Waterbury Thoughts

Blight Meeting

2012-01-25T16:04:00.001-05:00

Things are heating up! The Mayor convened a public meeting last night at Walsh School to share with area residents the new anti-blight and litter initiative he has launched. It was the best-attended event in the WOW neighborhood in a long time. The Walsh gym was packed. There were, of course, city officials and several community activists present, but they were far outnumbered by neighborhood residents. There was a buzz of excitement and a renewal of hope.

The format was largely one in which the different city departments involved in the new anti-blight initiative explained what they are doing. Although one audience member later accused them of merely patting themselves on the back, they really were reporting to the public and much of what they had to say was very warmly received.

As the Mayor pointed out, he has been in office for less than two months. I think there has been more progress in fighting blight in that time than there has been in years. Two of the most important steps are the formation of the Waterbury Blight Enforcement & Control Division and the formation of the Blight Task Force. Instead of farming out blight control to WDC, which has very limited enforcement ability, a division of the police department is now in charge of enforcement. Instead of every city department working on their own, their efforts are unified by the task force.

There seemed to be two basic areas of concern for residents and landlords.

The first concern is that the city is not actually going to follow through on its new promise to help the neighborhood. I think everyone who has lived in the WOW neighborhood for more than 15 years can quickly point back to broken promises and empty promises of the Giordano and Jarjura administrations. All I can say in response to that concern is that the past is the past. Learn from the past, hold the city accountable for its promises, but don't slow things down by dwelling on past wrongs.

The other area of concern is that property owners will be treated unfairly. The city is absolutely getting tough on blight. Property owners are going to be held fully accountable for the condition of their properties. The possibility of jail time for property owners who refuse to comply with anti-blight regulations is being looked into. The city, however, does recognize that not all situations are the same. I know they are very sympathetic towards landlords who are stuck with destructive tenants and are working on finding solutions.

The city is very willing to help anyone who needs help. One audience member last night talked about the difficulty she is having with her rental property. She can no longer afford to maintain it, can't sell it, and was unable to get any assistance from HUD. As soon as she finished speaking, someone from the Health Department sat down with her, got her contact information, and started the process of finding a solution. Mayoral Aide Geraldo Reyes sat down with her next to talk about how he can help.

There was one new initiative announced that received a vigorous round of applause. As most everyone in Waterbury has noticed, the Republican-American has started posting the names and addresses of property owners cited for blight violations by the Health Department. The majority of the property owners live outside Waterbury. This is a huge frustration for those of us who live in the WOW neighborhood. We get blamed for the blighted conditions here, but many of the problems are caused by absentee landlords. What makes it particularly frustrating is that we in the neighborhood have no way of reaching those out-of-town property owners, no way to talk to them about doing a better job of maintaining their property, no way to tell them to clean up, but we are still blamed by the rest of the city for their blight no matter how clean our own properties might be (and, as Bonnie Orintas noted, the WOW neighborhood has some of the city's most beautiful and best-maintained properties).

At last night's meeting, Roseann Wright, Director of the Health Department, announced that they are now sending press releases about out-of-town owners of blighted properties to their local newspapers. This was loudly applauded. Here is a sample press release that was distributed last night:

Paul Guidone presented a Facility Improvement Plan for Walsh School. The plan includes a long list of short-term renovations to be completed before the new school year starts in the fall, including recaulking windows and building exterior joints, reconstructing the front entrance sidewalk, installing security cameras and a new fence, and cutting back overgrown trees and shrubs. The long-term plan is short, but is mainly major renovations and expansions. The Walsh School Facility Improvement Plan is a perfect example of where we are: everything on the list should have been done already, which is frustrating; but I am so pleased that is going to happen now. Waterbury is finally moving in the right direction.

Last, but not least, a delicious pasta dinner was served at the end of the meeting by the PAL organization.

Snow Monsters Return!

2012-01-22T14:46:00.000-05:00

I was hoping the snow would lead to some more creativity at MD Auto on North Main Street, and it has. Yay!

Here are this year's first snow creatures.

This one is, sadly, damaged. Someone kicked him in the jaw.

I have not yet met the artist (MD Auto was closed when I went by today), but the Rep-Am reported last year that Harold Figueroa is the inspired genius.

Here's a couple of the snow/paint sculptures from last winter: late December, mid January and late January. Each one is more complex and "finished" than the last.

Winter Critters

2012-01-21T16:49:00.000-05:00

So much for not having anything to blog about. The snow day must be inspiring me.

The birds are all busy at the feeders. Same crowd as usual. Sparrows, chickadees, cardinals, nuthatches, woodpeckers, and juncos.

Then there are the cats. For some reason, we've been invaded by stray cats. First there was the Cute Black Cat (CBC).

He's adorable. Started showing up at the window when we called for the cat who is supposed to come when called. CBC didn't care that we weren't calling him, he wanted in on the action. Normally I don't feed stray cats, but this one was very persistent. After a couple days of food and water, he started looking better. He figured out how to get into the garage and has been sleeping on the soft top of my car.

CBC hasn't been on the front porch asking for food in several days. He has been replaced by Straggly Kitten. Straggly is a mess. He looks awful. He has trouble using his mouth for eating and drinking. He has a large bald spot on his tail. The first night he appeared, his belly looked unnaturally swollen. His fur was messy, sticking out in all different directions, and filthy. He looks better now.

He keeps trying to run inside the house, but I already have five indoor cats and I'm not going to allow an unneutered, potentially diseased cat inside (especially since one of my older cats is suffering with a bad tooth problem right now).

Luckily for Straggly K, there is a cat shelter on the front porch. I have lined the sides with blankets and made a cozy nest for him. He's been guzzling down all the warm water we bring him, and filling his stomach with food. I picked him up yesterday and realized he is nothing but skin and bones--his belly no longer looks distended, so it may have been just from starvation, not disease. The missing fur could be from flea-related over grooming.

I can't afford to take stray cats to a regular vet (can't afford to take my indoor cats to the regular vet!), but the H.O.P.E. Spay/Neuter Clinic has very affordable rates for neutering and vaccinating. Even better would be if one of my readers wants to adopt him (hint, hint).

Upcoming Events

2012-01-20T20:01:00.000-05:00

I have not been doing much blogging lately, probably because it's winter and I'd prefer to hibernate or relocate to someplace warm and sunny. I've tried to think of interesting topics to write about, but nothing has really gripped me--and been a quick write. I've been busy with a backlog of freelance work which I still haven't caught up on (ye editor of The Observer has begun to nag), so there's not much time for blogging.

While I still don't have anything interesting and quick for the blog, I figured I could do a filler post listing a few upcoming events that are likely to be blog subjects.

WOW Community Meeting
Tuesday, January 24, 6:30 p.m. at Walsh School
Held at the request of Mayor O'Leary, the meeting will inform students and parents in the WOW (Walnut-Orange-Walsh) neighborhood, as well as the school's faculty and staff, of the status of improvements completed and planned for the school and the surrounding neighborhood. The public is encouraged to attend.

"The Future of Our Downtown Green" Community Forum
Wednesday, January 25, 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Mattatuck Museum
A public meeting to discuss ideas for the Green, part of a grant-funded study.

WOW/NRZ Youth Council's 9th Annual Black History Celebration
Wednesday, February 1, 6:00 p.m. at the WOW/NRZ Community Learning Center
This year's theme is "Celebrating a Rich Heritage" and features a host of distinguished speakers and guests.

Blight Update

2011-12-21T11:38:00.000-05:00

I attended a meeting this morning at City Hall convened by Mayor O'Leary with representatives from key city departments, Board of Education, Board of Aldermen, WDC and community leaders. The topic: Blight.

When the Republican-American first reported that there was interest in relocating the Walsh School students to the new Jonathan Reed School, I was not happy. While I absolutely agreed that the Walsh students should have the best educational facilities, I was horrified at the concept of abandoning the school. If a neighborhood is blighted and the city decides to give up on it, the neighborhood will become a war zone/slum/ghetto/whatever you want to call it. Closing the school will make the neighborhood worse. Yes, the students would be attending school in a new building, but they would still be living in the old, blighted neighborhood, which would disintegrate rapidly. If the neighborhood blight is a problem for the school and the students, the only solution is to clean up the blight. If the school building needs repairs and upgrades, make that happen too.

I was very happy to read yesterday's article, in which the Mayor and the School Superintendent both supported improving the neighborhood and the school, rather than giving up on them.

The meeting this morning was the first of many. I wasn't sure what to expect. I've grown accustomed to city meetings in which everyone sits around debating what to do, complains about the problems, and then nothing ever gets done. This was not that sort of meeting. This is not that sort of Mayor.

Mayor O'Leary made it very clear that it is time for change, time to change the culture, time to change the tactics, time to change the attitude. He expects everyone, city employees and city residents, to roll up their sleeves and work their hardest to turn this city around. As he said, when you walk through neighborhoods like the one surrounding Walsh School, you can feel overwhelmed by the problems and not know where to start. I'd say, based on today's meeting, he's going to take on all the problems at once, building a strong team of people to make it happen.

He has encouraged everyone to be creative with their solutions and to be willing to try new things. He wants to end the culture of negativity, of people saying things can't be done, that problems can't be solved. He asked each department head present to come up with some specifics on improving the city's response to the blight problem, and he asked the community leaders present to make sure the residents do their part as well. He made it pretty clear that he expects everyone to work hard, find positive solutions, and give it all they've got. Leadership in action!

I don't want to sound like I'm back in campaign mode (I'm not), but this was a great meeting. During the campaign, every so often someone would ask me if O'Leary really was going to follow through on his promises to clean up blight, etc. It's not going to happen overnight, but it's pretty obvious to me that this city is about to get a whole lot better.

Midnight Oath of Office

2011-12-01T01:35:00.000-05:00

Although the public, full Inauguration will be held on Friday, our new Mayor took the Oath of Office at 12:01 a.m. on Thursday, December 1 to ensure a seamless transition of power for the new administration. Also sworn in tonight were the Town Clerk, City Clerk and Corporation Counsel.

There's been some confusion about the two swearing-in ceremonies. Tonight's was held for practical reasons. For example, if the Town Clerk had not been sworn in tonight, it is conceivable that the validity of any birth certificates or other documents she is responsible for could be called into question.

Friday night's Inauguration is a full-length event, held at a time that will be vastly more convenient for the general public.

There were a fair number of people invited to tonight's event who were able to stay up that late (I'm starting to feel old, getting tired so early!). The Waterbury Observer took photographs, and the Republican-American took photographs and video. Here's a few of the photos I took.

First up, everyone waiting for midnight.... It reminded me of when I was a little girl and thought that staying up until midnight was incredibly momentous. I wonder how the Mayor's daughter will remember this night.

Mayor-Elect O'Leary being greeted by his daughter.

Mayor Bergin, who has shared some amazing stories of past campaigns.

The Mayor's swearing-in was conducted in the Aldermanic Chambers. The Oath of Office was administered by Senior Justice William J. "Taco" Sullivan.

Mayor O'Leary!

Inauguration on Friday

2011-11-30T12:29:00.001-05:00

For the first time in a decade, a new Mayor will be inaugurated in Waterbury this week. The public ceremony will be held on Friday, December 2. The event is free and open to the public. After the ceremony is over, I recommend trying one of our great downtown restaurants. I've includes links to most of them below the invitation (I couldn't find websites for all of them, and I've left out eateries that are not open for dinner).

East Main Street
City Hall Cafe
Golden Wok II
Louie's Pizza House
Zachary's Pizza House

South Main Street
El Americano Restaurant

Bank Street
Churrascaria Braza Brazilian Bar & Grill
Diorio's Restaurant & Bar

Leavenworth Street
Drescher's Restaurant
Signature's Restaurant

West Main Street
La Cazuela Restaurant & Lounge

Robert Wakeman Hill

2011-11-18T21:08:00.003-05:00

In the years that I have been working with Waterbury's history, I have repeatedly come across references to an architect named Robert Wakeman Hill. He usually is overshadowed by later Waterbury architects, and I haven't felt like I was very familiar with his work. Some of his better-known buildings were destroyed long ago, while many others simply aren't recognized as being his work.

Earlier this year, I started researching Hill for the Waterbury Hall of Fame. I also put together a slideshow of his buildings for the Induction Ceremony which was held recently. Since then, I have been working on putting together this blog post and have found a few more buildings which I believe he designed. I have included buildings outside Waterbury as well.

Hill was active in Waterbury beginning during the Civil War and continued working until the early 20th century. For a time, he was one of only two architects in Waterbury. He designed buildings when Waterbury was first growing into a city. His buildings were located in what was then the core of the city, primarily downtown, the South End, Brooklyn, North Square and Hillside. As the city development spread outward in the 20th century, the older neighborhoods were neglected. Several of the R.W. Hill buildings that survive in Waterbury are in poor condition. Others have been demolished or drastically modified. I have including historic images when possible to show what has been lost.

Robert Wakeman Hill, in Anderson's History of Waterbury

Robert Wakeman Hill (1828-1909) was a leading architect in Waterbury and the state in the 19th century. He was the official state architect under four governors, designing state armory buildings in Waterbury, New Haven, Bridgeport, Norwalk and New London. Hill used Waterbury craftsmen for the state armory projects: carpenter W. M. Cottle worked on the Waterbury State Armory, and Irish immigrant D.E. Cronin, in partnership with John W. Gaffney, built the Norwalk and New London State Armories.

Hill grew up in Waterbury. His father was a carpenter, school teacher and poet. After completing his studies, Hill worked for architect Henry Austin, a major American architect based in New Haven. Hill also worked for a time in Milwaukee, eventually returning to Waterbury and established an architectural practice on Bank Street in 1863.

Hill (seated on right) and other Waterbury artists, including painter Horace
Johnson (seated on left) and sculptor Truman Bartlett (with goatee in center).

St. Margaret's School, Grove Street, Waterbury

Demolished decades ago, the original St. Margaret's School was built on Grove Street in 1865. Most of the Robert Hill buildings I have identified are brick and from decades later. Looking at this postcard now, I can see many of the same architectural features in this clapboard building that he used in his brick buildings.

Collection of Chase Collegiate School Archives

Considering that Hill was in business in Waterbury for about half a century, there are probably many other buildings by him that survive. I have found a reference to a "double house" for S.M. Buckingham, but I have not located it yet.

City Hall, Waterbury

Waterbury's first City Hall building was on the Green in 1869 and probably established Hill as the city's premiere architect. It burned down in 1912, three years after his death. The postcard below is hand-painted. Other versions are painted different colors, so I don't know if it really was this color. I suspect it was not.

Police Department, Leavenworth Street and Harrison Alley, Waterbury

Hill was hired in 1889 to design a new headquarters for the police department, located behind the City Hall building. I haven't been able to find an image of the full building, just the detail below, which is on the Waterbury Police Department website.

The detail image shows a decorative use of bricks to form a sort of sawtooth pattern below the second-floor windows. This is typical of Hill's buildings.

State Armory Buildings

In 1885, Hill was the architect for State Armory buildings in Bridgeport, New Britain and Norwalk. Hill had designed the Waterbury Armory two years earlier. It was located on the corner of Phoenix and Abbott Avenues. I haven't been able to find an image of it, but the following postcard views of his other armories suggest what it might have looked like.

Bridgeport Armory (I'm assuming this is the one by R.W. Hill)

New Britain Armory

Norwalk Armory

City Hall and Opera House, Thomaston

Thomaston's City Hall was built in 1884. Like Waterbury's first City Hall, it was designed as a multi-purpose building, with an Opera House, firehouse and municipal offices.

Walker Hall, 50 DeForest Street, Watertown

Built in 1883, Walker Hall was once the Watertown Library. It was recently acquired by Taft School, whose original building (now gone) was a former hotel designed by Robert Wakeman Hill.

Bronson B. Tuttle Home, 380 Church Street, Naugatuck

Completed in 1881, this was part of an estate that included a carriage house and greenhouse. The house was given to Naugatuck in 1935 and is currently the office building for the town's Board of Education.

Route 63 has since been built dividing the property, with the carriage house on the opposite side of the road from the main house.

Congregational Church Parish House, Naugatuck

Naugatuck's Green is best known for the buildings designed by McKim, Mead & White, but Hill was there before them. The Parish House for the Congregational Church was designed by Hill and completed in 1888. The adjoining Church was designed by Stanford White and completed in 1903.

St. John's Rectory, Church Street, Waterbury

The rectory building for St. John's Episcopal Church was completed in 1886, at a cost of about $16,000.

The building features some typical design elements used by Hill: red brick walls and terra cotta decorative rosettes.

Litchfield County Courthouse, Litchfield

Very little of this resembles the original design. Built in 1889 in the Romanesque Revival style, it was drastically remodeled in 1913 to 1914 when the town felt that a Colonial Revival style was better suited to their image.

Postcard c. 1910, from Judicial Branch website.

The 1889 construction of the Litchfield County Courthouse was done by the John W. Gaffney Company of Waterbury, which built several R.W. Hill buildings.

Coe Brass Office Building, Torrington

Built in 1881, the Coe Brass office building was remodeled several times, in 1888, 1911 and more recently.

The original design can be seen in the historic image below.

Coe Brass office building, c. 1893

Hall Memorial Chapel, Riverside Cemetery, Waterbury

The chapel was completed in 1885 and was named for Samuel W. Hall, who left a bequest of $20,000 in 1877 for its construction.

The chapel was renovated and the spire rebuilt in 1893.

Griggs Building, 221-227 Bank Street, Waterbury

The Griggs Building is named for its first owner, Henry C. Griggs, who was a founder of the Smith & Griggs brass manufacturer, involved in banking and real estate, served as Alderman, and was twice elected to the state legislature.

