July 30, 2014
Larson: House should quit "wasting time" and "get the job done"
GOP House shuns Larson bid to praise Pope Francis?
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| JOHN LARSON |
Congratulating Pope Francis on his election and recognizing his inspirational statements and actions.
Whereas on March 13, 2013, Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina was elected Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church;
Whereas his election marked the first time a Pope from the Americas has been selected;
Whereas he is the first Jesuit to become Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church;
Whereas he took the papal name of Francis, becoming the first pope to take the name of St. Francis of Assisi, who was known for his devotion to humility and the poor;
Whereas he has demonstrated his humility by choosing not to live in the lavish Apostolic Palace, living instead with the clergy and lay people in the Vatican guesthouse;
Whereas on March 28, 2013, he broke from tradition during the washing of feet, when he washed the feet of 12 criminals, including two women, becoming the first pope to include women in the rite;
Whereas on November 6, he displayed his charity by caressing a man with severe disfigurement, drawing comparisons to the actions of his namesake, St. Francis, whose kiss of a leper forever changed his life by solidifying his commitment to the poorest among us;
Whereas when asked to describe himself during an interview with a Jesuit magazine, he replied ‘‘I am a sinner’’;
Whereas his emphasis on humanitarian efforts to alleviate suffering serves as an inspiration to Congress and all Americans;
Whereas his humility, his commitment to economic justice and improving the lives of the poor, and his outreach to individuals from all walks of life have been universally praised and are living examples of Jesus Christ’s message;
and Whereas his call to end inequality has echoed across the globe and brought millions together in solidarity: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives congratulates Pope Francis on his election and recognizes his inspirational statements and actions.
Copyright 2014 All rights reserved. Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
July 25, 2014
Why isn't the city pursuing a Plan B?
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| William Stortz |
July 24, 2014
Wright didn't miss a single General Assembly vote
State Representative Christopher Wright (D-Bristol) earned a perfect record on votes taken in the state House of Representative during the 2014 General Assembly session.
According to the Clerk of the House, the 2014 individual records reflect 309 votes were cast by Rep. Wright.
“Casting votes on the many bills that we vote on is very important to me on behalf of my constituents in the 77th District,” Rep. Wright said. “I was fortunate to have been able to be present at every session to vote on every bill. I am pleased to have achieved a perfect voting score during this year’s session because representing my constituents in Hartford is a responsibility I take very seriously.”
Rep. Wright is Vice Chairman of the Insurance and Real Estate Committee and serves on the Housing and Finance, Revenue, and Bonding Committees.
Bristol gets a nod in new Hollywood flick
July 23, 2014
Food festival in Bristol on Sept. 13
Details on the food festival coming in September:
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13TH
2PM TO 8:30 PM
RSVP on Facebook!
Join the Convo on Twitter #FlavordBristol
Welcome!
We’re so excited to introduce to you to FLAVOR’D FOOD FEST! A Taste of Bristol & Beyond!
Flavor’d is a brand new food-oriented festival the likes of which has never been seen in our City! Promise us you’ll stay hungry, and we promise you an event that will satisfy taste buds!
Event Details
Here’s a taste of the smorgasbord you can look forward to on event day! NOM NOM.
- Food tasting from bunches of restaurants & food organizations in Bristol & CT!
- A very tasty tented beverage experience
- Food product vendors
- Farmer’s market elements
- Food programming & demos
- Fooducation
- Live music all day!
- Relaxed Tented seating!
- Blanket & picnic area
- Plus more!
Intro:
When Bristol Rising puts our minds to it, we can accomplish anything. In 2011, a first year event called the Pop Up Piazza drew 15,000-plus visitors –a thrilling accomplishment signaling Bristol’s ready for big things! Now, we’re at it again! This time, alongside local restaurateurs and cultural non profit event partner, The Carousel Museum, to bring forth another new and exciting event — Flavor’d Food Fest, A Taste of Bristol and Beyond!
