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But even with that as a given, it seems there have been more complaints than usual lately from people who feel local government has pulled the wool over their eyes.
Therefore, it's important from time to time for everyone - citizens and government officials alike - to take a step back and remind themselves who is in charge. All those offices in city or town hall might be occupied by this person or that for a given time, but they belong to the people. So do the schools, parks, police station and so on.
Law gives elected and appointed officials decision-making power, but it's the people who are boss. It's too easy too often to forget that, particularly given our post-9/11 mindset, which is overly deferential to government on all levels.....
....Just like the political axiom that says it's not the scandal, but the attempted cover-up that causes the real damage, the perception that government is acting behind closed doors can provoke outrage even if the actual issue at hand is relatively benign.In every case, it's clear the process would have worked out much better had it been open initially. Secrecy creates not only suspicion but outright cynicism. A wary and watchful public is essential to a democracy. A cynical one only hurts it....
Wiffle ball field neighbors not being consideredThe Wiffle ball field's unfortunate neighbors who poured their life savings into their homes have seen the value of their nest egg disappear overnight. God forbid one of these villainized neighbors falls on hard times and has to sell his or her home right now. There's no market for a house with 40 strangers hanging out in the back yard, yelling, swearing, littering and loitering.
Since the town property is not visible from the street, police cannot properly patrol the area for criminal activity.
Some teens were witnessed stealing gardening and construction supplies, and cutting down town trees and bushes to build their stadium. These victimized neighbors, who believed town officials would protect them, were foolish for not immediately calling the police because this would have resolved their problem long before the public harassment began.
These teenagers and their parents are trying to bully the town into getting what they want. When denied a permit and instead were instructed to immediately remove all structures previously installed, these residents ignored town officials and in turn called the local media and politicians.
The property is designated as a drainage detention area to ensure the surrounding homes do not flood. The foot traffic, construction and clearing out of trees and underbrush that has occurred will ensure these poor neighbors homes will flood with the next rainy season.
Last, and most incredibly, the North Mianus Elementary School field is wide open for use, and it's within walking distance! Since only two teenagers live near the "field," and all other patrons drive to or are dropped off at the site, they should be dropped off at the elementary school field, and the two neighborhood teens can walk on our newly installed sidewalks to meet them!
The town should defend these poor neighbors and their dwindling nest eggs!
Eileen Tweddle
Cos Cob
Ball field is in the tradition of Rene Anselmo
To the Greenwich Time editor:
Despite having Tuesday's paper in my hand after my early morning walk through Bruce Park, I didn't read "Squeeze play: Neighbors cry foul over Wiffle ball park" until late in the day. It was after a colleague in Rockland County mentioned the story and was effusive in her praise of the kids involved.
When I got home and finally read Neil Vigdor's story, my first thought was daja vu all over again. We have the spirit of the late Rene Anselmo at work. Residents may remember his love of beauty from the fence and plantings in front of North Street School to the thousands of daffodils he and his workers planted up and down the length of lower North Street. We enjoy his legacy and take joy in driving that way every spring.
You might also remember his deciding to remove an ugly chain-link fence in Bruce Park and replace it with what stands in its place to this day, a beautiful white picket fence surrounding the croquet field. Like today's teens, he did not follow rules or process. He simply started to remove the old fence and begin the new. The project was stopped in its tracks and languished for about six months, then town officials went through the process and accepted his marvelous, generous, lasting gift.
This is a tempest in a teapot. It is great to see teens doing something positive. It is highly likely something else will come along to gain their attention.
Brouhaha it is, but perhaps also a learning experience for the teens and for our town officials.
Peter J. Flierl
Greenwich
Also:
The Flip Side: Neighbors want Wiffle ball field built by teens taken down
... empty lot so they would have a place to play football. Turns out it's a good thing Mr.Flip didn't grow up in Greenwich, Conn. Some teenagers there set up their own field for Wiffle ball in an empty lot. They cut down weeds and brush and even built ...