The Griggs Building was home to several hotels in its early decades. By 1978, it was extremely run down, as can be seen in the photo below, one of fourteen taken as part of the Historic American Buildings Survey, available on the Library of Congress website.

Bank Street buildings, 1978, Collection of Library of Congress, HABS CT-410

The building has since been restored. The details of the architecture can best be seen from the upper floors of the Buckingham parking garage across the street.

As is typical with many Hill buildings, the Griggs building is a combination of brick with terra cotta decorative elements.

Henry Griggs' son, Wilfred E. Griggs, was an architect. He joined Robert Hill's firm after returning from his studies in 1891. He became one of the most prominent architects in Waterbury during the early 20th century and was the official successor to Robert W. Hill.

Protector Hose Company No. 4 Firehouse, 904 Bank Street, Waterbury

The fire company held a lavish party on March 26, 1883 to open the new firehouse in the Brooklyn neighborhood. The Waterbury American newspaper published a detailed description of the event and the building, mentioning Robert W. Hill as the architect, Chatfield & Chatfield as the mason and F.B. Smith as the carpenter.

The building has been greatly modified over the years, with entries and windows having been bricked up. It is now the V.F.W. Post 7790.

The firehouse originally had a 50 foot hose tower, used for drying hoses, a bunk room and a parlor. The parlor was furnished with carpeting, curtains, a wall clock donated by the Waterbury Clock company, a piano and chandeliers (presumably small!).

The feast at the grand opening in 1883 included soup, cold roast turkey, chicken and sparerib, cold boiled corned beef, tongue and ham, hot potatoes and turnips. That has no bearing on the architecture, but I thought it was a fun tidbit to include.

Rose Hill Hose Company No. 5 Firehouse, 325 Baldwin Street, Waterbury

The Fire Department budget in the Waterbury Municipal Register for 1882 listed two payments to Robert W. Hill for architectural services, and it listed two new firehouses under construction. The Protector Hose Co. No. 4 was one; the Rose Hill Hose Company No. 5 was the other. No other architect appears to have been employed at this time, so I think it is safe to assume that Hill was the architect for the Rose Hill firehouse.

It's been a Hindu Temple for a few years now. The neighborhood is pretty run down, and the firehouse has seen better days, but the exterior architecture is more or less intact.

This is one of the upsides to historic buildings being neglected--oftentimes the alternative is that the historic buildings have been modified so much that very little of the original design survives. During the middle of the 20th century, the movement for modern styles led to a lot of beautiful historic architecture being lost completely.

I have more photos posted of this building than some of the others partly because so much of the original detail survives, and partly because I'm not sure those details will survive for much longer.

Firehouse, Litchfield

This one is on the Green in Litchfield and is much better cared for than the two firehouses in Waterbury. It is now a bank.

Comparing this to the ones in Waterbury can be depressing, but it can also be inspirational, letting you see just how beautiful they could be if restored.

The back of the building has more decorative brickwork.

BUILDINGS ATTRIBUTED TO ROBERT WAKEMAN HILL

The next set of buildings are ones that I believe (to varying degrees) to have been designed by R.W. Hill. His obituary stated that he designed a number of public school buildings in Waterbury. I tried to identify the exact school buildings, but the Board of Education did not identify their architect(s) in the annual budget reports found in the Municipal Registers.

Studying the history of architecture (and other visual art) requires a fair amount of detective work, especially when you are trying to identify who made something. Trying to figure out which buildings were designed by Hill involves using the scraps of available information as clues. I know he designed a number of schools, and I know what years he worked as an architect. The next step was to find out which school buildings were constructed during those years. The final step was to study the design of the buildings and see if they are similar to buildings we know were designed by Hill. This process is more or less the same for other types of buildings. The results are as follows.

Republican Building, 229-231 Bank Street, Waterbury

Although much more subdued than the neighboring Griggs Building, this one features some typical Hill elements. It was built in 1883 for the Waterbury Republican newspaper, founded two years earlier by J. Henry Morrow.

The decorative sawtooth brickwork and the terra cotta rosettes are the biggest clues that this building might be the work of R.W. Hill.

Duggan School, Bank Street, Waterbury

Duggan School is very similar in design to the Thomaston City Hall and Opera House. Architects are unlikely to copy the designs of their peers, so it is probably safe to assume that Hill was the architect for Duggan.

Although I have not been able to find proof that Duggan was designed by R.W. Hill, I have found reference to the construction being done by James F. Gaffney, whose company did work for other Hill buildings (see History of New Haven County, Vol. 2).

Welton Street School, Waterbury

This is a gorgeous building, sadly allowed to sit neglected by the City of Waterbury. I would love to see it converted to market-rate apartments.

This is almost certainly designed by Hill. The rosettes under the peak of the roof are the same as those used on the St. John's Rectory building, the Thomaston City Hall, the Naugatuck Congregational Parish House, and the Protector No. 4 firehouse.

Take a look at the design of the porch, in terrible condition but original to the building. There is so much detail to the woodwork, far more than you would see in a building constructed today.

Also look at the sawtooth brickwork and the cross-shape to the school's name and construction date. These are design clues that help connect the architect of this building to other buildings with similar features.

Washington School, Baldwin Street, Waterbury

Washington School has been modified pretty dramatically since it was built, but it still retains design features that connect it to the Welton Street School--the peaked roof with the lunette (half-circle) window below are some of those features.

The building originally had a central clock tower similar in design to the one at Duggan. The photograph below is black and white, but you can still get a sense of multiple paint colors used on the woodwork of the building. The angle of the photograph also shows that the footprint of the building is similar to that of Welton Street School, although doubled.

Washington School, circa 1909.
Collection of Mattatuck Historical Society.

Some of the woodwork has survived, as has the sawtooth brickwork running between the tops of the upper windows.

The long addition on the back of the school is newer, not by Hill.

The woodwork of the side porch is more or less intact, but it looks like it may have been somewhat modified.

Porter Street School, Waterbury

This is definitely by the same architect as the Welton Street School. They are almost twins in some regards.

Porter Street School. Collection of Mattatuck Historical Society.

It was located on Porter Street in the Brooklyn neighborhood and is long gone.

Porter Street School. Collection of Mattatuck Historical Society.

Lewis Block, 846-852 South Main Street, Waterbury

This is one of my favorite Waterbury buildings, an apartment block, possibly built in 1890. By 1902, it was called the Lewis Block.

The apartment block was built on a small corner of land on the Mad River, surrounded by factories on all sides: Benedict & Burnham, Steele & Johnson, Waterbury Button Company and Waterbury Buckle Company.

The first floor had a variety of businesses over the years. For the first few decades of the 20th century, the business owners on the first floor included an Italian shoemaker, a German barber, a Chinese laundryman, an Irish physician and a druggist. Shortly before World War II, a tavern was opened in part of the first floor. A luncheonette was opened by 1970. Today, the first floor is residential.

This is one of the buildings that I attribute to R.W. Hill, but I have no solid proof that he was the architect. The main reason I suspect it to be a Hill building is the use of decorative checkerboard brickwork, which he used on the Protector No. 4 firehouse.

George Granniss and Enoch Hubbard Houses, 33 and 41 Church Street, Waterbury

The last two buildings were attributed to either R.W. Hill or Henry Austin, with whom Hill started out, many decades ago.

The George N. Granniss house, at 33 Church Street, was built about 1865. Granniss was a successful photographer, establishing his business in 1851.

The Enoch Hubbard House was built in 1864.

By 1875, both houses were owned by the Burrall family.

Hill designed more than just buildings. He was also the architect for the Civil War Monument in Woodbury and the Civil War Monument in Winsted.

Documentation

2011-10-27T13:56:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I still marvel at the wonders of the internet. The Republican-American supplemented their latest article about the Jarjura-Davino unemployment scandal in today's paper by putting the documents relating to the case online. Anyone can read them and come to their own conclusions.

Here's my understanding of the basic chronology of the case (with links to corresponding documents):

In April 2010, the Waterbury Police began investigating Joseph Davino after learning that he was using city workers on city time to do work for his vending machine business and to work on his home.

About two weeks later, at the end of April, Davino submitted his resignation letter, citing his father's health as the primary reason and his own health as a secondary reason. He submitted the resignation letter to Mayor Jarjura, not to Leo Frank at WDC. Davino was employed at WDC and paid with money given to WDC by the City.

Two weeks after that, on May 13, Davino was arrested. He was charged with second degree larceny and defrauding the city of Waterbury.

At some point after submitting his resignation letter, Davino applied for unemployment benefits. He was denied unemployment on August 10, 2010 on the grounds that he "voluntarily left suitable work without good cause attributable to the employer." His employer was determined to be WDC.

On October 13, 2010, Mayor Jarjura sent a letter to the Appeals Division stating that "the job in question was being eliminated. I so advised Mr. Davino and the position was in fact eliminated in the new budget."

Bear in mind that the new budget was submitted in June, after Davino resigned and was arrested.

Davino's unemployment appeal hearing was held on October 14, 2010. The day before, on October 13, Davino appeared before Judge Richard Damiani and was granted an accelerated rehabilitation program as "punishment" for his felony offense resulting from his criminal job performance. The felony charge was not erased from his record until a year later, after he completed his probation.

During his appeal hearing, it was determined that his job was going to be eliminated (based on Jarjura's letter) and that the "employer maintained no issues regarding the claimant's job performance." The document does not specify who that employer was. Was that employer Jarjura? Whoever it was, how can he justify stating that there were no issues with Davino's job performance? His job performance was so terrible, he was arrested and charged with a felony.

Because Jarjura submitted that letter, and because the Appeals Division was not informed of Davino's criminal job performance, he was granted unemployment benefits of just over $500 a week. Thanks to the recession, Davino will have mostly likely qualified for 99 weeks of unemployment, a total of about $50,000.

At last night's Board of Aldermen hearing, city attorney Craig Sullivan insisted at great length that the Board of Aldermen have no legal right to discuss the documents now available online. He based this on the ground that Davino had been an employee of WDC, not of the City of Waterbury. Which, in my mind, raises a big question, or maybe draws attention to a contradiction. If the Mayor of Waterbury had the authority to intervene on Davino's behalf to help him get unemployment, why doesn't the Board of Aldermen have the authority to decide if that intervention was appropriate?

I find it very disturbing that the city's lawyer is trying to prevent the Board of Aldermen from investigating possible cronyism on the part of the Mayor. If the Board of Aldermen can't look into possible political corruption on the part of the Mayor, who can?

Another question--where is Larry DePillo in all this? He's being very quiet for a watchdog always on the lookout for corruption and waste.

It may not matter in the end. Democrat candidate for Aldermen Greg Hadley alerted the Department of Labor to the situation last week after the Republican-American published the story about Jarjura helping Davino get his unemployment. If the Department of Labor looks into this and finds a problem, well, they are the ultimate authority in this situation, and they certainly can't be accused of being politically motivated.

Not a Whisper...

2011-10-19T12:23:00.000-04:00

Maybe it's more of a shout. Ever since announcing his bid to become the first Republican to be elected Mayor of Waterbury since Giordano, Mike Jarjura has repeatedly stated that there has not been "a whisper of impropriety" about his administration. I guess he has selective memory.

Remember how he gave Ken Skov a sweetheart pension deal in which Skov earned 2 years of benefits for every 1 year he worked? Turns out that was nothing compared to what he did for his friend Joe Davino (who is his near-constant companion on the campaign trail).

After Davino lost his job at the Waterbury Housing Authority, Jarjura put him in charge of cleaning up blight in Waterbury. Davino chose to resign from that job shortly before he was arrested for defrauding the city of Waterbury and committing second degree larceny. He was found using city workers on city time for his own personal activities on more than 80 occasions. He never had to make restitution to the city, and he never had to serve any time--because Jarjura spoke before the judge and asked for leniency. If that's not improper, I don't know what is.

Today the other shoe dropped. The Republican-American published a stunning article. Jarjura actually admitted to reporter Penny Overton that he personally made sure that Davino would be able to collect unemployment benefits, even though Davino chose to resign from his job. You don't qualify for unemployment if you quit. No wonder Jarjura has refused to replace him, even though the city is drowning in blight, and we desperately need someone to take charge and get it under control. Since Davino quit his job, Jarjura has been decreasing the size of the department. I haven't understood that, but I get it now. Jarjura lied to the Department of Labor. The only way he could cover up the lie was to start eliminating positions in the blight department.

Ironically, Jarjura's latest print advertisement boldly declares that "It Was Corruption That Raised Your Taxes." Okay, let's talk corruption. The Mayor gave his friend a city job. When the Mayor found out his friend stole from the city, he protected him as much as he could, and defended him before the judge. Meanwhile, the Mayor lied to the State Department of Labor to guarantee that his friend could claim unemployment benefits. To cover up the lie, the Mayor eliminated his friend's job from the city budget. Never mind that it's a vital job for the health of the city. The Mayor decided that covering up his lie and shielding his friend from justice was more important. He abused his power as Mayor to aid a criminal.

Jarjura wants to talk about corruption. Okay, let's talk. This is a clear case of cronyism, which is political corruption. Davino stole from the taxpayers while he had the blight job, now he's stealing from the taxpayers even though he quit the job. And Jarjura made it all happen.

This is the same Mayor who spent his first four or five years in office making money off a whorehouse later connected to human trafficking. The same Mayor who is currently making money bringing economic development to Middlebury, not Waterbury. If he or his friends can profit, he doesn't care about laws or the taxpayers he is supposed to represent. It's no wonder he was willing to defend someone who stole from the city and then was willing to lie to the state and cover up the lie by eliminating a vital position so that same criminal could collect unemployment.

Do we really want two more years of this?

Why I Support O'Leary for Mayor

2011-10-15T13:29:00.002-04:00

Before this summer, I did not know Neil O’Leary very well. I had seen him at downtown events a few times when he was Police Chief, and I had read about him in the newspaper. When NBC’s Dateline aired their special about Donna Palomba, I watched and was deeply moved by what O’Leary said. I could tell he genuinely cared about helping and about doing the right thing. He was compassionate but also determined to pursue the case. He did the right thing for no reason other than it was the right thing to do.

Neil O'Leary and Donna Palomba, 2011

I went to the launch of his campaign in February and was impressed first by the incredibly large number of people in attendance and second by his speech. I remained on the fence, because some of my specific concerns weren’t yet addressed. In particular, I wondered if he had a clear vision for the city’s future, if he cared about helping improve the quality of life in all of the city’s neighborhoods.

The turning point for me came this spring. After attending the WOW/Scovill Homes Community meeting in May, O’Leary contacted me for a sort of walking meeting. I took him on a tour of the problems at the Scovill Homes, and he took me on a tour of the PAL. By the end of the tours, I was an O’Leary supporter. Here’s why:

• When we walked through the Scovill Homes area, he didn’t just say “wow, that’s terrible, something should be done.” He came up with three or four possible solutions that could be implemented swiftly, efficiently and effectively.

• He listened to my ideas about what to do, and he treated my ideas with as much respect as his own.

• He showed genuine concern and respect for the people who live in my neighborhood, and sincerely expressed the belief that no child should have to grow up surrounded by blight and decay.

Neil being interviewed for Albanian tv RTV 21.

• PAL. This is one of the most overlooked, underappreciated programs in the city. I wish everyone could take a tour of the facilities and see what’s going on there.

- Using existing buildings, the PAL center has a strong educational component. It’s not a Police Athletic League, it’s a Police Activities League, and there’s a reason for that. They do way more than just sports.

- They are turning a blighted neighborhood and brownfield into a clean neighborhood and park.

- The neighborhood used to be one of the highest crime areas in the city, now it’s a safe place for children.

Aerial view and map of PAL neighborhood.

- Since the PAL program started, juvenile crime has dropped more than 50% in Waterbury.

- Instead of seeing police officers as enemies, the children in the program see them as mentors, which they are.

- The program helps kids who need help the most. 80% of the PAL members come from low income households—low income meaning less than $12,000 per year for many of these households. I can’t even imagine trying to raise a family in Waterbury with $12,000 a year. There are so many opportunities that children growing up in poverty simply don’t have. Even something as basic as a computer—or three meals a day. Thanks to PAL, these kids are getting those opportunities. “Today’s Youth, Tomorrow’s Leaders” is PAL’s motto.

- PAL has basically created a small campus similar to those of private schools. Talk about amazing—thousands of kids growing up in poverty are being given an advantage that will help them succeed in life and break the cycle of poverty.

What Neil has been able to accomplish at PAL is something I would like to see happen everywhere in Waterbury. He took something that was a mess and turned it into a success.

Neil and PAL members helping seniors take care of their yards.

Neil O’Leary is a good person. He genuinely cares about other people, he wants to help people in need, and he has already proven himself to be successful in that.

Over the past few months, since joining the campaign team, I have been increasingly impressed with Neil’s leadership skills, determination and vision for the city of Waterbury. Ten years is a long time to be stuck with one Mayor—we have begun to stagnate. It is time for new leadership, for fresh eyes, for renewed vigor. Neil O’Leary has a remarkable ability to bring people together, to motivate them, to inspire them, and to keep them working well as a team. He makes sure everyone knows their efforts are appreciated. He knows how to find solutions to problems, how to think outside the box, how to run a successful business. He has done great things as a police officer, as a police chief and as a private citizen. As Mayor, he will do great things for Waterbury.

Neil with Aldermanic candidates Greg Hadley and Anne Phelan,
CT Speaker of the House Chris Donovan and Congressman Chris Murphy.

Blight Revisited

2011-10-11T13:25:00.002-04:00

If you haven't figured it out by now, I am greatly frustrated by the blight that plagues our city. We're drowning in blight, and the city seems incapable of solving the problem.