What It’s All About:
Flavor’d Food Fest is a new food-oriented event the likes of which has never been seen in our City. The event will focus entirely around food, and will feature a tasting element from the culinary talents of Bristol restaurants/organizations as well as participating restaurants from the region and state, creating a cultural crockpot of Bristol and Connecticut flavors! Now that’s revolutionary. “The event is about celebrating Bristol food and culinary gems, and highlighting them,” said Mark Walerysiak Jr, Community Liaison, Bristol Rising. “But similar to how the Pop Up Piazza showed the possibility of a future bustling downtown, we’d like to similarly provide a one-day looking glass into the anticipated future food culture downtown. We’re pretty excited to pop up those restaurant rows! We recommend people come hungry!”
How Flavor’d Came About:
Terry Lugo, an event committee member and co-owner of Barley Vine Gastropub, along with her husband Victor, shared one of the primary reasons the event was born. “There’s this perception amongst some that Bristol doesn’t have places to eat,” Lugo said. “We don’t believe that, and Flavor’d Food Fest will show Bristol has many quality restaurants, and places that specialize in some awesome items, and it’s our intention to allow them to be known to the world as well showcasing our neighboring CT restaurants as well”
When We’re Going to Rock Your Taste Buds:
Flavor’d Food Fest is scheduled to be held on Saturday, September 13, between 2 pm and 8:30 (rain date September 14) on Riverside Avenue Extension as well as parts of Depot Square, in downtown Bristol. This all day smorgasbord is expected to draw thousands of Flavor’d Food Fest goers from the region and state on event day, and will feature Bristol and CT restaurants, food vendors, food programming, live music, and more! Many more details will be released along the way, so stay tuned! “Are you ready to get FLAVOR’D!!”
Sharing Means More Grub!
Don’t forget to help SHARE Flavor’d Food Fest with your friends and family. The more RSVP’s for the event the more food ammunition and general awesomeness we’ll be able to recruit and toss your way!
RSVP ON OUR FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE
Dish it up for your Twitter followers using the hashtag #flavordbristol and @bristolrising
Dish it up for your Twitter followers using the hashtag #flavordbristol and @bristolrising
Hospital sale likely to boost city revenue
For generations, most community hospitals have operated as charities, providing health care for the area surrounding them and ensuring that even the poorest received top quality treatment.
One of the benefits for Bristol Hospital of holding nonprofit status since 1925 has been that it hasn’t had to pay any property taxes. Charities and churches are, in almost every case, exempt in Connecticut.
But with Bristol Hospital’s announcement last week that it plans to sell the hospital to a Tennessee-based, for-profit company opens the door to at least the possibility that it might soon no longer quality for a special tax break under the law.
For City Hall, the change could represent a bonanza. Bristol Hospital could overnight become the city’s second largest taxpayer, hiking municipal revenue by more than $1.5 million annually at a time when the city is scrounging for every dime.
City Assessor Tom DeNoto, who’s been scrambling to figure out the implications of the deal, said the still-secret details are going to prove crucial.
Even so, he said, the announcement itself is “like a pea that has been dropped in the ocean and the ripples of a hurricane are just beginning.”
Bristol Hospital owns more than $75 million worth of property in the city, according to tax records, and that doesn’t even include the value of its medical equipment, vehicles and other potentially taxable items.
At present, the hospital doesn’t generally pay taxes. But the state has a payment-in-lieu of tax program that helps cities and towns compensate somewhat for hosting nonprofits and state government buildings.
Bristol collects about $570,000 annually from the program to make up a bit of what the hospital would have to pay if it were not exempt. That’s only a fraction of the hospital’s potential tax liability, but officials have always been happy to cash the state checks.
If the hospital winds up as part of Vanguard Health Systems, as planned, officials presume the state won’t pay anything anymore. Office of Policy and Management experts could not, however, be reached to explain their role.
The experience of other communities, though, may show what’s coming in Bristol if the sale goes through.
The 154-bed Morton Hospital in Taunton, Mass., for example, was sold in 2011 to a private for-profit company for $170 million in cash and debt. It is going to pay property taxes for the first time next year, about $1.5 million in all.
