02/27/08 - Greenwich Newswire

Tommy Hilfiger is so, umm, gay?

Greenwich News Report

Tommy Hilfiger Puts Mansion Up for Sale
The Associated Press -
GREENWICH, Conn. (AP) — Fashion icon Tommy Hilfiger has put his backcountry Greenwich estate on the market. Southeby's International Realty said Hilfiger's ...

Crusaders Cruise Trinity rips Greenwich to reach FCIAC final
Stamford Advocate - Stamford,CT
Such was the case last night, during the semifinals of the Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference Tournament, when Trinity allowed Greenwich ...

Estate of designer Tommy Hilfiger on market
Newsday - Long Island,NY
GREENWICH, Conn. - Fashion icon Tommy Hilfiger has put his backcountry Greenwich estate on the market. Southeby's International Realty says Hilfiger's gated ...

TREASURIES-Bonds rise as homes prices and confidence fall
Reuters - USA
... the consumer confidence numbers were significantly weaker than expected," said Alan Ruskin, chief international strategist at RBS in Greenwich, ...

Greenwich Blog Posts

Empowering Yourself with a Healthy Lifestyle: Fuel for Body, Mind ...
Where: Greenwich Library at Meeting Room Nutrition lecture featuring tips and techniques to keep you healthy, happy and fit in 2008. Three of the area's leading experts in nutrition, exercise and food will deliver essential secrets on ...
- http://www.greenwichlibrary.org

Tommy Hilfiger Puts Mansion Up for Sale
GREENWICH, Conn. (AP) -- Tommy Hilfiger has put his backcountry Greenwich estate on the market. Sotheby's International Realty said the fashion designer's gated Stone Hill estate is listed at $28 million. The 20000-square-foot home has ...
Columbian.com Entertainment News Feed - http://www.columbian.com/news/rss

---

Please send comments to GreenwichRoundup@gmail.com

02/27/08 - Once Again Failed Greenwich School Administrators Take Care Of Thier Own

One Hand Washes The Other
At The Mutual Admiration Society
Known As The Greenwich Public School System

Headline:

New principal to start at North Street in July

Reporter:

Andrew Shaw

Quote:

"My hope would be to continue the good work that she has been doing there," said School Administrator Charles Smith, a Stamford resident.

Story:

Superintendent of Schools Betty Sternberg appointed Charles Smith as principal of North Street School earlier this month, replacing longtime principal Betty Burfeind.

Smith, 50, will switch from being a district special education program administrator to his new position on July 1, where he will take over for Burfeind after she held the job for 15 years....

... Kathy Greider, deputy superintendent of teaching and learning, said in a release that Smith's 27 years of educational experience made him an ideal candidate....

... Smith said he wanted to return to the classroom after spending years as an administrator....

... Now he'll lead one of the top performing elementary schools in Greenwich.

"I don't think it will require a lot of changes," Smith said....

02/27/08 - Greenwich Taxpayers Pay Through The Nose As Administrators Mismanage The Greenwich Public School System

Greenwich Tax Payers Are Repeatedly Being Held Up By Very High Paid Greenwich School Administrators Who Year After Year Deliver Academic Failure.

Quote:

"Since students need to remain competitive in a new world, we have the opportunity to think outside-of-the-box with this timely re-look," high school PTA co-president Laurie Heiss Grealy said. "We have a chance to evaluate other teaching and assessment models from around the world."

Headline:

Review to set goals for grads

Reporter:

Andrew Shaw

Story:

Superintendent of Schools Betty Sternberg is launching a comprehensive review of secondary education in Greenwich, to begin with a critical look at what skills and knowledge students should have as key milestones in middle- and high-school careers.

"It's crucial that we agree to that first," Sternberg said.

The review will likely tackle topics such as the Advanced Learning program for top-performing students, start times and the Greenwich High School house system, which Sternberg said is not functioning as intended.

"It doesn't really function as a smaller learning community. It's just an administrative entity," Sternberg said.

The review will be carried out by a committee headed by Sternberg.....

... School start times has long been a topic raised by parents at board meetings who believe their teenagers would function better if they woke up later. Board Chairwoman Nancy Weissler also expects the committee to discuss adding the International Baccalaureate program in upper grades. The program is used at the International School at Dundee.

Weissler said the committee's work has no definitive timeline, although it does coincide with a similar review of secondary education being done by the state right now.

Greenwich's committee can help the board find more effective ways to operate the three middle schools and high school, Weissler said....

Comment:

Greenwich is long over do for a wake-up call.

Greenwich residents must insists that our local political leaders remedy the cavernous depths of their ignorance regarding local education.

It is time once and for all to reverse the record of the school administration's failure to successfully promote reform in the Greenwich School System.

It is time to put pressure on our local political leaders.

Our local leaders need to start thinking about the questions they must ask and the understandings they must secure if the Greenwich School System is to be salvaged.

The residents of Greenwich need to a embrace a deep and abiding belief in the democratic spirit of public debate as a means to make educational change happen,

To stimulate this debate Greenwich School Administrators need to get out of the way and let Greenwich residents and leaders explore the complexity of the issues, using history, research, commission reports and personal experience to gain fresh insights and perspectives into the problems that the Greenwich schools have and the urgent need for the attention they deserve.