This isn't a new problem. Go back to the Waterbury Observer from 1997 and you'll see a full-page advertisement with a photo of a blighted building being demolished--along with Phil Giordano's campaign slogans "Promises Made, Promises Kept" and "Leadership You Can Trust," and the boast that "70 houses have come down under the Giordano Administration."

(On a side note, from a purely political campaign perspective, it's interesting the way the word "trust" gets used. Giordano's ad put heavy emphasis on his being a "trusted leader." Today's Rep-Am included a letter written by a Jarjura supporter putting heavy emphasis on Jarjura being a Mayor he can trust.)

Jarjura's track record in dealing with the blight problem is miserable.

In 2004 Jarjura gave his good friend Joe Davino one of the most important jobs in the city, putting him in charge of cleaning up blight in Waterbury (after Davino abruptly lost his job with the Waterbury Housing Authority). The situation was as "loosey-goosey" (to use Jarjura's own words) as it gets. In fact, Jarjura himself described Davino's working arrangement as "loose" (Rep-Am, May 6, 2010). When the investigation was complete, it was proved that Davino was guilty of defrauding the city of Waterbury and committing second-degree larceny. Specifically, instead of having his crew work on cleaning up blight in the city, he had them stock his private vending machines and work on his house. Mayor Jarjura spoke on his behalf and asked the judge to be lenient.

In that same article, Jarjura apparently "thought nothing of giving him permission to take time off during the week when things were slow" -- seriously??? Slow??? In a city that is drowning in blight, when can there possibly be slow times?

So there you have Jarjura's "leadership" in dealing with blight for 6 of his years as Mayor. He put one of his closest friends in charge of the problem, not because he was qualified but because he was an old friend, and thought it was perfectly okay for him to be "loose" about the job.

After the Davino scandal wrapped up, Jarjura decided to reduce funding for fighting blight from the city budget. His proposed city budget, announced in March 2011, would have reduced the blight team from 4 full time and 4 seasonal workers to just the 4 full time workers (the previous year there were 8 seasonal workers--see Rep-Am, March 31, 2011).

Most recently, Jarjura decided to bond $1 million for tearing down blighted buildings. You know what happens when you tear down blighted buildings? You get blighted empty lots.

Here is an example of what happens. This is the corner of Walnut and Wood Streets. Several buildings were torn down by the city, and then the city walked away. The lot is full of weeds and litter, and the sidewalk is full of weeds and litter.

Here's a different section of sidewalk on Wood Street. Mayor Jarjura walked up Wood Street this summer--he walked in the street because the sidewalks are unusable. Nothing has happened to fix the problem, even though he has now seen it with his own eyes. Tell me again about how there were "slow" weeks for Joe Davino and his blight crew, and I will gladly show you again that there is more than enough blight to keep a crew of 20 working nonstop.

Here's another example I've blogged about before: this building on the corner of Walnut and Wood Street is blighted, there's a giant hole in the sidewalk large enough for a person to fall down, and the intersection is a school bus stop. Mayor Jarjura stood in front of this building this summer and declared that it needs to come down. It's still standing.

Here's a "good" one. This building partially collapsed in January. Now it is October, and the mess is still making the sidewalk unusable.

What possible excuse is there for ignoring this?

There's another aspect to blight in Waterbury. The preceding blight is largely due to abandoned property. But there are also blighted properties whose owners are active in Waterbury and are not being held accountable for maintaining their buildings.

The Rep-Am recently published a story about the former Bristol Company factory, which is owned by Norman Drubner and is severely blighted. Drubner is also at least partly responsible for some of the most blighted eyesores in downtown Waterbury. He may not own them, but his name is the one prominently featured on them.

Let's start with South Main Street. Here's a building viewed by thousands of people going to shows at the Palace Theater. It's dragging down the entire block.

At street level, it's hideous. It reminds me of some of the scarier-looking parts of Bridgeport.

Over on the Bank Street side, things are slightly better, but not great.

The building is crumbling apart.

Graffiti on the front door. Who would want to buy or lease something that looks like this?

And then there's the former Jimmie's Restaurant, on the corner opposite City Hall. Jarjura must see this every day that he goes to work for the city. How can he stand to look at it every day?

Drubner may not own this building, but surely he could do something to make the restaurant entrance more appealing. If it weren't for the efforts of Main Street Waterbury, it would look even worse.

Where is Mayor Jarjura's leadership on blight? Norman Drubner has allowed blighted buildings to remain blighted. Jarjura wants the city to give Drubner nearly $2 million for his open space property. How about getting Drubner to commit to using the money to fix up blighted buildings? Better yet, how about requiring that Drubner fix up any blighted building he owns before the city gives him any money.

UPDATE 10/12: Sometimes I write blog posts because I'm upset about something. This was definitely one of those posts. I've seen the same blight day after day for years. It's very frustrating. In fairness, maybe the building owners can't afford to do any repairs. Maybe Drubner isn't involved enough to help out. That's when I would expect to see leadership from the Mayor. There are a lot of different ways in which a city can help in these situations. Jarjura has shown little interest. Imagine if Jarjura had made the renovation of blighted downtown buildings a top priority. For that matter, imagine if, instead of developing property in Middlebury, he and his partners had chosen to invest in rehabbing our historic downtown buildings? Other cities have made it happen: why not Waterbury?

Voter F.A.Q.

2011-10-06T11:50:00.003-04:00

Here are some answers to questions I've had in the past, and to questions I know other people have had. Let me know if you have questions I've missed, and I will try to find the answers.

Am I eligible to vote?

To be eligible to vote in Waterbury, you must be:

• A U.S. citizen

• A resident of Waterbury

• At least 18 years old by Election Day (November 8, 2011)

• Completed with confinement and parole if previously convicted of a felony and have had your voting rights restored.

How do I register to vote?

You must complete and return the State of Connecticut Voter Registration Form, which can be downloaded from the Waterbury Registrar’s webpage.

What is the deadline for registering to vote?
This year (2011), you have until October 25 to register by mail. You have until November 1 to register in person at the office of the Registrar of Voters.

Who is the Registrar of Voters?

Waterbury has two Registrars. Patricia Mulhall is the Democratic Registrar. Timothy DeCarlo is the Republican Registrar. Their office can be reached at (203) 574-6751.

The Registrars of Voters are responsible for conducting elections, primaries and special elections and maintaining accurate voter records. Other activities include redistricting, canvassing and registering voters, having special voting sessions and conducting registration sessions at high schools.

Where do I go to vote?

Your polling location (where you vote) is assigned based on your home address which you gave when you registered. If you have moved, but haven’t updated your information with the Registrar of Voters, your polling location will be based on your address when you registered.

You can look up your voting location online at http://www.dir.ct.gov/sots/LookUp.aspx

When do I vote?

Elections are held on the second Tuesday in November. This year (2011), Election Day is November 8. The polls open at 6 a.m. and stay open until 8 p.m.

What do I bring with me when I vote?

You will need to bring some form of identification. Acceptable forms of ID at the polling place are:

• Driver’s license or other current and valid photo ID showing your name and address

• Any other preprinted form of identification that shows your name and address, such as a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck or other government document that shows your name and address.

For more information, please visit http://www.sots.ct.gov/sots/cwp/view.asp?a=3679&q=432116

Can I use an absentee ballot?

You may vote by absentee ballot if you are ill; physically disabled; serving in the military; those who will be out of town on election day; those providing service as poll worker in polling places other than their own; or those whose religion forbids secular activity on election day.

To obtain an absentee ballot, call the Registrar of Voters at (203) 574-6751.

How do I get a ride to the polls?

Campaign volunteers are happy to give you a free ride to your voting location. The Democrats can be reached at (203) 753-6345. You do not have to be registered as a Democrat to call.

(Full disclosure: I am a Democrat, active in the campaign, which is why I have that phone number. I do not know what numbers the other parties are using for rides to the polls, but I am sure they will publicize them before the election.)

What is the ballot like?

In Connecticut, voting is done by filling in an oval for the candidate with a black marker. When the ballot is completed, it is fed into a computer scanning machine.

Each slate of candidates is presented in a row. Because the current Governor is a Democrat, the local Democrat candidates are on Row A (in previous years they were on Row B because the Governor was a Republican).

You may select one candidate each for Mayor, Town Clerk, City Clerk and City Sheriff.

You may select any nine candidates for Board of Aldermen.

You may select any three candidates for Board of Education.

You can vote for more than one candidate per column for Board of Aldermen and Board of Education, so long as you do not vote for more than nine total candidates for Board of Aldermen and no more than three total candidates for Board of Education.

Why should I vote?

Local elections have a direct impact on your quality of life. The local government is responsible for the taxes you pay on your car and home, they are responsible for the local public schools, parks, sidewalks and streets, water and sewer services, public safety and winter plowing.

It has been my experience that city officials pay more attention to districts with high voter turnout, especially during campaign season (every other year in Waterbury).

How do I find out more about the candidates?

Biographies of all the Democrat candidates are available online at olearyformayor.com

Short resumes of the Republican candidates are available online at mikejarjura.com
Information about the Independent candidates is online at ipwtc.com

Profiles of candidates from all three parties will be available from the Republican-American at http://rep-am.com/elections/

The Waterbury Observer has conducted two-hour interviews with each of the three Mayoral candidates and will be publishing the transcripts online soon.

What does a Mayor do?

The Mayor is the chief executive officer of the City. The Mayor is responsible for the City Budget, the good order and efficient government of the City, appointing department heads and members of specific boards and commissions, and other duties as described in the City Charter. The Mayor reports to the Board of Aldermen on the condition of the City in relation to government, finances, public improvements and other issues.

The Democrat candidate for Mayor is Neil O'Leary.
The Republican candidate for Mayor is Michael Jarjura.
The Independent candidate for Mayor is Larry DePillo.

What does a Town Clerk do?

The Waterbury Town Clerk, currently Democrat Antoinette “Chick” Spinelli, is responsible for recording and indexing land records; issuing and recording vital records such as marriage licenses, birth certificates, burial permits and dog licenses; recording military discharges; keeping notary, justice of the peace and campaign finance records; issuing absentee ballots and preparing state election reports.

The Town Clerk’s office, located on the first floor of City Hall, is open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

What does a City Clerk do?

The City Clerk, currently Democrat Michael J. Dalton, is the keeper of records for all Municipal Boards and Commissions; receives all correspondence for most Municipal Boards and Commissions; is the public service agency to allow access to records of all Municipal Boards and Commissions; and is the recipient of all claims and writs served on the City.

The City Clerk makes available copies of the City Charter, Operating Budget, Capital Budget, Three Year Financial Plan, Labor Contracts and other documents.

The City Clerk’s office is open Monday through Friday, 8:50 a.m. to 4:50 p.m.

What does a City Sheriff do?

The City Sheriff, currently Democrat Stephen M. Conway, is responsible for directing public speaking at meeting of the Board of Aldermen and other Municipal Boards when requested; serves violations for many city departments such as the Health Department, Building Department and City Planning; and serves expulsions for the Board of Education.

What does the Board of Aldermen do?

There are 15 aldermen for the City of Waterbury, elected in odd years. They are the legislative body of the City Government. No more than 9 members shall be of one political party.

The Board of Aldermen derive their authority from the City Charter and the Connecticut State Statutes. The Board of Aldermen can modify the city budget as submitted by the Mayor, have the power to investigate all departments, officers and employees; oversee and adopt legislation pertaining to the finances of the City; provide for public works; and other powers as detailed in the City Charter.

The Board of Aldermen meets the first Monday after the first and third Thursdays at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted.

What does the Board of Education do?

There are 10 Commissioners on the Board of Education, serving four-year terms. Their terms are staggered so that there are always some veteran members on the Board following each election. No more than 6 members shall be of one political party. Five members are elected every two years. No more than three candidates from each party can be on the ballot.

The Board of Education appoints and evaluates a Superintendent of Schools, determines the number of principals, assistants and teachers to be employed and their salaries, is responsible for the construction and repair of all school buildings, and submits an annual Operating and Capital Budget to the Mayor.

Sublime Sky

2011-09-25T12:25:00.000-04:00

Last night's sunset was spectacular, and it included a rainbow. I spotted the rainbow after I pulled into the Walmart/Stop & Shop plaza.

I was all excited about the rainbow. Then I turned around and saw an amazing cloud/light formation.

By the time I came out of the grocery store, the sky had turned a deep pinks and purples.

Unemployment Rate

2011-09-17T10:28:00.000-04:00

Here's another one of my updates on the Waterbury unemployment rate. Guess what? We're still number one--in the bad way, not the good way. Waterbury continues to have the highest unemployment rate in Connecticut, ten years in a row. Why? I'm not sure. Our mill rate certainly doesn't help entice employers to stay or move here. You can't really blame the loss of the brass industry--that's old news from 30+ years ago, and it's something we recovered from (in terms of unemployment figures--the psychological impact lingers on). We were doing well during the late '90s. So what happened in 2001 to drag us down, and why haven't we recovered since then?

Here are the latest figures. Did you know that job hunters are being told to not even bother looking in the Waterbury area?

Connecticut Statewide Unemployment Rate
2010 Annual: 9.1%
January 2011: 9.6%
July 2011: 9.2%

Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk Metro Area Unemployment Rate
2010 Annual: 8.5%
January 2011: 8.9%
July 2011: 8.5%

Danbury Metro Area Unemployment Rate
2010 Annual: 7.7%
January 2011: 8.0%
July 2011: 7.4%

Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford Metro Area Unemployment Rate
2010 Annual: 9.2%
January 2011: 9.6%
July 2011: 9.3%

New Haven Metro Area Unemployment Rate
2010 Annual: 9.3%
January 2011: 10.0%
July 2011: 9.7%

Norwich-New London Metro Area Unemployment Rate
2010 Annual: 8.8%
January 2011: 9.4%
July 2011: 8.8%

Waterbury Metro Area Unemployment Rate
2010 Annual: 12.1%
January 2011: 12.8%
July 2011: 11.8%

Figures for July are preliminary, except for the statewide figure. All data is taken from the Bureau of Labor Statistics website.

The Blight Next Door: Still There

2011-09-13T13:40:00.000-04:00

...and getting worse.

What has changed since my last post about this on August 22: instead of removing any of the litter, garbage and dead plant material piled up against my fence, they added a smooth layer of dirt on top of the junk. From the street, it looks clean. From my yard, it looks like a cut-away view of a small landfill. Also new: more garbage on the pile of dead wood, and what appears to be an abandoned car on the side of the building.

Fulton Park Cleanup

2011-09-07T13:12:00.000-04:00

The Historic Overlook Community Club is sponsoring a community wide cleanup of Fulton Park on Sunday, September 18th from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. A free lunch will be served (hotdogs, drinks and chips). They also hope to educate participants on what we as a community can do to help revitalize Fulton Park.

To keep up with the details, visit the new Fulton Park Cleanup Facebook page.

Labor Day Weekend

2011-09-04T19:55:00.000-04:00

Plenty to do in Waterbury this weekend! Here are some highlights taken while trailing the Democrat candidates around the town.

Diaz Family Cookout at Cooke and Moran Streets

Christie Maia-Jones lent her voice to the party.

State Senator Joan Hartley stopped by.

City Clerk Mike Dalton, City Sheriff Steve Conway, and
President of the Board of Aldermen Paul Pernerewski.

Congressman Chris Murphy also joined the party.

Albanian Festival on Columbia Boulevard

Neil O'Leary talking to the voters.

Old School Cookout at Lakewood Park

This is a great event, great party, great opportunity to catch up with people I haven't seen in ages.

I managed to shoot several photos that will make for great paintings someday.

Before it got really crowded.

The reason I was there.

Greg Hadley, candidate for Board of Aldermen, and supporters.

The food line.

Listening to the choir.

One of the things I love about Waterbury--it's a city, but there are so many trees.

Zion Church Choir performed in the pavilion. Beautiful music.

Western Woods

2011-09-01T10:11:00.001-04:00

This has been a difficult issue for me, since I am very much in favor of open space and I love driving through Park Road, with its gorgeous woodlands. But there are some things about the proposal that bother me.

I had trouble with the proposal two years ago. See my blog posts from August 27, 2009 and September 2, 2009 for my earlier concerns.

One of my concerns, the guarantee that the property would be preserved as open space, has been addressed. But there are other concerns, or maybe questions.

The latest development in the story, the news that Norman Drubner is no longer offering the property for sale, has yet to bring a conclusion to the tale.

Is it possible for Drubner to withdraw his offer without penalty? The city has invested time and staff power to pursuing funding for the purchase. Was this done with any written contract or guarantee between the city and Drubner? Surely Mayor Jarjura, himself a prosperous real estate developer, must have formalized the arrangement with a written contract between the city and Drubner before directing his staff to spend their resources on the project.

When I watched the promotional video about purchasing the Western Woods, there was one thing in particular that stuck out in my mind: Norman Drubner stating that he would like to see the land preserved as open space. Norman Drubner owns the land. If he really wants it preserved as open space (which apparently he does not, since he's now saying he will sell to a condo developer), he can make that happen without my tax dollars. Why do we have to pay him $1.75 million to do something he wants to do? Whatever happened to philanthropy?

The only philanthropist in this scenario is the City of Waterbury, which has not been charging Drubner taxes on the full value of the property. From what I can tell, he's been paying only a couple of thousand or less in annual property taxes for the land. The city assessor's online database indicates that there are only 114 acres of land (not 134) -- with a total appraised value of $31,100.

This does not sit well with me. The people pushing the loudest for the city to give him $1.75 million for the land insist that the current appraised value of the property is between $2.3 million and $4.2 million. So why does the city have it appraised at $31,100? I feel swindled. Either Drubner hasn't been paying enough taxes, or his asking price for the land is grossly inflated. No matter which way I look at it, Drubner is profiting at the expense of the Waterbury taxpayers.

