Monthly archives: December 2008

 

 

Items

  • By: Cindy

I don’t know if any of you happened to see Tuesday’s edition of the Waterbury Republican-American, but if you haven’t, that paper is reporting that Sheldon Dill,  Cheshire Chamber of Commerce director,  and former Republican Town Council member, will be returning to the Council this time as a Democrat.

Dill will be replacing Democratic First District Councilwoman Elizabeth Esty, who narrowly defeated Republican Incumbant Al Adinolfi for the State 103rd District seat in Hartford.

If you all remember, Dill was a council member from 1999-2005 when he resigned to take up his new position as Cheshire Chamber of Commerce director.

Apparently Dill, is now registered as unaffiliated, but according to the Republican-American, he is expected to change his party affiliation to Democratic.  The paper goes on to say that Dill is expected to be the only nominee when the Dems meet (I heard it was tonight, Tuesday).

The paper goes on to state that there is concern the Town Council meetings are going on late into the night and the council is, the majority of times, voting along party lines.

I don’t know how much more I can say about this issue. The paper quotes a Democratic spokesperson as stating that  “Dill is known to rise above party politics and to do what is best for Cheshire.”

HELLO!! ISN’T THAT WHAT ALL THE TOWN COUNCIL MEMBERS ARE SUPPOSED TO DO?? STOP THE GAME PLAYING!!

No one else could break an impasse? What a bunch of NIMBYS!!

“Oh, I don’t want to be SEEN or HEARD siding with the OTHER PARTY!!

WHY NOT??

Let’s be honest–who is doing most of the questioning now?  THE REPUBLICANS.

YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THIS IS WHAT IT IS GOING TO TAKE TO GET THIS TOWN COUNCIL TO LOOK BEYOND DEM AND GOP AND GET TO THE BUSINESS OF THIS TOWN. I AM GLAD SOME PEOPLE FINALLY WOKE UP!!

As I have said time and time again–the taxpayers of this town are the Town Council’s priority. The welfare of this town is the number one important issue. Stop the clock watching and the “I don’t think this is the right time for that question” and address issues no matter how long it takes.

Good luck Sheldon. You have your work cut out for you.

If you want to set a deadline on when things “HAVE TO GET DONE” then become a newspaper reporter!!

Get off the Town Council or get the ants out of your pants for God’s Sake. THIS IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY-YOUR JOB!!

If you can’t give it the time-then resign!!

IN OTHER NEWS:

A few posts ago, I did mention that my spouse was told by a Town employee that there were several, (meaning more than two) grievances still unresolved. Well, I did contact the Town Managers office by e-mail on Monday and got a timely response by Mr. Lou Zullo on Tuesday.

Now I know specifics but I cannot get into anything because this person did not speak directly to me. If he or she had, I would have asked if I could put the info on the blog. My spouse also did not tell me who the person was to protect his/her identity.

I did re-run the actual link to the grievances I ran this past April. If you want to re-read them, the grievances are under my post “IRS FORM 990.”

Now, there is only so much I can do or ask for as a private citizen. And as most of you know, a lot of this falls under “Personnel” issues which fall under “executive session.” (Where is my old tape recorder)?

So, I am going to print the response I received from Mr. Zullo. Maybe one of our Town Council members can expand on this further.

There has only been one PW grievance filed since the spring and that has been resolved.

The unresolved issues to which you may be referring are those prior grievances that eventually proceeded to mediation and/or arbitration. One is scheduled for mediation later this month. One was heard by an arbitrator last month and a decision is pending. Two are scheduled for arbitration early in 2009, one in January and one in February.

I hope that this clarifies the matter.

Now I did run across an article in the Record-Journal regarding an arrest made by the Cheshire Police Department of a local resident who ALLEGEDLY stole a compactor, i.e. the one you would use to tamp down asphalt.

FYI–I use my car–it works GREAT!!

I notice the CPD is getting more open about publicizing arrests. That is good. BUT, (you know with me there is always a BUT or HOWEVER), we have to publicize as many criminal incidents as possible. That includes location and name of business if possible. Nobody is moving out or closing shop because a name of a business is disclosed. It is important to alert people. As I have stated in the past, someone MAY have seen something.

And even if a crime is not resolved, many of them are not-we should all know as much about it as possible.

Believe me, Cheshire has a GOOD DETECTIVE BUREAU. Not every crime can be solved, but I know they give 100 percent.

