Mayor Eddie Perez rewrote history Monday night in his state of the city address at Hartford City Hall. He eliminated from existence his arrest and criminal prosecution on bribery charges, and he erased any talk of a crisis of confidence in city government.

But the bigger revisionist coup was Perez reworking the chronology of the Nineteenth century. The Mayor told the assembled standing room only crowd in council chambers that Abraham Lincoln was president in 1809.

"Two hundred years ago, President Lincoln said, "I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him,'" Perez said in closing his annual address.

In the next sentence, Perez quoted the "We are the ones we've been waiting for" mantra of President Obama, who has done much to cultivate a resurgence of interest in the Lincoln administration.

After the speech, which highlighted financial aid to art projects, mayoral press aide Sarah Barr said that she wasn't sure off the top of her head when Lincoln was president, but she said, he was born 200 years ago. He was, in 1809.

Eight out of eight city council members correctly identified Lincoln's term of office as stretching from 1861 to 1865. Had I interviewed Councilman Ken Kennedy, an attorney, I am certain nine out of nine councilmen would have correctly named the years Lincoln served as President.

It's not like Lincoln Financial hasn't spent a decent amount of time and money reminding the city of Lincoln's existence, what with all the great scuplture work on Riverfront Recapture. And it's not like the Wadsworth Atheneum doesn't have a great Lincoln art exhibit going on right now, either.

But precision with facts and figures have never been a strong point of the Perez administration. And that truism played itself out in his state of the city address.

Finish reading Perez Rewrites History...

More arrests are coming in the corruption surrounding Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez, according to Mark Dupuis at the Connecticut Chief State's Attorney's Office.

"We do expect additional arrests, but other than that, we cannot say," Dupuis said.

When I asked him to confirm names, he refused to play the parlor game most popular among city politicos: Who is next? When I suggested I had sources confirming certain persons were next, Dupuis demurred.

"I doubt those ... people would know that, to be quite honest with you," Dupuis said. "We have no further warrants at this time, the investigation is continuing."

The question for me is whether or not Perez will be arrested again. Many can speculate who is next based on some of the people called before the grand jury. Suppose that the State's Attorney releases arrest warrants for different areas of investigation, like the school construction business. Will Perez be perp chauffered again from Attorney Santos' office down to Troop H.

Will there be crowds of people cheering him on when he makes his second announcment that he will stay on and complete the job?

Speculation is the name of the game, and anything else would be irresponsible.

Link...

Mayor Eddie Perez will be indicted and arraigned tomorrow.

What he will be arraigned and indicted for is unknown, and what counts are being leveled is unknown. But I have it from three solid sources that he will be arraigned and indicted tomorrow.

City Councilman Luis Cotto is one of the three people who has heard that Eddie Perez will be indicted tomorrow. One source indicates that Carlos Costa is under arrest.

"If all this is true, I don't know what to compare it to, all I can think of is Maria (Perez's wife). I think of the person before I think of the politician," Cotto said.

Cotto has known Eddie for years, and "My initial thing is that this is unfortunate. I am waiting to see what happens next."

Councilman Matt Ritter said he didn't know what the charges were, but had heard that the indictment included bribery and forgery of evidence.

"It is a very disappointing to hear these allegations and it is truly a sad day for the city of Hartford," Ritter said. "All nine of us are supposed to do everything we can to uphold the public trust. Our roles are non-permanent and also ones that when we are in office, are expected to uphold the most ethical conduct and behaivor. Having said that, we are in America, we are inncoent until proven guilty."

Ritter said council would be studying its powers and its options.

"This is the most sobering, disapointing and sad day for the city of Hartford," Ritter said. "We'll see what the Mayor has to say tomorrow, but these are very sad allegations."

Perez appeared on WNPR's Where We Live Monday, January 26 and he said that he basically performing business as usual, and the threat of indictments don't affect his daily work schedule.

Here is the link to John Dankosky's interview with Perez this morning.

Link...

In the hallway overlooking downtown Hartford, outside ballrooms 21-23 of the Connecticut Convention Center, more than 150 people created an exciting breakfast din, mingling and networking at the MetroHartford Alliance Rising Star Breakfast, Tuesday morning, January 13, 2009.

Inside the large empty conference room, rows of empty seats sat waiting for the crowd to migrate in to hear the keynote speaker: Mayor Eddie Perez. Perez stood alone talking with Oz Griebel, chairman of the MetroHartford Alliance. Mayor Perez chewed on his fingertips, listening to Griebel. After a few minutes, Oz gave me an opening.

Mayor, I said, I missed last night's city council meeting, do you know if council voted to hire Nancy Johnson as a lobbyist?

