City hires two architects to design a pair of new schools

More than six months after school building committees picked architects to design two new schools, city councilors have endorsed the picks.

Though the contracts won’t be signed until the city completes the purchase of property on Matthews Street eyed for one of the 900-student schools, officials expect the deal to go through within a couple of weeks.

Councilors agreed to hire the Hartford firm of Tai Soo Kim, Partners and Architects for $2.14 million to draw up the detailed plans necessary to move ahead with the school slated for construction on the former Crowley dealership site on Pine Street.

The Massachusetts-based Drummey Rosane Anderson, Inc. was tapped for the West Bristol school. It will earn $1.8 million for its work.

Superintendent Philip Streifer said the school building panels each thought it best to hire different firms for the two projects, on the assumption that it would be best to have a firm focused on a single school.

City Councilor Mike Rimcoski, who serves on the Forestville School Building Committee, was the only councilor to vote against either architect.

Rimcoski renewed his plea for colleagues to award the Forestville contract to DRA as well because it would cost taxpayers $350,000 less.

With the economy struggling and a new fiscal year about to begin, he said, “I don’t think we’re starting out right by blowing through $350,000” for no good reason.

Ken Cockayne, the only other Republican councilor, said he would normally agree with Rimcoski but in this case, he said, councilors should take the advice of the committee members who actually slogged through the many applications from different firms.

Councilor Kevin McCauley said the Crowley site for the Forestville school offers a unique challenge because Greene-Hills School and Peck Park are next door and must continue operating during the construction period. That takes expertise, he said, that Tai Soo Kim offers.

Rimcoski said he plans to use the council’s votes against hiring DRA for both projects to his advantage during the municipal election campaign this year.

DRA was not the low bidder on the West Bristol site either, officials said, so they’re not sure why Rimcoski favored it there.

 Deadline waived

With a push from state Rep. Frank Nicastro, a Bristol Democrat, the state Department of Education has told city officials that the June 2010 deadline for beginning construction on the new schools can be waived.

Nicastro said the city merely has to ask for the waiver and it will get it.

Superintendent Philip Streifer said the extra time will help.

“With all these pieces falling together, we’ll be in very good shape,” Streifer said.

 

About the school project
Cost: $132 million
Two new K-8 schools sought
Closing:  Memorial Boulevard Middle School and Greens-Hills, O’Connell and Bingham elementary schools.
Projected completion

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

No smoking zones coming to Bristol

The passage of a new law that allows the city to designate public streets and sidewalks as no-smoking zones clears the way for Bristol Hospital to push for a smoking ban along the municipal roads bordering its property.

Though the new ordinance approved unanimously by the City Council recently opens the door for smoke-free zones, officials say it’s likely they won’t see too many requests to impose the bans.

Bristol Hospital has led the charge on the issue because it wants to keep smoking away from its doors.

With no power to prevent people from lighting up on the city sidewalks just outside, the hospital’s executives said they were stymied unless the city made it possible to ban smoking there.

Marc Edelman, the hospital’s vice president of operations, said that establishing a smoke-free zone around the hospital would safeguard the health and well-being of its staff, patients and visitors.

City Councilor Craig Minor said that before an area can be designated as a smoke-free zone, the council would need to agree to send the request to the hearings and assessment committee that would review the pros and cons.

 If the hearings panel recommended the creation of a smoke-free zone, Minor said, the council would again consider the issue, this time to back the decision or turn it down.

City Councilor Frank Nicastro said the hospital would be able to follow the necessary procedure to get what it wants.

But officials admit that it would take unusual dedication for smaller operations or individuals to seek similar designations for public byways bordering their property.

It’s possible that parks or schools might follow the hospital’s lead in a bid to keep smoking away, officials said.

The smoking ban that’s on the table includes language to ensure that Bristol doesn’t impose prohibitions in areas that state law specifically allows smoking, such as outside some restaurants.

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

Blog is no longer blocked

Somebody's paying attention at City Hall.

The blog is no longer blocked.

Ah, victory.

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

City blocks the blog

City Hall is reeling today after somebody decided to block access to the Bristol Blog from municipal computers.

