Keep Watching This Space

Progress is being made, ever so slowly, on getting construction started for the downtown Facade Improvement Program. As I wrote previously, Main Street Waterbury has awarded improvement grants to several building owners. Since then, there have been designs submitted and revised, contracts written up and sent to Corporation Council, and all sorts of other stages of the process.

One of the projects that is just about ready to go is the newly renovated apartment building on the corner of Bank and Center Streets. I've heard great things about the quality of the apartments, I can't wait to see how the exterior looks when it's completed!

Petroleum Man

Last night I made a trip to Target for some chicken soup and orange juice--I was hit by the flu early this week, and Target has really low prices on chicken soup. I also made a stop at the Sunoco station on the corner of Wolcott and Lakewood. I was a little surprised to see a panhandler asking drivers for spare change, and I was a little surprised by how cheery and friendly everyone was being. Usually people being panhandled become surly or terrified, but the people he panhandled cheerily wished him good luck. I don't know why they weren't upset, maybe the gas station is close enough to Wolcott that people feel safe?

When he asked me if I had any spare change, I warned him that I had the flu. He then told me that things like swine flu and pneumonia are caused by water. Bear in mind that, thanks to the flu, I wasn't entirely coherent, but I think maybe he wasn't all that coherent either. He went on to explain that the germs get in through the pores in your skin, possibly via water (I didn't entirely understand how water factored into the equation), therefore you should coat your skin with a layer of petroleum to keep out the flu. If only I had known that sooner! Somebody inform the CDC and start spreading the grease around!

On a more serious note, there are reports of a recent spike in flu-type symptoms at Connecticut emergency rooms, and it does seem like a lot of people have been getting sick lately. There's some speculation that Waterbury has a higher immunity to swine flu, because we had more cases of it in the spring. The first delivery of swine flu vaccine isn't due to arrive in Connecticut for several more weeks, by which time we may already be well into flu season. While I don't recommend coating your skin with petroleum, I do recommend stocking up on flu supplies before you get sick, so you don't have to make a late-night, half-delirious chicken soup run.

Greenway

The second public meeting for the Greenway project was held on September 16. I am very impressed with the consultants for this project--they are getting good things done at a very good pace (unlike the consultants for the transportation center, who seem to be working at a snail's pace).

The updated information about the greenway trail will be available on the project website next week, www.waterburygreenway.org.

Thank You!

My sincere thanks to everyone who voted in the Primary on Tuesday. Sadly, only 19% of the eligible voters came out that day. I am, however, very proud of my district (72-2) which I had been told is not worth bothering with because voter turnout is always so low here. We had 173 voters, while the supposedly busier and more worthwhile 73-5 had 168 voters.

One of my goals going forward is to increase voter participation in the 72nd district. The city has been ignoring this neighborhood for many, many years (we've been asking to have the sidewalks repaired/replaced for just over a decade with no results), and one reason surely must be the low voter turnout. In fact, there seems to be a direct correlation between neighborhoods known to have high voter turnout and neighborhoods that are well-maintained by the city.

At some point when I have time, I'll write up a long article about my experiences on the campaign trail. But first I have a few household chores to get caught up on!

Primary Day

11:14 a.m. ~ So far a slow day. I was assigned to Blessed Sacrament this morning, where we averaged approximately 12 voters per hour. Coleen Flaherty-Merritt was there as well and told me that polling location usually sees 30 in the first hour and another rush before 8 a.m. There were no rushes at all.

Next I took my dad over to Chase School so he could vote. They were at maybe 40 or 50 voters. Jarjura was there, and he very graciously offered me a piece of fruit. I wish I had thought to say that I would prefer new sidewalks, but I was trying to be polite.

Third stop was my home district at the WOW Center. I was voter number 36. From what I saw after, I'd say the pace is about 12 voters per hour. The 72nd district is known for low voter turn-out, but so far today it doesn't seem to be lagging that far behind the supposedly busy 73-5. We'll see if things change later today.

3 p.m. ~ Hot, hot, hot! A slow afternoon but definitely worthwhile. If only I had thought to put on sunblock! Today is definitely the most stressful day of the campaign. My sister is going to stop by with water and moral support before she goes to her polling place. Five hours to go. What a day!

6 p.m. ~ Back at Blessed Sacrament, which had a little over a dozen voters in the past hour, so really not much busier than the WOW Center, where Joyce Petteway is currently doing a hard sell of Jarjura for the rare undecided voter. Two hours to go.