He didn't know whether the council voted for his $13,000 a month proposal to hire a federal representative, but during the conversation, he talked as if it was a done deal.

"We've hired a lobbyist," he said.

Turns out it was a done deal. Council voted 7-1-1 - seven in favor of hiring the former Republican Congresswoman from New Britain, with one no (Luis Cotto) and one abstention (Larry Deutsch).

"There is a little thing called federal support," Perez said, noting that the city has a dike system that needs $50 million worth of fixing. "We can't do that locally."

So Perez delegated the responsibility of hiring a lobbyist and running the search process to his Chief of Staff.

"Matt Hennessey represented the Mayor's office," Perez said. Perez took Hennessey's recommendation to hire Johnson and her new firm, the Tennessee law/lobbying firm of Baker Donelson. Perez then sent it to City Council for a rubber stamp.

"I think you'll see why," Perez promised. "Many communities have lobbyists. We want to show Washington, D.C. what our priorities are on a 24/7 basis."

What Perez told the MetroHartford Alliance...

If it's winter, it means one thing: Mayor Eddie's hot air is warming up my mailbox. Yep. The new Fall/Winter 2008 edition of the Mayor's Update, that despicable piece of taxpayer financed propaganda, arrived in the post this week (2009).

The Update reflects the pains of the recession/downturn, yet Mayor Perez fails to understand that in this terrible city budget climate, he should not even be indulging in such narcissistic political porn.

Where the Mayor used to spend $12,000 per eight-page issue of the Mayor's Update, the new Mayor's Update, probably cost $10,000, because it is only six pages.

The budget cut is stressing the Mayor's image-shaping abilities. Where he used to hold an 87 percent appearance rate in color action photos in the Mayor's Update - 16-for-19, August 2006 and 19-for-21, March 2008- the slimmer tri-fold design cuts his appearances down to 70 percent (10-for-14). Although, he probably deserves quality points for the celebrity photo-op with Bill Cosby.

We oughtn't be so generous in such tough times. The Mayor says we all have to do more with less. To be true to his word, the Mayor should have appeared in 13 of 14 photos. He is not meeting his maximum publicity for the taxpayers' buck. Is that old grifter is slipping? Has he lost his touch?

Link to The Mayor's Update v. The Hightower Lowdown ...

ED. Note - How will Obama's president impact Eddie Perez's governance? Question on the jump...

T he verdict is far from in on Obama. I am trying not to form an opinion of his presidency yet. He hasn't even taken the oath of office.

Yet the soft changes his leadership brings are amazing. And I don't use that lightly. He almost sounds like Spiderman talking to Barbara Walters:

That if you're placed in a position of power, then you've got responsibilities to your workers. You've got a responsibility to your community. That if - there's got to be a point where you say, 'You know what, I have enough, and now I'm in this position of responsibility, let me make sure that I'm doing right by people, and, and, acting in a way that is responsible.' And that's true, by the way, for members of Congress, that's true for the president, that's true for Cabinet members, that's true for parents. I want all of us to start thinking a little but more, not just about what's good for me, but let's start thinking about what's good for our children, what's good for our country. The more we do that, the better off we are going to be.

Not only that, but he is calling for captains of industry to forego their end-of-the-year bonuses. His rhetoric of veiled redistribution is thrilling. When was the last time we heard that out of the White House?

Now how do we reconcile this language with his appointment of Clinton retreads into every executive branch office he has touched so far? Can the theory actually be right about his leadership being able to change the quality and direction of work produced by Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner.

More on Obama, Twice in One Week...

Apparently, department managers requested additional Hartford police officers at City Hall to insure layoffs went smoothly yesterday, Friday, October 24.

Police didn't necessarily escort anyone out of the building, sources said.

"They were present," one source in City Hall said. "The protocol was that everyone had to pack up their stuff by noon, and were escorted out by their boss. The normal detail of one guy was increased. They stepped it up."

This source was less than pleased.

"People are getting laid off, they didn't commit a crime," the source said. "They didn't get fired. Why do you have to dehumanize them further? They are already sad they are losing their jobs."

Another source said the police didn't do anything egregious. The source said that Lillian Ruiz, the manager of Human Relations, and Carlos Rivera, the manager of Health and Human Services, were concerned about staff reactions. Rivera's staff works at Holcomb Street. Neither Ruiz nor Rivera could be reached for comment.

One such layoff was Ed Lazu, who worked in Human Relations. Last month, the Courant reported that Lazu received work from embattled contractor Carlos Costa, who performed work at Mayor Eddie Perez's house.

Lazu could not be reached for comment. Lazu's brother Sixto is the aide for Councilman Pedro Segarra. Neither Sixto Lazu or Attorney Segarra could be reached for comment either Saturday morning.