Lowell P. Weicker was just two years into his Senate career when the liberal Connecticut Republican ran into Sen. Jesse Helms, the arch-conservative North Carolinian.
Thud!
Weicker, the free-swinging liberal blueblood from Greenwich whose passion for the Constitution had been stirred at Yale and in the University of Virginia School of Law, took on any cause that jarred him; Helms, the country politician educated at Wake Forest, played on the fault line of racism and never apologized for his extremist views on AIDS, prayer in schools and other issues. The two were destined to clash.
Helms, who died a week ago....
....”The important thing is, I managed to beat him on almost every amendment he proposed to alter the Constitution,” Weicker said. “More often than not, I had Barry Goldwater (the conservative Arizona senator and presidential candidate) as my ally. Whether it was prayer in the schools, or court stripping or not allowing the Supreme Court to use busing as a remedy in the desegregation case. Goldwater didn't go for that stuff.” Weicker's wife Claudia recalled an uncomfortable moment with Helms. Weicker and Helms had been beating on one another in debates in the Senate just before the Senate hosted a dinner for President Ronald Reagan on Capitol Hill several weeks before Christmas. Sen. and Mrs. Weicker came out of a driving rain and into the building to encounter Sen. Jesse Helms and his wife Dot just inside the door. The scene was awkward. No one spoke at first. Then Helms said to Weicker: ”My wife says that you have a very nice wife.” ”Well, Claudia says the same thing about your wife,” Weicker replied. The group laughed and the ice was broken. One of Weicker's stirring battles with Helms concerned efforts to develop the drug AZT which, combined with other drugs, could help AIDS victims. A surly Helms opposed helping AIDS victims, saying “There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy ... ...When Helms' protests failed and Weicker's trip was imminent, Helms walked up to the towering Weicker in the Senate cloakroom and said, “Sen. Weicker, when you're in Havana, would you mind picking up a box of Cuban cigars for me?”... ================================================ Please send your comments to GreenwichRoundup@gmail.com
D'Antona on the all-star circuit this week
There's been a serious outbreak of 'rumpy-pumpy' in the dunes. Oh, no! Not again! Well, this seems to be a recurrent theme - and, perhaps, it's just summer re-run time.
This is the funniest bit of prose I've read in
... Now, let me state that nudity doesn't bother me. In my youth I once streaked a Baskin- Robbins in Greenwich, Connecticut. That was because ...He literally bounded over the bushes - hair standing on end, arms flailing like helicopter blades - and ran up to his family screaming those words a parent never wants to hear: "Mommy, there's a bunch of naked men behind the bushes - and they're playing Twister!"
The parents later wrote a letter of complaint and were responded to with an official apology, plus tickets to all the events at the next Provincetown Carnival Week. The little boy has been receiving counseling and seems to have readjusted to his normal life....
...There seems to be no end in sight of these rude 'doings in the dunes.' But, perhaps some kind of public forum could address the problem. In the meantime, the P-town police are at a disadvantage - and they'll be even more so, when the sandmen start to complain about 'profiling.'
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Campaign finance laws make impact
... Crisco has been ruled ineligible for the CEP, but because he doesn't have a primary next month, he'll have all summer to gather contributions from throughout and outside his district, pioneering the approach that those who don't join the public-financing program will have to take, including a Republican Senate candidate from Greenwich.Crisco can also take amounts in excess of $100 and expects to receive money from political action committees within Senate Democratic leadership aimed at keeping the current 23-13 majority, at least. "The message here is the Citizens' Election Program is vibrant, the candidates are taking to it and we're getting a positive reaction," said Jeffrey B. Garfield, executive director of the SEEC. "The reliance on special interests and state contractors is no longer there."
So far, the CEP has awarded funding for 33 House candidates and eight Senate candidates. Among the eight candidates approved for funding last week included first-term Rep. Kim Fawcett, D-Fairfield, and veteran Rep. Patricia Dillon, D-New Haven, who are both running for re-election, and six-term Rep. Antonietta Boucher, R-Wilton, who is running for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Judith G. Freedman, R-Westport.
