Today is shaping up to be one of the busiest days at City Hall in a long while.
At 5:30 p.m., a joint session of the City Council and Board of Finance will consider whether to give its blessing to a proposed $171.5 million budget that raises property taxes more than 5 percent.
An hour later, at 6:30 p.m., the Bristol Downtown Development Corp. will meet to review a deal worked out in closed-door negotiations with a Long Island-based developer, Renaissance Downtowns, that may set the direction for downtown’s revitalization.
The budget meeting will be carried out entirely in public.
The BDDC will likely meet in executive session to go over the terms. But it they proved acceptable to commissioners, a vote for the agreement would be in public.
*******Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
13 comments:
Would the vote be to approve, or to send it to the council?
Or will they hold a public session once the details are made public?
Interesting OP-ED in Sundays Herald Press, page 12.
"Two cities: one open, one closed.
New Britain and Bristol.
Guess which one is closed!!
Shades of Couture and Deputy Mayor Ward, now Mayor Ward, all over again.
And HE just reappointed ALL of them again.
Didn't then councilman Ward used to complain about the scheduling of city meetings?
Now we have them at 8:00AM and 5:30PM
Sorta makes it difficult for the public, doesn't it?
All the more reason we need an alert and informed media: the elected officials won't tell us what is happening!
it's not the job of the elected officials to tell YOU when meetings are. Once again, you MUST go into City Hall. All meetings are posted on the board. You obviously haven't a clue what you are talking about, 2:26, otherwise you would already know this information. No one is doing anything behind anyone's back. If you were so interested in what was happening in this city, you would know to look in City Hall for all postings regarding board meetings.
5:45
But making an 8:00AM meeting and/or a 5:30PM meeting is not doable for many people.
Ward complained about it, but now that he can do something about it, he looks the other way.
So much for open government and transparency.
6:09
And what do you think of Ward now?
He is just robbing from your future!
But he is not alone.
All the career minded politicians just go along with him.
You mean Artie is working for a change instead of just saying he's working?
Maybe Stortz wasn't so bad after all.
7:38: It's that way in every town. There is no possible way that all those meetings could be in the evening for many reasons. I didn't say it was fair but it's the only way that it can be done. There were some very important meetings I couldn't make, so I would have someone go in my place or I would send a letter expressing how I felt about a certain subject. It's not the same as being there, but then again, I can't imagine you would need to be at every single meeting of every single board or committee. If there's something that interests you, perhaps you could take a day off to attend one meeting that concerned your issue. But making a blanket statement that there is no open government because you can't make a meeting is absurd and obviously false. The onus is on you to try to find time to attend. Not everyone can be accommodated but that's how our society is now, isn't it? "I can't make it at that time so therefore the time should be changed to accommodate me."
And last Thursday, Jason Welch was nominated as the Republican candidate for state senate. Where is that story?
We don't cover uncontested nominating conventions unless we haven't had a story about the candidate before.
10:01
Part, only part, of my point is that ART WARD was the biggest whiner about meeting times.
How soon he forgot (conveniently)
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