Lisauskas, right, with city auditor Mark Ianello in 2008.

Former Springfield Control Board Executive Director Stephen Lisauskas violated the state conflict of interest law, according to an announcement today from the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission. He paid a $3,000 civil penalty related to his work finding brokerage firms to handle the city’s investments. The finding can be downloaded here (PDF).

The violation relates to the loss of a $13 million municipal investment with Merrill Lynch in 2007 after the cash was illegally invested in mortgage-backed securities that lost all their value. The investment was eventually recovered, but questions lingered over whether Lisauskas treated potential brokerage firms fairly because of a friendship connecting him to one of the firms.

One of Lisauskas’s errors was a failure to file a written disclosure of his prior relationship with the broker, Carl Kipper, “to dispel [the] appearance of impropriety.”

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Former Springfield Finance Control Board Executive
Director Stephen Lisauskas Pays $3,000 Civil Penalty
for Conflict of Interest Law Violations

The State Ethics Commission approved a Disposition Agreement (“Agreement”) in which former Springfield Finance Control Board (“SFCB”) Deputy Director Stephen Lisauskas (“Lisauskas”) admitted to violating G.L. c. 268A, the conflict of interest law.  Pursuant to the Agreement, Lisauskas paid a $3,000 civil penalty.

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Proposed Oxford-Whitney historic district

Last night, Hartford’s West End Civic Association held a meeting for property owners along Whitney, Oxford and Fern Streets in an area known as the “donut hole” in a national historic district north of Farmington Avenue.

A grant-funded effort is underway to apply for national register status so the donut hole is included—an area with 59 multi-family residences mixed with 42 single-family homes.

Consultant Lucas Karmazinas offered a 76-page national register nomination (PDF) with details about the 101 properties included, and much exposition about why the area qualifies as historic, just like its surroundings. All but three (constructed slightly later) were built between 1906 and 1919. From the nomination:

[T]he Oxford-Whitney Streets Historic District boasts a distinct character and unique historical narrative that make it worthy of individual inclusion on the National Register. It is set apart from the adjacent districts by its higher concentration of multi-family residences and the socio-economic patterns that are historically different from the neighboring districts.

The development of these blocks took place largely after the surrounding streets had been filled, and was completed—with only a limited number of exceptions—by builders and contractors rather than under the watchful eye of trained architects. Once raised, these buildings became home to a diverse range of Hartford residents.  Significantly, these included a higher concentration of lower-middle and middle-class workers than could be found on the neighboring streets which tended to be populated by the city’s wealthier inhabitants.

The significance of this area of the city’s historic multi-family housing, which has largely been maintained intact for 100 years, is no less important than any other type of housing. Adding it to the national register could have many benefits. But at last night’s meeting, opposition to the idea was the major topic of discussion.

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Thanks, readers, for supporting Urban Compass as “best local blog” in the readers’ poll for the Advocate’s Best of Hartford 2010. It came in third place behind Colin McEnroe’s To Wit and Victoria Failla’s Gluten Free Vegetarian Connecticut. Kerri Provost at Real Hartford highlights a few winners and runners-up in the city of Hartford.

A consultant-led public workshop—the second of three in a series guided by Boston-based Goody Clancy—took place last night at the downtown Hartford public library. The focus: what to do about the highway through Hartford, specifically the section known as the viaduct.

The piece of highway is a poorly designed, raised section roughly between Sisson Avenue and Union Station (between exits 46 and 48/49 or so). The state department of transportation will have to do something with the stretch anyway, as it’s aged and in need of replacement. A community initiative (the Hub of Hartford) to consider alternatives has evolved to the point where the public is now able to weigh options realistically and methodically.

Last night’s meeting was an opportunity to weigh preliminary options through the lens of Goody Clancy’s matrix assessment. Each of five distinct alternatives developed so far was considered with respect to its merits on urban design and land use, transportation design, and contribution toward economic development and market potential.

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Janice La Motta

Janice La Motta (pictured at right), program coordinator at the Studio at Billings Forge, 563 Broad Street in Hartford, is arranging a community event at 6:00 pm on Wednesday, February 24. La Motta said she hopes it might “develop into a regular forum for bringing together diverse members of the arts community, and anyone else who’s interested.”