6:45 p.m. ~ Mosquitos!!!

12:44 a.m. ~ A shocking upset, thanks to the Berginesque absentee ballots and ridiculously low voter turnout. There's a lot I learned, there's a lot I still have to process, but I still love this city and am determined to bring it up out of the muck.

Traintime

I'm sitting on the train platform right now, waiting for the 9:15. I don't normally sit around waiting, but I had to drop my car off at 8 for much-needed maintenance. A young woman just came up to me and asked if she could give me a copy of Watchtower. When I said "sure, can I give you one of my flyers?", she looked flustered and politely said no. I handed her the Vance for Mayor flyer anyway, pointing out my photo on the back, and she instantly went from worried to pleased and interested. I gave her a quick spiel, the she and the other woman, with small child in tow, went on their way.

River Baldwin Forum

I love political debates (and wish we would have one during this election season!). Last Friday's Democratic Forum at the River Baldwin center had a brief moment when Vance and Jarjura slid into a debate, but the moderator quickly got them back on format. While the two hours were relatively calm, it certainly was informative.

I was astonished by some of the things Jarjura said, especially considering that the first round of Q&A was prepared in advance. Most notably (if that's the right word for it), he proposed several scenarios in which he will raise taxes and one scenario in which he will be cutting funding to some city programs.

Most infuriatingly, at one point Jarjura claimed, in effect, that things are great in all of Waterbury's neighborhoods. I was so outraged by his claims that I almost started shouting at him. The question to which he was responding (I wrote notes, but not verbatim) asked what his plan was for improving the city's suffering neighborhoods. Jarjura answered with a sort of anecdote about how terrible things were when he first became mayor eight years ago, that back then city residents were so fed up and frustrated that they were ready to leave Waterbury, but now (after 8 years of Jarjura as Mayor), everything is fine, we have plenty of grant writers, there is money available for homeowners to upgrade their houses, and we have no extra money to fix up neighborhoods.

Now, granted, I'm writing this 48 hours later, working from notes I typed quickly into my phone, so these are not direct quotes, just the gist of what he said. Tearing it apart one piece at a time:

~Most everyone in my neighborhood is frustrated and fed up and ready to leave Waterbury; in the past 8 years, they have seen their property taxes more than double without seeing any improvements to city services, and in most cases they don't feel like they have seen any city services worth mentioning;

~If we have "plenty" of grant writers, why don't we have any extra money to fix up neighborhoods? if we can spend $2 million buying Drubner's land, why can't we spend $2 million fixing up blighted neighborhoods? If we have neighborhoods that NEED fixing up, then how is it possible that everything is fine?

It was clear from what Jarjura said that he has never been to my neighborhood, or any other neighborhood that has been suffering for years. He is completely oblivious.

Other memorable highlights from the forum: in response to the lack of diversity in city hiring (for example, every member of the Mayor's office staff are white, in a city where 25% of the population is Hispanic), Jarjura said "the problem is primaries", that Cicero Booker has failed to recommend minorities for assorted positions, and that the Board of Aldermen, which according to Jarjura has nothing to do all year except approve his budget, hasn't done anything and "hopefully the next Board of Aldermen will do their jobs." I wondered what the incumbents on his ticket thought of that. I spoke to Alderman Nogueira after the forum--he was furious.

After a mid-forum break, members of the public had the opportunity to have their questions asked. One woman from the South End wanted to know what each candidate was going to do about the poor conditions of some of the school buildings and school supplies. Jarjura was flummoxed, and insisted that everything was fine with schools, implying that the woman didn't know what she was talking about.

The forum started out with a general question about problems Waterbury faces. Jarjura responded by citing the national financial crisis and, for the next question concerning future policy decisions, warned that he will have to stop funding some programs in order to avoid raising taxes. Later on, he described a plan to increase the sales tax for anything sold in Waterbury so that the city will gain extra revenue. This is apparently a plan concocted by the mayors of several cities, but it seems fundamentally flawed. It increases taxes for the poorest city residents who are unable to go to a town with lower taxes to do their shopping.

The overall message from Jarjura was "everything is fine, there's no need to make any changes or improvements," except when he was blaming problems on anyone other than himself (in addition to the above examples, he also blamed the school problems on single-parent families, teen pregnancy and abusive households).