First, of course, I'll have to find out who made that decision and why.

Then we're going to have a swell debate on the First Amendment, which I maintain prevents the government from taking any action to block the free press. Even the courts agree that government can't tamper with press freedom unless there's a damn good reason for it.

I hope the move to block the blog is just a mistake, but if city leaders want a fight about freedom, let's have it. I'm game.

Update at 2:30 --

Well, I got hold of Mayor Art Ward.

So why's the blog blocked?

"I don't know," he said. "I don't have an answer."

Then he said that he did hear earlier today that the information services division had installed new filtering on the web this morning.

Ward said that's probably why the blog is blocked. I should talk to MIS, he said.

So I will.

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

Another take on the city budget

This was sent to me by resident John Cullen:

This may not be the most appropriate location to post this, but the topic is reference and is all part of the same morass…

  

FUN FACTS

 

City of Bristol Budget 2003                                                        $135 million

 

City of Bristol Budget 2009                                                        $170.8 million

 

Average annual increase                                                        4.2% over 6 years*

 

Total increase over 6 years                                          $35.8 million

 

Total % increase in past 6 years                                          26.5%

 

Projected budget in 2012 @ 4.2%/year                            $193.2 million (3 years)

 

Increase from this year’s budget                                          $22.4 million

 

These figures consider the fact that the budget for this year is a virtual duplicate of last year. In other words, the increases over the past 5 years have been spread out over 6 years, which lowers the total as well as the percent. Much rhetoric has been expressed that with this budget, Bristol is simply postponing expenses that will have to be “made up” in future budgets. Consequently, if the pattern of increases over the past reflects more ‘normal’ years, the budget will be increasing at an even more rapid rate.

 

It seems to me that trying to come up with another $22 million dollars over the next three years is likely to cripple this city. With State contributions to Bristol’s bottom line likely to be diminishing, with a pension funding dilemma still on the horizon, with landfill leakage cost issues and sewage infrastructure and treatment issues ready to rear their ugly heads and a $2 million ‘rainy day fund’ dip having been made, not to mention this concept that two new schools need to be built…wow. Hold on to your wallet. And the tax income from the ‘Technology’ park isn’t going to put a dent in things if it makes a contribution at all. And ‘Downtown’ continues to become an ever expanding wasteland. And the band plays on...

 

TAXPAYERS

 

ESPN has been a very important force mitigating Bristol’s budget increases. If you take their assessed property value as determined in 2006 of $240.7 million, adjust for tax purposes (x.70 = $168,500,000) and multiply that by the mil rate of 25.99 (Please just round a number like that off. Gas stations have been pretending for years that folks are a bit slow and don’t understand that once you get to .99, it is time to bump it up to the next whole number. That increase in the budget is $17,800. Not worth the hint of deception it conjures.), they would be responsible for $4.379 million of the City budget. That would be close to a mil (approx. $4.176 million). They evidently get some tax breaks, but these numbers solely reflect their maximum possible property tax contribution at their listed valuation multiplied by the 25.99 mil rate. The other fees they pay, the property tax their employees who live in Bristol pay and other ways they indirectly contribute to the Bristol economy likely make it a low ball estimate that they are worth a mil on the budget. (I would love to see analyses of these kinds of data, since we seem to be so hard pressed to fund industrial parks and help businesses monetarily. It would be great to know if we get our money back. Seems we make all kinds of projections but I have never seen a cost/benefit analysis done in this regard ‘down the road’ to analyze whether projections panned out – perhaps I missed them.)

