Rotello said the new ordinance cost the city money, because people now pay $100 for the parade permit, but nothing for the police officers who put up barricades and stop cars from crossing the intersections as people walk by.
[...]
Boughton disagreed. He said for big events, where police are required, the organizers are charged a fee to offset the police costs. He said the old law was harder to enforce. With this one, everybody gets charged the $100.
The mayor claims that the ordinance does not cost the city money as organizers “are charged a fee to offset the police costs.”
Would you be shocked to learn that a year after the ordinance went into effect, Boughton was singing a different tune…
Watch and learn.
Summer 2008:
BOUGHTON: …the bad news is we probably run up about 150,000 in police charges for all the parades and things that go on in the city…those numbers, they escalate quickly, so that’s been a problem….there are other questions about the amount of people, and I think one of the things that we’ll look is for recommendations from the chief [Al Baker] is “is this working, are you turning people down”, I don’t we ever turn someone down but the good news is that people have been really good about coming in and getting a permit so we’ve been able to organize…I’ll talk to the committee chair and if there is a burning issue, I sure we can look into that…
So on one hand, one year after the ordinance went into effect, Boughton claimed that the new ordinance cost the city a whopping 150,000 dollars in police charges. On the other hand, in response to criticism, Boughton disagreed that the ordinance cost the city money and that costs were passed down to the organizers for big events (although the ability for the city to pick and choose which organizers were to be charge for police assistance was NEVER part of the ordinance).
You can’t make this up folks!
It’s getting to the point where I’m having trouble keeping track of Boughton’s misleading statements. The questions remains…when will the media start holding this mayor accountable for the years of contradicting statements he’s made on this issue as well as other matters.
Danbury School Superintendent Sal Pascarella offers his thoughts on the grading modification at DHS with members of the Board of Education. Danbury BOE meeting, 02.23.11
Yesterday, the Board of Education finally addressed the much talked about grading policy modification at Danbury High School.
Changes to the grading system at Danbury High School, made in part because of the number of missed school days this year, received a backlash with several teachers, parents, and students criticizing school administrators and calling the changes unfair.
From last night’s public participation portion of the meeting, here’s resident Sandy Steichen addressing the board about the grading problems at DHS.
Although several residents have expressed their displeasure with the modified grading policy, a majority of the board supported the decision made by DHS principal Robert Rossi and school officials.
Here’s video of the board’s discussion on the matter.
Based on the reaction of those in attendance to the comments made by members of the board, it’s safe to say that some people were not satisfied with what they heard.
Could Principal Rossi handled the situation differently…ABSOLUTELY. As several members of the board mentioned, the communication in this matter was anything but acceptable. In fact, other schools in the area tackled their grading situation differently with an overall positive reaction from the public.
For instance, in Ridgefield, school officials simply canceled mid-terms testing after students voiced their concerns and I still don’t understand why school officials in Danbury didn’t do the same thing.
Also, the BOE as a whole should receive a failing grade when it comes to the way they addressed the concerns from the public. It’s bad enough that the meeting was delayed because there weren’t enough board members present to have a quorum, it seemed that the board was not interested in addressing some of the critics chief concerns.
Dale Steichen, a parent of a student at Danbury High School, spoke at last Wednesday’s Board of Education meeting about concerns with mid-term examinations. He asked many questions of the board, and most of them have gone unanswered until now. His most pressing complaint was his suspicion of grade tampering.
A decision to adjust the weighting of grades at Danbury High School had not been passed onto parents, and Steichen wondered if grades could be changed to suit the needs of the school. Steichen wanted to know, “Is it fair to change the grading process without informing parents and students?”
Here’s another concern that was not fully addressed by a member of the board:
“On Jan 31, a group of people including the Superintendent decided the test grades would only be changed to 20% if it helped the students,” said Rossi. If there were students that would be hurt by it, we would keep it at 10%. Students who failed or did not show up for the test would be given a 50%.”
[...]
Students have wondered what kind of message was being sent if grades could be changed to suit their needs.
Although the board went on and on about failing grades, the underline concern regarding the change in grade weight depending on the score a student received was not addressed.
Then finally, at no point was Principal Rossi present at the board meeting to address the matter and answer the public’s concerns. In fact, it seemed like the members on the board were more interested in defending the actions made at DHS as opposed to asking questions on behalf of the member of the public who were critical of the grade modification.
Hopefully all parties involved learned a thing or two from this dust-up before charges of lack of integrity are directed towards Rossi and his team at the high school again…only time will tell.
After the meeting, Steichen, who has a child in college and one in high school, said she’s disappointed in the board’s response and the lack of interest in the parents on the issue.
“I think it’s a shame that teachers were put in the position they were in and students were put in the position. I don’t think it’s over. The communication remains the issue,” she said. “I’m sad about how the board handled this. I would like to know when communication changes are in place so everyone knows what’s going on from the start, not after the fact.”