I also feel railroaded. Two years after the topic was first raised, and one year after the grant was awarded, the Board of Aldermen were told they needed to approve bonding for the project immediately or risk losing the grant. They were told to hurry up and push it through during campaign season, adding to the pressure. Why the last-minute rush during campaign time? Why wasn't it presented to the Board of Aldermen sooner?

Now we find out that Drubner doesn't like the politics involved and is backing out of the deal. Which in turn has become a political issue with Drubner accusing the entire Board of Aldermen, which voted unanimously to go to referendum, of making their decision in order to undermine Mayor Jarjura's re-election campaign. This accusation doesn't hold a lot of weight for me, since the two Republican aldermen also voted for the referendum.

Bonding to acquire open space is a new venture for the city, something it has never done before. It should not be done as a last-minute decision made in reaction to pressure from the property owner. It should be done as part of a long-range plan to preserve open space in a logical manner throughout the city. There are numerous other parcels of open space that are available for purchase, including some that have been sitting unsold for years. What about Holyland? The asking price is $750,000. Can the open space grant be used to purchase that instead?

Personally, I don't see what's wrong with a referendum. We had one for bonding on City Hall. It failed in referendum but still happened. For the past ten years, Waterbury has been heavily dependent on bonding to cover its debts and expenses, and that makes me nervous.

Waterbury is broke. Mayor Jarjura declared earlier this year that we can't afford to bond any more money. Now he wants to bond money for the Western Woods, and money for blight. We just bonded $30 million for general operating expenses. If we have to borrow money, with interest, to cover our general operating expenses, how can we possibly afford to borrow money for anything else?

Rising Water

2011-08-31T10:01:00.000-04:00

I made another trip to the Freight Street bridge this morning to see what the Naugatuck River is doing. The water has risen higher and is moving very rapidly.

The river is overflowing its banks, but since it is channeled between high cement walls along this section, the flooding is contained.

I was reminded that if you visit a river early enough in the day, you get to see some of the wildlife, like the Great Blue Heron staring at me from the opposite side of the river.

I guess he didn't like my camera, because he flew away, up the river and out of sight.

Aftermath

2011-08-29T15:24:00.001-04:00

From what I can tell, there's a real mix of situations in Waterbury post-Hurricane Irene. On my street, only a few small branches came down, but my neighborhood lost power and may not see it restored for 5 to 7 days. I've heard that there are power lines and trees blocking other streets (including Frost Road). City crews can't clean up until CL&P takes care of the power lines.

The only place I've been able to get any updates on what is happening in Waterbury is WATR 1320 AM, but I can listen to that only in my car. I wish the city would update their website with the latest news and information. I tried checking the Mayor's Facebook pages (he has two), but nothing there either.

Relatively speaking, Waterbury fared very well in the storm. The photos I've seen of the shoreline are very reminiscent of photos taken after the 1938 hurricane. But the massive power loss throughout the state is really bad. Many towns are completely without power. Waterbury has about a 30% loss of power. My employer up in Cornwall called me last night to report in that our building is fine, but no one in town has power, so don't come in to work. He also told me about a stream in Cornwall that is normally only three feet wide--yesterday it was more like 50-70 feet wide.

It was weird last night. My street was extremely dark and very quiet. Some people spent the night with family or friends who have power, the rest of us curled up next to a candle or battery-powered light and did some reading. One woman told me she spent the night staring at the dark. Now she's wondering what to do with the forty-five dollars' worth of hamburger meat she had in her freezer. Another neighbor suggested donating it to a church, which someone else down the street did yesterday.

My neighbor across the street has been regaling her granddaughters with stories about growing up in the south before electricity, when they relied on kerosene lamps, bought large blocks of ice to keep their food refrigerated, and had a radio powered by a giant battery. She remembers when they got their first telephone--a party line shared with one other household. She also remembers the flood of '55--she had moved up to Waterbury by then--watching people being rescued by helicopter.

I'm downtown on Grand Street right now, where I can access power and wifi, and fresh coffee. Last night we went to dinner at Royal Buffet on Wolcott Street, since they still have power. A few of my neighbors wound up there too. Later today I need to empty out my fridge and freezer, and try not to think about how much money I spent on all the food I have to throw away. On a happier note, my water heater is gas-powered, so I can still take hot showers (yay!).

I drove down to Freight Street earlier today to see what the Naugatuck River looks like. It's not bad, certainly higher than normal, and there's still a lot of water gushing into it.

Naugatuck River from Freight Street Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge, the day after Irene.

The same stretch of the Naugatuck River in April 2005.

Water pouring into the Naugatuck River from underneath Route 8.

Hurricanes Past

2011-08-25T10:31:00.001-04:00

Hurricane Irene, currently predicted to hit us straight-on this Sunday, is expected to be the worst hurricane we've had in decades. Since I am a historian, that naturally got me thinking about past hurricanes. The two worst on record were in 1938 and 1955.

On September 21, 1938, Connecticut and Rhode Island were struck by a hurricane which caused severe flooding throughout both states and Long Island. Called “New England’s Greatest Disaster,” the hurricane and flood caused $500 million in property damage and killed 682 people. The bulk of the damage occurred in coastal communities and in eastern Connecticut, but it impacted people in Waterbury. Some were stranded in NYC, unable to get back to Waterbury. Others lost property on the shoreline. Charles McTernan's summer camp for boys, Crystal Beach Camp at Saybrook, was wiped out.

Track of the 1938 Hurricane, from
NOAA's ClimateWatch Magazine.

The Connecticut State Library has a set of aerial photographs showing the damage from the 1938 hurricane available online.

In 1955, the damage came not so much from a single hurricane, but from the massive flooding which followed. In August of 1955, Connecticut was drenched with heavy rains from two hurricanes, Connie and Diane. Hurricane Connie brought 3.5 inches of rain to Waterbury on August 13. Less than a week later, on August 18 and 19, Hurricane Diane unleashed 8.06 inches of rain on Waterbury. North of Waterbury, Torrington recorded 14.25 inches of rainfall from Diane.

The heavy rains resulted in torrential flooding throughout the Naugatuck River valley on Friday, August 19. In Waterbury, Mayor Raymond Snyder declared a state of “extreme emergency” shortly after 3 a.m. The waters reached their highest point seven hours later, cutting the city in half.

View of the 1955 flood from Waterbury Hospital.
Collection of Mattatuck Museum.

Back in 2005, I put together an exhibit about the Flood of '55 at the Mattatuck Museum, which has an amazing collection of photographs and films of the flood, as well as many powerful oral histories from city residents sharing their memories of what happened.

Twenty-nine people in Waterbury were killed by the flood. Eighty-five businesses were destroyed. Dozens of houses and apartment buildings were swept away. Four of the city’s seven bridges crossing the Naugatuck River were washed out. A week went by before electricity was restored to Waterbury; gas and safe drinking water were restored in September. Property damage in Waterbury was estimated at $54 million.

Downtown was completely under water, as was Brooklyn, South Main Street and Watertown Avenue. Flooding like this should never happen again--a series of flood control dams were constructed after to prevent a repeat catastrophe. As we've seen this summer, however, localized flash flooding can and does happen. I do not recommend trying to drive anywhere in Waterbury during the hurricane this weekend!

The Blight Next Door

2011-08-22T18:43:00.000-04:00

As a follow-up to the article about blight in yesterday's Rep-Am, I'm posting some photographs and comments about the two properties next to mine. They are both on Oak Street--one at the corner and the other next to it.

First up, the building on the corner. There is a mini-grocery store on the first floor, apartments on the upper two floors. Behind the building is a small driveway with a dumpster for cardboard only--but it is not marked as such, so people sometimes put garbage in it. The driveway runs alongside my front yard.

As you can see, the property owner and the store owner make no effort to cut back the weeds. The only time the weeds get cut back is when I or another neighbor complain to the city. Which happens several times a year.

The weeds hide the garbage that is strewn about the property, but when the weather is dry and the wind blows, the garbage moves to my yard.

Seriously, they do not clean up. They must see the weeds and garbage when they put their cardboard in the dumpster, but they never clean up around the dumpster. Every time I complain, they are given three days to clean up. They do the bare minimum cleanup, and then we wait a few months for it to get bad again. This is an extremely frustrating cycle, like beating your head against a rock wall. Why should I have to waste my time complaining again and again about exactly the same thing? Why should the city waste its resources again and again for exactly the same thing? Shouldn't there be stiffer penalties for repeat offenders? Stop giving the same people the same warning. Slap them with a fine and require that they attend some sort of class to teach them how and why to clean their property.

Here's the view beyond the dumpster into the next yard, which is an even worse problem. They did cut down the weeds between the two properties so that people can walk through. Ironically, they don't shovel the snow from the sidewalk in the winter, and right now their weeds are partially blocking the sidewalk.

Beer bottles, wood slats, plastic cups, motor oil containers, roofing material, and sometimes feces. This has been going on for years and the city is completely incapable of doing anything about it.

Moving on to the next property, here's the view from my upstairs window. The vulgar graffiti on the ground is new. There are a couple of new items on the wood pile that are also new. Everything else has been there for at least a year.

This property was fine when I bought my house four years ago. But at about the same time, this property was purchased by an absentee landlord. According to the city, she lives in New York, so they can't do anything to force her to clean up her property.

The only work I've seen done on the property in four years was the blocking off of the building's back door. I guess the landlord did that because she wants to pretend there is no backyard. Earlier this summer, I saw whoever she hired to clean out the vacant second floor apartment take a bag full of garbage, open it up out the back window, dump the contents onto the ground, then take the empty bag back inside.

I showed the filth to an official from the Health Department at the beginning of June. He agreed that it was unacceptable. The last thing I heard was that the warrant (I assume that's what it is) was in the hands of the State Marshall. That was on July 6. The only thing that has happened since then is that more garbage has piled up.

The fence dividing our properties has a four-year-deep pile of leaves and litter on their side. It also has weeds and numerous trees starting to grow, which lean over my property and threaten to destroy the fence.

It is clear to me that the city is impotent. The current "system" for dealing with blight is useless and a total waste of money and people. When faced with a property like this one, the city should be able to send its own workers in to clean it up, then place a lien on the property to cover the cost of the cleanup. Maybe there's another option that will also be effective. There has to be a better way that what we're doing now.

Tax Credits for Historic Home Rehabilitation

2011-08-18T08:28:00.000-04:00

Here's something more people in Waterbury should know about. For full details, visit the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation website.

CT Historic Homes Rehabilitation Tax Credit Program
Public Act 99-173 established a Historic Homes Rehabilitation Tax Credit for the rehabilitation of owner-occupied historic residential buildings containing 1-4 units.

What is the Incentive? A tax credit equal to 30% of the eligible rehabilitation costs up to a maximum of $30,000 per unit of housing. For example a four-family house could qualify for up to $120,000 in tax credits.

What properties are eligible? Properties that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places or State Register of Historic Places are eligible. Targeted areas in 29 towns and cities are eligible, including the entire municipality of Waterbury.

Who can utilize the credits? Any owner, including private developers and non-profit housing corporations, can apply for the credits. If applicable, the owner can claim the credits against the owner's business corporation taxes due or the owner can assign the tax credit to a business corporation that is providing funds to help finance the rehabilitation. A lender, for example, might agree to accept the tax credit as partial payment against the principal of a loan. The tax credit cannot be used against the personal income tax.

What is the minimum expenditure? The owner must incur qualified rehabilitation costs of at least $25,000. Eligible costs include interior and exterior work to the historic home but exclude site improvements or soft costs, such as architect's fees or loan-processing fees.

What is the owner-occupancy requirement? At least one unit of the building must be the personal residence of the owner for five years after the credit voucher is issued. Private developers and non-profit housing corporations are required to sell the property to a new owner who will make the historic home the new owner's personal residence during the occupancy period.

Connecticut Historic Structures Rehabilitation Tax Credit Program
Public Act 06-186 section 82 establishes a tax credit for the conversion of historic commercial and industrial buildings to residential use, including rental or condominium units. Partial tax credits are available for buildings converted to mixed residential and commercial uses.
• 25% tax credit of the total qualified rehabilitation expenditures
• buildings must be listed on the National or State Register of Historic Places, either individually or as part of an historic district
• projects under construction but not placed in service as of July 1, 2006, may qualify
• state tax credits may be combined with the 20% federal historic preservation tax credits provided the project qualifies under federal law as a substantial rehabilitation of depreciable property as defined by the Internal Revenue Service
• annual aggregate cap of $15 million in tax credit reservations
• per building cap is up to $2.7 million in tax credits
• tax credit vouchers are issued after completion of rehabilitation work or, in phased projects, completion of rehabilitation work to an identifiable portion of the building placed in residential use
• tax credits are available for the tax year in which the building or, in phased projects, an
identifiable portion of the building is placed in service
• tax credits can only be used by C corporations with tax liability under Chapters 207 through 212 of the Connecticut General Statutes
• tax credits can be assigned, transferred or conveyed in whole or in part by the owner to others

Low Income Housing Investment Tax Credit
The Tax Reform Act of 1986 (IRC Section 42) also established an investment tax credit for acquisition, construction or rehabilitation of low- income housing. The credit is approximately 9% per year for 10 years for each unit acquired, constructed, or rehabilitated without other Federal subsidies and approximately 4% for 10 years for units involving the 20% rehabilitation tax credit, Federal subsidies or tax exempt bonds. Units must meet tests for cost per unit and number of units occupied by individuals with incomes below area median income. The law sets a 15 -year compliance period. Credits are allocated by State Housing Credit Agencies.

Ponte Feast

2011-08-09T12:28:00.001-04:00

If you missed out on this year's Ponte Feast, here are some photos from Friday night.

Frying up the fried dough. Yum!

Serving up the pasta.

The only way to avoid waiting in line for food is to get there very early!

Another advantage to arriving early: you might find a seat after getting your food.

A few of the Republicans in attendance, including Linda McMahon,
Carlo Palladino (candidate for Board of Aldermen) and Mayor Jarjura.

Democrats from left to right: Greg Hadley and Anne Phelan,
candidates for Board of Aldermen, Neil O'Leary, running for Mayor,
Christopher Donovan, Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives,
and Chris Murphy, our 5th District Congressman.

Taking a break from the kitchen to enjoy the music.

Candy!

Rides for the kids.

Governor Malloy went on a whirlwind tour of the kitchen before
sitting down to enjoy an Italian feast with Neil O'Leary.

As always, a long line of people waiting for some delicious food.

It was a beautiful night, packed full of people from all over. During the ceremony, it was announced that the Ponte Club will be doing some landscaping before next year's feast to make it even more enjoyable.

Brass City Comic Con

2011-07-31T22:14:00.001-04:00

I stopped by the Brass City Comic Con at NVCC this morning. What better place for a comic book convention than the city in which the first comic books were printed?

The event was organized by Legends of Superheros, a great local comic book store.

As always with a comic convention, there were more men than women, but it was definitely not a male-only event (just as comic books are not just for guys--I learned to read at an early age, thanks to Supergirl and Wonder Woman comics).

The convention was a mix of dealers and creators. That's one of the best parts of a convention--getting to meet the artists and writers.

Artist Dave Meikis with samples of his work.

Dave Meikis brought both original artwork and copies of his published work for Marvel and DC comics. As you can see from the photo above, he also brought the tools of his trade--artists typically spend their time at conventions creating new art. Meikis has been working as an inker since the mid-1990s.

Dan Moser, Creator/writer of Chaotic Soldiers, and friends.

Most people are probably aware of Marvel and DC comics, mega-publishers of familiar brands like Spiderman, X-Men, Batman and Superman. There are also smaller publishers like Dark Horse, which publishes Hellboy. Then there are the independent publishers and the self-publishers.

Cesar Feliciano working on a drawing.

The large publishers have a tendency to stick to a standard, proven formula with their comics and aren't looking to publish something different. Comic book creators often seek out small publishers for work that is more unique, or if they want to retain full creative control of what they do.

Carl Herring, Jr.

Carl Herring, Jr. is a Bridgeport comic book creator as well as the founder of Three J Productions. He began self-publishing in 1996. The comic book world is largely populated by white men. Female collectors and creators are rare, and black collectors and creators are even rarer.

Prof. William H. Foster III

William H. Foster, Professor of English at Naugatuck Valley Community College, is also a comic book collector and the author of Looking For a Face Like Mine. He has assembled an exhibit of covers from different decades, showing how black people have been depicted--sometimes heroically, sometimes offensively.

Prof. Foster's exhibit, "Changing Image of Blacks in Comics"

Also present, with samples of his work and drawing board at hand, was Milford-based caricature artist T. C. Ford, who was also the last Editor at Charlton Comics in Derby. Charlton was the publisher of some great comics, including work by artist Steve Ditko. Charlton's superhero line was bought by DC Comics in 1983, and Charlton Comics closed in 1985. Ford is now Publisher/Editor/Creator of United Comics, which publishes creator-owned comics.

Caricature artist T. C. Ford.

There were other creators present, but unfortunately I wasn't able to get good photos of them. And then, of course, there were the dealers with their boxes full of comics for sale.

Legends of Superheros table.

Plenty of discount boxes, but also a nice mix of higher-priced hard-to-find comics on display.

The next Waterbury convention will be this September, again organized by Legends of Superheros. The first annual ClassiConn will be held at the Coco Key Water Resort Hotel and Convention Center, September 23-25, which will make for a fun weekend.

ClassiConn will encompass comic books, sports cards and collectibles, as well as Magic tournaments all three days. Confirmed guests so far include Dwight "Doc" Gooden, pitcher for the Mets and Yankees, Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd and Bob Stanley, pitchers for the Red Sox.

