Mug Shot – Is he saying High?
Hank Pawlowski
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
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.
What's a father to do?
I will be taking a break from late night political events in the near term as I take care of my son and expecting wife while she is on bed rest. I can’t help but be worried however. I’m not worried about my unborn son or wife, they’ll be fine. Modern medicine is amazing.
I’m worried about what I, as a father of two, am going to do in just a few short years when it comes time for my children to start their educational careers. How can I in good conscience send my children off to school in a town that exhibits one of the worst examples of efficiency in cost and achievement. How can I delude myself into thinking my children will get a good education in East Hartford schools?
There is an obvious escape, which would be simply moving away from East Hartford to a town which has better schools. I like most of East Hartford’s residents don’t have that option however. I, like most residents, have the economic realities of living in CT (one of the highest cost of living states) weighing down upon my shoulders each day.
I don’t think I should have to move to another town for the sake of education. I think it’s about time East Hartford changes from the undesirable smudge next to Hartford into a shining beacon a revitalization. It’s time that East Hartford throws off it’s burden of failing schools and and the associated crime and economic stagnation they bring.
Monday I presented my thoughts on a solution to the East Hartford Republican Town Committee. Soon I hope to present my thoughts to all of you.
I hope that all the residents of East Hartford will stand with me when the time comes to dismantle this system that has been failing us for generations.
More to come…
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]