Segarra is not one of Perez's favorite councilmen. Should astute observers be wondering whether or not Perez vetted the list of those who got cut, imagining that department heads probably submitted a list of possible cuts to Perez prior to the ax falling? And did anyone in Perez's bloated executive branch fall to the budget cuts?

City Councilors had not seen a list of who had been laid off, according to Councilman Matt Ritter. Nor had councilman Luis Cotto heard who had gotten laid off, and who the police presence was there for

Link...

Mayor Mike Peters and I have had our disagreements in the past, but we agree here: Eddie Perez is bad news.

But even more importantly, I want to put bad things aside and wish Mayor Mike the best. He doesn't look so hot, and is apprently dealing with a serious illness. I hope he is not suffering.

No matter what, he has the courage to face whatever he is dealing with and speak his mind about El Alcalde's failings as a chief executive officer.

Peters said he thinks the other shoe is going to drop with the grand jury investigation. Peters describes how he testified, and within 15 minutes, they let him go.

I think that if the grand jury had anything on Perez, it would have indicted him by now. Unfortunately, I don't think they've found the smoking gun.

If there is no smoking gun, then Perez is smarter than we give him credit for in hiding corruption. If there is no smoking gun because there is no outright corruption, then Perez has no excuse other than incompetence.

CTBlogger on Eddie's Troubles...

You should wear a bullet proof vest when you ride your bike in Hartford, my coworkers at the small suburban law firm tell me. They fear for my safety.

Sadly, I barely wake when gunshots rip the night in Asylum Hill, yet I feel plenty safe. But the continued violence in Hartford continues to frighten suburbanites, and worse, this rash of violence paralyzes political leadership on all levels in Connecticut.

Another double homicide greeted Monday, reminding this late August week that no matter how many rallies and curfews and prisons our society responds with, guns love poverty. The mating of those two elements is death and destruction.

The solution lies in introspection, and genuine personal change in each citizen, not from the political power brokering.

I imagine that Mayor Eddie Perez feels genuinely pained by his inability to stem the crimson tide washing Hartford’s streets. Mayor Perez can install his people in office, he can strong-arm opponents with legislative maneuvers and he can hand out favors to his cronies.

But that power is illusory, and he knows it. He lacks the power to stop the violence. For us to think that we can rely on a Mayor, or a Governor to stop it is a fallacy.

Link...

Scene: The back room at Hartford's Wood-n-Tap pub, Monday July 7, 2008. A group effort moneymaker, aimed at achieving public financing thresholds for state representative Kelvin Roldan and candidate for state representative Hector Robles.

Organizers advertised it on a Facebook page. More than 35 people, including City Hall's usual suspects from City Council, like Lieber-crat Cal Torres, from the mayor's office, like Glendowlyn Hall, and from the Registrar of Voters office like Sammy Vazquez paid to populate the room. They noshed on hors d'oeuvres with members from the Democratic Town Committee and others in political circles.

I. Rep. Kelvin Roldan

Roldan, the 29-year-old state representative, maintained I am not fair to him. In March 2007, I wrote a column about him landing a plum $90,000-a-year job at the Hartford Board of Education. He also makes $30,000 or so a year as a state representative.

In total, Roldan slurps in $120,000 at the public trough – a pittance compared to what Dick Cheney's pals take from the U.S. treasury, but still, Roldan is part of Eddie's coterie and your friends are your mirrors.

And I think that $120,000 in taxpayer salary for a 29-year-old man, no matter how accomplished, is too much. Roldan could argue that it is the same salary as a Superior Court Judge, and I would argue back that hey, a Superior Court Judge has to have had at least three years of school and another decade as a lawyer in practice.

Roldan swears that he works hard for his money. And he uses his salary for good. Like he said he financed exactly half of his trip to Kalamazoo, MI last month to learn about Promise Zones, a program that helps a municipality to borrow money through bonds to pay for high school graduates to go to college.

To Finish Parts I through VII...

Sometimes, the universe blesses us with access into foreign worlds we normally can't see.

For example, when you google "Mayor Eddie Perez" - my website - the40yearplan.com - is one of the top ten hits. And it seems that people mistake my content critical of Perez for that of the Mayor’s own site.

At first, I though some jokester, trying to have a good laugh, sent me various e-mails from the “Contact Us” page of my site, pulling my leg about my page being the Mayor’s.

I mean, after Jon Lender this month broke the hidden story from a few years back about lawyer Maureen Duggan’s “anonimus” whistleblower parking attendant letter to state ethics chair attorney Rosemary Guiliano about Alan Plofsky at the Ethics Commission, I don’t put anything by anyone.

Link...