Studio at Billings Forge. Photo © H Brandon

The potluck slideshow, open to the public (admission is a food dish to serve four and a non-alcoholic beverage), is a chance for artists to share images of their work or even short video pieces after visitors and other artists have milled about eating food everyone has contributed.

La Motta notes the event will offer a “forum for open dialogue and exchange” among artists and the public, also “bringing an awareness of the diverse forms of visual art to the community at large.” The slideshow will be preceded by the potluck dinner the attendees make possible.

Any images of finished pieces or works in progress are invited (deadline: Friday, February 19). The bar is low to get in: everything contributed to the slideshow will be presented. Details about submission guidelines are below.

Submission Guidelines by February 19

• Artists may submit up to 5 images.
• Images must be in jpeg format. Prefix each file with your name (ie-ArtistName_01.JPG)
• Put the images in the order that you would like them presented and number accordingly.
• Image size should fit within a rectangle 1,024 pixels wide x 768 pixels tall.
• Videos are accepted—not to exceed 60 seconds.
• Include with images: name, title, date completed and medium.
• Provide a separate file that includes your name, contact information and brief biography.
• Submissions should be sent to: potluckslides [at] gmail.com

The US Census Bureau is looking for Census workers in Hartford this spring and summer. A press release today from Andy Hart, of the Hartford Complete the Count Committee, provides the details (below). Hart can be reached at (860) 296-6128.

US Census Bureau Looking For Workers
Local Census Manager Looking for Over 5,000 Qualified Job Applicants

Rumors that the federal government will employ a small army to conduct the Census are false—they will employ a large army. “About 2.5 million people by April, about the same as the number of active duty personnel with the U.S. Army. Maybe more,” said Russel Hicks, Manager of the Local Census Office in Downtown Hartford.

When the Census is in full swing this spring, Hicks said  his office will have approximately 1,500 people working in Hartford, East Hartford, West Hartford and Manchester. The bulk of that workforce, about 1,400, will be Field Enumerators who go door-to-door gathering Census information from people who did not mail in their 2010 Census questionnaire. Field Enumerators make $19.75 per hour.

To make sure his office is never short on manpower, Hicks is currently trying to build up a pool of approximately 5,600 qualified applicants and there’s still plenty of openings.

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Public workshop on I-84 through Hartford. Photo © H Brandon

Last month, the I-84 Viaduct Hub of Hartford steering committee met with representatives from CRCOG and Goody Clancy to hear a wrap-up of the first phase of the consultant’s study of the highway through the city.

Phase two has been launched, estimated to be complete by the end of February, with a second public input meeting tentatively planned for some time next month.

The Hub of Hartford is defined as “a lively and walkable, mixed-use, mixed-income urban place, a regional crossroads centered on Union Station, where business, government, community and recreational uses integrate seamlessly in a historic context supplement by compatible new development. …Cyclists, walkers and transit riders [will] share the road comfortably with automobiles.”

Boston-based Goody Clancy was hired by the city of Hartford and CRCOG to conduct the study assessing possibilities for the viaduct, an elevated portion of I-84 snaking through and disrupting the street grid at the center of the city. According to Ken Krayeske’s report about the initial public workshop on November 19, the city is funding the study with $100,000, while CRCOG is channeling $200,000 in federal funds. Continue reading…

Union Station in Springfield. Photo © H Brandon

According to the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority, the agency is no longer handling the major redevelopment effort of Springfield’s Union Station. Instead, the Springfield Redevelopment Authority will be in charge of making the project happen. The PVTA so far had been on the verge of hiring a project manager, as requests for qualifications had already gone out to bid, but it has been stopped in its tracks.

Some say the reasons are political.

On the surface, the reason is this: transit is no longer the number one priority for the redevelopment effort. Instead, the priority is economic development, with transit coming in second.

Put another way, the priority for this transportation development project is no longer, in a word, transportation. Perhaps instead the aim is being able to channel the large amounts of federal funding, with transit a distant consideration. Instead the project’s main priority will be labeled “economic development.” Transit is ostensibly now a second tier priority.

The two priorities could go hand in hand, and moving the project forward could be regarded as more important than such labels at this stage of things. It seems a shame and a show of unnecessary disregard to oust the PVTA from leadership of the project in addition to demoting transit in significance. What did transit ever do to the SRA?