St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Mass., purchased by Vanguard in 2005, now pays more than $1 million in property taxes and another $1.3 million in sales taxes. It didn’t use to pay any taxes.
All of this comes at a time when the tax-exempt status of nonprofit hospitals has been questioned across the country because the distinction between charity hospitals and for-profit ones has gradually blurred.
Illinois, for instance, began taxing some nonprofit community hospitals because it ruled they performed so little charity that there was no reason to treat them differently.
DeNoto said there can be “a very fine line” between a charitable hospital and one that’s not.
As they wait for details of the agreement between Bristol Hospital and Vanguard, city officials admit they are more than eager to grab some additional tax dollars that would help ease a growing fiscal crunch.
Still, DeNoto said, “We’re not counting on anything or locked in.”
“None of the dominos have even begun to fall yet,” he added.
July 16, 2014
Hercules at the plate at Muzzy Field
Democrats fire back on referendum issue
Democratic Response to the Republican
Town Committee’s recent “Let the Public Decide” press release
Petty
politics and overly dramatic phrases will do little to further this debate on
downtown’s future. Our comments concerning the referendum were based in two
facts: the City of Bristol has never governed by referendum and to date, we are
not convinced that a non-binding referendum on a non-ordinance related item is
proper.
The
primary question is is it appropriate for the City of Bristol to invest public money to
kick-start the initial phase of a private investment?
Following
dozens of meetings and forums, and accumulating voluminous input since this
downtown development project was first proposed almost 10 years ago, we have
reached the point where hard decisions need to be made.
So
the secondary question is, “should the question be put to referendum or
should we rely on the experience and knowledge of our elected officials?”
These
are two complex questions that invite thoughtful public policy debate. But
not questions that require, or will be resolved, by the petty political
bickering offered by the Republican Town Chairman Derek Cenzelewski..
It
is our opinion that a call for a non-binding referendum is yet another move by
the local Republicans to not make a decision. Mr. Cenzelzewski’s effort to
twist our words showcases political opportunism at its worst.
There
has been a glaringly obvious lack of reports from Republican Council members
concerning items of importance at monthly City Council meetings and in fact,
when Democrats give reports, they are accused of “grandstanding” or “talking
too much.”
Councilman
Martin serves as liaison to the Field Study Committee, the Board of Education,
the Downtown Development Corporation and the city’s Marketing Task Force – 4
committees that have major budget and policy impact yet until last month, he
has stayed silent during Committee reports. Ironically,
Councilman
Martin has also neither fulfilled his role of communicating back to the Council
on downtown issues nor has he endorsed the idea of a public referendum, yet Mr.
Czezelewski ignores these facts. Again, a clear indication of his motivation:
petty political bickering.
To
recap some of Mr. Czenzelewski’s
outlandish allegations, here is what we believe:
• We know our role is to listen to our
constituents and make ourselves available to them in a variety of ways
including at public events, via social media, email, and open office hours. In
fact, the Democratic council members are the only ones to have held office
hours to hear from our constituents, this past year.
• Councilwoman Fortier does have an
opinion. She is also a lawyer by profession and deals in facts. As the minority
party, we are not included on the current talks with the Renaissance
discussions. Some of these concerns were addressed by the mayor in executive
session last week when the mayor realized we had not received certain
information and promised the Council it would be circulated shortly.
• The city did not hold meetings in the
“middle of the night” in 2005; nor do they do so now. That’s just a lie. But
here’s a fact, many city meetings are held to accommodate key members of the
Republican administration with disregard to the Democratic members’ schedules
or the public, which typically can’t make meetings that are held when most
people are still working.
• There was a large amount of public
input and open meetings in 2005 concerning the fate of the 17 acre parcel.
Ideas considered and discarded based on public reaction at that time included
using the site for a field house and new Boys and Girls Club, a school to
replace the O’Connell neighborhood school. Ironically, after 8 years with
little to no progress, 2 of those years in which Mr. Czezelewski served on the
City Council, there are many people who now look back on those proposals and
wish that those ideas had come to fruition.