Yes, loyal readers, it's time for a new quarterly column feature: the awarding of the Franky.

The Franky is a booby prize for the worst abuse of taxpayer dollars to promote a politician's career through propaganda. Dear audience, you know I am talking about the dishonest practice of franking privileges. Here at the 40-Year Plan, we have selected an imaginary panel of experts to come up with awards.

Headlines in mass media shout "Another Hartford Shooting" seemingly daily. But there stands Eddie Perez addressing a militaristic assemblage of the latest round of uniformed Hartford Police cadets. The credit-card headline: "Public Safety is Priceless."

Ushering in the first-ever Franky for the lifetime acheivement of fleecing taxpayers, it's the Spring 2008 installment of the static Eddie-centric universe known as "The Mayor's Update."

Link...

C leaning off my desk to study for labor law, I came across this gem, from the Feb. 21 minutes of the Hartford 2000 Monthly Meeting:

C. Discussion Items

 

1. Mayor's Visit: Folks were glad that Mayor Perez came to the January meeting, spent so much time with us, and had prepared himself to answer our questions. We believe that the relationship between the Mayor and H2K has improved over the past year. Folks were, however, disappointed that he never reached the Group B questions and folks felt he had been less than specific in some of his answers. It was also agreed, however, that we need to be more assertive in focusing his attention on specific questions and in identifying what, exactly, we are asking him to do.

That says it all, really.

This has got be a new record in audacity: Mayor Eddie Perez appears in 19 of the 21 photos printed in the latest edition of the Mayor's Update, that expensive, four-color glossy taxpayer funded advertisement for the city's chief elected official.

And in a new development, the Mayor's wife Maria is prominently featured. Look, there's the mayor with his wife three times, there's the mayor at three different ribbon cutting ceremonies, there's the mayor with a hardhat, there's the mayor on patrol with two cops, there's the mayor wearing a Starbucks barista apron, there's the mayor appearing to teach a young African-American boy, there's the mayor wrapped in the flag, there's the mayor taking the oath of office, there's the mayor taking a bribe.

No, woops, sorry. We don't have a picture of that last one, but certainly, the grand jury investigation down in New Britain is trying to develop an image of any wrongdoings that may have occurred on Eddie Perez's watch.

Of course, the latest in the collect-them-all series of "The Mayor's Update" makes no mention of the Mayor's legal battles. This frank features a message about the massaged crime statistics "Lowest Crime Rate in 30 Years," something we all know is not the truth.

Link...

Who counts the votes for Mayor Eddie Perez and his supporters at the Democratic Town Committee meetings?

Eddie won't say who his people are, but before the election for the coveted DTC chairmanship Tuesday, March 11 at City Hall, someone counted and figured out that Perez supporter Sean Arena needed a few more to win and succeed outgoing DTC chair and Perez lieutenant Noel McGregor.

Arena's opponent, challenger Jean Holloway, the executive assistant to City Councilman Ken Kennedy, had her team counting, and on Monday night, they calculated she had 30 votes out of 59 Town Committee members, enough to capture the powerful post.

But on Tuesday, Arena had the 30, Holloway lost her majority, and she withdrew her candidacy. So Arena won by default.

Holloway supporters were crying foul because two of her supposed "yes" votes from the Town Committee's Fifth District, Mamie Bell and Ludella Perry Williams, both resigned Tuesday under somewhat mysterious circumstances.

Replacing Williams was North End power broker and Perez ally Abe Giles and taking over for Bell was Giles' grandson Miles Wiles. Giles had resigned from the DTC a few months ago, and was replaced by his wife, Juanita Giles, who napped intermittently during the meeting Tuesday night.

Giles has testified in front of the grand jury investigation into the alleged corruption in Mayor Perez's administration.

Link...

The state of the city of Hartford is wonderful, just peachy, so long as you don't ask Mayor Eddie Perez or any of his department heads about the ongoing grand jury investigation into potential corruption in the Mayor's office.

Perez delivered a typically wooden state of the city address Monday night at City Hall to a standing room only crowd. His words touched on common themes - education, homeownership, job growth - and predictably ignored the elephant in the room.

The fact that dozens of city employees have been called to testify in front of a grand jury in New Britain about potential wrongdoing by the Mayor's office is not something the Mayor or his department heads like Corporation Counsel John Rose, Jr., Finance Department leader Tom Morrison or DPW chief Clarence Corbin will talk too much about.

"They are doing their job and I am doing mine," the Mayor said after his speech, in reference to the grand jury.

Link...

The arrogance of power may lead to corruption, but for Eddie Perez, Johnny Law ain't too far behind.

In this morning's Hartford Courant, Jeffrey Cohen and Dan Goren explain how deep the state is digging into the Mayor's business. This doesn't sound like a fishing expedition.