Beth Rotman, the SEEC's director of public campaign financing, said the cleaner campaign rules are attracting more interested candidates.
"One thing really exciting thing we're hearing from more individuals is they don't have to be wealthy to run for office," she said last week. "That's something that could bring new life to politics."
...
Motorcyclist Dies In I-95 Crash
He was thrown off the bike and landed against the guard rail. Gomez was taken to Stamford Hospital, where he died later in the morning, police said.Deadly motorcycle accident on Merritt Parkway
... was killed in a deadly motorcycle accident on the Merritt Parkway early this morning. It happened near Exit 28 in Greenwich. State police say 30-year-old Eddy Gomez of Brooklyn struck a wooden guard rail and was thrown from his bike ...
....Through e-mails and letters sent this week, parents and community leaders are lobbying the Board of Education to focus its energy finishing the Hamilton Avenue School building and starting the Glenville School reconstruction project, rather than holding up one for the other.....
...But parents and community leaders say conditions at Glenville School are unfit for students or staff, citing the building's history of leaks and maintenance problems........Those rumors set off a firestorm of opposition from Hamilton Avenue School parents who said they would rather delay the start of the school year rather than have to send their children to Glenville School....
... officials decided it would remediate the modular and temporarily move in the Glenville students and staff while their school undergoes reconstruction.
Under one scenario, if the new Hamilton Avenue School is not ready, the students and staff there could temporarily move into Glenville School - an option that doesn't sit well with parents....
Alicia Budkins, co-president of Glenville School's parent-teacher association, said parents were tired of discussing what-if scenarios....
Parents from Glenville and Hamilton Avenue School have to start reading between the lines.
The Greenwich Board of Education and their operatives are experts at getting parents to attack each other. The BOE is afraid that the parents of Western Greenwich school children wil unite and go after failed school board members and incompetent school administrators.
Alicia Budkins, co-president of Glenville School's parent-teacher association, is just doing the Board of Education's bidding when she says that Western Greenwich Parents were tired of discussing what-if scenarios."To keep saying what if, what if, what if - how about finish it, finish it, finish it," she said. "Instead of talking in circles, get it done."
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Wiffle ball teens create a ruckus in Greenwich, Conn. - Connie Schultz
... it comes to evaluating the woes of the wealthy. Kids are good at this. Especially teenagers. This brings me to Greenwich, Conn., and the crisis there among some of the landed gentry. Greenwich is a town of roughly 62,000 people; most of them are ...Greenwich seeks solution to Wiffle ball squabble
GREENWICHAssociated PressA group of Greenwich teens who built a makeshift Wiffle ball field on an empty town-owned lot say they just want a safe place for their summertime fun.But neighboring homeowners say ...Teenage Boys Build Wiffle Ball Stadium in Worst Place: Greenwich, CT
Normally such initiative by youthful teens in this age of television and video games is welcomed with open arms except that these boys decided to build their crafty stadium on a lot in affluent Greenwich, ...
Reviewers described Jones as a young Gordon Gekko, Michael Douglas’s notorious character in the film Wall Street. He is shown losing $6m in a day and making almost as much another.
Very few copies still exist, and, according to the film’s director, Jones asked for the documentary to be removed from circulation in the 1990s. His reputation was also tarnished by an $800,000 fine in 1996 for improper short-selling....
....He is also a leading light in American political and charity circles. Last May Jones used his home for a fundraiser for US presidential candidate Barack Obama, and he is one of New York’s most prominent philanthropists through his Robin Hood Foundation....The $2 trillion industry put in its worst performance during the first half of the year since most credible records began
Rumors recently began to surface that school officials were considering keeping the Glenville School building standing so that it had a place to move Hamilton Avenue School students and staff temporarily.
Those rumors set off a firestorm of opposition from Hamilton Avenue School parents who said they would rather delay the start of the school year rather than have to send their children to Glenville School...