Democracy
doesn’t stop at the ballot box. It requires constant conversation. Creating and
recreating the image of what we as a community want our city to be is a work in
progress. Bristol residents have contributed to the discussion on the future of
downtown for years. That conversation is not over nor is it right for us, as
city councilors now, to abdicate our responsibility. To do so would ignore what
the voters sent us as their elected Councilors, to do.
Submitted
By:
Calvin
Brown, District 1
Mary
Fortier, District 3
Ellen
Zoppo-Sassu, District 3
In addition, Fortier sent this along:
I want to
take this opportunity to clarify my recent comments about a possible referendum
on Depot Square. Steve Collins correctly
quoted me saying that I am not privy to anything and I don’t know whether there
should be a referendum. First, neither
the Charter of the City of Bristol nor its ordinances has any provision for a
referendum on a spending or bonding issue.
And certainly not on matters of economic development. Unlike many New
England towns and cities, we do not use the town meeting or referendum for the
yearly general budget or bonding issues, instead we have a Finance Board and
City Council. And, the Finance Board has
more members as a check to the City Council on financial matters. I didn’t create our system of government but
I am part of it and I work within that system.
The BDDC, Bristol Downtown
Development Corporation, was created as a special quasi-public entity to
oversee the development of the 17-acre parcel we call Depot Square. They have a “preferred developer agreement”,
or contract, with Renaissance Downtowns which sets out the steps for developing
the property. To date, the only thing the BDDC has asked the Council to do was grant
an extension for a revised financial plan to be submitted. That extension was
granted unanimously in May. I didn’t create the process but I respect the
process. The BDDC was added to give extra attention, consideration, and
expertise to this important issue.
I have attended
several BDDC meetings and public comment sessions since I was elected. I was
not at the last BDDC meeting where the “referendum idea got floated”. The notice of that meeting was not on the
city’s website and no email notification that it was happening was sent. As a
result I am not privy to the context with which the idea of a referendum was
raised. No explanation has been provided
as to what the basis or authority for a referendum question, much less what the
actual question would be. Yet it’s been said that a referendum would be
appropriate because the city was being asked for financial support to the
project.
Since the Council
granted the extension, the mayor and Republican controlled city council have
not kept us informed on further discussions. Outside counsel hired by the Mayor
and City Council have not been given formal opportunities to have conversations
with myself and my fellow Democrats. My
fellow Council member Calvin Brown sent an email on June 25 asking for an
update on those discussions and he still hasn’t received a reply to the email. I
still have lots of questions. There is
no finalized proposal so I don’t think a referendum now would even be
appropriate. And, why have a non-binding referendum? What is the point of that?
I support the overall
plan for Depot Square: multiple buildings with mixed use residential units,
retail offices, restaurants, and of course a piazza. I came into office being presented this plan
and want to do all I can to make it work.
I want a vibrant exciting downtown, but more importantly I want a strong
stable tax base. The more value built on Depot Square the more taxes the city will
collect leaving less tax increases for city residents. The value of Bristol, our community, as a
whole will increase.
I share a frustration that the April proposal by Renaissance
Downtowns contains a request for bonding or public money from the city. It
makes what is already a complicated project more complicated. It makes decisions by the BDDC and the
Council harder. But it is, according to the current process a question for the
BDDC and Council.
The city spends many millions of dollars each year and with that
try to plan and build for our future. We
have spent millions on new schools, we are planning a multimillion dollar new
firehouse, before the year is out we will probably authorize spending more than
a million on our first synthetic athletic field, and in the near future we will
be spending millions upgrading our police communications system. Hopes that development
of Depot Square would be funded by private dollars is dictated by the realities
we as city leaders face daily. That doesn’t exclude considering a portion be
funded with public dollars. Or that the
Mayor and City Council ignore their role as representatives of the public
interest.
My constituents ask me when something is going to happen in
Depot Square. When I ran for office I
told voters I hoped for something sooner rather than later. Many voters are not familiar with all
components of the process or even what has been proposed, but want to see
activity downtown again. My preferences for the priorities of the city whether
Depot Square or a new turf or a new firehouse or a new field are just my
opinions, they are all part of a bigger process.