Last year, the PVTA and SRA were able to negotiate a memorandum of understanding (PDF) outlining how they would work together to make Union Station an intermodal reality. Today the PVTA confirmed that the memorandum is now null and void. An announcement is scheduled for Wednesday at noon by PVTA administrator Mary MacInnes on the change in priorities.

The public is invited to a meeting on Tuesday, January 5, 5:30 pm at Hartford City Hall for a city council planning and economic development committee meeting focusing on transportation initiatives. Updates will be offered on various plans in the works, and representatives will be present from the state, region and city in a sort of unprecedented opportunity to consider multiple levels of activity and potential.

An email sent this morning from City Councilman Jim Boucher noted:

In recent years, Hartford transportation strategies have been the subject of significant study and planning, and in many ways have become a core priority to the city’s future development related to strengthening connections to other major cities (Springfield, New Britain, New Haven, New York, Boston); connecting to Bradley International Airport; strengthening mass transit options; providing shovel-ready opportunities; and renewing more favorable transportation and community development options (Hub of Hartford; major avenue enhancements).

At Tuesday’s meeting, the committee will consider recent planning developments and their relationship to local economic development, as well as further steps the city can take to support the initiatives.

The meeting will include State Rep. David McCluskey, Hartford Chief Operating Officer David Panagore, Director of DPW Kevin Burnham, CRCOG representatives Lyle Wray and Tom Maziarz, and Hub of Hartford steering committee chairman Bob Painter.

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Hartford COO David Panagore introduces the mobility and transit theme, November 21 at Union Station. Photo © H Brandon

With just one meeting to go in a series of five as part of Hartford’s efforts to renew its plan of conservation and development (see hartford.gov/oneplan), some discernible themes are emerging from small group discussions and panelist reactions.

The strongest ideas I’ve noticed relate to transportation needs especially as they relate to how easily and safely the city can be walked or biked, as well as filling in gaps in the city’s physical fabric, whether it’s vacant lots or empty storefronts, so there is a sense of activity, and so that increasing numbers of varied retail shops can be attracted to commercial centers. These themes were especially salient at last night’s meeting focusing on downtown (at the Lincoln Culinary Institute) as well as the meeting on November 21 (at Union Station) focusing on mobility and transit.

The final meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, December 8, from 6:00 to 8:30 pm at the Connecticut Science Center downtown, free and open to the public. The theme is integration of sustainable practices.

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Clearly a few things are happening here. Photo © H Brandon

Walking around New Haven recently, I came across this interesting telephone pole (pictured) outside the York Street House of Noodles.

While countless staples and wads of paper remnants aren’t terribly attractive on a telephone pole—I find the net effect is a sort of permanently bedraggled snow-blown look—their lingering presence speaks volumes about the vitality of the community around it. The sheer quantity of staples alone tells us this telephone pole has seen a lot of pieces of paper.

These staples tell a story of people reaching out in one of the most basic ways we know how—and not through paid advertising, nor even necessarily through legally sanctioned means. A community nearby is looking to find people, attract them, notify them, sell them something, or bring them together. It’s a sign of signs gone by.

Hartford, bisected.

If you were suffering from a dearth of planning meetings related to the city of Hartford, ’tis the season to rejoice. Or cry. Or both.

We are entering a month-long, intense phase of significant public meetings related to planning efforts. On one hand, this is an exciting time for any subset of city residents really eager to participate on this subject. Consider your dance card full.

On the other hand, it sure would be nice if these meetings were either condensed or spread out just a bit, especially considering that the every-ten-years Plan of Conservation and Development is five years late or so, and the I-84 Viaduct study has been unfolding, now in the capable hands of Boston-based consultant Goody Clancy, for several months. But beggars the public can’t be choosers.

Surely those who scheduled these meetings gave plenty of consideration to what it would be like for the average citizen to try to attend. Yet still we are faced with all this good stuff—these gem-like opportunities to engage as residents with our esteemed planning experts and elected officials, non-profit heads and business representatives—crammed into a short time. In the case of the POCD meetings, we’ll have six opportunities, at six locations, on six topics, to learn, share thoughts, and exchange ideas on the big planning picture. And smack in the middle of those six meetings is the first of three Goody Clancy sponsored “public workshops” as part of the viaduct study.

