Connecticut Postings

Northbridge Health Care Center, Bridgeport, is holding a Sock Drive for Operation Hope of Fairfield. 

Northbridge is collecting new and clean, lightly-used and even mismatched socks  to benefit those in need in the Greater Fairfield area.  The drive will run until May 12. Anyone is welcome to drop off socks at the reception desk at Northbridge Health Center, 2875 Main St., Bridgeport.

 Operation Hope of Fairfield, Inc. is a non-profit, 501c3 organization located in Fairfield, Connecticut.   Founded in 1986, it provides critical services to the hungry, the homeless and those at-risk.  

Last year Operation Hope served over 32,000 meals through the Community Kitchen and over 115,000 through the Food Pantry.  Additionally, 175 individuals and families received needed shelter and clinical support; they helped 65 families affected by the economic downturn avoid homelessness and got back on their feet; they provided 46 units of safe affordable housing with support to formerly homeless and at-risk community residents, and more.

If you would like to learn more about Northbridge Health Care Center, visit www.athenahealthcare.com/northbridge.  To learn more about Operation Hope of Fairfield, call 203-292-5588, visit 636 Old Post Road, Fairfield, or view the website at www.operationhopect.org.

By Tim Loh
Staff Writer
EASTON — Residents on Tuesday approved a $31 million budget for next fiscal year and a $10 million Region 9 budget for Joel Barlow High School in resounding fashion.

Both votes passed by a roughly two-to-one ratio. The Easton town and education budget garnered 774 votes of support and 335 of opposition, said First Selectman Tom Herrmann on Tuesday evening.

The Region 9 budget, which Easton shares with Redding, passed nearly as convincingly. Redding voters approved their end of that budget Tuesday as well.

“That’s about as good as you can expect in a town budget like this,” Herrmann said. “I think it seems to be an indication that, generally, people are satisfied.”

The Easton budget represents a 1.5-percent increase over current spending. The spike will come entirely on the education side, which will see a 1.91-percent spending jump, or $281,000.

By contrast, town spending will drop by 0.35 percent, or roughly $55,000.

Next year’s mill rate was not set Tuesday.

In recent months, the proposed budget for next fiscal year was scaled back by more than a half million dollars, Herrmann said. The one that passed Tuesday, though, was unchanged from what the Board of Finance presented at the April 25 town meeting.

Slightly more than 1,100 of Easton’s 5,100 registered voters cast a ballot in Tuesday’s referendum, Herrmann said.

Reach Tim Loh at tloh@ctpost.com or 203-330-6377. Follow at twitter.com/timloh

We’re looking to talk to some moms for a story we’re doing for Sunday’s Connecticut Post. If you or any moms you know fall into the following categories, call Amanda Cuda at 203-330-6290 or email acuda@ctpost.com:

• A mom who’s recently given birth for the first time
•  A mom of twins or triplets.
• A mom who gave birth outside of the hospital.
•  Moms whose broods include both biological and step kids.

We would just need a few quotes (at most, a short anecdote) about their experience as a mom. Please let us know if you can help!

BRIDGEPORT — The consulting firm working on a master plan for Pleasure Beach is seeking public input at a community meeting scheduled to take place Monday from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Ralphola Taylor Community Center, 790 Central Ave. The master plan project, a study of what can and should be done on the peninsula, was kicked off last month. Stantec Consulting Services Inc. will provide a presentation of their work so far and then open up the session for questions.

UPDATE: The meeting is this coming Monday, May 9th.

As of lunch time, about 300 of Easton’s 5,100 registered voters had cast a ballot in the town’s budget referendum, Easton Town Clerk Derek Duckley said.

“We always see a spike when children come out of school, but so far it’s been a lacking turnout,” he said just before 3: 30 p.m.

The last several months have produced a series of events that together suggest a failure of the fundamental processes of local governance. Our residents might conclude that Trumbull, under the leadership of First Selectman Tim Herbst, has become ungovernable. I don’t believe Trumbull is ungovernable, but I do believe it’s time for a change.