July 15, 2014
A few big events coming up in Bristol
Here are some events coming up that might interest folks in Bristol and beyond:
Aug. 16 (Saturday) --
Sunday, July 27th 6:00 – 8:00 PM The Convertibles~~Federal Hill Green~~
Sunday, August 24th (start time to be confirmed) Cajun Ray and the Steamers~~~Federal Hill Green~~
Sunday, September 28th 5:00 – 7:00 PM Bristol Brass & Wind~~
Prospect United Methodist Church~~
July 13, 2014
GOP says: 'Let the public decide' on Depot Square
Let the public decide this time
Bristol, CT – July 13, 2014 – Although a formal proposal to do so has yet to be made, the idea of allowing the public to weigh in on the potential public financing of Depot Square by way of a non-binding referendum placed on this November’s electoral ballot has been floated. Public support of such a referendum can be heard around Bristol, from the barbershop to the post office, City Hall to the gas station, and everywhere in between.
However, not everyone is on-board with allowing the public to have a say. This past week Councilors Zoppo and Brown came out in opposition of such a measure. Councilor Brown equated asking for the public’s opinion to “throwing his hands up” and “not doing his job.” Representing the public’s desires for Bristol is your job, Councilor, and the best way to get the public’s opinion is through a referendum.
Councilor Fortier, meanwhile, did not offer a position on this issue, saying, “I don’t know. I’m not privy to anything.” Has Councilor Fortier not been a part of these meetings? Has she not met with the developer or others? Does she simply not have an opinion, or does she not want to make her opinion known? Perhaps she has just been spending too much of her time grandstanding on issues she has no authoritative power over, rather than focusing on matters she does.
The last time a major financial decision was made by the City on “Depot Square” back in 2005, it resulted in several million taxpayer dollars being spent on the mall. The decision was made in the middle of the night, with no public input. That administration decided they knew better than the public, and the result can still be seen today: a 17 acre parcel of emptiness in the center of our community, with millions in lost tax revenue and an I.O.U to the City’s “Rainy Day” fund.
Coincidentally, Councilor Zoppo - who opposes a public referendum on this issue - was a member of the City Council that made the initial decision to buy the mall with no public input in 2005. If the public is going to be asked to contribute additional money to this project, the Council needs to do the right thing and ask the public for its support. It is up to Renaissance Downtowns to sell this project to the public, as they have been working to do over the last few years.
At the end of the day, the City Council will have the final say – referendum or not – and will have the opportunity to lead. Why not at least get the public’s input before making that decision?
July 12, 2014
The last man standing? Calvin Brown, city councilor
Want to own a piece of ESPN history?
July 11, 2014
Check out these photos of Federal Hill in 1988
July 10, 2014
In 1902, you could get a legit $5 bill with Bristol on it
(Click to enlarge)
And signed by no less a personage than Charles Treadway, a mover and shaker of the time.
Copyright 2014 All rights reserved. Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
GOP stakes an awful lot on privatizing school cafeterias
July 8, 2014
City councilors divided on whether to back cafeteria workers
A sharply divided City Council declined Tuesday to take a stand in favor of the school cafeteria workers who may be replaced by a private food services firm.
The council’s three Democrats supported a move to call on the Board of Education to abandon any legal appeals and focus instead on working with the union representing the 53 cafeteria employees who are slated to lose their jobs in the privatization bid.
 |
| Calvin Brown |
But the four Republicans, including Mayor Ken Cockayne, opted to sidestep a direct vote and instead backed a motion to postpone indefinitely any action on city Councilor Calvin Brown’s resolution asking the Board of Education to cease fighting with the union.
Brown said the GOP council members “don’t want to take a stand” and chose instead to shirk a vote. He accused them of “acting out of cowardice” instead of standing by the cafeteria workers.
City Councilor Eric Carlson, a Republican, said he believed that requesting any action by the school panel would be “a little bit overstepping our bounds.”