State criminal investigators probing possible political corruption at Hartford city hall have asked for payment records related to the city's $1 billion school construction program — the first evidence of a connection between the investigation and the project.

The investigators have asked for and received payment records for Diggs Construction — the city's project manager on several school building projects — and for C&R Development, the construction manager for Noah Webster MicroSociety Magnet School, according to documents obtained by The Courant through a freedom of information request to the city treasurer's office.

The five pages of school payment documents, made available Tuesday by City Treasurer Kathleen Palm Devine, consist of computer-generated lists of payments. The payments to Diggs date from 2002 to 2004; the payments to C&R Development date from 2004 to 2007.

Four executives of Diggs Construction of Kansas, or their relatives, as early as April 2007, had given the Mayor a total of $1,000 in cash towards his re-election bid.

Joseph DeSanti, the local operations manager for Diggs, told the Courant he knew nothing. Mary DeSanti, possibly his wife, gave $250 to Perez.

The Courant quotes the man known for his obfuscation and silence, City Corporation Counsel John Rose Jr, as saying that "dozens of people from the city have been called to testify."

This probe is a drain on city resources and time. How many man hours of labor have been lost trying to determing the extent of Honest Eddie's dishonesty?

How long before we have Mayor Calixto Torres?

Link...

Tongues have been wagging across the city the past few weeks about the curious hiring of Andrea Comer as council aide for newly-elected Councilman Matt Ritter.

It piqued my interest, too, so I set out to learn a bit more.

I'll start with Comer's political history. She used to work for Mayor Eddie Perez, campaigning for him in the fall of 2001, and then joining his mayoral staff. She left his office in August 2002 and claims there was no bad blood between them.

She transferred to the school system for a short period of time, exiting her job as spokeswoman when former Superintendent Tony Amato departed. Comer then went to the city's Health and Human Services Department.

Link...

I'm not in Hartford right now, so it feels a bit disingenuous to write about Mayor Eddie Perez. Yet I have internet access here in the insta-city of Port Ghalib, Egypt, and I am reading the news, even on my few-and-far-between days off (Al Quayser was just not that interesting).

And before we leave for a 10-day delivery to Salalah, Oman, I want to contribute a few thoughts and links about from afar about the recent goings-on in CT's Capital city.

Eddie must go. I have been saying it for years, and I suppose now with his recent coronation, we have only to wait for Lear to fall.

I was somewhat distraught by the Mayor's re-election, but I understand that at $93 a vote (according to Bill Curry's calculations), you get what you pay for. I wasn't around for the campaign, but I can imagine the schlock that Perez was selling.

It's not that democracy failed here, and I refuse to give up on the one person, one vote form of government based on its failure to oust the idiot in chief in Hartford.

Link to what John Jay has to say...

Eddie Perez stands poised to break the $400,000 budgetary threshold for his re-election campaign.

The half-million dollar mark isn't far from that, and that boggles the mind. The obvious solution is publicly financed campaigns, but since that is four years away in Hartford at the very minimum, what exactly does that $400,000 mean to the city of Hartford?

First, between the primary and the general election, Perez won't likely garner more than 8,000 total votes, which means he is spending $50 per vote. That is about $20 more per vote than Ned Lamont and Joe Lieberman spent in their 2006 battle royale.

According to the latest campaign finance reports, the money has been rolling into this campaign.

Between Art Feltman's $80,000, I. Charles Mathews' $40,000 or so, and Minnie Gonzalez's $9,000, we have $130,000 or so additional dollars. Add maybe $10,000 more for the rest of the mayoral crew, and we are at$540,000 total for maybe 15,000 votes between primary and general, or $36 per vote (still more than the Lamont-Lieberman fiasco).

Link.

If I use schadenfreude to describe my immediate reaction to the news that the state's attorney's office searched Eddie Perez's house, does it reveal too much about me?

Sitting here in Florida reading the comments after the Courant's article, a few things stood out. First and foremost, the judge who signed a warrant for the search didn't do it on a whim, i.e. - the prosecutor presented some credible evidence that a crime of some sort was committed.

I would like to think the judge was wise enough to consider that signing a warrant would impact the election. And then determined that the facts before the bench merited such judicial action.

Eddie's apology or explanation is crap. As my mom always said, excuses are like assholes, everyone has one. I understand that Eddie's wife's illness was a terrible thing, but to blame your inability to pull a permit on her aneurysm is wrong.

Once it comes out that law enforcement officers are rummaging through your belongings, the only reasonable thing to do is resign. Eddie's continued presence in the mayoral office can only harm the city, as we have seen with John Rowland, Phil Giordano, Joe Santopietro, Joe Ganim, etc etc etc.

