Well honeybunch, things are getting back to normal in this office after our esteemed editor (I hafta call him that) got back from St. Paul in the State of Minnesota. What a difference. Weather out there was in the 60s and mid-70s on the woist day, with some humidity. He got back in NYC on Sundee and the humidity could’ve been cut with a knife.
Tennyrate, the foist thing he comes up with is this back-and-forth betwixt the two Democrats (hizzoner Mayor O’Brien and Mizz Nancy Rossi) over the high school bond. As yew remember, hizzoner put a stop to the projeck more than a year ago, and had some perty substantial reasons why it was so. By that time the drafts of the building specs had gone through sooooo many changes and rewrites that it was costing the city a goodly portion of money.
Of course, part o’ the problem was the fack that putting in room for the shops – the thing that had the projeck in problems from the start – was being (as they say now) slow-walked by the powers that be. There were other problems too.
Not letting an issue get by, ole Nancy is latching onto the fack that the building is going to cost us a few kopecks more with the delay. But I haf one query: wasn’t the original price tag somewhere around $134 million with the original specs? This new building is gonna be smaller, $124 million. And that is causing no little amount of consternation as methinks I heard 14 classrooms were scraped.
Whatever, the proof that it’s gonna be a long summer of campaigning is getting more and more obvious. Heck, hizzoner opened his campaign headquarters and things are beginning to gear up. The way the summer is going (it’s gonna be July 1 in a few days) September will be here before you know it, and the decisions will have been made.
Of course, once it’s made as to who will be the standard-bearer in the Dems’ party, that don’t mean we won’t have a three-way race. There’s always petitioning or write-ins. And, remember the A Better Future Party – or as most of us called Democratic Party II? There can always be a thoid party formed by the loser.
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Jest one thing about the school system before we go onto other things. It seems that Vic Hogfeldt and the superintendent are at loggerheads over the former’s penchant to scribe his thoughts to school officials. I don’t know all the ins and outs o’ the law, but since when is it outta bounds to write ones bosses or the bosses of the boss?
I don’t wanna go into all the details, and methinks ole Vic has cleared everything with his barristers before he does these things, but it seems one cannot be threatened for writing letters. And, with a lawsuit that is certainly gonna come outta this saga, is it really advisable for the defendant to be issuing letters that might be used in court? Jest asking…
As I keep telling you, this things is gonna center on some very specific things that were done at very specific times, and I know that several members of the teaching profession think so as well. And, we all know Vic. He’s tenacious when he wants to be.
The thing I think is gonna be very interesting is how the Bored of Ed reacts to all this…and the Actors Colony itself when all is said and done. Stay tuned.
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Sammy Bluejay came in and told Cobina that the former Sursum Corda property – at least that’s what it was called after that big announcement in the 1980s that never came about – has been sold. Sammy sez that the word is it might, in fack, become the heart-health center it was supposed to be in the foist Reagan Administration. The land, which is now owned by David Beckerman I believe, has been laying fallow for more years than is necessary. There was talk at one time of moving the entire University of New Haven campus there, but that was deep-sixed. Another projeck for the aged was talked about but never came about.
So, the question before the house is when the announcement of setch a projeck is gonna happen, cuz, yew know as well as I do, the politicos in this town L-U-V big announcements – particularly in election years.
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The Atwood – the mixed use building that took over the Carroll Cut-Rate property – is in its final stages. Already there’s been a big story in the local papyrus about the building and the hopes it’ll revitalize the Allingtown Center. It certainly can’t hurt, but one wonders effen other things can’t happen there as well. The whole area needs a sprucing up and not just with a new building.
Of course, effen it prompts owners to spruce up, then the new building is serving more than one purpose. Now that the rerouting of the Campbell Avenue-Boston Post Road intersection is completed, maybe, jest maybe, things will start moving over there.
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Nelly Nuthatch told me that the announcement of the closing of the ShopRite on Campbell Avenue was not as big a surprise as one would have thought. Nelly sez that customers and some employees got suspicious when the pharmacy that was in the store was moved the Orange location that took over a former Stop & Shop site.
That moving had more than a few wondering effen the store’s days were numbered. And, while there is talk the university might be interested in the property – there’s talk the university is interested in plenty o’ properties – that seems to be at the present time jest a rumor.
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Natchurly, with the Fourth of July coming on Tuesday of next week, a lotta the focus around here is gonna be the fireworks that come on July3. I know one thing, honey bunch, Cobina is gonna ensconce herself in her domicile as quickly as possible because of the display.
More than 100,000 people take part in the thing each year, and the traffic on that night is worse than normal. It’s bumper-to-bumper and one has no clue how to avoid it. Remember, there ain’t an easy way to git in or outta this berg.
Needless to say, the noise will start as well. Not only will we hafta contend with the motorcycles, but there will be the individual fireworks that seem to pop up all over town. Noise is a big part o’ the night scene around my neighborhood. Let’s just hope things calm down early enough.
With that bit o’ chatter, I’ll close this time till next, mitt luff und kizzez,