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From left: Hudson, Brad Noel, Cotto, and Rodriguez-Davila. Photos by H Brandon

The results aren’t yet official, but The winners of the four elected seats on the Hartford Board of Education appear to be are Lori Hudson (D), Elizabeth Brad Noel (WFP), Robert Cotto, Jr. (WFP), and Luis Rodriguez-Davila (D). Read more about them at last week’s forum in a blog post at Real Hartford.

The fifth vote-getter, Sharon Patterson-Stallings (WFP) lost by an initial 17 vote count. Early word last night was that it was just a 12-vote difference.

A total of 9,904 people 3,527 people cast 9,904 ballots in the election. This is a drop in voter participation from 2005, the last time the board of education was elected. That year, 10,284 votes were cast, and the highest vote-getter (Andrea Comer) received 2,453 votes.

To see how each district broke down, take a look at the results (PDF) from the city’s Registrar of Voters Office. (Thanks to Brendan Mahoney for providing them.) The voting districts in the table coincide with this map (PDF) showing where they are in the city.

Here are the total numbers for the four winning candidates:

Lori Hudson: 1,472
Elizabeth Brad Noel: 1,441
Robert Cotto, Jr.: 1,261
Luis Rodriguez-Davila: 1,208

While making calls on Monday to help get out the vote, on behalf of the Hartford Votes Coalition, I found that about two thirds of the numbers I called were no longer in service. It made me wonder how accurate our voter participation numbers really are. The 2005 statistic is said to be about 8.5 percent of the city’s voting population, and this year it’s said to be about 7 percent. But we may have fewer voters than we think. How accurate is our voter list?

Yesterday at about 5:30 pm, according to a report in the Courant, police in Hartford responded to a report of a robbery at a McDonald’s restaurant at 507 Flatbush Avenue. The 21-year-old armed and dangerous suspect was reported to be barefoot, wearing tan shorts and a grey t-shirt over a grey long-sleeved shirt. He evidently fled the scene in a truck and witnesses were able to provide a description. The truck was spotted shortly thereafter, at about 6:10 pm, on Bonner Street not far from the Trinity College campus, where I happened to be headed for a 6:30 pm class. When I arrived at 6:20, there were police all over the steep, wooded hill between Summit and Zion Streets.

By 7:00 pm, the college campus was put under a lockdown—the first time anyone I’ve spoken to can remember such a thing happening. Below is a chronicle of the events as they unfolded on Twitter. As one of the people stuck on campus and witnessing the event first-hand, it was a great relief to be able to interact via tweets with people not on the scene using this often rather frivolous social media tool.

People in my classroom were not terribly flustered, even though our building was right along Summit Street and we could later overhear police trying to negotiate with the suspect using a megaphone, and we observed police with large guns posted up and down Summit. SWAT officers were brought in as well as a search helicopter after the suspect fired shots shortly before 8:00 pm. The scene outside was grim.

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A massive vision of renewal for the Hartford riverfront. Hartford Courant, 5/5/98

What tells you that your own city is the pick of the litter? Is it the number of miles of interstate highway you can boast within your boundaries? Hugest swaths of public park land? Size of your development parcels? Number of Dunkin Donut franchises? Largest quantity of taxable properties? Biggest block parties?

In early 1998, such a victory could be claimed for Hartford, or so the thinking went at the time for a key advisory panel, if the downtown riverfront area were developed with 1,000 housing units, a convention center, retail stores, movie theaters, and park land—crowned with a massive sports stadium.

A stadium would say Hartford is number one. Hartford Courant, 3/22/98

The stadium was envisioned for concerts and large sports events, among other things. Governor Jodi Rell, then lieutenant governor, chaired the panel that proposed the plan, fueled by a combination of public and private dollars. A state authority was created to oversee and coordinate the numerous efforts, many of which have come to fruition in one way or another over the ensuing decade—except for the sports stadium, which was in some respects a real driving force behind the entire plan, as originally conceived.

A March 22, 1998 article in the Hartford Courant (pictured above, right) quoted one of the panel members, Anthony Autorino, saying of the stadium, “We needed something that was really going to say, ‘Hartford is No. 1.’ It needed something bold.”

The sports stadium simply never came to be. How can we now know if Hartford is number one?