I redid the bathroom in my condo a few years ago, and my plumber wouldn't even do the work unless I pulled the permit. I don't believe I ever closed out the permit with a final inspection from the building department, but I paid the fees and posted the paper on my wall.

So what kind of contractor does work without demanding a permit? One who thinks he can get away with it.

Link...

A one-question poll about the Mayoral primary solicited by an inscrutable company made the rounds of prime voter phone lines last week.

My number came up in the queue last Thursday evening, and I happened to answer the ring ring.

“If the Mayoral election were held tomorrow, would you be voting for Mayor Eddie Perez or someone else?” the mysterious Polly Pollster asked me, identifying herself as an employee of TCG Independent Research Company.

“I’ll answer your question if you tell me who hired you,” I responded to Polly. She declined, I sought to speak to a supervisor.

“In order for us to remain as unbiased as possible, we have not been provided with the information as to who is paying for this,” said Antonio Stevenson, a supervisor at TCG Independent Research Company.

Can you tell me where TCG is located? I asked.

“For security reasons, I cannot divulge that information,” Stevenson said.

Well, then I won’t be answering your question, I told him, and terminated the conversation. If I don’t know who is going to manipulate my opinion for their gain, they can’t have my thoughts for free.

Link...

Right before I left for the UK and Dublin for my summer law school study abroad program, I received a phone message from Mayor Perez.

Silly me, I got all excited that he was calling to apologize for the Hartford Police Department.

No, it seems as if Mayor Robocall, ripping a page from the Sen. Lieberman playbook, wanted to make sure I received his latest campaign propaganda.

"It's important to know what issues are important to you," Mayor Robocall said. "Your ideas and thoughts are important to me. Si Se Puede."

He wants my feedback. How nice! Sure enough, I shuffled through my stack of mail, and I found the "Moving Hartford Forward... Together" flyer, which looks suspiciously like the oft-abused franking privileges known as the Mayor's Update.

It utilizes the royal blue, yellow and white lettering introduced to city residents by the Mayor's Update. While it lacks the city logo, as it should, the page size, color photo layout, glossy card stock and the tri-fold structure invoke the Mayor's Update, as well.

Pardon the fact that sitting in this internet cafe in Dublin, I lack a scanner to demonstrate the seemingly dishonest graphic theivery. But I have internet access here (it's $10 for 8 hours).

While we should rejoice that the Mayor's staff has put together a far more professional mailer than the last one I wrote about, this one seems to rely too heavily on the Mayor's city-financed brand-imagery.

Link...

I'm angry, and not going to apologize. I'm angry about how the Hartford Police Department violated my rights and falsely arrested me.

I'm angry about how HPD officers beat up Mayor Eddie Perez's nephew, Ruben Perez, in a holding cell. I'm angry about what HPD must do to people every day and we don't hear about it because the victims lack access to the media.

Mayor Perez, on the other hand, does not seem very upset about how the Constitution, our civil society and our rights disappear daily.

Sitting around a table surrounded by more than 40 concerned Hartford residents, Perez seemed like a fidgety 12-year-old, uncomfortable in the suit his mom made him wear to the Asylum Hill Neighborhood Revitalization Zone meeting Monday night May 7 at the Asylum Hill Congregational Church.

Link...

What Mayor are you going to get that is going to be perfect?" asked George Cruz, director of Hartford's San Juan Center.

I suppose he's right. I'm not really thrilled with any of the candidates right now.

And after our conversation Monday afternoon, April 30, Cruz had me thinking: we're all human, and in this particular theatre alongside the muddy banks of the Connecticut, the foibles of our species will dominate the story lines.

So in this week's presentation, "Why do we fight over crumbs while the warmongers escape scrutiny?", our beloved Hartford players act out the theme of divide and conquer, with sub-plots of greed, dishonesty and a dose of hope.

The story begins with billboards, about a half dozen of them up on a hill called Mount Trashmore. Mayor Eddie Perez decided the city could generate revenue for the general fund by plunking a bunch of advertisements into the grassy slope that is the mound of trash on Interstate I-91.

Link...

If Eddie Perez loses in September, it will have been nobody's fault but his.

Aside from the shady deals, the egomania, and the bullying and strong-arming, there's the propaganda.

Relying on the deep pockets of the taxpayer during the past six years, Perez has created a potent brand image, portraying himself as a powerful leader. One of these brand image vehicles has been four-color glossy quarterly mailings called "The Mayor's Update."

That tactic has backfired though, as his own campaign has shattered his brand with its first official mailer, a poorly designed, badly color-corrected, flimsy, unvarnished two-color 8.5" x 11" flyer that appeared in my mailbox Saturday, April 28.

