Update on State Board of Ed nominee

I see that Linda McMahon was appointed to the state Board of Ed after successful votes in the House and Senate. (See post below).

After emailing all our House delegation, I had heard back from Buddy Altobello, who noted the Senate had approved her, and Cathy Abercrombie, who was waiting to hear the debate on the floor. I did not hear from Chris Donovan.

Checking the vote tally, all three voted in favor of the appointment. I'm still wondering what Ms McMahon's qualifications were, beyond being a contributor to Governor Rell's campaigns, and that she's a trustee of Sacred Heart University.

Gubernatorial Chats

Former General Assembly Speaker James Amann came to the Meriden Democratic Town Committee this past week to discuss his candidacy for Governor. He is the only declared candidate so far, but Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz and Stamford Mayor Dann Malloy are only a press conference away from joining officially. Unofficially they've been off and running.

The meeting was attended by a reasonably good crowd of town committee members, elected officials from the City Council and BOE (the state delegation is busy in session), several Teamsters there to support Jim, and a few other interested parties.

Jim gave a brief history of his knowledge of Meriden (no better or worse than other politicians outside our city) and a nod to the fact that we're the home of a past Majority Leader (Tom Luby) and his current successor as Speaker, Chris Donovan. After giving his pitch on becoming governor, he took questions. I say took, because instead of directly answering most of them, he recounted the history of why some of the issues were so important: jobs, educational funding, avoiding the divisiveness of primaries, release of approved bonding monies. All were important to the attendees, and while Jim clearly had a command of the facts, he shared little of what he would do if elected governor. It may be because it's too early in the game to get pinned down, but it will be interesting to see how his competitors will answer those questions when they come to town. Susan Bysiewicz is up to bat next month.

State Board of Ed Nominee

I was surprised to see that the State Senate almost unanimously voted for Linda McMahon of World Wrestling Entertainment for a position on the State Board of Education.

Linda McMahon Story

I only know of the woman from what I've read, and while her entertainment acumen seems strong, just having an interest in education doesn't seem enough credentials for this important board. Kudos to State Senator Joan Hartley of Waterbury for her lone vote against.

It now goes to the House, and I've written our Meriden delegation on my opinion that they vote to oppose. Or let me know why they think she'd be a good add. We'll see what happens.

Fielding

I think the Meriden City Council was prudent in holding off any decision to move the Jack Barry Little League from its current site on Brittania St. The City has invested both its own and state money to improve this complex over the years, and its a great venue for those kids in that part of the City. We should look to solving the flooding problem, and I'm pretty sure that area is part of the flood control implementation study being led by Phil Ashton these many years. Even if you move the league, the flooding needs to be resolved, so let's do it. As to the 90 foot major field, I hear the American Legion is selling its field. The City should buy it and maintain it as a field that can be used and shared by Jack Barry, Ed Walsh and So Meriden Leagues. (If you're interested in helping out the Jack Barry Little League, check out this interesting and creative method found in MyRecordJournal.com):

bigbassdrum

02-12-2009 03:21 PM

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You can Help Jack Barry Little League

Jack

Barry Little League has been nominated for the Frosted Flakes Plant a Seed program. If Jack Barry were to be one of the 30 winning fields in the country, they will come in and rebuild the playing fields at no costs... Imagine that! But it is based on votes on the website so we need people to vote, many times each - kind of like Florida politics! Here is the link: http://tinyurl.com/helpjbll
Please forward onto everyone in your network and take the time to vote for Jack Barry...takes 1 minute.

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I don't agree with moving the Raiders to Ceppa, either, and I'm glad that organization agrees. One of the main reasons we redeveloped Falcon Field was to remove the stress that regular football placed on Ceppa. Keep them in Washington Park as they wish, let them continue to earn money to support themselves at the concession stand, and leave the rest of the park unfenced.

Time to dust off....

Wow, it's been almost two years since I posted here! It goes to the belief that blogs are not easy to keep up with, even though everyone seems to have one. While on the City Council, I thought it would be a good way to keep information flowing, but learned how hard it was to write here with council activities, regular (read: paying!) work and family commitments eating up the day's time. No guarantee that won't occur again. But I don't have the City Council's workload anymore.

So here's another attempt to reach out into the blogosphere, where there are as many entries as there are stars, it seems, some with great followings, some just a place to jot musings with nary an echo. Also, with the advent of the Record Journal's blogs and forums, there is a central place to check what's going on in the city and observe, opine or just plain vent. But there's room for other places to visit, and I hope this can be one.

There's a lot to talk about in Meriden: the looming budget, the Plan of Conservation and Development (full disclosure, I was on the committee that created the update); zoning issues, economic development (or non-development, depending on your point of view), educational issues, the fall municipal elections, our state delegation's notoriety of late...plenty to jaw about.

Let's see if I get any echoes on anything.