Afternoon Update: If negotiations between Bridgeport and Trumbull over the location of a regional science magnet school are any indication imagine the intensity over the processing of poop.
Trumbull’s wastewater is processed by Bridgeport’s sewage treatment plant. The contract agreement between the two towns and associated costs charged to and by Trumbull’s water pollution control authority expires June of 2012. There’s been a lot of hullabaloo over control of the state-owned property located in Trumbull for the proposed magnet school in the Old Town Road area where Bridgeport and Trumbull share a border. Trumbull First Selectman Tim Herbst would like to transact a property swap with Bridgeport for possible construction of a sewage treatment plant near the Pequonnock River. The processed poop has to go somewhere. Under that scenario would the state Department of Environmental Protection approve it? A sewage treatment plant would take years to build, but would eventually make Trumbull independent of Bridgeport’s sludge processing.
Officials from Bridgeport, Trumbull and Monroe have also discussed creating a regional wastewater authority. Those discussions have appeared to slow down as Trumbull considers the various options: stick with Bridgeport in the long term, build its own plant, or enter into a regional authority.
Regional cooperation between Trumbull and Bridgeport has never been so commanding. In fact Monday afternoon (today) the Greater Bridgeport and Valley Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), a board of about one dozen chief elected officials from the Bridgeport region, met to decide on earmarks approved for federal spending. Federal funding for transportation projects and programs are channeled through this regional organization. The MPO approved $1.9 million for water taxi service for Pleasure Beach. Mayor Bill Finch would love to announce election-year passage to the peninsula for the summer season. The beach, once among the most heralded in the northeast, has been effectively shut down for about 16 years after the bridge connecting the East End to the peninsula burned. Just how inviting the city’s Parks Department can make the beach is another story. What activities will be allowed on the peninsula? But announcement of water taxi service would provide a response to Pleasure Beach nostalgia and help the mayor reopen the beach to pedestrian traffic.
The swap of land with Trumbull for a magnet high school is something that will screw Bridgeport in the long run. It is obvious the suburban towns that will be involved need additional high school space but not enough space to warrant them building their own high school.
With Bridgeport needing to replace both Bassick & Harding high schools wouldn’t it be more prudent to build one high school somewhere in Bridgeport to replace these schools?
As far as the land swap with Trumbull it will give them another site on Bridgeport’s border to put another ugly duckling.
Putting a sewer treatment plant that would run off into the Pequonnock river and through Bunnell’s Pond is one of the worst ideas I have heard in a long time. What happens during heavy rainstorms when Trumbull’s sewage plant is forced to release untreated or partially treated sewage into the river & Bunnell’s Pond? It’s the people in Bridgeport who would have to deal with this problem not the people of Trumbull. During the last storm with heavy rain North Ave was blocked off and Park City Ford was under water now they would be underwater with the added feature of untreated sewage.
This is a perfect example of an administration that is out of control and has no clue what they are doing. It also shows they don’t give a damn about the citizens of Bridgeport.
Where the hell is the outrage from the members of the common council? Not one comment from any of them including Walsh.
In a few months there will be an opportunity to replace every damn one of them and also the mayor and his dumb-ass staff. We need to get the vote out to save our city from these self-centered dumb asses.
town committee // Mar 27, 2011 at 12:05 pm
to your posting
tc,
right … right … right
You know there really is a group of people in Bridgeport who wake up every day with a compelling drive to get the needed votes on September 13, 2011 to send this guy home for good.
I know, I am one of them.
Me three.
Pleasure Beach is a beautiful island owned by the city of Bridgeport. It has been a pain in the ass for many of the past administrations. It is a cash cow as far as maintenance is concerned. Removing stolen cars and dealing with the people who hung out there at night were all costly city expenses.
The fire that happened many years ago under the Ganim administration was just the excuse the city was looking for so they could close off the island, which they did.
That fire damaged the wood decking but did not extended into the mechanical components that opened and closed the bridge.
No one has looked at the feasibility of installing a new mechanism to open and close the bridge. How costly could a simple system that horizontally opens this bridge be? I bet it’s a lot less than the $1.9 million for a water taxi.