Farmers' Market

2011-07-28T19:00:00.000-04:00

My favorite lunch-time stop on Thursdays downtown is the Farmers' Market. I've been going for years.

Always plenty of good fruits, vegetables and other items (like fresh pesto and pies), but you have to get there early. By 12:30 they have sold out of most of their produce.

The Farmer's Market opens at 11 a.m. and stays open until 3 p.m., although (as mentioned above) there isn't much left after the first hour or so!

The market is WIC certified, which means food stamps are accepted by most of the vendors.

Since there still is no grocery store closer to downtown than on Thomaston Avenue, it's great for downtown residents to be able to buy fresh produce at the market.

When you shop at the Farmer's Market, you are buying local, Connecticut produce. So you're supporting local farmers, and you're buying "green"--buying produce that potentially traveled a shorter distance to get to you, thereby creating less pollution than produce shipped in from out of state.

Music at the Exchange

2011-07-27T14:55:00.000-04:00

I finally made it downtown for the weekly Music at the Exchange program--this week featured Christi Maia-Jones, who has an amazing voice. Every week there is a different performer. Next week will be Angelo Ruggiero.

Music at the Exchange is a free lunchtime program, Wednesday from 12 to 1:30. You can pick up a lunch from Seven Villages, Cafe Europa or the mobile vendor without missing a sound. You can also grab a take-out lunch from one of the other downtown restaurants and bring it to the Exchange. What a great way to spend a lunch break!

Not surprisingly, the program is organized by Main Street Waterbury and its Promotions Committee. If something good is happening downtown, Main Street is probably involved!

The Wednesday programs are sponsored by TD Bank, which is why they are free.

Here's the rest of the lineup for this year:

August 3
Angelo Ruggiero
Angelo Ruggiero sings a blend of the great standards of Tony Bennett, Bobby Darin, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, and Engelbert, not to mention artists such as Neil Diamond and Billy Joel; as well as the sounds of the '50s and '60s which he sings on tour with the great Doo Wop groups. Angelo also sings his beloved Neapolitan favorites.

August 10
Anita LeBlanc Siarkowski
Anita, a Waterbury native, took accordion lessons around the corner from The Exchange at Mecca Music School - which was at 6 Bank Street near "Bauby's Corner". She played with an all accordion orchestra at the dedication of the Veterans' Memorial Monument (west end of the Waterbury Green) Memorial Day 1958. At Mecca’s she met her husband, Bob, also an accordionist. They played at their own wedding! Bob stills gives private lessons on all keyboard instruments at Bob's Music Center in Plantsville, CT.

August 17
Christi Maia-Jones
Recently married and carrying a new last name, Maia-Jones, a native of Waterbury, CT continues to tour the state singing at various venues, providing live entertainment. If you haven't heard the songstress express her talent, you will have to come and check out her smooth, sultry yet melodic sound- for your own listening pleasure. She exudes passion in every note she sings; from Etta James to Alicia Keys; she brings variety, style and quality! Come and dance your lunch away!

August 24
Wavy Dave’s Stellar Trio
Laid back improv style with Bass, drums, and keyboards.

August 31
Christi Maia-Jones
Recently married and carrying a new last name, Maia-Jones, a native of Waterbury, CT continues to tour the state singing at various venues. If you haven't heard the song-stress express her talent, you must come and check out her smooth, sultry yet melodic sound for your listening pleasure. She exudes passion in every note; from Etta James to Alicia Keys; she brings variety, style and quality! Come and dance your lunch away!

September 7
Wayne J. Levandoski
Wayne sings and plays hundreds of cover tunes plus dozens of original songs influenced by Blues, Country, and Rock n’ Roll. He performs primarily solo, but sometimes with a percussionist, and occasionally with a rock trio known as “HapHazardville. He also performs regularly at The John Bale Book Company and the Institute of Living in Hartford where he volunteers providing music therapy to patients.

September 14
The Irish Minstrels
Enjoy joyful Folk/Classic Irish music featuring Mike Moriarty and Dan "The Fiddlin’ Man” Gardella.

Here we go!

2011-07-21T22:55:00.003-04:00

Great night tonight at the A.O.H. Club, where the Democratic Town Committee selected their slate of candidates for this year's election. Also announced tonight is the news that I will be the campaign spokesperson--very exciting! To find out what the campaign is all about, please visit the O'Leary for Mayor website. There will, of course, be plenty of updates soon.

Waiting for everyone to arrive.

There was a strong turnout tonight despite the oppressive heat. Lots of energy, lots of enthusiasm, lots of hope for Waterbury's future.

Greg Hadley and Larry Butler, State Representative for the 72nd District.

I am VERY pleased that my neighborhood has a shot at representation on the Board of Aldermen. Greg Hadley has been director of the WOW/NRZ Community Center for many years and is a candidate for the Board of Aldermen. Now that we have a candidate, the voters of the 72nd District need to show up on election day. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we have three months to reach out to the voters and I know that we can do it.

For even more information on tonight's event, check out The Waterbury Observer website and Penny Overton's coverage in the Republican-American.

Slate of Candidates:

Mayor: Neil M. O’Leary

Town Clerk: Antoinette Spinelli

City Clerk: Michael Dalton

City Sheriff: Steve Conway

Board of Aldermen:
Paul K. Pernerewski Jr., Anthony T. Piccochi, Anne P. Phelan, Ernest M. Brunelli, Ronald Napoli Jr., Joseph Begnal Jr., Gregory Hadley, Ruben Rodriguez, Ryan A. Mulcahy.

Board of Education:
Patrick J. Hayes Jr., Elizabeth Brown, Gregory Harkins

Candidates Forum

2011-07-18T22:04:00.001-04:00

Tonight the Board of Education held the public forum for the three finalist candidates for the Superintendent position. After several revisions, the format was as follows: the candidates were presented one at a time, spending about ten minutes introducing themselves, then roughly 45 minutes answering written questions submitted by the audience before the program started. I thought the forum was very good. We were able to get to know the candidates much better, and we were given evaluation forms to fill out along the way and submit at the end.

The program was scheduled to start at 5:30, and anyone who wanted to write a question was asked to arrive at 5:15 (but they continued to collect questions until about 5:40).

The room at 5:15, seats filling up fast.

There were many supporters of Portia Bonner in the audience. By luck of the draw, she went first. You can see some of the audience in the photo below--there were many extra seats being set up just after 5:30, out of shot in the photo, and there were a dozen or so people watching from the balcony. Definitely a standing-room only event.

Anthony Mazzullo was the second candidate to "interview" with us...

...which meant Kathy Ouellette was the last. The entire program lasted until 8:30. Kudos to everyone who stayed through the whole thing (those chairs are not the most comfortable ones to sit in for three hours!).

Although everyone in the audience was pretty tired by the end, there were quite a few interesting conversations about the educational issues raised. One major issue to be discussed was the importance of standardized test scores. Mazzullo and Ouellette were polar opposites on the topic. Mazzullo feels that there is too much emphasis placed on test scores, whereas Ouellette seemed to be a firm believer in basing all action on test score data. I'm not a big fan of test score data, since I rarely tested well. Certainly tests can be an indicator of progress or lack thereof, but information needs to be acquired from other sources. For example, surveying college professors to find out what skills are consistently missing from students coming from the public schools could be very helpful.

I'm not going to try to cover the entire Q&A at the forum (in fact, I missed a chunk of it when I had to step out to a meeting of the Hall of Fame committee). But for more information, you can check out Bryan Baker's Twitter feed. There will also be a write-up in the Republican-American.

State Budget Cuts

2011-07-15T22:41:00.002-04:00

I've just been reading the budget cuts proposed by Governor Malloy. If the cuts are approved, they will be disastrous. Ironically, people outside Connecticut think this is a wealthy, prosperous state. After all, Fairfield County is full of millionaires and Fortune 500 companies. But the wealthiest and most successful have very good accountants who find all the tax loopholes for them. Which is why GE in Stamford does not pay income tax.

Here's the rundown of the proposed cuts that have caught my attention. They might not be the cuts that will be getting the most media attention; they are the cuts that resonate most for me. They are the tip of the iceberg. My comments are italicized. I'm pretty cranky about the economy and the total failure of the state and federal governments to focus their energies on job creation, so my comments are loaded with attitude and sarcasm.

Office of Governmental Accountability
Citizens' Election Fund Admin: -$377,149 in 2012; -$471,507 in 2013
Elections Enforcement Commission: -$97,851 in 2012 and in 2013
Freedom of Information Commission: -$148,967 in 2012; -$178,176 in 2013

Attorney General
Layoff of 8 people. Don't we need them?

Department of Consumer Protection
Eliminate 49 positions: -$2,425,871 in 2012; -$3,094,963

Department of Labor
Reduce CETC Workforce, which assists in developing and maintaining an educated and skilled workforce.

Reduce Youth Employment in 2013, applies to eligible youth whose family income is below 185% of the Federal Poverty Level. In other words, stop providing opportunities for youth growing up poor to escape from the cycle of poverty.

Reduce 21st Century Jobs, which helps to sustain Connecticut's high growth occupations and economically vital industries and assists workers in obtaining skills to start or move up the career ladder. Oh good, let's cut programs that strenghten the state's economy.

Reduce STRIVE, which is an intensive job-readiness program for ex-offenders, non-custodial parents, veterans and people with disabilities. Why are we cutting programs that reduce the number of people needing welfare?

Reduce Apprenticeship program: -$81,349 in 2012; -$127,920 in 2013. We could support programs that teach skills. Or we could hand out more welfare checks to people who were never given the chance to succeed.

Commission on Human Rights & Opportunities
Close the Waterbury Regional Office, laying off 9 people who work to eliminate discrimination by using and enforcing civil and human rights laws. There are four regional offices; if you live in Waterbury and your rights have been violated, I hope you have a way to leave town to seek help!

Department of Economic and Community Development
Reduce Basic Cultural Resources Grant and Culture & Tourism Grant: -$782,349 in 2013. Do you know what this funds? This funds museum exhibits and publication which teach our history. It funds After School Arts Programs.

Reduce Economic Development Grants. Oh yeah, that makes sense. Hey, we're in financial trouble because our economy is struggling. I know! Let's cut programs that help the economy!

Eliminate 21 positions by reducing museum hours and associated staffing. It's always the arts and humanities that get cut first. The things that make our lives richer and give them more meaning.

Reduce Small Business Incubator Program: -$275,000 in 2012.

Phase out Line-Item Funding for Certain Grants (I'm listing only a few). These cuts will almost certainly result in more people collecting unemployment checks, and/or the elimination of public programs and education programs. Some of these cuts are large enough to threaten the continued existence of the organizations. I recently attended a workshop on nonprofit fundraising. Fewer people are donating now than they were in the past. Maybe because of the high unemployment rate and rotten economy? Anyway, this is the worst time to cut these funds.
Discovery Museum: -$53,235 in 2012; -$378,712 in 2013.
Connecticut Science Center: -$76,987 in 2012; -$630,603 in 2013.
Amistad Vessel: -$72,432 in 2012; -$378,712 in 2013.
New Haven Festival of Arts and Ideas: -$123,687 in 2012; -$797,287 in 2013.
Palace Theater: -$53,235 in 2012; -$378,712 in 2013.

Eliminate Funding for Main Street programs in New Haven and Ansonia. The Main Street program is a proven economic generator. The only justification I can see for this cut is the example set by Main Street Waterbury, which is doing very well with fundraising at the Brass City Brewfest.

Reduce funding for the CCAT-CT Manufacturing Supply Chain program that assists at-risk small and medium manufacturers. Ooo, another brilliant plan--cut programs that help keep manufacturers in business.

Eliminate Subsidies for Culture and Tourism Line Items:
CT Trust for Historic Preservation: -$210,396 in 2012 and in 2013.
Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe Homes: -$95,674 in 2012 and in 2013.

Reduce Tax Abatements for privately owned non-profit and low and moderate housing projects.

Eliminate Funding for the Connecticut Humanities Council: -$2,157,633 in 2012 and in 2013.
This one really upsets me. The Humanities Council is one of the most important nonprofit organizations in Connecticut. They fund exhibits and programs in possibly every museum in the state. They provide educational resources for our public schools. They have provided vital funding for almost every museum exhibit and project I've ever worked on. In Waterbury, at the Mattatuck Museum, they have provided funding for the Fortune's Story website, for the "Ties that Bind" traveling exhibit created from the African American History Project, for the exhibit and website about Waterbury's Jewish communities, the exhibit and website about John F. Kensett, the exhibit and website about artists of the Northwest Corner, and many aspects of the new history exhibit at the Mattatuck.

Eliminate State Subsidies for Local Tourism Districts: -$1,660,000 in 2012 and in 2013. Remember when Malloy was getting good press about funding tourism in Connecticut? So much for that.

Department of Public Health
Reduce funding for HIV prevention services: -$819,420 in 2012; -$851,406 in 2013.
Reduce Lead Testing for Uninsured Children: -$76,984 in 2012 and in 2013.

Department of Education
Eliminate the 16 Library Media Department Heads at the Vo-Tech Schools.
Eliminate 7 social workers in the Vo-Tech Schools.
Eliminate Music and Art from the Vo-Tech Schools.
Reduce Head Start funding for the Bridgeport ABCD program: -$1,000,000 in 2012 and 2013.
Reduce funding for Neighborhood Youth Centers, including Boys' Clubs, Girls' Clubs and YMCAs.
Eliminate New Charter School funding.
Suspend athletics at Vo-Tech schools.

State Library
Eliminate funding for program providing refurbished computers to low income families.
Eliminate Grants for Public Libraries.
Reduce Funding for state-wide database program, and eliminate the union catalogue providing libraries and residents with the location of library materials throughout the state.

There are also millions of dollars in cuts to the colleges, to the department of corrections and the DMV.

The Shore Line East train service will canceled between New Haven and Old Saybrook on weekends.

The plan for night service on the Waterbury bus system is "delayed", even though there 80% is funded by a federal grant.

MetroNorth tickets will cost 15% more.

As depressing as all of this is, I don't lay the blame solely at Malloy's feet. We had many years of Connecticut's government spending money without worrying too much about where to find the income to support the programs. Now that the entire country has hit hard times, everyone's in trouble.

During the Great Depression, the WPA was created to provide jobs and help stimulate the economy. We could use something like that again. Creating a land full of unemployed people will only cause harm.

See, Click, Fix

2011-07-12T11:00:00.000-04:00

SeeClickFix.com is an interesting website, created with the goal of increasing citizenship, empowering citizens, and providing a forum for problem-solving. It's not really active in Waterbury--a few problems have been reported, but I'm not sure anyone knows about it. It seems to be much more active in New Haven. The website has partnered with the New Haven Register to help publicize the problems identified by citizens. It looks like a few reported problems have been addressed directly by the city through the site, while others are handled off-site, with the person who reported the problem taking on the responsibility of posting the follow-up to the site.

Poor Communication

2011-07-05T21:26:00.005-04:00

[UPDATE 7/7/11: As announced in today's Republican-American, the format for the July 18 forum has been changed due to public demand. Anyone in attendance will be allowed to ask questions of the three candidates.]

The search for and hiring of the next Superintendent of the Waterbury schools has been an increasingly hot-button topic. On June 29, the Republican-American ran an article with the headline "School chief search: Don't ask." In the article, we were informed that the final hiring decision will be made public on August 8 and that there will be a public forum on July 18 at which only a select few will be allowed to ask questions of the three finalists. Nowhere in the article was information about how the members of the public who will be allowed to speak will be chosen, just a passing mention of having already chosen people who had previously expressed interest.

At tonight's Board of Education meeting, it was announced that anyone who wants to meet with the three candidates and ask them questions at the July 18 meeting should leave their name with the Board of Ed at the end of tonight's meeting, or call the Board of Ed office first thing tomorrow morning. Letters informing people that they have been selected to ask questions will be mailed out tomorrow (Wednesday).

This was the first I had heard of this process. I double-checked with some friends who have been following more closely than I have, and they knew nothing about this either. I checked the Board of Ed webpage and the public schools' website. Nothing.

Those of us in attendance tonight were somewhat tersely reprimanded for not showing up to earlier meetings to discuss the hiring of the Superintendent, and we were somewhat tersely reprimanded for complaining that the hiring process has not been public enough. There may not have been any intention to keep information from the public, but that definitely is what has happened.

We live in an age of amazing communication. Many of us spend a ridiculous amount of time online and expect to be able to get whatever information we need from the internet. I even stopped buying printed newspapers years ago and have online subscriptions instead. Between blogs, Facebook, Twitter and the city's website, there are many easy ways in which the public can be accurately informed and updated. They are also good ways to engage the public more.

If the public tells you that you haven't been keeping them informed, maybe it's time to update your communication methods.

If you would like to ask questions at the July 18 forum, call Carrie Swain at 203-574-8009 tomorrow, Wednesday, July 6. After that, it will apparently be too late.

Where Are the Women?

2011-07-01T09:48:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I wonder if I am the only one who notices that only 2 of the 15 members of the Board of Aldermen are women. Both are Democrats, Joyce Petteway and Anne Phelan. Petteway and Phelan were the only women candidates for Board of Aldermen in 2009, out of a grand total of 24 candidates from three parties. The Republicans and the Independents did not have even one woman candidate.

2007 was a banner year for Waterbury women in politics, one of the best in recent years (but still not that great). The Democrats had four women out of their allotted nine candidates: Petteway, Phelan, Sandra Ramirez and Laurie Singer Russo. The Republicans still had no women candidates, while the Independents had one, Allyson Modica.

