May 12, 2009

This and that from the council meeting

Former Republican mayoral contender Ken Johnson and Mayor Art Ward exhanged some sharp words over the failure of the city to pursue vigorously the $400,000 or more than Connecticut Light and Power may owe the city for back streetlighting overcharges.
They really went at it.
Johnson blamed the city for doing nothing. Ward seemed to know nothing about it and thundered that Johnson should have told him, not just the city attorney's office.
I'll have much more on this after I make sense of it all in the days ahead.
Meanwhile, we've had nothing about the resigning lawyers. Yet.
The council approved a pay cut for the next mayor and City Council. They'll make 5 percent less than the council does this year. They also froze the pay of department heads and other non-union personnel.
More to come.

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Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am not a fan of Johnson, but this seems to me just another failure on the part of mayor Ward to seek additional monies and to look for reduction of expenses.

And to say he knew nothing about it is scary, especially since until recently, this was his opponent to be.

Anonymous said...

Maybe Johnson is jumping back into the race????

Anonymous said...

We dont need a new mayor...we need a city manager to handle the finances...someone who actually knows what they are doing.

Anonymous said...

Why hasn't Johnson been pursuing this all along?

Or does he really need the money now?

common cents said...

seems as though 9:32 is on to something.

Anonymous said...

"...and to say he knew nothing about it is scary"

Scarier still is the fact that Johnson obviously kept info from the mayor so that he could spring it on him in a public forum...politics at it's lowest!

Anonymous said...

Wardie got his foot stuffed in his mouth by Johnson..plain and simple. Ward instructed Johnson to report through the Corp Council's office...he did..,and has the proof that he did...and the Corp Council office...who acknowledged Johnson's efforts, did nothing.

Maybe the corp council is taking one for the team...maybe they did tell Ward and Ward sat on it. After all, how would it look if Johnson handed over the $500,000 from CLP. This issue has Wardie boi's paranoia all over it, resulting in the fifth LOSS FOR TAX PAYERS on his watch.

WARD is BAD FOR BRISTOL

losers said...

8:39 - wannabee should stay in hartford and bring johnson with him because neither one has a clue about bristol

Anonymous said...

Maybe Stortz wasn't so bad after all

Anonymous said...

Again, Stortz you weren't bad--you were the worst.

Anonymous said...

Yah Bill, actually, you were pretty bad.

Anonymous said...

Steve, what was the big story you were going to tell us about?

Anonymous said...

Ward knew about the money. He was the one who asked Johnson about it. Typical Ward bury your head in the sand just long enough to be ignorant.

Anonymous said...

2:26, obviously Johnson was waiting for an opportune moment to play his hand. Instead of working as a team for the benefit of the city, he's too busy playing games.

Anonymous said...

Ward got stomped hard for those of you that were there. He stated he didn't know what was going on and when Johnson read the letter he had written to City Council, whom Mayor Ward authorized to act on his behalf in this matter, Mayor Ward chose to start with personal attacks. For those of you that attended the meeting, every proposal that was brought up (with the exception of Johnson's) was spend for this , spend for that. We have 500K that CL&P has allowed for us to sit down and talk about and Mayor Ward claims he knew nothing about it after authorizing the City Council to act in his behalf. The drafts were sent to City Council and absolutely nothing has been done about it. AT this rate we will spend about 6 million dollars on plantings to make the downtown look nice but nobody seems interested in this administration in collecting 500K that is due the city.That alone is a ton of money for a city this size

Anonymous said...

12:10 Once again, games played at the City's expense...

Anonymous said...

The union boys are trying to protect Wardie Boi!

Anonymous said...

8:48

Not all of us, some of us would like to see him gone.

Give us a choice.