Say WHAT!? BOE member busted with 8 bags o' pot.
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I popped up Google news and saw that one of our BOE members, Hank Pawlowski (D), was busted while driving drunk after hitting two cars, fighting with the police and getting one of our champion K-9s to take a bite out of him. Worst of all, according to the report, the police found 8 bags of pot on him.
I can only speculate but everyone I ever knew who carried pot like that was a dealer. Was our BOE member slinging drugs or just stocking up after cashing a generous state paycheck?
Either way this guy better step down immediately. More from the JI:
Pawlowski was charged with attempted assault on a police officer, possession of a controlled substance, evading responsibility, operating a motor vehicle while under the influence, breach of peace, criminal mischief, tampering with evidence, and failing to submit to fingerprinting, among other charges.
I wonder about a charge of possession with intent to sell.
From the Courant article:
A board of education member is in custody on $100,000 bail after being arrested and charged with driving drunk, striking two vehicles and trying to flee, police said.
Henry J. Pawlowski Jr., 41, of 48 Oxford Drive, suffered head injuries during the incident and remained in Hartford Hospital today under police guard.
…
At about 10 p.m. Tuesday, an officer saw Pawlowski strike a vehicle with his car in the area of 357 Main St., then drive away and strike another vehicle.When officers confronted him, Pawlowski resisted arrest and had to be forcibly removed from the car and arrested, police said. Officers also had to use a Taser and pepper spray to control Pawlowski, and he was bit by a police dog, police said.
At police headquarters, police said they found eight packages of marijuana on Pawlowski.
Property values impacted by proposed budgets
It’s budget season again and we find ourselves in a situation considerably more dire than last cycle. Property values have throttled into full reverse and non-energy cost of living items are sky rocketing. Hyperinflation looms as the single greatest threat to the nation thanks to the knee jerk reactions of congress, the president and the clowns placed in charge of our supposedly free market economy, Paulson and Bernanke. It’s all too likely that soon the millions who have rescued what little is left of their retirements from the markets will lose the remainder’s value in an inflationary tsunami caused by an unprecedented dilution of the dollar.
Many in town are officially upside down in their properties with the general value of lower to middle end East Hartford properties dropping by about 16% in 2008 according to market information sources including Zillow and the CT Statewide MLS.
It appears that the affordability of East Hartford homes has now been entirely offset by ever increasing taxes. It should be noted that for every $72 a year that property taxes increase on a home the market value will fall $1,000. In 2008 the average homeowner saw an increase of $218 from the 08-09 budget according to the Mayor’s estimate plus new bonding costs which won’t be known until the bonds are shopped. That means the average household as defined by the Mayor’s office was handed a $3,000 decrease in property value upon budget approval on top of the uncontrollable market decline caused by the mortgage mess.
Some positives we have going for us this time around include the freeze and 5% reduction in budgets that the Mayor called for, but it’s unclear whether any such reductions will materialize. What we do know for sure at this point is that the BOE has no intention of reducing their budget by 5%. In fact they haven’t even frozen it at it’s previous level.
The BOE so far is handing down a budget with over 3 million in increases and it’s generally believed that the town could see another $5 million or more in lost state aid as a result of the state’s budget deficit. The combined $8 million dollar increase in taxpayer liability would represent a new mill rate of 34.29 based on the 08/09 grand list, an increase of 2.6 mills or about $380/year for the average household. It also represents a further decline of $5,200 in the average property value. That’s a two year total of $8,200 less that the average family would receive upon selling their home which is entirely the fault of runaway government and the citizens who won’t hold it accountable.
A State Rep. and State Senator walked into office thumbing their noses at the taxpayers by abusing public campaign funds and nobody cared. The East Hartford Taxpayers Association met and 20 citizens showed up. The Gazette reported that nobody cared. When I consider that I’ve seen the chambers fuller to protest a gas station on Silver Lane than I ever have for a tax issue I can’t help but say that I agree. It appears nobody cares.
We are given a short window of opportunity each year to express our views on taxes and the budget and it should not be squandered. If there is anyone who does care that your property values and quality of life are being eviscerated by taxation now is the time to speak up. Write a letter, tell a friend, tell your officials what you want. These tax increases are not an inconvenience of life to be accepted. They are the bearers of foreclosure, broken homes and economic stagnation and must be rejected soundly.
Board of Education 09/10 Proposed Budget
While we make something happen others are busy wasting.
Thanks.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to yesterday’s successful fundraiser. With your help we will make something happen in East Hartford and Connecticut as a whole.
We have a long road ahead of us before we, caring citizens and taxpayers of all affiliations, will be able to reverse the damage of years of reactionary policy making.
Preemptive waste
In East Hartford we have 3 candidates running unopposed. Henry Genga (D) in the 10th House, Tim Larson (D) in the 11th House and Gary LeBeau (D) in the 3rd Senatorial district.