 

ESPN has an assessed value that is greater than the next nine of the top 10 assessed taxpayers combined. So even if we give the top 10 a 2 mil impact, the other 24 mil (25.99 – 2) is coming from ‘elsewhere’. Your pocket is rapidly becoming a larger and larger source of the ‘elsewhere’ money. And that is not just through property taxes, but it will be reflected in state and federal contributions (and your funding of those entities will no doubt accelerate) as well that we cross our fingers will be ‘rebounded’ to us. Lots of luck…

 

With the last revaluation, I recall hearing from city officials that the over all tax burden in Bristol had shifted somewhat to the private property owner and away from the business/commercial sector. If that is the case, individual taxpayers will be asked in the coming years to contribute largely to the escalating costs of running the city. And even with the conservative increase projections of what will be needed listed above, the addition of another ‘sugar daddy’ like ESPN in that short time would not even fill the gap ($4.379 million x 3 = $13.137 million, the amount another ESPN might contribute if it magically appeared tomorrow versus the $22 million that will likely be needed.) Individual tax payers will be expected to take on a very large burden to maintain Bristol in the future.

 

AND SO…

 

I can’t comprehend this happening. The well is not deep enough. There is no other choice but to decelerate the rise in the budget, if not eliminate increases in the next three years all together. There is no other way to do this than to reduce costs. The gravy train has been derailed. We can wait until this is hammered home like the inevitable collapses of many private companies, or we can start facing reality now and get a head start on making Bristol an attractive place to live financially as well as service wise. If we don’t, people with sense will move to communities that do decide to do so. And the problem will be exacerbated.

 

This city critically needed a manager to run it, and an opportunity to move in that direction was lost recently. We now have an embarrassing situation regarding our Corporation Council office involving both personnel and budget matters. We have an ongoing joust between the city and its Economic Development Director, under whose direction exactly what has been accomplished to mitigate this fiscal bind we are in? We have an ever growing list of empty buildings and lots, most notably down town, and will contribute further to that dilemma ourselves when Bingham, O’Connell and Memorial Boulevard schools are boarded up. We can pound our chests all we want about the ‘ratings’ folks like Moody’s and Fitch and S&P have given the city, but please recall they had rated such corporations as CitiGroup, MBIA, Ambac, AIG… highly before they were impolitely flushed to the bottom of the financial sector cesspool. Our fiscal situation can turn on a dime, and unless something is done, it will.

 

There have to be workforce reductions and pay scale and benefit adjustments made. There have to be increases in efficiencies – people, equipment and technology have to work harder and produce more for less. There has to be better management of city departments as well as the city as an entity, and more realistic and innovative approaches implemented to get accomplished what needs to be accomplished quickly and efficiently. There needs to be a greater level of voluntarism and participation in government, and leaders should assist this in all manners possible and assure that any obstacles to allowing the community to assist in city affairs and/or directly contribute time and expertise be removed. We pay too much to get too little accomplished, and changing that reality is the only way this city has any chance of surviving in a manner we might all like and be proud of.

 

It is not really complicated. But it does mean that there must be people in charge who will make the hard choices, hold everyone accountable and have the opportunity to see things through. As nice as it would be if the good times kept rolling, the fact is they have contributed as much as anything to the depths of these bad times. An increase in laziness, selfishness, a sense of entitlement and the growth and spread of unrealistic expectations were a big part of those ‘good’ times, and ultimately put an end to them. It's time to get back to reality, and the quicker, the better.

 

Ps please excuse any inaccuracies in my numbers and set me straight if I am really off the mark. The city budget is not a simple thing to understand and the contributions to the ‘entire’ budget ($177.9 million vs. the $107.4 million we need to come up with – I think) from the state and other sources make it even more complicated and difficult to compare year to year. And I am not a ‘numbers guy’. I do think it is very important that we all start understanding the budget, revenue sources and debts a bit better, and that simple summaries and analysis be provided to us to facilitate that.

