Mark Boughton

Due to the storm, we have declared a Level 3 Snow Emergency. This means that all travel on city streets is banned with exception of emergency personnel, emergency vehicles and 4 wheel drive vehicles. The ban will be in effect until 7 am tomorrow. Police will be ticketing and towing vehicles in the street or those that are ignoring the ban. The Patriot Garage is open for those that do not have a place to park their car free of charge. Thanks for your cooperation.

Some of you have emailed and asked what a Level 1 Snow Emergency means. Here is the link for our City of Danbury Snow Emergency Protocols. FYI: Looks like we may skip Level 2 and move directly to Level 3.  We have never reached Level 3 since we began the system.  Tonight may be the first time…

The National Weather Service is predicting a whopper of a storm for our area.

We are declaring a Level 1 Snow Emergency in Danbury starting at 2 pm. Please move your car off of the street so we can commence snow removal operations.

If you have outdoor holiday decorations, we recommend that you secure them as we are expecting strong winds this evening.

12″ to 18″ possible by the time its all over.

Stay off the roads tonight if at all possible.

Please take a moment to fill out the Community Survey that was sent out with the Annual Report. If you did not see the Annual Report, you can fill one out online. Just click this link. Thanks!

On Friday December 10th, an extraordinary event will take place on the mid-town campus of Western Connecticut State University at the Bill Williams Gym.

It is our annual Project Homeless Connect program. The Project Homeless Connect program connects our homeless population with services that are available in Danbury and the Greater Danbury area–all under one roof.

Everything from free medical care, free dental care, mental health consultations,  and housing opportunities, are available to our homeless population on this day.

Westconn students help with the logistics, and our committee of volunteers for Project Homeless Connect spend the day working with those individuals and families that are facing some of the most difficult situations in their lives.

If you want to help or donate you can visit the web page and contact the members of the committee.

Why is it extraordinary? It’s extraordinary because for this day, our service providers are united in approach and mission.

It is extraordinary because of the random acts of kindness that take place between strangers at this event– acts of compassion and caring.

It is extraordinary because you witness many of our most challenged residents taking the first tentative steps at turning their lives around.

It is extraordinary because it reminds us of lucky we are.

Finally, it is extraordinary because it teaches us about the true meaning of the holiday season.

Recently, the Rell administration put the elimination of the Danbury rail line on the table as a way to close a budget shortfall in the home heating assistance program.

From the start, this proposal was dead on arrival.Why would the State of Connecticut want to eliminate one of the few mass transit options available in Western Connecticut? Why would the Rell administration want to eliminate rail service that just last year was scheduled to receive a sixty million dollar upgrade to its signal system?

The answer is that the administration does not want to eliminate this service.

This is part of the game of chicken that is played regarding our state budget. The message to the Legislature is  simple: “You want to fund the home heating assistance program? Great! Now what are you going to eliminate?”

By laying out a cut so abhorrent that every politician and policy maker in Western Connecticut will oppose the elimination of the service, the  administration sets up a  service cut in another area which will soften the opposition.

People walk out of the process thinking that they avoided a disaster, and that they can support the elimination of an alternate service or program- the lesser of the two evils.

Get ready, this is just a mid- fiscal year ruckus.

Wait until the next budget season begins in Hartford.

The Kabuki Theater has just begun..

This Thanksgiving weekend something to be thankful for:

Danbury was once again rated the safest city in Connecticut. We beat out cities like Stamford and Norwalk for this title which we have held for three years in a row- once again a terrific job by the Danbury PD.

This year our PD staff have been working diligently to keep our title. Overall crime in Danbury is down, and we will be rolling out several new initiatives to enhance law enforcement in our neighborhoods.

We also received the latest Department of Labor statistics that show the Danbury Labor Market having the lowest rate of unepmployment in the state.

Of course that figure (7%) is a relative number. Several years ago, before the economic crisis, our unemployment rate was around 3.5%.  The Department of Labor numbers don’t include the under employed, these are people who are not working as many hours as they need to help make ends meet.

There is good news in the latest numbers, as the trend is moving lower. Last month the unemployment rate for our labor market stood at 7.3%.

At City Hall we will continue to do everything within our power to encourage job creation and job growth in Danbury. Recently we assisted Guide Posts and GM to relocate to the Matrix Corporate Center, and we worked closely with the Danbury Fair Mall to get Dick’s Sporting Goods and Forever 21 under construction and open.

Let’s hope that the latest round of employment numbers are the green shoots of a true economic recovery.

Enjoy the Thanksgiving weekend.