“I don’t have a dog in this fight,” Carlson said.
Another councilor, Republican Henri Martin, made the motion to table Brown’s resolution. He said he did not think the council should interfere with a school board choice.
“Let them settle this. This is not our fight,” said Martin, who is seeking election to the 31st District state Senate seat representing Bristol, Plainville, Plymouth, Thomaston and most of Harwinton.
At its Wednesday meeting, the school board plans to discuss whether to appeal a decision last month by the state Board of Labor Relations that ordered it to honor the tentative agreement it negotiated with the union. The school board had decided to drop the deal and hire a private cafeteria operator instead, a decision made along partisan lines by its Republican majority.
City Councilor Ellen Zoppo-Sassu, a Democrat, said the $140,000 the school board has already spent on legal fees trying to push privatization would have been better used for classroom needs.
The other Democratic councilor, Mary Fortier, said the GOP majority’s refusal to take a clear vote was “a cowardly way of getting out” of making their positions clear.
But Cockayne, who said during last year’s mayoral race that he opposed the cafeteria privatization, said the mayor and council “have zero to do with Board of Ed contracts” and shouldn’t take a formal position.
“It’s not our say,” the mayor said, adding that councilors “would be pretty peeved” if the school board sought to tell them what to do.
Brown said the council has a duty to try to protect the 53 cafeteria workers whose “lives are being toyed with” by a school board that made an “unjust or illegal” decision to ignore the deal it negotiated with the union.
The school board meets at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the auditorium of the district headquarters at 129 Church St.
July 7, 2014
Muzzy bash offers a hit, but not a home run
The 100th
birthday celebration for Muzzy Field didn’t draw anywhere near the 20,000 or
more that organizers hoped for.
Friday’s
rain didn’t help, not only because dampened that day’s crowd but also because
it caused so many people to postpone gatherings to Saturday, with its glorious
weather.
The rain
also forced many nearby fireworks shows to wait until Saturday instead of
lighting up the sky on the 4th. That meant many people who might
have come to see the fireworks in Bristol went somewhere else instead.
Still, there’s
no denying that Saturday’s attendees fell well short of the plans. I tried to
get a count, but it wasn’t really possible. I eventually settled on “thousands”
of people partaking, but it was a lot closer to 1,000 than 20,000.
Why so few?
Well, making
people pay to see the concert kept a lot of folks away, even though they could
have easily listened from just outside Muzzy and even watched it from some
vantage points beyond the fences. I’m sure if more people knew Saturday that
the cheapest tickets were only $10 that day, more would have been sold. But it
was too late to reach many potential buyers of heavily discounted tickets by
then.
Having it
all happen on a holiday weekend must have hurt as well. I could see from my
Facebook feeds that lots of Bristol residents were at the shore, lying in the
sand in Rhode Island or fighting the traffic on the Bourne Bridge. That’s
reality any summer weekend, of course, but there are likely a lot more who are
gone over the three-day weekend.
I heard a
lot of people say that it would have been better if the city just did
everything itself instead of teaming up with Reach Foundation, a
Farmington-based charity that almost certainly lost a fair amount of money on
the whole thing. I’m not convinced, though, because there was a limit to what a
tiny park department can do no matter how many step up to lend a hand.
Whatever the
problems, though, those who came mostly had a good time. The concerts rocked.
The Bristol Brass and Wind Ensemble was in top form. The fireworks were great.
I heard a
lot about the new Bristol logo as well. People seemed to like the red heart-shaped
B baseball caps – despite seeing a connection with the Red Sox in them that isn’t
really there. They look pretty sharp, by all accounts.
All in all,
the festival proved a success. It didn’t draw enough people to be a rousing
one. But for those who came, for the most part anyway, Muzzy Field provided a
good time and some good memories.
Is it coffee? Nope, just the city's water
A large
section of the city saw brownish water flowing from its taps Monday after a
major break in the line near Down and South streets.
“It’s the
color of coffee,” said resident Sue Gorski.
The water
department said the break, slated for repair by late Monday, left about 25
homes without water and many others seeing discolored water.