In contrast, Vance proposed numerous ways to improve city services, lower taxes and improve quality of life in Waterbury. His plans include ways to make the city friendlier to businesses, establishing the Mayor's office as a hub for economic development, reducing the city's expenditures for legal fees by putting legal services out to bid, hiring a grant writer (which was in the city budget for last year, but instead a new aide was hired for the Mayor's office), establishing monthly community meetings for the Mayor's office and making the Board of Aldermen more accessible to the public by holding some meetings in community centers, give neighborhood associations grant funds to help improve the neighborhoods, create tax incentives to help fight foreclosures, and reduce pollution (whereas Jarjura spoke about bringing in more industry to the heavily-polluted South End).

By the end of the 2-hour forum, Vance had earned several new supporters.

$1.75 million

I'm trying to avoid having this blog dwell too much on campaign issues, but this one is really bothering me, and I think there are a couple of reasons for it. Mayor Jarjura's proposal to purchase the 130+ acre Park Road parcel of woodlands from Norman Drubner is a proposal I would support if there was a plan to preserve it as open space (instead the plan seems to be to sell it to the next eager developer--who will that be? Jarjura?) and if the price were more realistic. Spending $1.7 million to buy land that has been assessed at less than $40,000 just doesn't sit right with me.

Jarjura says the expenditure is an investment for the city. I have a better investment proposal. For $1.75 million, the city (or designated organization, for example, WDC) could purchase every abandoned, blighted house in my neighborhood (and there are a lot of them!), rehabilitate them, and then sell them to people who would live in them and maintain them. The city would possibly make an immediate financial profit, followed by an increase in tax collection from the newly owned buildings, and the improvement to this neighborhood would be phenomenal. In one year, my neighborhood could go from being blighted to being one of the nicer neighborhoods in the city.

Or we could just stick with Jarjura's plan and funnel the money into Drubner's bank account without making any improvements to the city in the short or long run. That's Jarjura's plan, isn't it? Use the property exactly the same way as Drubner would, but first give him a big chunk of taxpayer money.

Now that it's been re-appraised for $4.3 million, wouldn't it be more profitable to let Drubner keep it and pay the appropriate taxes on it?

Comment Apologies

Thanks to a new web marketing strategy in which hired spammers in Sri Lanka and India post fake blog comments with links to commercial sites, I have changed the options for leaving comments on this blog. Going forward, no comments will post until I have reviewed them. Hopefully this will take less of my time than going back through old blog posts to individually delete the spam comments.

Campaign Events

The Democratic Primary is only a few weeks away (on September 15) and things are really heating up (especially, for some reason, on Facebook).

The Grand Opening of the Vance HQ is Monday, August 31 at 5 p.m., complete with free Frankie's hot dogs, courtesy of our Board of Aldermen candidate Frank Caiazzo.

Join us again at The Turf on Grand Street for a fundraiser on Wednesday, September 2, 7 p.m. - 10 p.m. ($20 per person).

You can check out votevance.com to keep up-to-date with the latest events.

My lawn signs are finally here, so if you want one, send me an email or give me a call (I'm in the phone book as R Guest).

Park Road "Gift"?

The need for more open space in Waterbury has been a concern of mine for many years. In the past two weeks, there has been a lot of news concerning the 134 acres of forest owned by developer Norman Drubner on Park Road. It’s a beautiful stretch of land, one of the most park-like roads in the city, and one of the most endangered open spaces in Waterbury.

Drubner had planned on building 431 condominiums on the property, which provoked a public outcry from residents who feel that the city has more than enough high-density housing and not enough open space. The issue of open space in Waterbury has been a hot topic for many years: sometime around 2005, when the city was considering selling a portion of the East Mountain Golf Course for condo development, Mayor Jarjura was quoted as saying that Waterbury has enough open space, including cemeteries in his count.

Jarjura, a real estate developer, has now offered to have the city purchase Drubner’s land for $1.75 million. The property is assessed at less than $40,000. The difference between those two values has raised some instant red flags for a lot of people. Either the city has offered to pay far too much for the property, or Drubner has not been paying anywhere near enough taxes for it.

There also seems to be some confusion regarding the future of the property: Drubner was quoted in the paper on August 20 as stating that “this property is going to be preserved.” Preserving land usually means that policies, laws or zoning changes are enacted to guarantee that the land will never be developed as anything other than open space. The same article notes that Drubner envisions the land being converted for baseball fields and hiking trails, which would be a fantastic use of the property. Unfortunately, Drubner has yet to announce that this would be a condition of the sale.

