There will be a Special Meeting of the Bristol City Council to be held on Thursday,
November 1, 2007 at 6:00 p.m. in the City Hall Council Chambers, 111 North Main Street, Bristol, Connecticut.
AGENDA
1. To nominate and make appointments, and to take any action as necessary.
2. To authorize the Superintendent of Schools to file any necessary grant applications in connection with the matters relating to the Forestville School Building Committee and the West Bristol School Building Committee, and to take any action as necessary.
3. To consider amendment or restatement of the Certificate of Incorporation for the Bristol Downtown Development Corporation, and to take any action as necessary.
4. To approve change orders for the Southeast Bristol Business Park up to $225,000 and to authorize the Mayor or Acting Mayor to execute all necessary documents, and to take any action as necessary.
5. To consider a request from Connecticut Light & Power Co. to install above ground utilities on James P. Casey Road, and to take any action as necessary.
6. To convene into anticipated Executive Session regarding pending litigation case of Gina Davenport as Executrix of the Estate of Bryant Davenport vs. City of Bristol, et al, Docket No. 3:06cv0278(JCH), and to take any action as necessary.
7. To reconvene into Public Session, and to take any action as necessary regarding Gina Davenport as Executrix of the Estate of Bryant Davenport vs. City of Bristol, et al, Docket No. 3:06cv0278(JCH).
8. To adjourn.
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Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
20 comments:
I think number one is probably too vague to be legal.
I'm curious what the others are all about.
One other little point: it's crazy to allow 24 hours' notice for a meeting like this. Announcing a special City Council meeting 26 hours ahead of time, shortly before the Halloween trick or treaters start knocking on doors, should be reserved for something that's truly an emergency, if it's allowed at all. Why is any of this stuff such an emergency?
This is not how an open government should operate.
Why couldn't Stortz do this sooner rather than waiting until right before his term ends.
What's he up too?
If Ward and his fellow Democrats were really advocating Open Government they would table all this until after the election.
It waited this long it can wait another week.
GO STEVE!!!
CAN YOU BRING BACK THE JOHNSON CONTRACTs ISSUE I WAS HAVING FUN WITH THE Johnson talks about city contracts the 1:03 and 1:30 blogger. WE were discussing Municipal Energy.
This is where you were posting earlier, strongest link:
http://bristolnews.blogspot.com/2007/10/johnson-talks-about-city-contracts.html
type of government meetings which shouldn't be held.
Agree with all you've written Steve, except isn't Halloween tonight?
I guess I wasn't clear enough. I meant that the notice went out hours before trick or treating, not that the meeting would take place on Halloween.
grandstanding by Stortz. one last go around. he probably wants to pack the committees as much as possible. the council should vote NO on any appointments.
I hope someone confronts them on this recycling issue, even though it's not on the agenda.
It's not legal to take up issues that are not on the agenda, including recycling.
From what I hear, the council is very unhappy about this meeting. I'm not sure anything other than the executive session will actually take place.
The public can't speak up about the new recycling fines at this meeting? Can the public speak at all?
The public can talk about items on the agenda only.
Brillant move by the mayor. Just schedule business for special meetings and chances are most people won't know about it and those that do will only be able to speak on agenda items.
Is the next step to eliminate the public all together?
By the way, The city's website states the following:
SIGN UP TO RECEIVE EMAILS FROM THE MAYOR'S OFFICE
Press Releases
City Meetings
Special Events
I subscribed months ago and have not received notice of any meetings just a few press releases.
Dems should table it! Stortz is just playing games!!
Can a Republican complain about Stortz for this meeting being sprung on the citizens, or would that be un necessary bashing too?
I'm sorry, but he is a jackass! I am a Republican, but I voted for Couture the last go round, b/c Stortz is such an idiot. I can not wait for him to go, no matter who replaces him.
This meeting has been rumored for days, with various hints coming from the Mayor's secretary (never from him) as to what would be on the agenda. I sent him an email two days ago informing him that I have to work Thursday night and that since the Davenport issue is the only truly time-sensitive one, that it should go first so I could vote on it and then leave for work. He put it last.
Craig: Make a motion to move it up on the agenda and when you come back make a motion to adjourn.
If he gives all of you a hard time, once he calls the meeting to order move to adjorun, it's not debateable and than be on your merry way.
As an earier poster said, this has waited this long why can't all these items wait another week?
No Appointments by Stortz. He has waited all this time and in the waning days of his administration he is now going to act like a Mayor.
Beware Johnson and Ward, if either of you get elected ask Nicastro what he did the last time he was booted out of office with a city contract.