Link...

This Sunday afternoon April 29 at Hartford Public High School, Mayor Eddie Perez will welcome the accreditation examiners from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, or NEASC.

NEASC placed the country's second oldest public high school on probation back in December 1997, when Perez was making his name at the Learning Corridor, and HPHS now has the chance to clear its historical name.

But this is not only a pass-fail exam for the Pub, it's for Mayor Perez, too. The buck has to stop with him, the self-anointed chairman of the board of education and the chairman of the school building committee.

After taking a 90-minute tour of HPHS Monday morning April 23, I met wonderful professionals who have dedicated their lives to serving students. But they are also deeply concerned with the present and future status of the edifice.

I also saw many, many construction problems that would give me pause if I were an inspector looking to certify the best educational practices at the Forest Street structure.

Link...

Luis Cotto, over at La Paloma, shares this anecdote about El Alcalde this morning.

If one were to rely on recent criticisms of the man, one would think that El Alcalde was akin to oil companies in his disregard of the environment. His disregard to the work the Knox Park Foundation put in to the Farmington and Broad Street proposed site for the Pathways to Technology Charter School fueled this criticism. Knox Park planted multiple trees and shrubery on the site and created a much needed green space for that area. Eddie had the site dug up in his tug of war with the state. The site resembles the perfect mud football field now.

 

So it was with much surprise that IonHartford heard of El Alcalde’s participation in Knox Park’s Trees for Hartford’s Neighborhoods program this past Saturday, April 14. It was with added surprise to find out that this was not Eddie’s first foray into this program…he has participated in four other such plantings. Apparently Eddie is quite the arborist.

Link to IONHartford...

Mayor Eddie Perez continues to campaign for re-election on the taxpayer dime with yet another four-color Mayor's Update mailer to Hartford residents, which he can legally do until three months before the primary.

Whatever the statutory time limits, Perez continues to push ethical boundaries. But that's not the worst of it. Donating to his re-election campaign seems to be the cost of doing business for Hartford contractors.

Let's look behind the curtain on a very sloppy April 10, 2007 campaign finance report to see who is privately financing the Perez for Mayor 2007 campaign. Eddie has about $100,675 in the bank, and in the past three months, his juggernaut raised $75,750 from 157 individual donors and $7,805 from nine Political Action Committees.

His next closest competitor in the fundraising category, I. Charles Matthews, has some $40,000 in the bank, with $30,000 of that coming from I. Charles himself. The rest of the pack is far behind.

Thus, it should come as no surprise to anyone that 76 out of Perez's 157 contributors do business with the city, and they are responsible for $36,750 of the $75,750 total this report. Some of them are listed as having donated in March 2003, which seems kind of strange, because Perez was re-elected in November, 2003. Some of them don't have a year listed at all.

The average donation, then, is $482.48.

"Oh my God," said one political observer. "Sounds like pinstriped patronage to me."

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Mayor Eddie Perez once again is pushing the limits of fair play with his abuse of franking privileges.

This time, Mayor Perez and his crack crew of about three dozen executive staffers have sent a magnet advertising the new 3-1-1 phone info service to every Hartford resident. This past Saturday, I received my 5.25" x 8.5" laminated card with a magnet glued onto it. Some residents I know have yet to get them, but we'll talk about the timing issues later.

The card features a picture of the Mayor, as does the magnet. I think the idea is that a resident like myself will toss the expensive four-color card in the trash, and stick this magnet on my fridge.

First, though, I think they want me to read the card, where Perez is pictured holding a telephone receiver. The text says "Dear Friend, I have always believed that Government Works Best When It Listens!" Funny, his campaign is positioning itself to be a listening tour. The themes are eerily similar.

Among my many issues here is that the Mayor's office has a good idea to convince citizens like me to dial 3-1-1 when we see a pothole, when someone dumps trash incorrectly, or when the neighbor hasn't shoveled the snow on his sidewalk. There are plenty of illustrations for these problems that don't involve Eddie's mugshot.

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The whole town is talking. But Mayoral spokesperson Sarah Barr can't say a word.

"I can't confirm anything because I am not the contact for the campaign," Barr said Wednesday afternoon. The campaign contact will be made known at some point soon, she said.

Mayor Perez was out of the office and couldn't comment, and Superintendent Steven Adamowski was unavailable as well, but reliable sources say that Mayor Eddie Perez will officially announce his bid for re-election Monday, April 9 at 5 pm at Rawson Elementary School at 260 Holcomb Street in Hartford's Blue Hills neighborhood.

Perez is joining a crowded Democratic field that includes former Deputy Mayor I. Charles Mathews, state representatives Minnie Gonzalez and Art Feltman, former state senator Frank Barrows, and more.