More unfortunately, in the August 19 article announcing the deal, Mayor Jarjura was quoted saying “I don’t want to call it open space… I would like it to be undisturbed property. If for whatever reason the city finds itself in trouble, this would be an asset the city could sell, develop or whatever.”

It sounds an awful lot like Jarjura has no intention of using the space as Drubner now envisions, with baseball fields and hiking trails. Instead, it sounds like Jarjura intends to use the property exactly as Drubner has previously intended for himself: a multi-family development cash cow.

Further in the August 19 article, Jarjura says that he would like to see Drubner and “even himself” (in the reporter’s words) “concentrate on redeveloping the housing stock in the city’s inner core rather than bulldozing virgin sites like the Drubner property.” The hypocrisy of this makes me laugh. While I absolutely agree with the sentiment, I have never seen any evidence of Jarjura doing anything except the exact opposite. During his tenure as Mayor, Jarjura and his business partners have bulldozed virgin sites in the East End and just over the town line in Middlebury to construct new building developments. I have never once heard of them rehabbing existing buildings.

While the newspaper article printed yesterday (Wednesday August 26) suggests that the purchase of the land would end the fight to prevent unwelcome developments on the property, it also notes that the residents opposed to the development still want the area rezoned from multi-family to single-family. The reality, as described by Jarjura, is that the city’s purchase of the land will not prevent the property from being converted into condominiums or any other high-density housing. It sounds more like the city will wait until the furor dies down, then sell it to a condo developer.

The issue of whether or not the transaction constitutes a gift hinges on the appraised value of the property. Drubner, quite naturally, wants the land appraised at the maximum value he believes he would gain from developing it for multi-family housing, which would be two or three times the amount of money he proposes selling it for. The difference is what he calls his “gift”, which would perhaps be tax deductible. But, again, if that’s the true value of the property, shouldn’t he have been paying taxes for that value?

I question the ethics of waiting until after the sale to change the zoning on the property. There is clear pressure from the community to change the zoning now. The only reason for waiting is to maximize Drubner’s tax deduction. I assume that is not illegal, but it certainly does not seem ethical.

In times past, the people who donated land to the city for parks also donated endowment funds for the maintenance of the property, and in some cases also paid for the conversion of the land into public parks—Fulton Park is an excellent example of this. Why can’t that happen now?

What a Summer!

I can't believe I'm writing this, but here goes: I have not had to use the garden hose even once this summer. My front lawn is still green and grew nearly a foot in the past week.

It's late August. My front lawn, which gets full sun all day long, should be brown right now. I shouldn't have to mow it, because normally this time of year it's stopped growing. At the start of last week, I actually started to think that we might not get much rain the rest of this month.

It's a good thing that this was the year I finally made an effort to reduce the amount of damp in my basement. One section of basement wall is afflicted with mold every summer, a white, fluffy, disturbing mold. Earlier this year, I purchased some plastic sheeting and spent an hour digging a trench along the side of the house corresponding to where the mold grows in the basement. I laid down the plastic in a couple layers, at an angle directed away from the house, then buried it back under the dirt.

I wasn't sure if I had spread out enough plastic to divert the rain properly, but now, months and several feet of rain later, I believe my labor has paid off--although the basement wall is a little damp, it's not fluffy.

Next summer I'll figure out how to get rid of the basement damp completely.

Train Time!

I think I must blog about the train more than anything else these days. I guess when you're dependent upon public transportation, it become very important to you!

For the past month, the train running between Waterbury and Bridgeport has been replaced by buses to allow MetroNorth time to do some basic service work to the tracks (nothing that will increase the number of trains, just basic maintenance to keep the existing trains running). The morning bus has usually been a Peter Pan with free wifi, which was nice to have, but for some reason the a/c was always set to about 60 degrees. The morning bus was an express, which meant we got to Bridgeport in about 35 minutes. The downside was that the bus left 15 minutes earlier than the train--the upside was that I was sometimes able to catch the 7:02 from Bridgeport, getting into the office before anyone else, and the total travel time was reduced to two hours instead of two and a half.

The evening bus was always a CT Transit bus, no wifi, no express (although the only other stop was Naugatuck). It took just as long to get to Waterbury as the train did, even though the train made a lot more stops. That fact says a lot about the merits of train transportation.

I'm not the only one who prefers the train: I overheard several people talking on their cell phones, explaining where they were to whoever was on the other end of the line, and speaking very disparagingly about being on a bus instead of on the train. A few people even sounded like it was insulting to be forced to take the bus rather than the train.