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

A Korean War soldier, missing for almost 60 years, is coming home

When the Chinese army surged into Korea shortly before the winter of 1950 in a bid to salvage the communist regime, the first American military unit to feel the brunt of its attack hunkered down in the mountains and fought back with legendary fierceness.
Caught in the hail of bullets and bombs, a Plainville soldier, Sgt. 1st Class Lincoln Clifford May, lay among the mounds of the dead.
Declared missing in action after the Nov. 2, 1950 battle that wiped out most of his unit, May’s remains lay somewhere in Unsan, North Korea for the next 43 years.
But in 1993, the North Koreans handed over 208 boxes of bones from U.S. soldiers who perished in that bleak landscape.
Using DNA provided by May’s two nephews, Glenn and Cliff Block of Bristol, some of the bones have been identified after all these years by military experts as belonging to the long-dead soldier.
On June 26, May will be buried in a Plainville cemetery where many of the people the 22-year-old once knew are also interred.
“My uncle’s finally coming home,” said Cliff Block, a Bristol city councilor who was named for his uncle several months before the Plainville soldier vanished.
Glenn Block said that when he got a phone call months ago informing him that his uncle’s body had been found, “I cried like a baby in my office.”
Though Glenn Block has only the dimmest recollection of his uncle, he remembered his grandmother, Clara May, kept a framed photograph of her youngest son in his uniform on a table beside her rocking chair until her own death in 1990.
Cliff Block recalled that as a youngster, he would point to the picture and tell his grandmother, “That’s me before I died.”
Cliff Block said the long saga of his uncle’s return makes for “a great story,” but also a sad one because aside “everyone else is dead” for whom it would bring some peace except for he and his brother.
Glenn Block, who served in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War, said he wants a full military funeral for his uncle.
Chief Warrant Officer 2nd Class Peter Coppola, who is assisting the family for the Connecticut National Guard, said that funerals for soldiers whose remains are recovered decades after their deaths are “a rare event” and will be done right.
“This is kind of a chance to make it right,” said Glenn Block.
May arrived in Korea in August 1950 with U.S. forces who made a desperate stand to prevent the entire peninsula from being overrun by communist forces.
He was wounded near Pusan by a grenade the following month, Cliff Block said, but recovered enough to join his unit pushing north toward the Chinese border.
According to an old newspaper clipping, May carried shrapnel in his back as he headed out, sending a letter to his mother insisting he was no longer in danger.
The day before his death, the clipping said, May wrote to his fiancée in New Britain, whom he had planned to marry in October 1950, to say he was going out on “a big push.”
That was the last time anyone at home heard from him.
May, called “Cliff” by friends and family, enlisted in the Army in 1948. He became a military police officer and served in Georgia, New Jersey and Massachusetts before getting shipped out to Korea.
After his death, the Army sent the family his possessions -- a cap, an MP armband and tiny jackknife. They also sent two medals, a fraction of what he earned. Coppola said he’s working on getting the rest.
Glenn Block said he hopes is uncle’s story will make people think about the sacrifices that the military can require.”We’re talking people here who gave all. It’s that simple,” he said.
The remains of more than 8,000 Korea War soldiers have not yet been recovered, according to the Department of Defense’s office for prisoners of war and missing personnel
The O’Brien Funeral Home in Bristol is handling the arrangements. A wake is planned but hasn’t been finalized. The funeral is scheduled for Friday, June 26 at Plainville’s West Cemetery.
For details of the battle at Unsan, where May perished, please see this PDF of a military report on it.

And to find out how the military identified May's remains, see this PDF report.

Here is a news clipping from the Plainville News sometime after the Department of Defense proclaimed May as killed in action.

Timeline
1928 - Lincoln Clifford May born in Plainville
1948 - May joined the Army
1950 - May died in Korea
1993 - Unidentified remains returned by North Korea
2003 - May’s remaining relatives provided DNA samples
2008 - Military identified May’s remains
2009 - Burial planned in Plainville

Korean War Remembrance Day
The city’s Korean War veterans are marking the 59th anniversary of the start of the war with a ceremony on Memorial Boulevard at 11 a.m., Thursday, June 25.
The ceremony will feature Bristol veteran Frank Parker talking about his experiences in combat during the Korean War in 1950 and 1951,
A luncheon follows at the American Legion hall on Hooker Court. Korean War veterans are invited to attend.