What the public (and, unfortunately, in some instances the council members themselves) would likely want to know about these agenda items:
1. To nominate and make appointments, and to take any action as necessary.
Who is up for nomination and for what? Who actually nominated them and what are their qualifications? How long will they serve and what will determine that length of service? What pending issues will they be asked to vote on? What function will they actually serve if appointed?
2. To authorize the Superintendent of Schools to file any necessary grant applications in connection with the matters relating to the Forestville School Building Committee and the West Bristol School Building Committee, and to take any action as necessary.
Grant applications such as what? For bonding? For feasibility studies? For further investigation? What exactly are you authorizing grant applications for? Anything related to these issues? Specific items regarding specific plans which may require costly studies yet may not be worth even considering at this point considering the tumultuous make-up of city leadership? Is there a compelling argument to be made that these applications will be worth the time and money invested regardless of the direction these committees are on that pending elections might alter?
3. To consider amendment or restatement of the Certificate of Incorporation for the Bristol Downtown Development Corporation, and to take any action as necessary.
Is there a reason why this is being considered? Is there a problem? Are the powers or mandates given to this corporation too weak or too strong? Inadequate in some way? Why is it already necessary to contemplate changing an entity that was contentious to begin with because of the legal burden alone not to mention its usefulness as a necessary alternative to a presumably incapable BDA? Already it is flawed? Or is this a vote to make it more capable of achieving the goal it was created to attain
4. To approve change orders for the Southeast Bristol Business Park up to $225,000 and to authorize the Mayor or Acting Mayor to execute all necessary documents, and to take any action as necessary.
Why now is there a need for a change order authorization? Was there a change order authorization limit built in to the original authorization for the project that has been maxed out? Are there pending issues regarding overages for the project that need to be addressed? What is the status of the project? Is it on schedule? If not, why? Is it over budget to date? If so, what and to what degree are the contributing factors? What has been done and what will be done to get it back on track? What is the current cost of the project, the anticipated future cost of creating a private developer ready site and the anticipated return on investment schedule once businesses take over? How has this changed from the original plan and projections?
5. To consider a request from Connecticut Light & Power Co. to install above ground utilities on James P. Casey Road, and to take any action as necessary.
Is there any urgency to this request? Is it a safety issue or simply a planning issue? Why are the utilities not going to be put under ground? How extensive is the run of utilities? Is a transformer involved? A sub station? What is this service for?
6. It appears that the remainder of the agenda is not for public consumption or comment, but it sure would be nice to know what gives when it comes to the genesis and outcome of lawsuits that ultimately impact all of the citizens of Bristol. Perhaps we could help prevent recurrences in some small way…
It struck me in reading the agenda for this meeting that an opportunity to communicate information was ignored. I fully realize that all the information asked for above is not necessary to satisfy the legal obligations of government to “post” a meeting and providing it to satisfy that requirement would be onerous. However, especially in the case of a special meeting, a source of information addressing some if not all of the questions raised above should be available to the general public so they know what is really going on. If the wheels of change have formulated that something needs to be voted on, the impetus for arriving at that point should be summarized and articulated publicly. There should be an effort to at least try to do so in more revealing terms than this agenda does. It is no small wonder folks who try to pay attention are confused and feel inadequately informed.
That is an issue our elected officials need to address, for their own well being as well as ours. But as citizens, it is much more important for us to stay on top of what is going on and mandate their attention to doing so. Many meetings, even of the City Council, are poorly if at all attended. It is hard to understand why people get so upset when things happen they are not happy with and claim they didn’t know anything about it or had no say. We are not going to garner better representation and information unless we insist on it, acknowledge it, pay attention to it and react to it. And we can’t focus our efforts at changing things to a few short months every two years when we hold our vote.
Our elected leaders need constant guidance as well as input. That seems to wane between elections. Part of this is their fault in not communicating what is going on and what is being planned. But except for the mayor, all our elected officials are part time and many others who make decisions for us volunteer. They do what they can to do our bidding – some more than we hope, some less. But what they actually do essentially remains a mystery, at least until it reaches a point where it becomes a vague “agenda item” or a fact we have to live with – unless we become more involved and concerned and active.
The city and its government could sure use some help right now, and that doesn’t mean your vote next week. It means your help in following through to make what we all hope will be the best decisions for the majority of Bristol, now and in the future, regarding some very critical issues. As you look for the best candidate, look also at what you can best do to help that candidate succeed in doing what you placed them in office to accomplish for you. And don’t let up.
john cullen
I think John Cullen's points are right on the money. It really should be the law now, given the advances in technology, that government should be required to post all of the supporting documents for each agenda item on the municipal or state website so that residents have just as much opportunity as officials to the background of each agenda item. We really shouldn't have to guess what something is all about.
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