Happiness should return tomorrow morning, when I and my fellow commuters finally get our train back!

Turning Them In

I took a break from work at lunchtime today to join some of my fellow candidates and Vance supporters at the office of the Registrar of Voters. We turned in 180 signed petitions, close to 3000 signatures, with more petitions to follow before tomorrow's deadline. So far it's been a very interesting experience.



I feel like a politics geek when I say this, but I am really enjoying participating in democracy, and I am really kind of glad that my first go-round as a candidate is with the petitioning challenger. I think I am learning more about the democratic process this way. It's also been an amazing experience to talk to so many people about their concerns, complaints and viewpoints.

Freight Street Gallery

I've been hoping for years that someone would put an art space in one of the many old factory buildings in Waterbury. It's been done in other cities with great success--The Nest in Bridgeport, for example.

One of the great things about using old factories for art spaces is that the roughness of the space allows artists and musicians to be relaxed. You don't have to worry about being too loud or messing up the woodwork.

Waterbury now has the Freight Street Gallery, on Freight Street which is shaping up to be a real hot spot for the city, thanks to Sin City across the street.

I checked out the gallery at the closing of the Steve Soklin/Larry Livolsi exhibit. I'd been seeing flyers and other mentions of the space for months, starting way back when it was being called Brass Monkey. Tracey O'Shaughnessy's article in the Republican-American got me finally motivated enough to actually visit the gallery.

There were more events at the gallery this weekend--the Fighting Cocks played there on Friday night, and a new exhibit opened on Saturday. My apologies for not having more info on either of those events; I wasn't able to go either night for a variety of reasons. However, here are some photos from closing of the Soklin/Livolsi exhibit:

Online Tax Payments

I've been waiting eagerly to use the city's new online payment option for property taxes, launched this summer. Today was payday and my car tax is due August 3rd, so today was the day to do it.

I'd been reading the letters to the editor in the Rep-Am written by taxpayers who were angry at having to pay a 3% convenience fee for paying by credit card. I didn't think this was a real problem, since they have always done that. The credit card companies charge the city that fee, so the city passes it on to the credit card user so that they don't lose any tax revenue. Nothing new there.

A letter to the editor from Steve Gambini, the Mayor's aide, seemed to clarify everything. Yes, there's a 3% fee for using a credit card, but that's normal. If you pay online by check, the fee is only fifty cents. Given that a stamp costs nearly that much and snail mail requires an earlier payment, I was content.

I went online this morning and eventually manoeuvred through the bill pay site (I had to do it twice--after I got through maybe five or six screens, I got a message telling me that I was using the wrong browser and needed to switch to Firefox). I finally got to the section where you actually pay the bill and was shocked by what I saw.



For a payment of $155.89, there is a mystery convenience fee of $4.68 which appears to be completely separate from the "convenience" fees related to the form of payment. That's a 3% fee, completely unexplained. I started getting very upset, but in the interest of properly testing the system for myself, I continued with the payment (also, I really didn't want to go wait in line for an hour at the Tax Collector's office).

Lo and behold! When you enter your direct debit information and move on to the next screen, the 3% fee magically transforms into the 50¢ fee!



I'll keep using the site to pay my taxes, but whoever designed the tax payment site needs to take a remedial course in User-Friendly Design.

Petitions!

If you are registered as a Democrat in Waterbury and would like to be able to vote in a primary in September, we need your signature! We're going all over the city, but we simply don't have time to go to every single door.

If you would like to sign the petition, simply stop by Vance HQ in the little plaza at 451 Meriden Road or call the HQ at 510-3175.

The Vance slate is as follows:

Mayor
J. Paul Vance, Jr.

Board of Aldermen
Bernard Bailey, Jr.
Francis J. Caiazzo, Jr.
George F. Flaherty, Jr.
Raechel E. Guest
Martin J. Misset
Paul M. Nogueira
William J. Phelan
Ruben A. Rodriguez
Richard J. Scappini

Board of Education
Lisa A. Cheney
Robert C. Lyons
Melissa Mancini Torrance

Farmer's Market on the Green

I finally made it to the Farmer's Market last Thursday. As always, it was very sociable and full of good food. It seemed like there were more vegetables this year and definitely more pastries!