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There is no coincidence, according to the hero V in the great Alan Moore graphic novel "V for Vendetta."

With that in mind, what should we make of the turn of events on Thursday, March 29 at VibzUptown, 3155 Main Street, Hartford?

A city health inspector showed up for an inspection at the club less than two hours before mayoral candidate I. Charles Mathews expected about 100 people for a campaign fundraiser.

It was odd, Mathews said Tuesday, April 3.

"At the end of the day, it may be just a tempest in a teapot," Mathews said. "But we were all set up and getting ready to have our fundraiser, at around 3:30, a health inspector waked in and indicated she had a responsibility to inspect the place."

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Correction: State Rep. Doug McCrory works full time for the Hartford Board of Education, half time as a vice principal at an elementary school, and half time as a minority recruitment officer. The 40-Year Plan regrets any inconvenience the error in reporting may have caused.

To avoid any appearance of impropriety in the recent hiring of State Representative Kelvin Roldán as a $90,000 a year fundraiser for the Hartford school system, Roldán should voluntarily agree to work half-time and take a commensurate salary.

Roldán's new job (documented here first) as a cabinet-level official in Superintendent Steven J. Adamowski's office - after Roldán lead the search committee to find the new superintendent - set off red flags for nearly everyone. Or at least those of us with an ethical compass.

The situation got Courant columnist Helen Ubiñas' dander up, in a column she called "Protége's Promotion a Blunder."

"So what do we have now?" Ubiñas asked in Sunday's paper. "A guy who works for the superintendent helping decide how much money the schools are going to get from the state. And a guy who can vote to raise or lower corporate taxes working with companies the schools lean heavily on."

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Mayor Eddie Perez will announce his official bid for re-election at some point in the future, he said Monday night after delivering his State of the City address to an overflow crowd in Hartford City Hall Monday evening.

"I haven't made a definite decision as to how we are going to do it," he said, but made clear it will happen. "Today is about the state of the city."

And the state of the city is fantastic, where not a mistake was made or a bad thing happened, according to his speech, which – minus the minor-league oration - sounded like a re-election stemwinder.

But Council President John Bazzano argued that the speech wasn't about presentation.

"We don't worry about delivery, it's content," Bazzano said. "It was all things important to the city: housing, police, education, quality of life issues."

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Kelvin Roldán, the 28-year-old Democratic state representative from Hartford's Fourth district, is on this meteoric career path:

He started out five years ago as an aide to Mayor Eddie Perez. In the fall of 2006, he sacrificed that $74,000 a year salary to run for Evelyn Mantilla's seat, which he won. Then Monday, March 5, he landed an $89,000 job in the Hartford Public School System.

Roldán is now acting Director of Strategic Partnerships, Superintendent Steven J. Adamowski said Tuesday, March 6.

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While it's a little to early to write the epitaph for Mayor Eddie Perez, City Council showed some teeth this week and went after him on the nasty, dirty rotten parking deal Perez gave Abe Giles.

But by moving it to the Parking Authority and not calling for an investigation, City Council is helping Perez save face here. Perez failed to inform voters of his tricky political giveaway in his Winter 2007 franking privilege. I wonder why.

The eight-page color brochure that Perez and his taxpayer financed re-election committee sends out quarterly has highlighted his latest achievements, including groundbreaking on Aetna's new 1200-space parking garage on Flower Street, the doubling of property values in Hartford since 1999 and the results of a 25-year study which show that serious crime has trended downward.

How Perez wants to take credit for property values doubling and crime trends dating back a quarter of a century, I’m not sure. He made sure to tell us that taxes are not doubling.

Double speak, though, erodes the integrity of the entire piece of literature. And frankly, I'm pretty tired of dishonesty in government.

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A stench of desperation now emanates from the second hall executive offices in City Hall.

I entered the hallowed halls at 555 Main Monday to pay taxes (a few days late – sorry, January was a topsy-turvy month – but I covered the interest), and the odor was unmistakable: fear.

Desperate people in positions of power do bizarre things to hold onto their fiefdoms. Mayor Eddie Perez has shown the all-too human tendency to overexert himself, and this past week demonstrated exactly how troubled the Mayor really is.

Understanding that political differences exist between Gov. M. Jodi Rell and myself, yet considering that we breathe the same air, share the same roads and enjoy the same sights in Hartford, there comes a time when previous disagreements must be set aside and bridges built, and coalitions made.

It is in this tradition of compromise, and this search for common ground that I say "Thank you" to Gov. Rell for expressing what many of us here in Hartford think about Mayor Eddie Perez's lust for his high school by the highway: It is a bad idea. Link...