Please Read The Full Greenwich Time Story
Meeting Notice:
Home of the Brockton RoxWhen the Massachusetts team became aware of the controvesial field situation surrounding the Greenwich youths, they immediately wanted to show their support.
"We are all about family fun," said Rox General Manager Brian Voelkel. "Wiffle ball is great way to spend a summer's day and we want to encourage these kids for their desire to not sit at home and play video games," Voelkel added.
The Rox have not received word whether the kids will accept their offer to play. The Rox are also inviting the kids for a cookout and giving the youths tickets to their game following the wiffleball showdown.
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Shays Asked to Explain Comments
The following letter to U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-4, was shared with the Greenwich Citizen. -Ed.
Dear Representative Shays,
On behalf of our membership, I am writing to express our deep disappointment and profound concern regarding your attitude toward the rising price of gas. This is a critical issue for our members - not an abstract policy debate.
Every day we struggle to provide for our families, a challenge that has grown increasingly difficult in recent months. Every time gas goes up it gets harder for families in our district to pay our bills on time. Against this stark background, I hope you will understand how troubling it is to hear our own representative in Congress - the person charged with advocating for our welfare - suggest that when it comes to the high price of gas, "a lot of good things will come from it."
For families in Fairfield County, there is nothing good about having to devote more money to gas from a household budget that is already stretched thin. Connecticut has among the highest gas prices in the nation - $4.37 per gallon on average. If a family drives 12,000 miles per year, the rise in gas prices will cost...
Look at these reader submitted pictures of a Glenville School restroom.
How can Greenwich Time school reporter Hoa Nguyen ignore these school conditions?
Hoa Nguyen and the Greenwich Time are always ignoring the conditions that small inocent children of Western Greenwich must endure.
For over a year the parents of Hamilton Avenue school complained bitterly to the Greenwich media and to school officials about the deplorable conditions at Hamilton Avenue School modular classrooms.
For over one year the complacent mainstream media failed listen to the parents concerns about their children's substandard school facilities.
Reporter Hoa Nguyen and the Greenwich Time repeatedly failed to report about the Hamilton Avenue School parents complaints about substandard facilities and how it was affecting their children.
Form March off 2007 until the Greenwich Board
of Education March 2008 press release there was
not one Greenwich Time story on the conditions
inside the Hamilton Avenue modular classrooms.
In February of 2008, when a Hamilton Avenue parent complained to Greenwich Roundup about the poorly maintained modular Hamilton Avenue classrooms their story was up on the internet with in 24 hours.
Week after week Greenwich Roundup, with the help of Hamilton Avenue Parents, exposed the misdeeds of school officials until the Hamilton Avenue School classrooms were closed on March 2. 2008.
Please see:
The board of education was forced to close the contaminated modular classrooms on March 2nd of this year, because Hamilton Avenue School parents came to Greenwich Roundup.
Please see:
Unfortunately, it appears that Hoa Nguyen and the Greenwich Time doesn't care that....
The heartless Greenwich Board Of Education wants to take the Glenville school children out of the Hell hole, known as Glenville School, and put them into the contaminated modular classrooms.
Why wont the failed Greenwich Board of Education stop torturing the poor children of Glenville and Hamilton Avenue Schools?
Because mainstream reporters like Hoa Nguyen need to get a pair of journalistic balls and start reporting on conditions in Western Greenwich schools.
First the children of Hamilton Avenue School were in a mold infested school building. Then the Ham Ave children were put in cramped contaminated modular classrooms. Currently the Hamilton Avenue school community is split up and dispersed all over town.
Now they what they want to send Hamilton Avenue School Children to the Hell hole known as Glenville school.
Why Aren't Failed School Administrators Losing Thier High Paid Jobs?
There is a special place in Hell for Greenwich Board of Education members who look the other way as incompetent school school administrators like Susan Wallerstein cause the children of Western Greenwich to suffer.
In the one of the wealthiest towns in the richest nation on the face of the earth the Greenwich Board Of Education forces the small children of Western Greenwich to suffer in unequal and substandard school facilities.