Click here for arrest of local man

And speaking of Police–I guess many members of the Southington Police Department are not too happy about this issue.

Click here to find out what the issue is

 

Minutes of Meetings

  • By: Cindy

Ever since the state made cities and towns publish the minutes to their meetings in a timely fashion, I thought I would publish links to some of the Boards and Commissions whose minutes are actually on the Cheshirect.org  website.

The town is doing a good job overall with this, however, some of the “minutes” are actually agendas. I know this is time consuming, but it is good to be able to read what is going on in town. All of these commissions and boards are important to Cheshire. They are each a cog in the wheel.

What would be even better than reading these minutes, would be if some of you stopped couch potatoing (I know THAT is not a word)–wait a minute–I think I invented a new WORD!!

Well anyway, if some of you got up off of your A** and actually WENT TO THESE MEETINGS it would be an earth shattering event.

So, without further adieu, here are the links to a few Board and Commission meetings in Cheshire.

Public Safety Commission

I have attended this Commission a few times with public safety concerns. The latest being the blind intersection on Lancaster Way and Jarvis Street.

West Main Streetscape Building Committee

I thought the minutes were interesting. The Committee talks about nixing the idea for a pedestrian crosswalk on West Main Street.

Norton Boiler Subcommitee Meeting

Speaks for itself

Cheshire Inland-Wetlands Commission

They talk about W/S Development and some “illegal” activity in or around wetland areas.

A few of you have asked me to comment about the possibility of Sheldon Dill, former Town Council member and now head of the Cheshire Chamber of Commerce, taking his old seat on the Cheshire Town Council to replace Elizabeth Esty, who is the new 103rd District Representative.

Sheldon Dill is a nice man. VERY CLASSY-INTELLIGENT-WELL SPOKEN AND A GOOD WRITER.  Gee-these are the same attributes people use to describe me, except for one–I am not a man!!

A friend who reads TWL, alerted me to some of the comments the armchair quarterbacks are making about Sheldon.

First of all: Sheldon Dill is his own person.

He is NOT in anyone’s back pocket. The only thing that will fit in a back pocket is YOUR BRAIN!!

I was going to say something else, but this is PG!!

Secondly, umm like the purpose of being the head of the Chamber of COMMERCE is to PROMOTE BUSINESS AND DEVELOPMENT!!! So what do you think Mr. Dill is going to say about W/S?

Sheldon does a good job as Chamber of Commerce  Director. The website looks nice. It is upbeat. Give the guy a break!! If Sheldon does get on the Town Council-he will vote his conscience and vote for what is good for the town.

Will being on the Chamber and on the Town Council be a conflict.

With some people, who are too challenged to know how  to multitask, the answer is yes!!

For Sheldon, the answer is NO!!

Let’s see how bad all of this proposed development looks in let’s say a year from now when our tax rate goes sky high because Cheshire, RELIES HEAVILY on the state of Connecticut for funding to keep this boat afloat.

Every time I cross over the Cheshire line into Southington on Knotter Drive to go to Home Depot or the Movie Theater or that new hotel, I think about how STUPID Cheshire was in not allowing those businesses to be on the OTHER SIDE OF THE TOWN LINE.

Remember John Milton’s Paradise Lost? I am going to write a sequel entitled: CHESHIRE-REVENUE LOST!!

Even this Lifestyle Center–15 or 20 years ago–we would have hit the jackpot. This town should have done all of this BEFORE WESTFIELD BUILT MERIDEN SQUARE!!  We had Republican governors for ad infinitum years, and until the past few elections, Cheshire had a Republican majority on the Town Council.

Route 10 COULD have and SHOULD have been widened then!! Forget about it now!!

“Well we don’t want to attract CERTAIN people into town” Well guess what–you will be eating your words Cheshire in a few years!!!

We don’t have to have strip mall after strip mall–no. But a little more commercial tax revenue would have been nice. I just went to the new Kohl’s in Waterbury in back of COSTCO. It was really NICE!! Again, just a few feet over the Cheshire line. Too bad!!

The Berlin Wall came down in 1989. When will the Cheshire “wall” come down??

FYI BEFORE I FORGET: Every first Thursday, the Town Hall and Police Chiefs office is open to around 6 or 7 p.m. Feel free to stop by. You have my permission!!