Below are a few pics from last week. The Market is open Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Fun with Quotes

I was very disappointed by the Republican-American's coverage of last night's Democratic Convention, which seemed strongly biased in favor of Mayor Jarjura. Last week the newspaper wrote, in an overly opinionated way, that Vance would have to scramble at the last minute to put together his slate of candidates. Today they failed to mention that he had his slate in place at the convention, just as they failed to mention the names of anyone running with him (which includes incumbent Alderman Martin Misset, who was at the convention).

I think this quote in the article stood out most for me: “What does it say about the Vance campaign that even the rival party thinks I’ve done a good job? I mean, when even your rival party won’t run against you, how can a real, true and loyal Democrat find fault?” Jarjura asked after the convention ended. “It’s petty.”

First of all, define "good job". When Jarjura first became mayor, the state Oversight Board (remember them?) was making the hard decisions and required actions to pull us out of an economic morass. Jarjura didn't fix the city's budget all by his lonesome. He has stayed the course and done the basic things that a mayor should do. Nothing more, nothing less. Unfortunately, after so many years of corrupt government, people in Waterbury think this is something outstanding. It's not. It's the bare minimum.

Here in Waterbury, we think it's highly commendable if the Mayor isn't corrupt and on his way to jail. It's not. It's the bare minimum.

So if by "good job" Jarjura means "hey, great, we've got a balance budget and the mayor hasn't been arrested", then yes, he's doing a good job.

Second, the reason the Republican party isn't running against Jarjura has more to do with their party being dead in the water. Waterbury voters still equate their party with Giordano. There was absolutely no point in their running a Republican candidate against Jarjura. It's going to be a long time before the voters will trust a Republican mayor again. The Republicans have endorsed Jarjura in order to save their own party and to oust the Independents.

Third, considering that Jarjura has set himself up as the Republican candidate, I don't think he has any right to talk about being "a real, true and loyal Democrat". Cutting a back-room deal with a rival party is about as far as you can get from being loyal to your own party.

Fourth, saying that it's petty for a fellow Democrat to find fault with the sitting Mayor sends chills down my spine. The last time I checked, this was a free and democratic nation. The Office of Mayor is not a dictatorship. It is not petty to find fault with one's government--it is our patriotic duty to speak up when we don't agree.

Neil O'Leary came very close to joining Vance in challenging Jarjura in a primary, does that mean he is petty as well?

If there was as strong possibility that the Republicans or Independents could win the mayoral election, I could almost agree that this is not a good year for the Democrats to be divided. But that possibility doesn't exist. The voters deserve choices.

Welcome to the Campaign!

When I started this blog in 2005, I was very dissatisfied with how the city was being run. Yes, things had improved since Giordano was removed from office, but the only noticeable differences were a balanced budget and a mayor who wasn't a sleaze bag. Waterbury has suffered for so long under political corruption that this seems like a great thing, but a balanced budget and a mayor who isn't on his way to jail should be the bare minimum expectation. It is time to demand more than the bare minimum.

In the past four years, I have become increasingly involved with making a difference. As a volunteer with Main Street Waterbury's Design Committee, I have had the opportunity to see first-hand how the city works and how it doesn't work. I have also had the opportunity to help bring about positive change.

I am honored to say that I have been offered a new opportunity to do what I can to help Waterbury achieve its potential to be one of the best cities in the country. At tonight's Democratic Convention, it was announced that I am running as a candidate for the Board of Aldermen. I am delighted to say that I am running with Mayoral Candidate J. Paul Vance, Jr. I firmly believe that it is long past time for a new Mayor in Waterbury and that Vance is eminently qualified for the job.

Tonight's Democratic Convention was my first political convention (talk about diving in head-first!), and I don't think I have ever been as nervous as I was right before my name was announced as a candidate for the Board of Aldermen. At the beginning of the convention, the majority of the Town Committee refused to allow Vance the opportunity to speak. At the end of the convention, when Jarjura and his slate naturally received the endorsement (apparently a large number of Committee members are either city employees or Jarjura's family), he was permitted a long speech. At least a third, maybe half, of the room got up and left when Jarjura started speaking. I stayed to hear what he had to say. When he was nominated by Ned Cullinan, there was a moment when I was so outraged (see below) that I almost shouted out loud, so of course I had to hear more.

Settling into our seats at the Convention.