Being unopposed you would think that these candidates would opt not to run a campaign, or at least not with our tax dollars. What I’ve found is that 2 of these candidates decided it would be a prudent and responsible choice for them to use our hard earned and easily stolen tax dollars to campaign against nobody. Where is the conscience in these candidates? Where is the sense of fiscal responsibility? The desire to help the electors in the district? I can’t think of a more clear example of the spend it because you can mindset that is destroying this town, this state and this nation.
Shame on Henry Genga
Shame on Gary LeBeau
These two representatives were there when the law was written to allow unopposed candidates to fleece the taxpayers by receiving campaign grants and it’s now clear why they didn’t change it.
I find it insulting that both these candidates are triple dipping into our pockets without remorse. First they created taxpayer funded careers for themselves in the East Hartford School District, then they decided they needed taxpayer funded representative salaries and now they are grabbing at taxpayer dollars to further their own personal political aspirations. There is truly no better definition of an ‘establishment candidate’ at the state and local level than these two.
We know based on the vast evidence of recent history that these two excel at creating and utilizing government waste, but how are they at doing what they were elected to do, responsibly represent their constituents? It’s time for you, Mr. Genga and Mr. LeBeau, to step up and return the money you took from the Citizen’s Election Program today. Our wallets are not your personal bank accounts.
Did you see?
Jason Rojas received the endorsement of Margaret Hacket, the chair of the Manchester BOE, in the JI. Her reasoning?
Rojas understands that we need more funding for education
Wow. I wonder how Manchester taxpayers feel about that assertion. East Hartford spends about 4-5 times as much per student than the average area private school tuition. Manchester spends about the same with an average expenditure of $13,400 per student in the 07/08 budget. Will more money or yet another backer of big education finally fix the system?
Let’s take a look at the current representatives who have had their hands in the East Hartford School District.
John Larson – Current U.S. Congressman
Gary LeBeau – Current State Senator
Henry Genga – Current State House Representative
Michael Christ – Current State House Representative
Consider, we have a congressman, a state senator and two state house reps who represent the education industrial complex and East Hartford’s education system is still broken. East Hartford’s education costs are increasing at a record pace and performance is stagnant at best. Why haven’t these politicians performed on their election promises and fixed the educational system? How many times have these officials campaigned on education?
Jason Rojas’ major campaign issue, according to his candidate bio in the latest iTowns section, is reforming the property tax system. Intrigued, I read on. Sadly it appears his motivation to reform property taxes is to ensure that the educational complex is free to grow unconstrained by the ability of local taxpayers to shoulder the bill. East Hartford’s educational costs are a crushing burden on this town which are driving business and residents away. Jason’s answer? Push the burden of East Hartford’s broken system onto all the state residents through the income tax. While we spread the impact of our broken system we in turn would have to shoulder the cost of other far more expensive broken systems such as Hartford, New Haven, Waterbury and others. I suspect that in the long run everyone but those supporting the largest and worst run systems would be better off leaving education financing local.
East Hartford has been electing champions of the educational status quo, which Rojas unarguably is, for decades to all levels of government with naught but negative results election after election. Maybe it’s time for a new direction. Or as Obama might say, “Change we can believe in”.
Taxes… worse than strip clubs?
Unfortunately, despite the fact that I was in New Haven on business anyway, I was unable to attend the Masters Club v. East Hartford case in court today. The New Haven Federal District Court requires you to check your cell phones at the door and I could not be separated from my phones during business hours. I’ve not heard any updates yet from either side either.
What I did instead was go to the Raymond Library to conduct some budgetary research for a tax reform proposal I’m working on. What I found was two fold. First, the reference section has a woefully inadequate resource of town budget documents. Quite frankly, there is no where near the information required for an average resident to form a working knowledge of the budget history of East Hartford. I won’t judge too harshly however because the regular reference librarian is on vacation. There may be more information squirreled away which the other librarians don’t know about.
What I did find was interesting. The most interesting part being that student enrollment in the East Hartford School District totalled 7,438 in 1998 and increased to 7,918 in 2007 which represents a 6.4% increase in enrollment. During the same period the employment rolls of the East Hartford School District increased from 934 in 1998 to 1222 in 2007, or 30.8%. Is it any wonder why our school budget is spiralling out of control?
How much does the average employee make? According to the 08/09 BOE proposed budget the answer is $53,315 before benefits. The budgetary impact of these 288 additional employees is huge. Based on the 08/09 adopted budget’s mill rate calculation these employees represent 4.98 mills of the current 31.67 mills. In plain dollars and cents that’s $721.62 that the average taxpayer has no choice but to pay.
