posting is absolutely true. Alanna was way over her head and she knew it which was why she became so defensive and confrontational. People like Nunn and Feeney couldn’t get a real job anywhere unless it was through political connections. Maybe we’re on a roll … first Feeney … then Alanna … who could be next?