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The Hartford Charter Revision Commission, after five months of meetings, voted unanimously last night to approve its recommended changes (PDF) to the city charter. The previous evening the commission held a legally required public hearing at the downtown library branch. The public was also invited to be heard at almost every meeting of the commission prior to last night’s vote.

In his letter today to Dan Carey, the city clerk, commission chairman Rich Wareing outlined the essentials of the recommended charter changes. See the entire letter below.

Broadly, revisions include changes to the makeup of the City Council (a hybrid system, with eight elected at large and five by district); a related change to staggered terms of office for City Council; clarification of compensation provisions, including making it clear City Council can reduce its own compensation; changing the mayor’s involvement on the Board of Education to an ex-officio, non-voting member who cannot be chairperson; mandating an Ethics Commission; giving the City Council sole authority to appoint a three-member freedom of information advisory board; a new protocol for the appointment of boards and commissions that would give City Council authority if the mayor fails to act in a given time period, and if City Council fails to act, the boards and commissions themselves would have the authority to reappoint; clarification that there may be three (rather than just two) Registrars of Voters (required by state statute); and some changes to the language related to the city’s corporation counsel (more on that in Wareing’s outline, under item number 6).

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Apologies for my hiatus while I worked on a term paper. Back to business: Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez (pictured, at center) announced this evening that the city’s Department of Development Services received over 70 letters of intent Monday in response to its announcement two weeks ago welcoming proposals for its arts and heritage jobs grant program. Formal applications are due Monday, May 11, with award notification some time in June.

Proposals for funding may range between $10,000 and $200,000 in any of three categories.

The mayor’s office announced that 12 proposals arrived in the category of facilities improvement, totaling over $1,500,000 in requests; 42 in new or expanded works, totaling over $3,000,000; and 17 in youth employment, totaling over $1,500,000. Two additional proposals totaling $250,000 arrived without a category, which brings the grand total for likely applications to about $6.4 million.

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In his state of the city address last month, Mayor Eddie Perez announced what he called a Hartford arts stimulus—a proposed $1.7 million increase in grants to Hartford arts organizations to “create new works, new performances, and expand facilities.” He anticipated the stimulus would create hundreds of new jobs in the city—and would be used exclusively (the mayor’s language) to create new Hartford jobs. He added that funding for the arts stimulus would come from reprogrammed city funds as well as federal grants.

A release issued this week by the Greater Hartford Arts Council—a regional non-profit organization based in Hartford—indicates that at some point in the last month, the mayor’s stated goal of exclusively creating new jobs with this funding got massaged into a different kind of goal.

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At its meeting this week, the Springfield City Council unanimously passed a resolution initially submitted by Councilor Bud Williams, opposing the efforts of Mayor Domenic Sarno and the Finance Control Board to privatize the forestry division of the Parks Department and the vehicle maintenance division of the Department of Public Works.

Less a direct concern about the welfare of trees, the resolution references “past privatization attempts” which “have been met with poor results” in fiscal savings as well as effective performance. The resolution notes that no independent studies have been done to ascertain whether savings or performance would benefit. It also suggests a focus on privatizing management instead of staff.

The city council suggests an independent “comprehensive study” to “prove beyond a reasonable doubt” (as though there were a crime committed somewhere) that privatizing will save cash and maintain a high level of service. The text of the resolution is below; a related committee meeting was scheduled for today at noon at City Hall.

Track other activities via City Council records somewhat recently made available online here.

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Today’s Springfield Republican includes an article about the latest developments in the city’s zoning ordinance revision project. Apparently there was an informational session on Monday this week for city councilors, where consultants working on the project delivered a detailed update (PDF) on progress so far, including edits following a public comment period last summer and fall.

In May, the revised ordinance was presented to the public (see the city’s former chief development officer David Panagore explain it on video here), and there were hopes it could go before the city council before the end of the year. The project had been in the works for two years at the time, and it has since seen further delays and complications.

One question the city seems to face now is, are the changes to the city’s zoning code too sweeping, too much reform all at once—and might this cause the city council to fail to support them?

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At 12:15 pm today, Hartford City Councilman Larry Deutsch (pictured) will offer a People’s State of the City address at City Hall, either in the spacious atrium inside, or on the front steps if weather permits (inside is looking likely).