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

Lawyers zing politicians; Krawiecki appointed

The two lawyers who resigned last month told the City Council Tuesday they felt overburdened, underpaid and underappreciated for the long, hard hours of work they put for low wages.
“I was taken for granted and taken advantage of by the politicians because of my affection for my hometown,” said Jeff Steeg, a former assistant city attorney.
Dale Clift, the former city attorney, said the $33,000-a-year pay he received “imposed an unreasonable financial burden” given the many hours he devoted to city business.
Both of the lawyers, who are partners in private practice, said they pushed for several years to get more money or benefits as well as to bolster the city’s legal muscle so they wouldn’t have to do so much.
Each of the two attorneys delivered a long address to the council. The texts of their speeches are here, in PDF form:

Attorney Dale Clift's address to the City Council

Attorney Jeff Steeg's letter to Bristol residents

I'll write more about what they had to say on Wednesday. This is just a start. But I strongly urge anyone who cares to read what each of the lawyers had to say. They provide a context to what happened that is necessary to understand their choices, but also to get a glimpse into how City Hall operates, or fails to operate.

Krawiecki finally gets appointed
After trying for more than a year to convince his Democratic colleagues on the City Council to agree to let him hire a GOP lawyer to fill one of three part-time city attorney slots, Mayor Art Ward finally got his way Tuesday.
The council unanimously to endorse Edward Krawiecki, Jr, a former city attorney, for one of two part-time assistant city attorney positions.
Krawiecki will join two full-time lawyers -- Richard Lacey and Ann Baldwin -- whom he used to oversee when he served as the city’s top lawyer during former Mayor William Stortz’s most recent administration.
Two other city lawyer positions, including the city attorney, are vacant because their holders resigned last month after city officials repeatedly refused to hire more help, increase their pay or add health insurance benefits to the jobs.
The two vacant posts have been advertised, with applications due by June 17.
The city attorney needs five years of experience for the $33,000-a-year position while the assistant collects $28,000-a-year and needs only two years of experience in order to be eligible.
Krawiecki, who served for 16 years as a state lawmaker while also practicing law, easily meets the experience threshold.
When Ward took office in 2007, he kept Krawiecki on for months until the council rebelled and forced him to replace the Republican with a Democrat, Dale Clift, who had been a part-time city lawyer for more than a decade.
Last year, the four council members who refused to back Krawiecki -- Frank Nicastro, Cliff Block, Craig Minor and Kevin McCauley -- said they didn’t mind hiring a Republican to fill the office’s fifth slot.
But they didn’t want Krawiecki.
Minor said last summer that he told the mayor “that demoting Ed to assistant corp counsel was very bad for morale and organizational dynamics.”
“I tried to use a military analogy: you don't demote the company commander to sergeant and keep him in the same unit,” Minor said at the time. “The men will be constantly looking to the ‘sergeant’ to approve whatever the new commander says, which completely undermines his authority.”Five other Republicans who sought the city job were turned down as Ward held out for Krawiecki.
McCauley said that he considered voting against Krawiecki, but decided that as long as everyone agreed on the need to fill the other two positions in the legal office, he could vote in favor.
Ward said that applications would be reviewed quickly, followed by interviews so the city can “get ‘em on board.”

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

Union cuts deal so no layoffs needed

A city union that faced the prospect of seeing three junior public works employees laid off opted this week to cut a deal instead.
Several city officials said that rather than watch a trio of painful layoffs, Local 1338 of Council 4 of the American Federation of State, County and Muncipal Workers agreed to give up the 1. 8 percent pay hikes that its members were due to receive in the coming fiscal year.
The decision means the city's $170.8 million budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 won't include any layoffs.
The concessions by Local 1338, which represents many of the municipal employees who normally work outside, erased the need for layoffs entirely, the officials said.
Mayor Art Ward said repeatedly in recent weeks that he hoped the unions would agree to concessions so that nobody would be laid off, particularly when so many young workers are struggling to raise small children and make a home for them.