I'm not sure how to interpret this data (more research is needed). Do women in Waterbury lack interest in being on the Board of Aldermen? If so, why? Should there be some sort of tripartisan outreach program to get more women involved? Alternatively, are women being shut out of Waterbury politics by men controlling Town Committees? (hey Republicans: no women Aldermanic candidates in years? really? none?)

It would be nice to believe that we live in an enlightened era, that since it is 2011, nearly 100 years after women were given the right to vote, women would be viewed as equals by men. Unfortunately, there are still many men who marginalize women, who don't think of them as leaders, who make jokes about women being inherently inferior to men, and who are intimidated by strong women. The situation certainly has improved over the decades--thank goodness we are finally in an era when women are taken seriously as candidates for President even if they are embarrassingly clueless about U.S. history--but we still have a ways to go. The demographics of the Board of Aldermen is stark evidence of that.

I'm looking forward to seeing what happens this year. Will the Republicans, who have been struggling for years, finally realize that half the city voters are women and should have representation in city government? Will all three parties put at least four women candidates on their Aldermanic slates to better represent the city residents, or are there simply not enough qualified women who are interested? I'm going to be looking for the answer to that last question, and I'm going to be looking to get more women involved in local politics.

To the women reading this (including those not in Waterbury): if you're not involved in local politics, why is that? Please share. (anonymous comments are fine)

Unacceptable

2011-06-29T00:39:00.003-04:00

I've been complaining for years about the reckless way that some people drive in Waterbury. I've seen people doing 50 mph through Fulton Park, I've seen people drive 50 mph down my narrow one-way street. Stop signs and red lights are frequently treated as optional. I've been told that it is unreasonable for me to expect the city police to enforce the road laws.

Tonight, some idiot driving an unregistered vehicle tried to do 50 mph down my street. I didn't see what happened, just heard the noise. The driver smashed into a vehicle parked on the side of the road, pushing it a couple of feet sideways onto the sidewalk and forward into the car parked in front of it. There were three cars that wound up being damaged by the speeding car, as each one was pushed forward. I've added some photos below so you can see how bad it was. Bear in mind that this happened only a few hundred feet from Oak Street. How much acceleration do you need to have, how fast do you need to be going in order to cause that much damage?

The jeep wasn't on the sidewalk before it was hit. The rear axle is now bent,
the tires are flat and bent, and the front is smashed in. Two vehicles in front
of it, also parked on the side of the road for the night, are also smashed up.

The car that caused the accident.

The story gets worse. Three people, standing outside their homes, enjoying the nice evening air after a long, hot summer day, were injured. Two were taken to the hospital. These are people who are good neighbors, people who are respectful towards others, people who are willing to help out a neighbor if there's a problem, people who make this a good, friendly neighborhood in which to live.

The driver and his passenger fled the scene, leaving their car blocking the road. The owners of the damaged cars, and the friends of those who were injured, were furious (and rightly so!). People came out of their homes to see what all the commotion was about, trying to find out what happened and whether or not they could do anything to help.

The fire department (currently the city's first responders) arrived first, then an ambulance and finally the police. After everyone had some time to sort things out and take care of the medical emergencies, Patricia Sockwell, acting Vice-President of the Scovill Homes Association, went to talk to one of the police officers about what happened. I followed her and arrived just as she was asking the officer what can be done to prevent this sort of thing from happening. His answer was the most horrifying, unhelpful, counter-productive answer he could give short of saying something flat-out racist.

The police officer insisted that the only way to prevent people from driving recklessly down our streets is to get rid of welfare. He went on further to state that only poor people commit crimes and use drugs, that if you go over to Middlebury and Woodbury, you won't find any drug users, crime or reckless driving (we suggested that people from Middlebury come here to buy their drugs, but the officer ignored that comment). His final solution is that "we need to get rid of all the poor people." He insisted that anyone who wants a job can get one. I (hotheadedly) pointed out that there are currently some 12 million people in this country who want jobs and can't get them because they don't exist. He raised his voice at us, we raised our voices back. A full-force argument over whether or not only poor people do drugs and drive like maniacs.

This was the last thing we needed. Our neighbors and friends had been injured and their property damaged by some jerk who was driving an unregistered car and fled the scene. We asked the police officer for advice on what can be done to make our neighborhood better, and he tells us to get rid of all the poor people, and then goes on to tell us that if we don't have jobs we're just lazy bums. Many of the residents of this neighborhood are senior citizens who worked hard all their lives and now scrape by on social security payments. Many others are working class who scrape by on minimum wage. Others are students, currently scraping by on low income while acquiring the skills and certifications needed to get good jobs. And I know there is at least one person who is collecting partial unemployment because the economy tanked, her employer let everyone go, and she's been able to find only part-time employment so far despite being highly educated and skilled. This neighborhood is a wonderful, diverse community. Being poor doesn't make us bad people. We have our problems, but overall there are a lot of good neighbors here. When we ask for help, we deserve something better than being told that poor people are inherently bad people and the only solution is to get rid of the poor people.

UConn Dedication

2011-06-27T21:27:00.000-04:00

Today I enjoyed the privilege of seeing a project I worked on come to its conclusion. Way back in 2006, I became part of the committee to select an artwork for the UConn-Waterbury campus. (At the time, I was teaching Art History and Art Appreciation there (I wish I still was!), which is how I wound up on the committee.) Today, the University dedicated the completed artwork and surrounding courtyard.

People mingling before the ceremony.

The sculpture incorporates metal and water, both symbolic of Waterbury. The artist, Barton Rubenstein, sees the different tall sculptural elements as being also symbolic of the UConn students.

Barton Rubenstein's Synergy, without the water feature turned on.

The weather was perfect--so glad the rainy weather finally went away!

It was nice to see many people I know at the event. There were quite a few people present. Many were headed across the street afterwards for the Osher fundraiser event at the Palace Theater. The Osher Life Long Institute program is a real asset for Waterbury, as is UConn itself.

When I taught at UConn-Waterbury, I started every semester by challenging my students to think about what is art. I took them to view the courtyard and asked them if they could identify the tromp l'oeil (fool the eye)"artwork" in front of them. Can you see it in the photo below?

Barton Rubenstein speaking in front of his sculpture, Synergy.

The retaining wall in the back of the courtyard, which looks like a natural rock wall, is actually a concrete wall shaped and colored to look like rock. It's not intended to be seen as an artwork--in fact, it is successful only if the viewer takes for granted that it's natural rather than entirely man-made. It's great for getting my students to start thinking about the definition of art.

Back to the ribbon-cutting ceremony.... speeches were given by Bill Pizzuto, Executive Director of the Waterbury campus, Joan Hartley, State Senator for the 15th District, and Susan Herbst, the new President of UConn.

After the ribbon-cutting, the waterfall portion of the sculpture was turned on. It's a great artwork, well-worth visiting, and a great addition to the courtyard.

Coalition Change

2011-06-22T20:28:00.002-04:00

Monday night I attended a meeting of the Waterbury Coalition for Better Government at the WOW Learning Center. The attendees voted unanimously to become the Waterbury Coalition for Economic and Social Justice, a branch of the national organization.

The Center for Economic and Social Justice is based in Washington, D.C. and is "dedicated to a free enterprise approach to economic and social justice for all, through equal opportunities to capital ownership for every person."

Here's the press release issued today about the change:

Jimmie Griffin said he has been thinking about the creation of a local chapter of the National Center for Economic and Social Justice for years, but finally closed the deal last week in a phone discussion with Norm Kurland, a prominent lawyer and economist out of Washington, DC who founded the center some years ago.
Griffin, who founded the local Waterbury Coalition for Better Government in 1995 here in Waterbury to support his efforts to promote the idea of “Electing Alderman by District” some years ago, said he elated that we can now use the educational and research abilities of CESJ to enhance that idea, among others, with direct community involvement of this new improved tax-exempt national education center.
The first thing to do is launch a local membership drive, as we are a membership organization of volunteers. The dues are meager at $25 a year, and provides the chapter the needed support and resources from the national level, to achieve our mission of individual economic independence and social justice. Griffin added, “ one of the most impressive things I see in the formation of the Waterbury Chapter is its ability to be the most diverse non-partisan effort that will cross all political, educational, religious and ethnic bounderies as I envision it as being the true melting pot for success in developing both our neighborhoods and the people who live in them."
Finally, as membership grows and we develop a strong base in the community will surely become a voice for the voiceless and those who seek information or would like to can involved in the transition of the WCBG to the WCESJ can call 203-577-8084 or visit our face-book or website at cesj.org.

Unemployment

2011-06-12T19:08:00.001-04:00

Guess what got a little bit better? Waterbury's unemployment rate! It reached a high of 12.8% in January, then started dropping. The April 2011 unemployment rate was estimated to be 11.9%. Before you start celebrating, bear in mind that labor experts believe that the improvement in the national unemployment rate is partially due to people simply no longer reporting their lack of employment. After a couple of years of being unable to find a job, many people give up. If you no longer qualify for unemployment benefits, there's little reason to continue reporting.

Out of curiosity, I did a little digging and found the following historical data about Waterbury's unemployment rate since 1961. The data prior to 1990 is from newspaper articles; 1990-present is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In most cases I have the average unemployment rate for an entire year, but sometimes all I have is the rate for a specific month.

UPDATED 6/21/11: I've added some context with national unemployment rates since 2001, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Sept. 1961 between 6 and 8.9%
1964                    7.1%
1965                  6.7%
April 1970          7.0%
Sept. 1971        10.1%
March 1975      11.5%
1976               15.5%
March 1983     10.0%
Dec. 1984         6.8%
March 1985        7.0%
1986                   5.8%
1990                   6.7%
1991                   8.7%
1992                   9.5%
1993                   8.0%
1994                   7.0%
1995                   6.3%
1996                   6.4%
1997                   5.8%
1998                   4.1%
1999                   3.3%
2000                   2.9%     National Rate
2001                   4.3%          4.7%
2002                   6.0%          5.8%
2003                   7.2%          6.0%
2004                   6.3%          5.5%
2005                   6.3%          5.1%
2006                   5.7%          4.6%
2007                   6.0%          4.6%
2008                   7.5%          5.8%
2009                  11.1%         9.3%
2010                  12.1%         9.6%
Jan. 2011           12.8%         9.0%
March 2011      12.2%         8.8%
April 2011       11.9%         9.0%

Albanian Festival

2011-06-04T19:07:00.000-04:00

It's summer in Waterbury, and you know what that means--festivals! Music, dancing, and (most important) food!

I stopped by the Albanian Festival this afternoon, as did Governor Malloy. Small crowd during the day, but the place will be packed tonight.

Governor Malloy arrived after 3 p.m.

Besa dancers

Everybody has to get a photo of the Governor.

My photo of the Governor.

The ladies who served up my food.

The food! Marinated lamb, spinach pie, feta cheese,
meatballs, pepper sandwich. YUM!

Albanian coffee made to order.

What best to eat with coffee? Dessert sampler tray!
My favorite is the one in the upper left corner.
I think it is shredded phyllo soaked in honey.

Thank You!!!

2011-06-03T18:55:00.000-04:00

Waterbury Thoughts has been voted Best Local Blog 2011 by the readers of The Waterbury Observer!

Pick up your free issue of The Observer to see who won in the other categories.

Thanks for reading!

WOW/Scovill Homes Tour

2011-06-01T22:43:00.001-04:00

Until you get out and walk through a neighborhood, you can't really see what the problems are. Today, thanks to the persistence and determination of Patricia Sockwell, several key city leaders walked our streets as a follow-up to the community meeting held at the WOW/NRZ Community Center last month.

In attendance today were Mayor Jarjura, Board of Education Commissioner Neil O'Leary, Bryan Baker, President of the Board of Aldermen Paul Pernerewski, Alderman Ryan Mulcahy, Alderman Larry DePillo, Jimmie Griffin, Richard Wood, Nelson Simoes (Health Department), Deputy Chief Vernon Riddick, Michael Gilmore, Officer Andrew Abney and Lt. Scott Stevenson. As Pat Sockwell pointed out later, she and I were the only women present.

Staring in disgust at the remaining dilapidated building on the corner of Walnut and
Wood Streets. Now that he's seen it, Mayor Jarjura agrees it needs to be torn down.

We started at the WOW center, walked down Walnut to Wood Street, up Wood to Oak Street, down Ives Street, then went down the length of the common area behind Ives Street (lots of dumping, in one case many years worth of dumping), back across Carpmill and Young Streets, pausing to talk to residents at the intersection of Young and Rose Streets, continuing on to Webb Street, pausing to look down Vermont Street (arguably the worst street in the neighborhood), then back up Walnut Street.

Wood Street, in front of abandoned triple-deckers.

Several triple-deckers on Wood Street went up for auction by the city recently. Minimum starting bid of $3,000. No bidders. Given the state of the economy and the condition of the buildings, this is not too surprising.

A beautiful old building that's getting ready to fall down.

I think you get the idea of how bad it is (and how little they realized it before now) from some of the expressions on their faces.

Lots of discussion of the problem, lots of discussion of the need to find a solution.

Sockwell led the group through some of the most run-down, trashed-out areas. "Watch your step" was repeated many times.

There are 110 Scovill homes. I need to do an inventory to find out how many are abandoned.

During the tour, talking with Nelson Simoes, I learned an important little detail about the fight against blight and litter: the city can't set foot on private property in order to see if there is blight. In other words, if the property next to mine has a yard full of trash and overgrown weeds, and I complain about it, all the property owner has to do is push the garbage back to where it can't be seen from the street. I can still see it, since it's up against my fence, but the Health Department can't--unless, of course, I invite them into my yard to see the trash (which I have now done).

So at the end of the day, what do we have? Certainly there is now better awareness of just how bad it really is here, which of course comes with many good intentions to find solutions. Some specific actions have been promised: cleaning up overgrown weeds and falling trees behind the rowhouses on Ives Street, getting the abandoned building on the corner of Walnut and Wood Streets torn down, going after the owners of certain trash-filled properties. We'll be holding another community meeting later this summer to assess where we are and what's been accomplished.

Soldiers' Monument on the Green

2011-05-31T20:57:00.000-04:00

Last week I attended a great program at the Mattatuck Museum. Dr. Matthew Warshauer, co-chair of the Connecticut Civil War Commemoration Committee and Professor of History at CCSU gave a presentation about Civil War monuments in Connecticut. Waterbury's Civil War monument is the Soldiers' Monument on the Green, erected in 1884 (although portions of the monument were not completed and installed until 1885 and 1886).

There's a lot of information available about the monument--Joseph Anderson published a book about it in 1886. I've read through the book to pull out the interpretive information for this blog post.

The sculptor was George Edwin Bissell, a veteran of the Civil War and a highly accomplished artist who lived in Waterbury for a period of time. He was working in Paris during the final planning of the design for the statue, and the bronze figures, reliefs and lamp posts were cast there in 1884.

The figure at the top of the monument represents Victory holding a laurel wreath for the Union soldiers in one hand, an olive branch for the Confederate soldiers in the other hand, and standing on a cornucopia predicting prosperity for the future.

Relief panels on the lower portion of the monument represent the Union troops charging a Confederate battery, and the battle of the Monitor and the Merrimac in 1862 (which has led some to call this the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument).

Below Victory, facing west, is the Farmer who has taken up arms to defend the Union, stepping over a broken fence rail.

Facing north is the grizzled Veteran, laurels and palm branch at his feet, weary from the war and seated at the grave of one of his fellow soldiers.

Facing east is the Mechanic who, like the Farmer, has left his work to take up arms. Behind him is equipment used in brass rolling mills.

Originally, Bissell had proposed figures to represent the North, South, East and West regions of the country. The final design uses the Farmer and the Mechanic to represent the different walks of life from which the Union soldiers came. Bissell also originally planned to have Liberty calling the Nation to her defense, but the final design replaced Liberty with Victory.

Perhaps most significant is the vignette on the south side of the monument. At the program last week, Dr. Warshauer informed us that this is one of only two Civil War monuments in Connecticut to include a reference to the abolition of slavery (the other one is in Hartford), and it is the only one in Connecticut to use the word "Emancipation".

The vignette depicts a seated woman listening intently, her hands resting on an open book. Her feet rest on a cannon, next to which is a shackle which has been broken. The woman, as indicated by her hair ornament, represents the government of the United States. The well-dressed schoolboy to her right represents the North (Anderson wrote that this was because "children have no prejudices, and know no color-line", which is a great point--children are not naturally racist, it has to be taught to them).

The other boy represents the freed slaves, the South and African Americans in general. He is seated on a bale of cotton, holding a hoe in one hand while trying to access the book with his other hand. He is eager to learn, to share the quality education the white schoolboy receives. The vignette emphasizes the importance of education for success.

The Emancipation group as it looked in 1886, when it was published
in Joseph Anderson's History of the Soldiers' Monument.

The monument was dedicated on October 23, 1884. Originally, the ceremony was to include the illumination of the Green with a thousand Chinese lanterns, but a severe storm the day before interfered with that plan (but wouldn't that have been impressive!). The morning of the dedication, there was a last-minute, post-storm flurry of decorating. The downtown was covered in U.S. flags, flags of other countries (many Union soldiers were immigrants), and many other decorations.

Governors of several states attended, as well as numerous military dignitaries. The total number of people in attendance was estimated at somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000. A full description of the dedication, with transcripts of the speeches, is in Anderson's book.

Carnival

2011-05-30T18:22:00.001-04:00

I finally made it to the Coleman Brothers Carnival on the last night this year. Beautiful night yesterday, perfect for a stroll outside. Coleman Brothers are based in Middletown and were established in 1916, making this their 96th year. I'm not sure how long they've been coming to Waterbury. Waterbury used to have its very own amusement park, at Lakewood Park, complete with roller coaster, back in the 1930s.