The budget season started with Mr. Herbst describing the Board of Education’s requested increase as an example of “chutzpah.” That and other comments set a tone of contention and suspicion. Among subsequent developments:

• Two Republican school-board members, Loretta Chory and Deborah Herbst, refused to participate in school-board budget deliberations. Instead, Deborah Herbst took her perspective to the Board of Finance, making a highly unusual presentation as a single member of the school board representing herself individually.
• The Board of Finance failed to produce a budget for the first time since 1993. This set up a dispute over the language of the Town Charter and whether the first selectman has stretched his power under the charter to veto line items in years when the Board of Finance fails to act.
• Also, by allowing two vetoes, the Town Council arguably eroded its status as a distinct and equal branch of government.
• In another controversial decision, the council removed $1.1 million from the Board of Education’s health-insurance account, acting against the opinion of one of the state’s leading education-law attorneys. This move may produce the spectacle of the Trumbull Board of Education suing the Town of Trumbull.
• By removing the $1.1 million, the council set the stage for harmful cuts to the school system.
• Mr. Herbst has relied on a series of legal opinions for these and other moves, creating the impression of an administration that governs by legal opinion.
• The State Legislature passed a land-transfer law that moved the site of the regional magnet-high school and several acres of parkland into Bridgeport. Mr. Herbst ended up foregoing several million dollars for the town that had been negotiated as part of an inter-municipal agreement.
• And now, a Charter Revision Commission set up and controlled by Mr. Herbst is proposing sweeping changes that threaten our form of government, which has endured for decades and created the finest town in the region. Under the proposed changes, as many as nine Town Council members could be not just from the same district, but from the same street! And as few as 300 people could trigger a debilitating budget referendum every year.

Meanwhile, Herbst’s Republican Party is in disarray, as one major Republican after another either leaves the party or publicly breaks ties with the first selectman over his heavy-handed tactics. Among the Republican dissenters are former TRTC vice chairwoman Lisa Valenti; former TRTC vice chairman and current school board member Tom Kelly; school board chairman Ted Lovely; Board of Finance member Andy Palo; and Town Councilman Rob Pescatore.

Mr. Herbst has been given a fair chance to govern our town, and he has created a crisis of governance that is more significant than any in recent memory. It’s time to turn the page.

Tony Silber

Democratic Town Committee

Milford police have arrested a 17 year-old woman in connection with the April 7 stabbing of a homeless man in Milford Cemetery.

The suspect, who was not identified because of her age, was released after a $25,000 bond was posted, and will be arraigned on May 25 at state Superior Court in Milford on charges of first-degree assault, second-degree reckless endangerment and criminal mischief.

The young woman admitted her involvement in the incident and police were able to recover the knife used in the assault, Officer Jeff Nielsen said. The suspect was arrested on a warrant Monday.

The 56 year-old victim was treated at a local hospital for non-life threatening wounds and has since recovered. He told police that a young woman approached him at a tent he had set up in the cemetery, and returned a second time, when she stabbed him.

The Smith Magenis Research Foundation, co-founded by a Wilton family, just announced that the recipient of its inaugural $50,000.00 research grant will be Dr. James R. Lupski of Houston, Texas. 

SMS Reserach Foundation was founded by the Iannuzzi family of Wilton and the Longman family of Florida after both families had young daughters diagnosed with Smith Magenis Syndrome. SMS is a  chromosomal disorder, characterized by a recognizable pattern of specific physical, behavioral, and developmental features. It is the result of a small missing piece of genetic material within the 17th chromosome, known as a microdeletion, and referred to as deletion 17p11.2. It is estimated that SMS occurs in roughly 1 in 25,000 live births.

Lupski is an internationally recognized expert in human genetics and is the Cullen Professor and Vice Chairman of the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics at the Baylor College of Medicine.  He is a Board Certified Pediatrician, Clinical Geneticist, and Clinical Molecular Geneticist.  He is also the American Editor of Neurogenetics. The grant will help fund a study of RAI1, a protein involved in SMS.

The foundation’s next major fundraising event will be a 5K Walk/Run held on Saturday September 24, 2011 in Wilton.

For more information on the grant, and the SMS Research Foundation, visit www.smsresearchfoundation.org.