Glad to see that I wasn’t the only person who walked away disappointed at the way the board handled the situation.
Tonight, I plan to provide a live video stream of the Danbury Board of Education meeting.
Particularly interesting is item 11 on tonight’s agenda, which centers on the mid-year grading at Danbury High School. Modifications to the grading policy was criticized by several from teachers, students and parents. Although grading controversy was brought up by a member of the public as of today, the board had not commented on the topic.
An undocumented Florida woman who helped her sister report domestic violence now faces an order of deportation from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, even though her lawyers say she never should have been detected by ICE agents in the first place.
The woman, Rita Cote, 25, is married to a U.S. citizen and has four children, all of them citizens. She has no criminal record. But when police arrived to respond to the domestic-violence call on Feb. 16, 2009, law enforcement instead took Cote into custody, detained her for a week and handed her over to ICE.
Cote now faces deportation at any time to her native Honduras, which she fled as a child in 1998 to escape Hurricane Mitch and its aftermath. If deported, she could be separated from her husband and children for up to a decade.
While law-enforcement officials seek to work closely with their communities to prevent or solve crimes, immigrant-rights advocates say cases like Cote’s hurt that cause. The threat of deportation can have a chilling effect on the willingness of undocumented immigrants to turn to the police, they argue, even in similar cases of violent crime, leaving areas heavily populated by illegal immigrants more dangerous and lawless.
ICE officials say their enforcement priorities first target illegal immigrants who have committed serious crimes, but in practice, the agency more often rounds up those whose only crime is being in the country without documentation. The Obama administration has set a record for deportations of immigrants without a criminal record — expelling more such people than those with a criminal record, although deportation of criminals has also increased.
[...]
In 2009, Cote appeared on ICE’s radar once again following the 911 call on behalf of her sister, who does not speak English. She was still present when police responded to the call. At that point, ACLU lawyers say the responding police officers swayed from normal protocol and required everyone at the scene to present identification. According to ACLU lawyer Glenn Katon, the police took Cote to jail after demanding that she show her passport rather than another photo I.D., which had her married name.
The ACLU lawsuit contends that asking Cote for an I.D. — and taking it to the level of demanding a passport — was a matter of racial profiling by the police and claims police and the county had no authority to detain her. “I find that hard to believe that if this was a white family and someone got into a fight at a party, they’d ask everyone for I.D.,” Katon told HuffPost.
For those who rallied against the 287g program in Danbury, Cote’s case is not a surprise since this case one of the reasons immigrant rights supporters spoke out against the program back in 2008.
When it comes to Danbury, the following question still goes unanswered. When will the media (who should know better) stop giving Boughton a free pass on his immigration record and start asking serious questions about the broken promises and misleading claims he and his administration made about the ICE ACCESS program…as well as the Danbury 11 case?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a HUGE fan of independent music in Danbury.
From the musical explosion in the early 90s when groups such as Monsterland, Creature Did, Hed, China Pig, the Bunnie Brains, and Gnu Fuz put the city on the map, to later years when watching the jazz group Blue! at The Hat City Ale House became on Wednesday night became required viewing, Danbury has always been a great place to hear music that you couldn’t hear on traditional radio.
Fast forward to 2011 and on Monday nights, The 1Bar took Danbury’s musical baton with their open mic night for new and upcoming talents in the area. I’ve been attending the session at the place formerly known as Cousin Larry’s on Elm Street for several years and it’s great to see that independent music is still alive and well in the area after all these years.
From time to time, I’ll post highlights from the open mic session a The One Bar…and I hope that you’ll take the time and stop by on Monday night and listen to some of the great musical talent that Danbury has to offer.
From last Monday, here’s video footage of a pretty cool spoken word jam session (UPDATE: The name of the artist in the clip is Nantambu and you can usually catch his act every Monday night).
To say that the new grading policy at Danbury High School has upset some teachers, parents, and students would be an understatement.
As I noted on Thursday, due to the number of snow days, the high school decided to modify their grading policy. Here’s a copy of the letter principal Bob Rossi that details the changes…
Several residents are very upset with the changes with some accusing school officials with grade manipulation. During the most recent meeting of the Board of Education, resident Dale Steichen blasted school officials over their grading modifications.
Here’s a copy of Steichen’s letter to the Board of Education.
During the public participation portion of last night’s Board of Education meeting, a resident launched a serious charge at school officials at Danbury High School with accusations of grade manipulation.
From what I recall, the Board did not address this allegation during last night’s meeting (although I’m not sure if this matter would be addressed during open session).
If any parent has more information on this matter, please contact me at hatcityblog@yahoo.com or on twitter @hatcityblog or @ctblogger.
I’ll be on hand to provide a live video stream of the vote.
In order to get an idea of what the proposed budget looks like, here’s video footage of the board and school officials presenting their proposal to the Parent-Teacher Organization.