It was a lot like the carnivals at the county fairs I went to when I was a little girl living in upstate New York. In fact, pretty much all the same things were there. I guess there's a standard formula that's been working for decades.

There's the alley of booths full of really cheap-looking stuffed animals that you can try to win by shooting streams of water to inflate balloons or throwing very large basketballs into very small hoops. Most of the people attending were just strolling around and socializing, not spending too much money on games.

The carnival life is always fascinating. They live in very nice trailers, complete with satellite television and air conditioning (although we did see one very old, beat-up looking trailer alongside the nice new ones).

When I was a kid, my mom never let me ride on any roller coasters. She was terrified something horrible would happen to me. Instead, she took me on a ferris wheel. Very disappointing. More fun was the centrifuge ride, like Coleman Brothers' "Starship".

Can't forget the fun house, starting with the hall of mirrors. These are believed to have originated at Coney Island (as did so many other things). I didn't go to carnivals all that often when I was a kid, but the memories are very strong.

The Coleman Brothers Yo-Yo spins out a bit further than I remember a similar ride doing when I was a kid, but maybe I'm just remembering wrong. The one from my childhood was supposed to be some sort of futuristic flying car ride (like something from The Jetsons).

Now that I'm an adult, I can appreciate all the basic principles of physics involved in amusement rides--which is why some high schools have physics field trips to amusement parks!

And, of course, the carnival junk food--ice cream, pizza, fried dough, hamburgers, and soda.

It's funny how the carnival still gleams with a special allure. Even in this modern age of super-sized amusement parks, there's something about the carnival coming to town that triggers a little rush of excitement.

Waterbury's "House, M.D."

2011-05-21T21:27:00.000-04:00

Dr. Lisa Sanders is an Internist and Attending Physician at Waterbury Hospital. She also works as a medical technical consultant for the t.v. show House. I'm currently reading her book, Every Patient Tells a Story: Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis. It's fascinating to see the doctors' side of things.

Dr. Sanders also writes for The New York Times (which is how the producers of House found her). She started out as a journalist, eventually entering the Yale School of Medicine at age 36, and combined the two interests for her column, called "Diagnosis". She now writes a NY Times blog called "Think Like a Doctor", in which she presents readers with aspects of real cases and invites them to offer a diagnosis (the case was previously solved by the real-life doctors involved).

She recently wrote about a case at St. Mary's Hospital in Waterbury. It's interesting reading.

In an interview for the April 2011 issue of Medical Marketing and Media, Dr. Sanders describes her practice in Waterbury as a great place for diagnostic detective work, that she has encountered exotic illnesses such as typhoid fever and dengue fever, in part because there are so many immigrants in Waterbury.

From now on, when I watch House, I will have to wonder if the case was inspired by one in Waterbury!

WOW Community Meeting

2011-05-17T18:59:00.001-04:00

I've been busy lately, so I'm a little behind in posting this. Apologies for the delay!

A while back, Pat Sockwell, Vice-President of the Scovill Homes Association, took it on herself to organize a community meeting at the WOW/NRZ Community Learning Center. The board members of the Scovill Homes Association helped distribute flyers to the neighborhood, and Ms. Sockwell personally invited numerous city officials, community leaders and campaigning politicians while they were all at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new school being constructed just north of our neighborhood.

The meeting was held on May 4 and was attended by many neighbors who are fed up and frustrated. Also in attendance were Mayor Jarjura (whose presence was met with amazement--nobody can remember seeing him in our neighborhood ever before), Aldermen Pernerewski, Mulcahy and Petteway, Commissioners Harvey and O'Leary, State Representative Butler, State Senator Hartley, Michael Gilmore, Lt. Scott Stevenson, Community Police Officer Andrew Abney, Police Chief Michael Gugliotti, Jimmie Griffin, Bryan Baker, Paul Vance, Joshua Angelus, Belinda Weaver, Greg Hadley, Scovill Homes Association board members, and probably a few others I'm forgetting at the moment.

Belinda Weaver started the meeting with a question about the elimination of the community police officers. Mayor Jarjura responded with a long and confusing monologue about the city's budget, said something about community officers not being cut, and then tossed in a reference to switching over to "teams of 20" officers without explaining what that meant. It was a disheartening start to the meeting. Instead of a straight answer, we got what sounded like a canned speech with lots of complex phrases and very little substance.

I had come to the meeting with a long list of topics to raise. I didn't want to hog the stage, especially since there were so many neighbors present who don't get many opportunities to be heard, so I decided I would let everyone else go first. As it turned out, my neighbors had all the same complaints as I did. I chimed in a few times, but I didn't have to talk as much as I thought I would.

The basic list of complaints is as follows (in no particular order, just as I remember them; I was too busy participating to take notes, so I'm sure I've overlooked something):

Politicians have been making promises to invest in our neighborhood for decades, but as soon as the election is over, they disappear and the promises evaporate.
The sidewalks are more dangerous than walking in the street, but despite years of being promised new sidewalks, all we've been given is a few sections of blacktop layered on top of the crumbled sidewalk. That blacktop will last three or five years at best before the sidewalk is just as bad as ever. (If you don't believe me, go look at Long Hill; the blacktop put down for sidewalk there two years ago is already an unusable disaster.)
We need more community policing, not less. Taking away our Community Officer is going to cause harm to our neighborhood.
The current blight/litter enforcement is an endless cycle of frustration. We need to come together as a community and find new ways to keep our neighborhood clean. We need the city to continue to provide us with the necessary support as we do this.
The city trash pickup is haphazard and messy. They leave garbage behind as litter. It is impossible to get them to pick up the paper bags of leaves and similar yard waste.

I'm writing this in a pretty detached tone. If you weren't there, take a moment to imagine a room full of angry, frustrated people venting their frustrations. There were a few times when the frustrations and outrage started to get a little out of control. It's hard not to get emotional in a situation like this.

A major topic of contention was the condition of the two abandoned buildings at the corner of Walnut and Wood Streets (and another on East Farms). The coverage of this in the Rep-Am didn't even begin to convey any sense of what really happened at the meeting. The short article says "The city plans to demolish two dilapidated buildings and has committed to fight further blight in the troubled WOW neighborhood. The plans were announced Wednesday by Mayor Michael J. Jarjura at a forum at the WOW/NRZ Community Learning Center...."

The real story of how the "plans" came about is much more colorful.

First the back story: Read my post from February 22, 2009. That's the back story. Add to that a burned out building on East Farms Street. Three abandoned buildings, at least one of which is about to collapse on its own, two of which are likely to injure or kill someone.

When the buildings on Walnut Street were first brought up at the meeting, with a request that they be torn down before they fall on someone, Mayor Jarjura responded by telling us it costs $50,000 to tear down a building, making it very economically difficult to tear down all the buildings that need to be torn down. That caused everyone to pause while we tried to figure out how it could possibly cost $50,000 to tear down a building that doesn't have a roof or floors. A few people offered to do the job for less.

The desire to tear down the buildings was brought up again and again. Each time, Mayor Jarjura came up with a reason why it can't be done: the Mayor doesn't make the decision, only the Building Inspector can make it happen; the city couldn't do anything about it before now, because the buildings were caught up in the TaxServ debacle until recently; we should wait to see if the building sells at tax auction to someone who will fix it up (even though it's been sold and resold many times in recent years).

The neighborhood kept hammering home the immediate danger posed by the buildings, especially by the brick building on Walnut Street. The owner of the well-maintained property to the north of the building said he has heard the walls groaning, that bricks sometimes fall off, that he had to install a protective fence to minimize the damage from the building to his property. Others repeatedly stated that this is a school bus stop. Someone pointed out that the city will lose far more than $50,000 if the building falls and kills someone.

At one point the discussion was leaning towards accepting the Mayor's statement that it will be many months before the city can get around to demolishing the buildings. This led to a discussion about relocating the school bus stop to get the kids away from the Walnut Street buildings, but that is apparently a remarkably difficult thing to do, involving complex analysis and researching of which schools use that stop and which students use that stop. The process of relocating a school bus stop seems to take months.

The neighborhood was getting angrier and more frustrated. When Mayor Jarjura told us it takes months to get a building demolished, several of us, myself included, reminded him loudly that Sena's Bowling Alley was torn down and cleared out in a matter of days. At which point he said that was the Building Inspector's decision, not in his control.

Finally, after maybe twenty minutes and a tremendous amount of pressure, Mayor Jarjura declared "that building could be torn down like this!" with a snap of his fingers. To which we all replied, "Okay! Do it!" After a minute or so of more pressure, the Mayor declared that the two buildings on Walnut Street and the building on East Farms would be torn down in 30 days or less. There were some negotiations with the owner of the well-maintained property on Walnut Street to see if he would purchase the lot after it's demolished.

That was 13 days ago. Today, on my way home from work, I saw that the East Farms building has been torn down.

There's another backhoe parked in an abandoned lot across from the Walnut Street buildings, waiting to be put to use.

Now we know what it takes to get adequate city services in our neighborhood. We have to corner the Mayor and harangue him for hours until he finally agrees to do one thing for us. There has to be a better way.

The article in the newspaper said only the brick building on Walnut Street is scheduled for demolition. I hope that's not true. Both of them need to come down, and we left the meeting with the understanding that both would be torn down. We'll see what happens.

The Walnut Street buildings and school bus stop a little over two years ago.

UPDATE 5/18/2011: The brick building with no roof or floors finally came down today. Saw a lot of people standing around staring and talking about it after the work crew left for the day. Now if only we could get the one next to it to come down, then replace it with off-street parking for the neighborhood. And while I'm dreaming, I'd still like to see the empty lots across the street turned into a small park with a basketball court and maybe some garden space.

Earth Day Cleanup at Scovill Homes

2011-05-14T13:42:00.000-04:00

Started the day at the Sears parking lot, picked up gloves, plastic bags, water, and lunch tickets.

I also picked up an extra person, a volunteer from Naugatuck who came to help out.

We had a slightly better turnout this year, a few new people, but mostly the same folks who always come out to clean year round. The WOW Youth Council and our community police officer cleaned up on Ives Street.

At the end of the work--Frankie's hot dogs!

Fulton Park Greenhouse

2011-05-09T21:40:00.004-04:00

First, some background:

The Lewis Fulton Memorial Park was donated to the City of Waterbury in the 1920s. The land was purchased by Fulton's parents in 1919. His father, William E. Fulton, was president of Waterbury Farrel Foundry and Machine Co. and lived at 150 Hillside Avenue.

Lewis Edwards Fulton died in 1917 at the age of 38. He had been the treasurer at Waterbury Farrel until about 1912, when his brother took over. He continued to live with his parents until his death, apparently unemployed. I don't know what caused his death. I suspect he may have had a long-term illness. There does not appear to be a draft registration record for him during WWI, suggesting that he was unwell for years.

The park's Registration Form with the National Register of Historic Places is available online in PDF format, and the supporting images are also online in PDF format (large file, about 6 MB).

The Olmsted connection to Waterbury goes back to the 1840s. Frederick Law Olmsted, who eventually became the famous landscape architect, was a close friend of Frederick J. Kingsbury, whom he met while they were both students at Yale. Kingsbury later married into the Scovill family and became president of Scovill Manufacturing. Thanks to the connection with Kingsbury, Frederick Law Olmsted came to Waterbury in 1845 to study agriculture on the farm of Joseph Welton.

In the 20th century, Olmsted's sons took on many projects in Waterbury, including Fulton Park. They also designed Library Park with Cass Gilbert in the 1920s and numerous other parks and private properties.

The finding aid to the Olmsted Associates papers in the Library of Congress lists the "Waterbury Common" as a 1906 job. Other listed jobs and correspondence in Waterbury include William H. White (1917), Chase Companies (1919-20), Chase Park for Frederick S. Chase (1919-1921), Library Park (1919-1949), Henry L. Wade and J. S. Dye (1920), Waterbury Hospital (1920), Edward O. Goss (1920), Fulton Park (1920-24), Hayden Homestead Park for Mrs. William S. (Rose Hayden) Fulton (1920-21), Fairmount Subdivision for Chase Companies (1920-21), North Main Street project for Chase Companies (1921), Charles H. Brown (1921), Frederick S. Chase's burial lot at Riverside Cemetery (1921-23), A. C. Swenson (1924-29), Bartow Heminway (1926-46), Church of the Immaculate Conception (1928), H.S. Coe (1928-1937), First Congregational Church (1928), Country Club Homes, Inc. for Charles Sherwood (1929), Richardson Bronson (1929-30), I. W. Day (1930-1950), Calvary Cemetery (1932-33), Bunker Hill Improvement Association (1944-45). I have no idea if all those projects were completed. In addition, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. designed the WWI federal housing project on Laval, Lounsbury, Welles and Madison Streets.

Now, the greenhouse:

A former and hopefully future gem of Fulton Park is the greenhouse. Just as the City Hall building was allowed to deteriorate over the years, the greenhouse has been neglected. More than neglected. It's completely abandoned.

A greenhouse like this could be a tremendous asset to the city. It could even generate revenue--many greenhouses have flower shows in the middle of winter and they are always very popular. The greenhouse could also be used to grow plants for sale to help support the care and maintenance of the park. At this point, however, the greenhouse is unusable.

Many people are upset that the city has allowed the greenhouse to fall apart, but as I am learning, this is pretty typical for how the city has operated for many years. The city infrastructure is falling apart everywhere. Sidewalks are crumbling apart, buildings are falling apart, and the city has no program in place for keeping things from falling apart.

The city is dependent upon state and federal funding for repairing things when they fall so far apart they can no longer be used. Funding has come in for the greenhouse--it has yet to be used for the greenhouse.

The state Bond Commission approved $250,000 specifically for the greenhouse in 2008, adding to $150,000 secured by State Senator Joan Hartley a few years earlier. Going back further, in 2004 Waterbury received $350,000 from the state to renovate the greenhouse as well as finish some repairs to Hamilton Park's basketball and tennis courts, swimming pool and baseball field (Rep-Am, January 31, 2004). That's close to half a million dollars of state money that has been funneled to Waterbury for a project that has yet to happen.

William Fulton created a trust fund for Fulton Park in May 1923. Following his death in 1930, the fund was given to the city, at which point it was estimated to be worth about a quarter of a million dollars. If that fund had been well managed over the decades since then, it would be quite sizable, generating more than enough money to keep up Fulton Park. I don't know anything about what has happened to the fund since 1930, but I suspect there's not much left. Finding out what happened to it could be very interesting.

The brick house in front is a lovely building and looks like it's structurally sound and relatively easy to fix up. There is a matching brick structure at the opposite end of the greenhouse. The architectural details are refined and complex, the sort of thing you don't see in modern buildings.

The greenhouse sits on a rustic stone foundation that looks very much like the other Olmsted-designed buildings in the park. The cinder blocks on top of the foundation look like something that would make the Olmsteds scream in horror. As you can see from the photo below, there's also a doorway that's been filled in with cinder blocks.

The framework of the greenhouse is rotted out and most of the glass is broken (be careful walking next to the building, the ground is layered in broken glass hiding in the grass).

The interior looks like something from a horror movie about a haunted house.

Below is a detail showing the name of the greenhouse's manufacturer, the American Greenhouse Mfg. Co. of Chicago. They were very active around 1920, when Fulton Park was being built.

The American Greenhouse Manufacturing Co. advertisement from the September 1919 issue of House and Garden magazine, and another of their ads from the August 1919 issue of Garden and Home Builder magazine, show greenhouses very similar to the one at Fulton Park.

This suggests that at least part of the greenhouse is original. It's not impossible for there to have been cinder blocks originally. I can't tell from the ads how the AGMCo greenhouse foundations were constructed.

The next photo shows part of an addition to the brick building in the back of the greenhouse. On the right of the image you can see the cinder block addition, possibly from the 1950s.

Here's another shot of the addition, showing its very faded NFPA Diamond hazard signage.

The Connecticut Post ran an article by Ken Dixon about the state's growing deficit on February 21, 2010, criticizing the state funding of projects like the Fulton Park greenhouse. Dixon wrote "How about the new $250,000 greenhouses at Waterbury's Fulton Park? Some of those geraniums are yours." Imagine what he might have written had he known that the figure is over $400,000 and none of it has been spent on the greenhouse.

Unalienable Rights

2011-04-30T12:07:00.000-04:00

Connecticut's history lovers are currently swept up in the Civil War, which started 150 years ago, but at the moment I am thinking about the Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence and slavery (which, of course, is more closely associated with the Civil War than the Revolutionary War, but was still going strong in Connecticut during the 1770s).

Earlier this week I gave a tour of downtown Waterbury to a group from Naugatuck Valley Community College. The tour was based on one I originally created while working on the Fortune's Story project at the Mattatuck Museum several years ago, telling the story of Waterbury's first African Americans at the end of the 1700s.

Giving the tour brought me back to something I haven't look at in a while, the story of Joseph Munn, who was brought to Waterbury in 1773 as the slave of William Nichols, whose father, brother and brother-in-law were also slave owners.

Although held in slavery, Munn enlisted as a private in the Continental army in 1776, in Col. Thaddeus Cook's regiment which fought in both battles at Saratoga. Munn served in the army through the entire war, risking his health and life to fight for the new nation's independence.

In 1780, Joseph Munn, still in the army, petitioned the Connecticut General Assembly to free him from slavery. William Nichols, a Loyalist, had fled to Nova Scotia.

Joseph Munn's petition is in the Collection of the Connecticut State Library, State Archives in Hartford.