The normal clarity
of the water, all of which is safe, was disrupted by the high volume of the
leak, which stirred up sediment in the pipes all the way west to the Terryville
line.
Water
Superintendent Rob Longo said the water was safe despite the coloration.
“We know it
is not appealing, but it should clear for customers soon,” he said late Monday
afternoon. Its safety “was never jeopardized,” he said.
Crews were
working on the break Monday afternoon and hoped to fix it sometime in the
evening.
The
department said that anyone experiencing discoloration after the repairs are
done should “run the cold water from an outside faucet or your bathtub until it
runs clear.”
Longo said
water crews “will flush some hydrants in the area” after the break is repaired.
But, he
said, “because the break caused such a large flow across the city, it may take
some time for it to clear up everywhere.”
Rust and
mineral deposits can accumulate in water mains, the department said, but normally
lay dormant.
One
suggestion the department offers for anyone whose clothing was in the laundry
when sediments are stirred up might be able to remove any discoloration by
adding a quarter of a cup of cream of tartar with regular laundry detergent.
July 5, 2014
Discount tickets available for Muzzy concert
Looking for something to do today?
Consider
taking advantage of a last-minute discount to attend this evening’s concert at
Muzzy Field featuring Journey’s former lead singer Steve Augeri and Russell
Thompkins, Jr and the New Stylistics.
Randy
Alexander, a Reach Foundation executive, said this morning that ticket prices
at the gate have been slashed sharply thanks to the generosity of Channel 8, a
sponsor of the 100th birthday celebration for the ballpark.
The cheapest
tickets have been reduced from $26 to $10 apiece.
Alexander
said that reserved seats in the outfield are $30 at the gate while lawn tickets
are $20 each and bleacher tickets are $10 apiece.
“It’s going
to be a beautiful night,” Alexander said.
He said the
bands are excellent and play their original hits. “These are not cover bands,”
he said.
The
Stylistics had 17 #1 hits on the rhythm and blues charts, he said, and Journey
has a reams of pop standards.
City officials
said everything is going well today after yesterday’s rains. There are booths
setting up this morning for everything from the city Republicans to animal
shelter advocates. There’s lot of food as well.
A carnival
is set up in the parking lot beyond the left field fence.
Tickets are
available beginning at 10 a.m. in the tent near the Spanish-American war
soldier at the entrance to Muzzy Field.
The concert
begins at 5:30 p.m.
Free
fireworks will follow the concert.
There are
events all day at the historic ballpark, too, from disc golf to an umpire’s
clinic. Opening ceremonies are slated for noon.
The discounts at the box office cannot be combined with any other discount offers.
July 4, 2014
Republican registrar asked for website fix, but Rydingsward refused
 |
| The registrars website before it was changed late Thursday. |
Mary,
I respectively ask you again to either remove your name from the website or list every candidate running on the republican and democratic ballot.
Our office website should not be used to promote one candidate or party.
Please reply that you have done this within the hour.
Sharon
Dear Sharon,
Please provide a list of the Republicans running in the format you desire and I will be happy to post.
~ Mary
Mary,Reply from Rydingsward to Krawiecki at 1:02 p.m.:
Since we have never posted candidate names in the past we should not start.
You stated that you thought because it was a document filed with the Town Clerk it belongs on the site. I remind you all candidate nominations are filed
Have you removed your name?
Sharon
Sharon,We should have a respectful conversation about this. It is unfortunate that you brought it up as you were leaving this morning and did not have a respectful conversation with me.Let me correct your understanding of what I said. I did not say "because it was a document filed with the town clerk it belongs on the website." I simply explained to you - not knowing if you actually opened the link - that what is posted is a public document filed with the town clerk.Paul requested this posting to inform the public, especially in light of the fact that folks were inquiring. Please contact him about it.~ Thank you,Mary
UPDATE AT 9:45 a.m. --
Krawiecki just told me the website was taken down at Mayor Ken Cockayne's direction late Thursday. He had received a copy of Matthews' email.
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