In a press release issued late yesterday, Deutsch invited all Hartford residents and media to the event, adding, “A state of the union or state of the state address by a majority party is often followed by minority party comments on crucial topics. We think it important to inaugurate such a dialogue in our city of Hartford.”

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In a recent press release made available today in a post at Cityline, the non-profit Billings Forge Community Works in Hartford announced the addition of a community garden to its existing farmers’ market and the city’s latest gem, the Studio performance space.

The place seems to be gaining momentum. On Broad Street just down the hill from the state Capitol, it’s an area already designed for mixed-use like so many otherwise expensive developments outside the city. All it has needed is a few key ingredients.

The non-profit’s mission—with support from the Melville Charitable Trust—includes creating “a shared sense of mission” and replacing divestment with investment. Its goals include encouraging economic growth through enterprise in the surrounding Frog Hollow neighborhood.

The Studio, a spare but beautifully simple, modestly-sized, multi-purpose room, has featured several jazz performances and literature readings since opening in January with a mission to “nourish creativity and promote cultural exchange and learning through the performing and visual arts.” A March 7 article in the Courant captured a taste of its success so far in achieving its aim. Councilperson Luis Cotto, who did similar work running La Paloma Sabanera Coffeehouse and Bookstore, has been curating the programs as director of performing arts for the Studio. Artist Janice La Motta has been added as program coordinator.

The new community garden will be in the northern courtyard (pictured; the courtyard is just above the A) of the late 19th-century building complex, originally intended for manufacturing—home to the first commercial drop forge in the US. For much of the 20th century, electrical switchboxes were manufactured there, and according to the Melville and Billings Forge Web sites, the complex was transformed into apartments in the 1970s and then mixed-income housing in 1981.

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At its meeting on Monday this week, the Hartford City Council was faced with a pressing deadline to nominate individuals for the city’s new three-member Freedom of Information Advisory Board. Last December, when it passed an initial version of an ordinance creating this board, it was unclear who would appoint the board members—Mayor Eddie Perez, or the city council itself.

On Monday, the executive and legislative branches were evidently trying, awkwardly, to make these appointments in some joint compromise fashion. The mayor’s office was collecting nomination suggestions from councilpersons last week, which resulted somehow in Perez’s submission of two names to the city council in time for its meeting. Then the council had to figure out what nominations to confirm in order to pass the matter back to Perez for approval.

In all, they had five or six suggested board members to consider and most of them were Democrats. State law requires the appointment of at least one minority party member.

Earlier on Monday, news emerged that a recent city council appointment to the Metropolitan District Commission—Ron Armstrong—was in violation of a state statute, as he was not a member of a minority political party. Speaking before the city council that evening, Armstrong expressed deep disappointment, and confusion over whether the law of ratios applied to the whole commission or just to the city’s appointments.

When it came down to appointments for the FOI advisory board, there was a sense everyone was testing the waters.

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5:36 pm Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez will offer a state of the city address starting at any time now. I’ll be liveblogging the event via the city’s government cable channel. Currently the city is broadcasting a blue screen announcing the speech, accompanied by some smooth jazz with the lyrics “I’m searching for my soul” and “how many times will my conscience be divided? How many times will a fork be in the road?” The speech was supposed to get started at 5:30 pm.

5:40 The speech is finally getting started, with Council President Calixto Torres announcing the mayor. Mayor Perez steps up to the podium in Council Chambers, a room packed with people. He gets a standing ovation. The City Council is seated at the semicircular table behind a podium on the raised dais.

5:41 Perez opens by talking about the economic crisis and how Hartford is feeling the pain. He says he has been fighting “this economic storm” and cites the city’s deficit. “We’re fighting to keep our urban economy afloat. All of Connecticut’s big cities are facing the same challenge.” Perez notes his alliance with other Connecticut mayors.

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At its last meeting, the Hartford Charter Revision Commission voted to recommend to the City Council a change in council membership from an all at-large system to a mix of at-large and district representatives. The recommended change will be five district representatives and eight at-large, for a total of 13 members up from the current nine.

Having grappled solely with this issue over the majority of its five meetings so far, the commission—on which I also serve—included some members who favored an all-district system, some who favored maintaining an all at-large system, and some who thought a mix was the best option for a variety of reasons. For the die-hard government wonks, the minutes of the commission’s meetings are available online.