The opening paragraph of Munn's petition is incredibly powerful, a plea not just for his own freedom, but an argument against the very existence of slavery and inequality:

“The Petition of Joseph Munn, a poor African Humbly sheweth that your unfortunate Petitioner, while but a Child, was Snatched by the hand of Fraud and violence from his Native Land and all his dear Connexions and brought into this Land, and notwithstanding by the Constitution of the Great Parent of the Universe who hath made of one blood all Nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth, he was in Common with others entitled to Freedom and the unalienable rights of Humanity, yet in Violation thereof he was Sold a Slave for Life....”

It gives me chills every time I read it. Munn's petition shows an understanding of the Declaration of Independence ("all men are created equal") to a degree that perhaps goes beyond the intentions of its signers but that can't be ignored. The Declaration of Independence is one of the most revolutionary and important documents of our era, and its principal concepts continue to resonate throughout the world. Joseph Munn's petition is an early example of the power of the Declaration of Independence.

Maybe part of what gives me the chills is that it was not obvious at the time, not actually "self-evident", that all men are of "one blood", that we are all equal. The world had centuries, even millennia, of history in which some people considered themselves inherently superior and others inherently inferior.

Joseph Munn, after four years of fighting for America's freedom, stood up and declared that he too was "entitled to Freedom and the unalienable rights of Humanity."

For more of Munn's story, visit the Mattatuck Museum's Fortune's Story website.

Springtime Color

2011-04-26T19:39:00.001-04:00

Gorgeous weather today, even a bit too hot and humid. I took advantage of the rare sunshine to take photos of the spring flowers and budding leaves. I missed the cherry tree blossoms on Park Place--they were in their glory last week--but here are sample shots of how Waterbury was looking today.

First up, my weeping cherry tree:

The view on Walnut Street.

Flowering trees and green lawn at the Brass Mill Center mall:

San Marino restaurant:

The west end of Grand Street:

Father McGivney, preaching to the flowers:

Tulips flowering in planters on Grand Street:

Tulip Lovers--don't forget the Tulip Festival in Fulton Park on May 1st!

More Grand Street tulips:

Pastel greens of new leaves:

The fountain in front of City Hall, once again a fountain:

Not a sign of spring, but too cool to ignore. Awesome hood ornament on a car parked in front of City Hall today:

Magnolia next to the Chase Building:

People enjoying a little bit of shade on Church Street:

Veterans' Memorial monument on the Green:

Flowering trees in front of the rectory building of Immaculate Conception:

Back around to Grand and Leavenworth Streets:

Across from the Grand Street Post Office:

It was a great day for eating lunch outdoors:

Landscaping at CL&P on Freight Street:

Forsythia

MacDermid, across from CL&P:

Now for some shots at Chase Park. While I was there, a man asked if I was taking photos to show how the park needs upgrades--meanwhile, I was thinking it would be nice if there were a park like this on top of Long Hill.

Riverside Cemetery:

West Main Street. During the summer, I wish these little trees were big enough to provide shade. Right now, though, they are showing their merits.

And finally, some little flowers in the lawn of the BPO Elks Club on West Main Street:

Campaign Season

2011-04-15T20:51:00.002-04:00

Remember three months ago, when I complained that streets hadn't been fully plowed during the January snow storms, causing dangerous situations for drivers and pedestrians? Remember how I was told that I was being unfair? Remember how the Mayor declared that it was unreasonable to expect people to keep one side of the city streets free from parked cars during storms?

Well, now it's spring and the city has to clean all the winter sand off the streets. In order to do so, the city requires that all cars, on both sides of the road, be removed to make way for the street sweepers. Any car in the way will be towed.

How to interpret this... Let's see.

1. It is more important to clean the sand off the streets than to remove snow from the streets.
(This assumes that the city will actually enforce the parking ban during street sweeping.)

2. The city is run by a system of chaos, disorder and total lack of consistency. The Mayor has no ability, or perhaps simply no interest, in effective management of city services.

I'm leaning towards Interpretation 2.

In the past ten years that Jarjura has been Mayor, the city's financial standing and credit rating have improved dramatically. This is a good thing.

On the other hand, city services have languished. There have been no improvements to city services, even though our taxes have been increased. There has been no indication that the current administration wants to improve city services.

In this election year, it seems that what city residents want most is improved city services for improved quality of life and a more beautiful and pedestrian-friendly city. Will Jarjura continue to base his campaigning on his fiscal record, or will he switch his focus to the address the concerns of the citizens? For that matter, where do the other candidates stand on these issues?

This is one of those things that makes me realize just how far I've come. Once upon a time, I had no idea how city government functioned and no idea how to decide which candidates to vote for. Now I actually download the proposed budget, read through it, and try to figure out ways to save money and improve services. I pay attention to what candidates say and what they do--and I am increasingly left thinking I can do just as well, if not better.

Clean Up Week

2011-04-13T22:34:00.001-04:00

Back in 1919, the Waterbury Chamber of Commerce began an annual "clean up and plant" campaign in April. As described in The Hartford Courant (April 18, 1920), it would have been called a "city beautiful" campaign, but that sounded too high-brow.

The campaign was broken into two parts, one week each. During the first week, everyone in the city was expected to make sure their front and back yards were clean and tidy (and to make sure their neighbor's front and back yards were also clean and tidy). This first week was Clean Up Week.

The second week, beginning right around April 18, was Spring Planting Week.

The two-week campaign was sponsored by the Chamber's City Improvement Committee, chaired by William T. Manning.

Advertisements in the 1920 City Directory.

During Spring Planting Week, the Committee distributed thousands of seeds, shrubs and trees to city residents for planting in their yards. Some of the plantings were donated to the Chamber for the cause, others were purchased with money donated by the city's wealthier residents, who wanted to encourage the success of the program.

Trees, shrubs and seeds were distributed from the Chamber's headquarters on Field Street. The only condition for receiving the free plantings was to agree to follow the printed directions for the care of the plants.

The first year of the program (1919), the Committee handed out 10,000 shrubs, 6000 packages of flower sees and 3000 trees. Just imagine! Three thousands trees, ten thousand shrubs, free! This goes a long way towards explaining how our city became so filled with greenery.

The second year (1920), there were 12,000 evergreen trees, 6000 shrubs and 50,000 packages of flower seeds. Each applicant was restricted to a choice of two evergreens, one other tree, two shrubs, one rose bush and two packages of flower seeds.

An old pine tree on Wolcott Street--could it have been one of the Chamber's free plants?

Available plants included evergreens, white spruce, koster spruce, white pine, Austrian pine, Scotch pine, Lombardy poplar, arbor vitae, forsythia, honeysuckle, red twig dogwood, flowering currant, overgreen vine, purple and white lilac, apple tree, barbary, aralia shrub, kerria shrub and Boston ivy.

Not all of the plants were good choices for the long run--for example, today arborists caution against the Lombardy poplar, because it is prone to many problems and does not last very long.

History Mystery

2011-04-09T20:20:00.004-04:00

At the Cass Gilbert symposium held this morning at the Mattatuck Museum, a mystery was raised by the presenters. The front of the U.S. Supreme Court building, under the pediment, is engraved with the phrase "Equal Justice Under Law".

The Associate Curator of the U.S. Supreme Court, Matthew D. Hofstedt, informed us that the origin of the phrase is currently unknown. A quick Google search turns up a Wikipedia page dedicated to theories about the origin of the phrase, but (not too surprising) Wikipedia doesn't have the answer. The Wikipedia page has been recently updated to make reference to the stencil over the entrance to the Veteran's Memorial chamber in the Waterbury City Hall. The stencil leads one to believe that the phrase was created by Cass Gilbert.

As pointed out by the experts in attendance today (Barbara Christen and Robert Gryzwacz), we don't have any documentation to prove that the stencil dates from 1915--it could have been added later.

I can't resist a challenge like this. No one knows? Really? Ooooo! Let me do some research!

What I discovered is not at all surprising. Cass Gilbert, who added quotes from Abraham Lincoln to several places in the Waterbury City Hall building, got this phrase from Lincoln.

I found a reference to it in an 1883 publication by The Chautauqua Institute, which pretty clearly attributes it to Lincoln. Unfortunately, they don't cite their source, so I don't know which speech or letter it comes from. And a search on the Library of Congress database of Lincoln's papers doesn't turn it up. But I'll keep digging!

UPDATE 4/12/2011: The word is that the inscription in City Hall is not original, that it was added during the 2010 renovation. Additionally, (as pointed out to me by Matthew Hofstedt) even though the title page of the above-mentioned Chautauqua Institute book on Google Books is for an 1883 publication, the portion containing the phrase is from a speech written in 1936.

Building the Future

2011-04-05T16:45:00.000-04:00

This Saturday, April 9th, the Mattatuck Museum will be hosting a special program that should be of interest to anyone involved in efforts to revitalize Waterbury. There was a similar event in 2007, before the City Hall project started, making this one a nice bookend.

Text below is reprinted from the Mattatuck Museum.

Cass Gilbert and the Future of Downtown Waterbury

The taxpayers of Waterbury spent $35.9m to restore what many call the most beautiful building in the state, our City Hall. How can civic leaders, business people, and city residents build on this great accomplishment to attract new business, new residents, and new jobs?

Join us as Allen Plattus, professor of architecture and urbanism at the Yale School of Architecture; Dr. Barbara Christen, co-editor of Cass Gilbert, Life and Work: Architect of the Public Domain; Matt Hofstedt, Associate Curator of the U.S. Supreme Court and Kevin Taylor, Waterbury Development Corporation discuss how we can learn from American cities that have used their historic buildings to reinvent their city centers.

Program: 9:00am-12:15pm
Lunch break: 12:15-1:00pm (lunch is included in the cost of the event)

Tours of City Hall for symposium participants only: 1:00-2:00pm

Date:

April 9th, 2011

Time:

9:00 AM - 12:30 PM

Location

144 West Main Street
Waterbury, CT 06702
United States

Contact

Phone: 203 753-0381 ext 10
Email: cfilippone@mattatuckmuseum.org

Event Fee(s)

Members	$ 15.00
Non-members	$ 20.00

» Register Now

One Week Left!

2011-04-02T14:42:00.000-04:00

The latest exhibit at the Freight Street Gallery, That's Women's Work, will up for one more week. They'll be open this Sunday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and they'll be open on Sunday, April 10 for the Closing Reception, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The Freight Street Gallery is, not surprisingly, located on Freight Street. It's a classic example of artists making good use of old factory buildings.

Freight Street Gallery is also open tonight, starting at 8 pm., for a Kath Bloom performance.

The current exhibit ha a wide range of artistic styles, with work by only women: Allison Lonegan, Becka Schoedel, Caitlyn Olsen, Dora Sambuco, Jamie Arabolos, Jodi Brown, Lip Gloss Crisis, Lisa Havis, Mary Anne McCarthy, Muriel Radocchio, nikki juchem, and Pam Bogert.

Window Watching

2011-03-30T11:05:00.000-04:00

I've been working on a painting of Fulton Park on Fridays, sitting in the window at Goldsmith's on Bank Street. When I started, it was the depth of winter, and very few people paused to notice. Most pedestrians kept their heads down and focused on walking. Once the snow and ice melted away, the pedestrians started looking in the windows again. Not everyone looks (like the guy on the phone in the photo below), but many do, especially children and teenagers. It's a lot of fun to see their expressions, to see them interact with my paintings in a way I wouldn't normally be able to do.

I love being in downtown Waterbury. It's a friendly city. People from all walks of life will smile at me and give me a thumbs-up after they see me working on the painting. Some shout words of encouragement through the window. Every so often, a total stranger will come inside the store to chat and share their stories. It's a great experience.

Systemic Failure

2011-03-28T09:05:00.001-04:00

On Saturday, I realized it was once again time to complain about the same blight/litter problem I've complained about before. Today, in the Republican-American, there was an article that seemed to pretty much condemn the city for failing to take care of the neighborhoods in terms of blight, litter, sidewalks, absentee landlords, and an array of illegal activities.

I'm going to stick to my original plan and talk about litter and blight, but I think the roots of the problems are the same across the board: the city does not have an adequate enforcement program in use. The current administration has had ten years to come up with a way to deal with the problems, and they have failed to do so. Litter, blight, slumlords, sidewalk decay--nothing has changed.

My immediate gripe is the litter that accumulates daily in my yard. How bad is it? Here's a sample of the worst section:

The source of the litter that appears in my yard every day is just on the other side of the fence:

The property next to mine is an apartment building with a bodega on the ground floor. Their dumpster is next to my property. They never clean up the trash that accumulates around the dumpster--except when one of their neighbors lodges a formal complaint with the city. Then they are issued a warning and are given a few days to clean up the mess. So they clean up the mess and are no longer in trouble.

This has been going on for years. It's an endlessly frustrating cycle and it is extraordinarily inefficient. Every time we complain, the city spends manpower ordering them to clean up their mess. And then the mess returns.

Simply put, the city needs to get tough on blight and litter. Until it does, nothing will change. My bodega neighbor is the perfect example of that. They know they won't really get into trouble if they let the mess accumulate. They are incapable of being internally motivated to obey the law, show respect and keep their area clean. It's up to the city to give them an external motivation. If the current regulations don't give enforcement officers enough power to do their jobs effectively, then it's time to change the regulations.

Going back to the larger picture, to the numerous problems plaguing the city, let me just add that cracking down on blight and litter is only part of the solution. The city is guilty of contributing to blight by, for example, failing to properly maintain the sidewalks. We are looking at a system-wide failure on the part of the administration. We need a better approach.

Clean Up

2011-03-25T19:30:00.000-04:00

Waterbury had a couple of dramatic building collapses this winter, when all our roofs were weighed down by many feet of snow and ice. The biggest collapse was the old Sena's Duckpin Bowling building on North Main Street. Sena's sold the building in 2001 to Iglesia Pentecostal El Tabernaculo, Inc. (the linked article above states that the church is co-pastored by Denis A. Cuevas, general manager of the city's Water Pollution Control Department).

As far as I can tell, it has been sitting vacant ever since Sena's closed in 2000.

The city (I assume it was the city) did a great job cleaning up the Sena's wreckage. Every last scrap of the building was removed, the basement was filled in, and the whole thing was covered with wood chips. Very impressive.

It's too bad the giant, hazardous, abandoned and blighted buildings on the corner of Walnut and Wood Streets didn't collapse, since that's apparently the best way to get them torn down.

A few days after the Sena's collapse, a section of wall from the old clock factory on North Elm Street collapsed. It still hasn't been cleaned up. The pile of bricks are blocking the sidewalk and spilling out into the street. It's been sitting there so long the yellow caution tape is almost gone.

I'm left wondering why the city can't get a small pile of rubble blocking a sidewalk and part of the roadway cleaned up in a timely fashion. It's relatively small, but it's still a big problem.

Waterbury Books: The '90s

2011-03-22T22:58:00.001-04:00

Yesterday's post of Recent Waterbury Books received such an enthusiastic response I've decided to keep going, sorting them by decades. It takes many, many hours to create each of these lists, so it will be a while before I get to another one (I have to do things that pay the bills, and blogging has never earned me any money).

Keep sending me your suggestions, and I'll add them when I can.

Many of these are hard-to-find outside the Silas Bronson Library and Mattatuck Museum archives. I've added links to the most useful listing for each one, often simply Google Books, which gives you options to search for used copies or copies in libraries. John Bale Books has a few of them for sale.

When possible, I tracked down images of the book covers. But it wasn't possible for all of them.

Robert R. Bisaillon
Franco-American Biographies of the Greater Waterbury Area

Sando Bologna
The Italians of Waterbury; Experiences of Immigrants and Their Families

Growing Up Italian and American in Waterbury

Jeremy Brecher and Ruth Glasser
Essays on the Brass Workers History Project and the Waterbury Ethnic Music Project in Using Ethnographic Data: Interventions, Public Programming, and Public Policy

Frederick W. Chesson
Waterbury (Images of America Series)

Claudia Clark
Radium Girls: Women and Industrial Health Reform, 1910-1935

Susan Hoffman Fishman
The Platt Brothers and Company: Ingenuity, Innovation and Integrity

Gary Franks
Searching for the Promised Land: An African American's Optimistic Odyssey

David J. Garrow
Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade (extensive information about Clara McTernan's Waterbury clinic, which provided birth control for married women)

Ruth Glasser (Professor of Urban Studies at UConn-Waterbury)
Aqui Me Quedo: Puerto Ricans in Connecticut (also available from the Connecticut Humanities Council)

My Music is My Flag: Puerto Rican Musicians and Their New York Communities, 1917-1940 (discussion of the Waterbury Ethnic Music Project in the Preface)

Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church
Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, Waterbury, Connecticut: 75th Anniversary, 1918-1993

Rachel Kerr Johnson, edited by Barbara Mitchell Tull
Affectionately, Rachel: letters from India, 1860-1884 (includes a marvelous letter describing Waterbury in 1860)

Adam Korpalski
A History of the University of Connecticut at Waterbury 1946-1996

Richard M. Marano
History of the Order Sons of Italy in America of Waterbury, Connecticut: 1911-1996

John Frederick Martin
Profits in the Wilderness: Entrepreneurship and the Founding of New England (references to early Waterbury)

Charles A. Monagan
The Country Club of Waterbury: (1899-1999)

Charles Turek Robinson
The New England Ghost Files (first chapter is a haunting in Waterbury)

Matthew W. Roth
The Platt Brothers and Company: Small Business in Manufacturing (Photo taken by John Bale Books, which currently has a copy for sale)

Saint Anne School
Centennial: Saint Anne School, Waterbury, Connecticut, 1890-1990

Saint Joseph Church
Saint Joseph Church, Waterbury, Connecticut: Centennial, 1894-1994

Ann Y. Smith
At Home in Waterbury: A History of the Neighborhoods of Waterbury

Janet Woolum
Outstanding Women Athletes (has short biography of Joan Joyce)