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

Larson says he favors fiscal discipline

Press release from U.S. Rep. John Larson, an East Hartford Democrat whose 1st District includes Bristol:

LARSON PRAISES OBAMA’S COMMITMENT TO FISCAL DISCIPLINE

Washington, DC -- President Barack Obama was joined by Democratic Members of Congress today to express strong support for legislation that would reinstitute statutory pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules and restore fiscal discipline to the federal government.
Congressman John B. Larson (CT-01), Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said:
“I stand with my Democratic colleagues and President Obama today in their commitment to fiscal discipline and cutting the deficit.
“Strong fiscal discipline is one of the most important tenets of the work Democrats are doing in Washington. Former President Bush and Congressional Republicans took a $5.6 trillion surplus and left trillions of dollars in deficits. While we revitalize and grow our economy and create good jobs we also know that we can’t leave the bill for past mistakes to future generations. That is why I support strong statutory PAYGO rules.
“When Democrats became the majority in Congress two and a half years ago we instituted strong pay-as-you-go rules to reduce the deficit and restore fiscal restraint. We are working to reign in the waste, fraud and abuse that have plagued government spending so that the American people know we are getting the most for every tax dollar spent. Just as American households are tightening their belts during these tough times, so too must the federal government.
“I look forward to working with President Obama to ensure the fiscal soundness of the federal government.”

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

Larson backs more power for inspectors general

Press release from U.S. Rep. John Larson, the East Hartford Democrat whose 1st District includes Bristol:

LARSON BILL TO ELEVATE REGULATORS’ INSPECTORS GENERAL PASSES THE HOUSE

Washington, DC – The House of Representatives passed the Improved Financial and Commodity Markets Oversight and Accountability Act today, legislation that will elevate the Inspectors General of our nation’s regulatory agencies, giving them the tools and independence they need. The legislation, authored by Congressman John B. Larson (CT-01), Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, will impact the Inspectors General of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Credit Union Administration and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
Congressman Larson said on the floor of the House of Representatives (remarks as prepared for delivery):
“The regulatory agencies who were supposed to be monitoring our financial and commodity markets fell down on the job. Where were they when Bernie Madoff was scamming thousands of innocent Americans into giving up their life savings? Where were they when speculators were wreaking havoc in the oil markets?
“I can think of no sector where honesty, independence and transparency are needed more right now than our financial and commodity markets. Yet the regulators of these markets have been allowed to work with no oversight of what they are doing and whether they are fulfilling their mission to protect the American consumer.
“That‘s because the Inspectors General who should be working on behalf of average Americans are actually working for the heads of the agencies they are overseeing. This is a classic case of the fox watching the hen house and it is having a profound impact on the work of our regulatory agencies.
“In a review of offices of Inspectors General, I found that on average independent offices completed 117 investigations in 2008 – while their non-independent counterparts completed just 12. That’s 117 versus 12.
“ The Inspector General of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) released information showing that despite the recent economic crisis and the turbulence in the oil market, his office completed just two investigations and updated one from October of last year through this March.
“Simply stated – independent watch dogs ensure better performance from government agencies.
“I want to thank everyone who helped bring this legislation to the floor – notably Chairman Ed Towns of the Committee on Government Oversight, and Chairman Barney Frank for his ongoing work to reform the financial sector. I would also like to thank Congressmen Glenn Nye and John Boccieri – two freshmen who came to Washington with an eye towards reform.”

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

Using pension money would have helped?

City Councilor Ken Cockayne said that if the city had pushed ahead with the use of surplus pension investments to pay for future health care for city workers, the budget crunch this year wouldn't have happened.
"GASB 45 would have changed everything," Cockayne said.
The proposal to use extra pension cash -- anything beyond 120 percent of the expected need to cover pension costs -- for health benefits for retirees would have saved as much as $1. 8 million from the city's bottom line this year.
With that much money available, Cockayne said, the city could have frozen taxes while allowing the unions to keep the raises they'd negotiated and hang on to their jobs. There wouldn't have been a need to eye concessions or layoffs, he said.
Cockayne said he hopes the city's unions, which have been wary of the GASB 45 plan at best, will reconsider before next year's spending plan is put together.

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

Krawiecki's likely to win appointment

By all accounts, the nomination of Edward Krawiecki, Jr as an assistant ciy attorney is likely to win approval on a 6-1 vote tonight. Two more open slots would be filled later after applications are reviewed for the city attorney position and the other part-time legal slot.
The city also has two full-time lawyers.

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