The Schools Belong To The Residents Of Greenwich Not The School Administrators Who Have Repeatedly Failed The Town.

02/27/08 - Years Ago Malcolm Pray Warned Greenwich That Pickwick Plaza Would Cause Gridlock. No One Listened. Now Another Traffic Disaster Is Comming.

Greenwich lawyer and real estate developer Joseph Tranfo poses with a rendering of a hotel proposed for Benedict Place and Lewis Street.
(Bob Luckey Jr./Staff photo)

Developer's plan hinges on leasing town lot

Joseph A. Tranfo knows he is risking a good part of his family fortune on a $100 million downtown Greenwich redevelopment project that depends on getting access to a piece of town land. But the real estate lawyer-turned-developer said the risk is worth it because of what the project promises to achieve.

"There's an opportunity to create a community here," Tranfo said.

The project is to build a multistory complex of offices, a hotel, restaurant, underground parking and dozens of residences on 2 acres of prime real estate between Greenwich Avenue and Lewis and West Elm streets.

The catch, however, is that Tranfo must first acquire the right to lease from the town a 1.3-acre municipal parking lot on Benedict Place to get enough room for his plans.

Tranfo, who has already spent more than $7 million acquiring many of the other pieces he needs for the project, recently presented his ideas to the Board of Selectmen.....

... In addition to the town's financial commitment to the project, Selectman Lin Lavery said she is concerned about the four-story height of the proposed structures.

"It looks very big," she said. "I need to look at it more."

Lavery said she wonders about the proposed density and whether the new development would attract transient residents who only live there part-time.

"It might be like the Plaza Hotel in New York or the Greenwich Gables where people purchase high-end condos and don't necessarily become community members," she said....

...

02/27/08 - "They have already been relegated to a spot under the deputy chief/shift commander and didn't want to lose any perceived part of the ..."

Volunteer firefighters don't want to lose rank

By Martin B. Cassidy
Greenwich Time Reporter

A proposal to promote eight new lieutenants this year to provide better leadership and supervision at the Cos Cob and Byram fire stations has drawn concerns from volunteer firefighters' chain of command, town officials said.

In recent Board of Estimate & Taxation Budget Committee hearings, volunteer firefighters objected to the proposal, concerned that the lieutenants would be inserted above volunteer company chiefs during firefighting operations on each 24-hour shift, Fire Chief Peter Siecienski said...

... Jerry Cutrone, president of the Greenwich Volunteer Firefighters Association and a volunteer at the Sound Beach Volunteer Fire Department declined to comment on the proposal.

Cos Cob Volunteer Fire Chief Thomas Anderson, co-president of the Greenwich Volunteer Fire Chiefs Association also declined to comment....

...The new lieutenants would be promoted from within the department, requiring about $118,000 in additional salary for the new officers.

Siecienski said if approved the positions would create better accountability and safer firefighting efforts in those two neighborhoods.

"It strengthens our health and safety initiatives for the two areas of town that don't have lieutenants seven days a week," Siecienski said. "Those two areas don't get the same level of protection and we are looking to get those positions in place."

Currently the town charter places volunteer district chiefs second only in command to the chief of the fire department.

02/27/08 - Bill Clark of Greenwich Gossip Asks - Why Would You Buy A Landmark House Just To Tear It Down

Rape and Pillage Come to Greenwich

Cultural vandalism is nothing new in this Town, but it's always disheartening when a fresh and particularly egregious example rears its ugly head. The historic McCutcheon/Malley house at the entrance to Belle Haven, an outstanding example of the Richardsonian-Romanesque style of the late nineteenth century, has been posted for demolition. The Historical Society has filed an objection, but this will only delay the process for ninety days.

Only ninety days to save 120 years of history. Can Rene and Marie-France Kern be persuaded to reconsider this folly? Why, in heaven's name, did they buy such a historic house only a couple of months ago when there are lots of other places on the market that would never be missed? Is this some kind of perverse Gallic "in your face, America" gesture?

• Local Happenings and Non-Happenings
• Why the Town Fathers Won't Allow a Holiday Inn in ...
• The Silly Season Gets Sillier
• Valentine's Day Dilemma
• Elizabeth Watson 1944-2008
• Musical Magic at Christ Church
• Super Tuesday Comes to Greenwich / Update
• Manuscript Mavens Come to Greenwich Avenue! / Upda...
• Ave atque Vale, Cos Cob Food Mart
• Greenwich in Tampa

If an American couple tried to commit a similar atrocity with a historic French home, it would quite likely become a national cause celebre. Le Monde, Le Figaro, and Le Canard Enchaine would all get into the battle, and pretty soon the hapless American couple would probably find that none of the merchants in the local village would supply them, none of the neighbors would speak to them, and their residency papers would suddenly become entangled in a bureaucratic nightmare of red tape.

Here, of course, they will probably be admitted to the once-prestigious Belle Haven Club, where they will find many of the more recent members avidly waiting to swap house project stories. The object of these stories, of course, is to try to outdo your neighbors in tales of extravagance and expense - which is how the nouveau-riche play "keeping up with the Jonses" these days. The destruction of a historic mansion will become fodder for bragging rights around the bar.

"Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you no sense of shame?" With these words Joseph Welch pricked the bubble of the infamous McCarthy hearings, and began to bring a national nightmare to a close. Your scribe poses the same questions to M. and Mme. Kern. Why would you buy a landmark house in order to tear it down? Can you perhaps find some other piece of property that will suit your needs without vandalizing our community? How would you react to an American behaving like this in France? And do you, at long last, have a sense of decency?

If so, please change your plans. Refurbish the house, as you originally planned to do - you will get your money back, and more. And you will also earn the gratitude of the local community.

How say you, M. et Mme. Kern? Nous attendons votre reponse avec hate et avec espoir. Soyez bien de nos amis, non pas de nos ennemis. Que dites-vous?

02/27/08 - School Board Coverup? - Are Displaced Hamilton Avenue Students Getting Rained On?

The itsy bitsy children went in the classroom.

Down came the rain, and washed the children out.

Out came the sun, and dried up all the rain

And the itsy bitsy children suffered from mold infections again.

Hamilton Avenue School Parents are saying that thier children's temporary classrooms are leaking water. The problem is particularly bad after last weeks heavy snowfall that closed Greenwich Schools.

Memo To: School Superintendent Betty Stienberg

Water is leaking into one of your classrooms.

Parents have been complaining to school personell, but feel that thier complaints have fallen deaf ears.

Parents started making complaints late last year about the water leaking.

But, your failed administration and do nothing administrators have ignored these concerned parents.

Why won't the very high paid Betty Stienberg looked into the water problem?

If water was comming into Betty's office, it would be
fixed immediately.

Many Hamilton Avenue School parents think they being ignored by arrogant high paid school administrators.

Some parents feel that School Administrators are Covering up maintenance issues and they are not being told the truth about the school administrator's failures.

These parents want the truth and the answers about why thier children's classrooms are
leaking water all over the place.

Parents say that the School System has been in serious violation of fire codes and that has not been addressed the Board Of Education.

Where is Peter J. Siecienski,
Greenwich Fire Department Chief ?

Parents are very concerned that Greenwich School Administrators are covering up the possibilty that there is dangerous mold in the classrooms.

Where is the Greenwich Director Of Health Caroline Calderone Baisley?

Parents want these classrooms to be tested for mold contamination.

Parents say that School Administrators have known about the leaky roofs since last year.

Why is the Teacher's Union allowing the School System to put band-aids on this problem?

Teacher's Union members and the children they care for are potentially at a sever health risk.

Shame, Shame, Shame on ...

Board of Education Chairwoman Nancy Weissler for not protecting the health of our children.

Shame, Shame, Shame on...

Superintendent of Schools Betty Sternberg taking the risk to our children seriously.

02/27/08 - News Reports From The Greenwich Time

Hilfiger mansion hits market
An eight-bedroom, eight-bath house that a famous fashion fortune built in backcountry Greenwich is on the market for $28 million.

At Stone Hill, the gated estate of fashion icon and marketing whiz Tommy Hilfiger, fieldstone walls curve outward to embrace guests arriving at the 20,000-square-foot home. Beyond the allee of snow-covered trees is the imposing facade of stone and clapboard, with Ionic columns rising to the pediment....

... This is not Hilfiger's only recent real estate leap. A year and a half after buying a contemporary home on 150 feet of beachfront in East Hampton for $18 million, he resold the property for $26.5 million late last year, according to news reports. Hilfiger's engagement to former model Dee Ocleppo was announced earlier this month. Ocleppo is the former wife of famed '80's Italian tennis star, Gianni Ocleppo.

Hilfiger has been a town resident for more than a decade.

Review to set goals for grads
Superintendent of Schools Betty Sternberg is launching a comprehensive review of secondary education in Greenwich, to begin with a critical look at what skills and knowledge students should have as key milestones in middle- and high-school careers.

New principal to start at North Street in July
Superintendent of Schools Betty Sternberg appointed Charles Smith as principal of North Street School earlier this month, replacing longtime principal Betty Burfeind.

Audit of votes cast on new machines shows no mistakes
No mistakes were found during a state-mandated audit yesterday of more than 800 votes cast electronically at one town polling station in this month's Super Tuesday presidential primary.

Children's group objects to tax credits for movies
A pair of legislative committees yesterday considered a trio of bills aimed at expanding the work force for the state's burgeoning film industry.

State film division appoints new director
The Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism has appointed a new director for its film division, George Norfleet, who was senior program manager of the film tax credit program.

Metro-North price hikes won't affect Connecticut
Fares in Connecticut will remain unchanged when Metro-North ticket price hikes begin March 1, officials said.

Social services providers say 'rescue fund' needed
There was a time when anyone who wanted to work for CLASP Inc., a Westport agency that runs group homes for mentally retarded people, was not allowed to take a second job.

Canine couture
What do you get when you mix a well-known dog behaviorist and canine center owner with a Switzerland-based technology company? Dog Gone Smart products.