In his speech, Jarjura claimed that Waterbury is in excellent economic condition, that we are somehow better off than any other city in Connecticut. The facts tell a very different story. In 2007, 19.4% of Waterbury residents had income below the poverty level, while the state as a whole was at 7.9%. As of May 2009, Waterbury's unemployment rate was at 13%, the second-worst in the state. Last year there was a big effort to shut down tent cities, a symptom of severe economic distress, along the Naugatuck River. The Republican-American ran articles and photos deservedly lauding the city for its efforts to help the homeless. Last week I was informed by a reliable source that there are currently 23 tent cities down by the river. None of this sounds like a good economic condition.

As a follow-up, Jarjura implied that Mayor Vance would somehow bring economic ruin to Waterbury. This is ridiculous rhetoric. Vance has been President of the Board of Alderman since 2001. He served as Chairman of the Budget Subcommittee from 2002 to 2008. He has a Master's Degree from Columbia University in Public Administration. He is a smart man, and an honest man. We can trust him with the city's economics.

I was disturbed by Jarjura's attempt to strike fear in the hearts of the voters present. He seemed to be saying "if you vote for Vance, bad things will happen." I have never had any respect for any politician who attempts to sway voters by appealing to their fear of the unknown.

I was even more disturbed when Jarjura demanded that everyone, including those of us running with Vance, abandon any interest in a primary and just go with the endorsed ticket. Seriously, he wants those of us who are dedicated to collecting enough signatures for a primary, those of us who believe that Waterbury will be better off with a new administration, to suddenly jump ship and do what we're told. I thought this was a democracy, not a dictatorship.

Perhaps Mayor Jarjura is afraid that he will lose the primary. After all, he lost a primary to Karen Mulcahy, and Paul Vance is a vastly more qualified Mayoral candidate. But there's good news for Jarjura! If he loses the Democratic primary, he can still run as the Republican candidate! That's right, the man who insisted in his speech tonight, over and over again, that he is a Democrat, has agreed to be the Republican party's candidate for Mayor.

Jarjura also spoke about being "pro-family". This one made me laugh. The same man who was quoted in the newspaper blasting Vance for being with his wife and their first baby, only hours old, instead of a public function, is claiming to be pro-family. How can you claim to be pro-family and also say that Vance will make a terrible mayor because he chose to be involved with the birth of his child?

As mentioned above, I was outraged during Cullinan's speech about how wonderful Jarjura is. Amongst the many things that Jarjura is supposedly responsible for was the Facade Improvement Program. Believe me when I tell you that Jarjura has had no involvement in that program other than, perhaps, to have been persuaded that it is a good program. All of the work of the Facade Program has been done by Main Street Waterbury's Design Committee and by the Waterbury Development Corporation. I wrote the guidelines for the program. The Design Committee sub-committee, many years ago, approved the plan. The program languished for years under bureaucratic folderol. Carl Rosa and I continued to press for the program to move forward. Kathy McNamara and Geoff Green at WDC cut through the red tape to make the program viable. The new sub-committee, made up of member of Design Committee and WDC staff, have selected 7 buildings for the program. The last update I had on the project is that it is languishing at the city's Corporation Counsel (as of July 13). There is absolutely no way that the Facade Program can be credited to Jarjura.

I have a tendency to avoid bragging about my accomplishments, but when I hear other people taking the credit for my work, it makes me angry. There was, however, a delightful and long moment in Jarjura's speech when he all but endorsed me (and Republican Aldermanic candidate Bryan Baker). Jarjura gave a poetic description of how tired and worn down and dilapidated the City Hall building was when he first became Mayor. He spoke of staring out the windows of the Chase Building at the poor, forlorn City Hall, a relic of Waterbury's better days. He spoke of the pleasure he now has, able to look across the street at the construction project that is steadily restoring City Hall to its past glory. If only he had given credit where it was due: when the fate of the building was being hotly debated, when it looked like the historic and important City Hall building was going to be either torn down or boarded up and abandoned, I spoke up at Design Committee meeting and said "shouldn't we be fighting to save the building?" The rest of the Committee agreed, and we began a campaign involving impassioned pleas to the Board of Aldermen and letters to anyone and everyone who might be interested. We joined forces with the Mattatuck Museum and the Waterbury Foundation to coordinate the Cass Gilbert Symposium, during which I led one of the tour groups. I was dismayed when Jarjura caved in to pressure from Larry DePillo and refused to allow the full renovation/restoration project to move forward, but I was relieved that he was willing to allow the bare minimum to happen. So thank you, Mayor Jarjura, for praising an improvement project I fought for. Next time don't forget to mention who was involved.