Okay Lombard, pay me! I told you Lennie was paid to keep this topic moving every three weeks. Thanks Lennie!
Jim, you’re welcome. Politics and poop are my favorite subjects. Plus, after Bridgeport, OIB’s largest audience is Trumbull. Yes, I shamelessly suck up to OIB readers.
Lennie, now who’s drinking the Poop-aid? Trumbull, Monroe or Bridgeport?
“Politics and poop are my favorite subjects.”
I do believe you are being redundant.
I don’t see Monroe donating sewage to Bridgeport any time soon. Bob Scinto is facing a stretch in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. That put his high-end old folks’ home project in Monroe, which needed a sewer line, on hold. Indefinitely. Monroe doesn’t have a sewer system so Scinto and his associate Paul Timpanelli over at the Bridgeport Regional Business Counsel tried to sell a bill of goods to the town of Trumbull. They wanted Monroe to tap into Trumbull’s sewage system which is tapped into Bridgeport’s sewage system …
Monroe and Trumbull are only telling us they give a shit.
Who’s drinking the Poop-aid?
Reopening Pleasure Beach would be the only good thing this administration has done.
“Our Fire Department personnel were concerned that the decades-old buildings on Pleasure Beach posed a significant public safety hazard, especially after one of our deputy chiefs witnessed several kids running from one of the buildings during a routine … visit to the island. At the behest of our Fire Department, Burns Construction Co., which was doing some work on the island for the Town of Stratford, used their equipment to push the two buildings over. All involved recognize that the work should have been done with a demolition permit in place. We will take appropriate action to ensure that this situation does not occur again in the future. In the meantime, the Public Facilities department is determining how best to dispose of the rubble left from the buildings on the island.” … Mayor Bullfinch, 2009.
Two years later the remains of these structures are still in place, mounds of splintered wood 20 feet high and 150 feet across with five-inch steel nails sticking up ready to puncture someone’s foot. The Town of Stratford constructed a temporary road out there to facilitate the removal of that town’s cottages. It was in place for an entire year and would have allowed for the removal of this dangerous debris at minimal expense. The road, however, was removed over the last two weeks.
It is not a simple matter of “reopening” Pleasure Beach. Vandals and nature have run rampant over the last 15 years, making much of the former park a vine jungle rife with invisible open manholes and building foundations ready to cave in. The former Polka Dot Playhouse and “new” bathhouse have been wide open for years. The Pleasure Beach Pier has received no maintenance since 1992 and is in dangerously deteriorated condition. Much of the land is covered with poison ivy, and the large deer herd has made Lyme disease a very real threat.
The Town of Stratford has made their portion of this sandspit a model of enlightened development. If you take a walk out there it is very apparent just where the municipal boundary is located.
$1.9 million for water taxis??? If anyone knew how to make a deal in this town they would broker it with the Ferry Company allowing them to move across the harbor. Then we could have water taxis and water taxes! Where’s Monty Hall when you need him???
P.S. for Poop Script. All poop runs downhill and ends up in Bridgeport. Flush Finch!
Please join us this Tuesday (tomorrow) to get the straight poop on Mary-Jane Foster at Viale’s, 5:30-7:00 pm. Suggested donation $25.00 or more. Thanks.
Water taxis to … where? And what will the passengers do once they have disembarked? This is all fine and good. It doesn’t solve the city’s more pressing problems, many of which could be solved if the powers that be actually gave a damn about the financial health of the city. The Tammany Hall political system is not going away any time soon. Whoever is elected to the mayor’s office will have to contend with it and the organization’s representatives on the City Council. The city’s legislative delegation is now comprised of opportunistic individuals who are using elected office as a steppingstone to personal benefit. All politics is local. Regime change in Bridgeport begins with City Hall.
The Finch administration has shown it does not give a shit about the people of the city of Bridgeport. At least we know Trumbull gives a shit by giving us their shit.
www .ctpost.com/news/article/Man-charged-in-bank-robbery-1311649.php
Twenty years old and robbing banks. Thanks to Bridgeport’s failing public education system this young man had no job skills beyond crime or general labor.
Bridgeport politics and untreated human waste have one thing in common: they both stink like shit.