What was it that Bill Horan and Barbara Rossi said at budget time earlier this year? They said that taxes don’t cause foreclosures. Well, I’ll counter that by saying when this kind of unchecked excess represents $60/month extra on the “average” persons mortgage and tax increases of 5% or greater come year after year the result is the inability of the homeowner to pay the mortgage and the taxes. The average East Hartford taxpayer today has a burden before state and federal taxes of $382/month.
It can be assumed based on previous unbridled budgetary growth that when budget season ‘09 concludes the monthly tax burden will be over $400 while the median household income in East Hartford remains stagnant or falls and the grand list shrinks.
Stay tuned, major changes for the East Hartford tax system are coming. With any luck these changes will force the BoE to realize it’s strangling this town and they’ll fix these problems voluntarily. If not, we’ll drag them kicking and screaming to an education system that this town can afford.
UPDATE: I did manage to find the exhibits and witness lists filed by the town and Masters Club. When you put them together you get a pretty good idea of what is being argued in court.
East Hartford (Defendant) Exhibit List
East Hartford (Defendant) Witness List
Masters Club (Plaintiff) Exhibit List
Masters Club (Plaintiff) Witness List
My $5 says the Masters Club case is two pronged.
The first prong is an attempt to demonstrate through testimony of Council & P&Z members as well as town officials that certain persons, whether in executive session or out, have indicated that the goal is to prevent clubs from coming to town. *cough* Currey *cough* Any such statement by a town official would likely lose the case right there since it is illegal for the town to regulate speech for reasons other than secondary effects.
The second prong will be ripping apart the claims of regulating for secondary effects. As you’ll see on the witness list a variety of people not named on the case have been subpoenaed to testify in addition to P&Z members. I don’t honestly believe the claim of regulating for secondary effects can be defended here, but good luck to Mr. Gerard.
On the defense side it appears their strategy is to disqualify as much of the plaintiff’s exhibit material as possible followed by an attempt to get Mr. Chu and or his real estate agent to blow the case and finally a vigorous defense of the actions of the P&Z and town hall officials to date as regulating for secondary effects.
I’m anxious to see the resolution of this preliminary injunction hearing and find out if everyone told the truth up on the stand based on what has been told to me over the months. If you are interested here is the relief that Masters Club is seeking.
Courant reports BoE's failures, or are they the administration's failures?
The Courant is reporting today that according to Superintendent Dr. Marion Martinez a divided and argumentative Board of Education is creating a hostile environment which may be driving teachers and administrators from the district.
With one elementary school principal leaving at the end of the school year and two others looking for jobs, Superintendent of Schools Marion Martinez says she fears a flight of administrators is looming.
And the notoriously dysfunctional board of education could be to blame, she said.
During a recent meeting with the board, Martinez announced the resignation of Anna E. Norris Elementary School Principal Elaina Brachman and the possible departures of two other principals, Scott Nozik and Michael Litke. Martinez said the school board, known for its heated arguments and personal attacks, has intimidated administrators to the point where some are looking for jobs elsewhere.
Board of Education Chairwoman Mary Alice Dwyer Hughes doesn’t agree.
“I would love any principal to tell me that, since November, they have been afraid to come to the board,” Hughes said. “The board is different now. I wouldn’t allow anybody to be rude to any of the principals.”
Interestingly an anonymous person claiming to be a teacher at East Hartford Middle School has commented placing the blame on Dr. Martinez and not the Board of Education.
It is not the Board of Ed that is the problem. The administrators and the teachers have no respect for the Superintendent. As a teacher at East Hartford Middle School, I can tell you that the East Hartford schools, especially the Middle School are a disaster. Do not be suprised if a lot more administrators and teachers leave the district.
And
Once again, it is not the board of ed in EH that is the problem. It is the starting with Dr. Martinez. List of reasons why.
1. They hired a pedophile principal last year.
2. They implement reading and behavior programs which are not consistent costing the district money in failed programs.
3. She placed two Asst. Principals at EHMS as a result of demotions. One was a demotion over a disagreement.
4. The principal of EH Middle School was hired despite every person in the interviewing committee not recommending him. By the way, the school is a disaster.
5. The new head custodian wouldn’t let the school softball team practice on the school softball field unless they rented it out. The coach ended up having to get a waiver from the administration. Superintendent’s response was to leave the custodian alone because the building has never been cleaner.
6. There has been between 10-15 knife incidents at the school this year. They do a good job at hiding it from the public. Oh yeah, one kid brought a BB gun to a recent dance portraying it as a real gun.
7. In a recent school picnic the student body had hot dogs and hamburgers. Students who lost the picnic because of detentions were sent into a room and given peanut butter on hotdog buns. Way to step on 13 yr olds when they are down.