One of the concerns that arose repeatedly in discussions was whether or not a system including district seats would receive enough votes to pass at the City Council, once the commission hands over its final report in a few months. Another was the potential loss of minority political party seats on the council. Much now hinges on what how campaigns for district elections are organized and carried out, right now something we can conceive only in the realm of imagination. Among the questions the commission faces at its meeting tonight is: how might the city divide the proposed five electoral districts, and how is it possible to encourage fair elections?

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“What about senior staff and non-unionized [employees], what are you asking from these people?” Ellen Nurse (pictured, far right) challenged city officials at last Thursday night’s public budget presentation and discussion at Hartford’s downtown library branch.

Mayor Eddie Perez and his staff members Lee Erdmann (the city’s Chief Operating Officer), Christopher Wolf (newly-appointed Finance Director) and Rick Galarza (Management and Budget Director) did their best to explain the deficit and the reasons Hartford faces this predicament.

“We are applying concessions across the board,” Perez responded. Thus began the public discussion portion of the second of three budget presentations at the library.

More than just a difficult set of questions between the crowd and the administration, the meeting put on display the murky picture facing the city, the state and the nation. According to city administrators, Hartford is facing an $8 million deficit this year and a $40 million budget deficit next year. As Jeffrey Cohen wrote in a post for the Courant’s new Cityline blog following the meeting, the city is not self-sufficient, and things do not seem to have any easy answers.

Forty-six percent of city land is tax-exempt, officials said, and the state does not come through with its obligation to reimburse the city for that property. Hartford is home to many groups of people that don’t pay city taxes. Essentially the city spends more than can it can raise.

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According to a report in today’s Republican by Mike Plaisance, Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno (pictured at his desk in City Hall) will return two percent of his annual $95,000 salary to municipal coffers, effective immediately. As he told Plaisance, “You have to lead by example.” He will apparently write the $158 monthly checks to the city himself.

Is this a good idea? It does set an example of sacrifice of some kind especially in the midst of painful layoffs. But the potential amounts of money gained are rather small. It seems more like a politically savvy move than a fiscally prudent one—and who knows, maybe a number of employees doing the same would make a difference in the budget.

Union officials were quoted in today’s article referencing their frustration over layoffs and a possible request from the city to freeze wages. On February 2 the city issued a request to waive a 60-day union contract requirement for layoff notices, resulting in more savings for the city in salaries and benefits, and apparently (maybe) keeping the layoffs lower in number. The request didn’t seem to be all that well-received; it’s not clear whether any union has granted a waiver yet.

Sarno was quoted saying he thinks the Finance Control Board executive director, Stephen Lisauskas, and deputy executive director, Patricia Vinchesi—who earn $120,000 and $95,000 respectively—should also take pay cuts. He reportedly asked the city’s law department to look into whether he has the authority to order department heads to do the same.

Lisauskas and Vinchesi have already deferred annual two percent salary increases. Their jobs will cease to exist as of July 1, with the control board era coming to a close at the end of the fiscal year. Vinchesi is a finalist following her application for the position of town manager in Hopkinton.

The city is currently seeking to fill the newly-created position (examine the legislation here and here) of chief administrative and financial officer to more or less take their place. Applications were due March 1. According to a February 22 report in the Republican, the city has recently been weighing whether the search committee required for filling the position must open its meetings to the public. Which is the better political move? Or the fiscally prudent one?

In the wake of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s recently-announced transportation and economic security plan, which includes a proposal to raise the state’s gas tax by 19 cents per gallon, key meetings are set to take place in the Springfield area on Wednesday, March 4 to provide input to leaders and hopefully give voice to shaping policy.

At 4:00 pm at Springfield Technical Community College, State Rep. Joseph Wagner of Chicopee will chair a public transportation plan hearing, the first of four in the state focusing on the governor’s proposals. (Directions to get to STCC are here.)

Just prior to that, starting at 2:00 pm, representatives of the area’s Metropolitan Planning Organization will meet at the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission’s office in West Springfield to confirm the first round of federally-funded transportation stimulus projects, according to a press release today from Pioneer Valley Advocates for Commuter Rail. The advocates group will offer direct testimony to MPO officials requesting support for commuter rail in the area.

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