8. The superintendent has had two recent meetings with teachers about their concerns, yet nothing gets done.
9. East Hartford HS had a bomb threat during a statewide ceremony which included local and state officials.
10. The recent losses of our attendance officers, head of security, principals, and shortage area teachers has not been because of the board. It is because of a mean, vindictive, unprofessional,and teflon administration that blames principals, teachers, and now the Board of Ed for its failures.
And
Ever since the new superintendent came in to replace Dr. Fallon, the school system has gone downhill. In a school system like East Hartford, attracting and retaining valuable administration and valuable teachers should be the main goal. Ever since Dr. Martinez came in, she has done neither. Veteran teachers are deciding to retire earlier instead of putting up with her garbage. For new teachers, there seems to be a revolving door as most of them come and go. The school system isn’t what it used to be and any teacher who has been around for both superintendents will attest to that. It seems like more focus has been put on students failing and struggling, which is fine, but not when it takes away from the rest of the student body who has great potential. Changes need to be made, but it does not look like that will happen anytime soon. My suggestion is to now attend private schools or hope your child gets lucky in selection for the new magnet schools, which seem to be the only bright spots in East Hartford Public Schools.
I absolutely agree. As a resident of East Hartford, someone who has worked within the school system, and had children in the school system, I can tell you that Dr. Fallon did not have the same problems that Dr. Martinez has. Although, Dr. Fallon faced problems, the district and the board of education was not in a state of chaos.
While I don’t know the real story here I’m sure some of you have an insight. Feel free to share, meanwhile I guess I’ll have to pay more attention.
Just how much does it cost to educate our students?
I was running some numbers for a personal project and figured I may as well share them.
I calculated the cost for just the schools and their programs (w/o Admin) and then I calculated the cost for the schools and programs plus all the other costs such as the district wide administration and maintenance costs. These amounts are per student.
Pre-K Cost w/o Admin $1,519.08
Pre-K Cost w/ Admin $5,754.66
Elementary Average Cost w/o Admin $5,858.52
Elementary Average Cost w/ Admin $10,272.12
Middle School w/o Admin $7,214.17
Middle School w/ Admin $11,206.47
High School w/o Admin $8,412.58
High School w/ Admin $18,102.96
Special Education w/o Admin $10,166.83
Special Education w/ Admin $ 14,402.41
District Wide Enrollment Estimate : 7,645 Students
Estimated Average Cost/Student: $10,945.92
These numbers of course are rough and based on student population estimates and the 08-09 budget proposal.
BOE Meeting Feb. 4th
Finally I have a clear headed moment to post this.
The BOE meeting was painfully long. I managed to capture just over 3 1/2 hours of video before my battery died and that didn’t even get past the presentation agenda items. I must say the lecture hall looked really nice, especially compared to the council chambers. It had remote controlled cameras, a working sound system, drop down overhead projector and tiered seating spacious enough that I could setup my tripod behind one. I can’t help but wonder if the students actually perform better in their daily learning because of it, or if it’s just something to show off.
While at first I was struck by the amount of people who had showed up for the meeting (especially so well dressed) it turned out that almost all of them were only there because they had a presentation to give.
There was one particularly disturbing portion of the night I’ll pass on to you. A person who shall remain nameless was answering some questions for me on how the CIBA works before my camera was setup. I asked how many EH students get to attend and the reply if memory serves me was 15. Now this person went on further to say that when possible they prefer students from other towns over EH because they receive more money for bringing those kids in.
Why oh why is budget more important than quality of EH education? I can see a response like that from a private school who has a mandate to operate profitably in most cases. The task of the EH school system is to best educate students of EH, surrounding towns be damned.
There was one comment in the introduction of the Cambridge report by the chair “… do whatever it takes to make sure that every child in East Hartford regardless of their race gets the best education that they possibly can.” I will be calling the chair on this in the future I suspect because there is only one way to do that and so far no school system in CT is doing it.
It seems the hot topic of the night was the report on results of an independent audit of the East Hartford schools by Cambridge Education Associates. Basically, the summary was that everything is wrong, but the personnel have had a positive attitude towards fixing it. I believe the chair said the summary and full report would be available online but I can’t seem to find it as of yet so I scanned in what I have, which is the summary and not the full report. The reports are now available online: FULL REPORT – SUMMARY
I doubt many are going to watch the FULL 3 1/2 hours of the video below, so here are some times to skip to if you want to see a particular portion. Please note that the video will take a long time to load so if you are not looking for the whole thing you may want to hit play then pause and let it download for a while. I would have split it up but as the advanced sound editing hides well, I have been sick as a dog (which caused me to miss the council meeting, sadly) and was lucky to get this much done.
00:06:55 – Student Reports
00:12:40 – Cambridge Report on EH School District
01:37:35 – Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology Report
02:21:00 – Connecticut State Space Grant Consortium Report
02:35:50 – Status Report on Reading District Wide
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3378766819438295513]
