Main St Building Moving to Auction Block

760 main

A Main Street building plagued by a faulty roof may go on the auction block if a substantial tax payment is not made by the end of March. 760 Main St last occupied by a clothing store and the former home of Willimantic Instant Print and Ziesing Brothers Book Emporium was condemned by the town in September 2012 do to severe structural and water related damage At that time according to town building inspector, Donald Schultz, "holes in roof and floors and water coming through the roof has caused extensive damage to the structure as well as mold and mildew problems." Previously the town spent $29,945.00 plus engineering cost to replace an old roof as incentive to Mr. Poya, the current owner, to purchase 760 Main for $5,000.00. Windham had earlier foreclosed on a previous owner.
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As of January 31, 2013, according to town tax records there is a $17,984.00 unpaid  tax bill on the 760 Main Street building, some of this balance going back to 2008.  Mr Poya has attempted partial paymenst through September 2012 when the town received its last payment of $300.00.

According to Town Manager Beets if a substantial payment is not received on the debt by the end of March  the tax sale process will be begun.  Gay St. Louis, town revenue collector, estimates the town will realize proceeds( if any) from the tax sale 4-5 months after the process is initiated.

Meanwhile 760 Main must stand up to the punishing tricks of mother nature for six more months. What will we find, will the building weather the storm ? What if the tax sale brings no or unacceptable bids?  Will the building then fall under direction of the town council, the same body that takes three years to approve an ambulance? Are we facing another Chapman Block (Tin Tsin) disaster?


Read more about Windham's ongoing roof problems

Windham company top ten state polluter

Windham's General Cable ranked sixth biggest polluter in Connecticut

Brad Kane

The top 10 most polluting sites in Connecticut are home to manufacturers, a first since the coal plant typically topping the list went into bankruptcy, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Many of the top 10, including Pratt & Whitney and Covidien, saw production increases that led to the increased environmental releases from their sites.

"If a company has increased pollution and is still meeting its requirements, and it increased pollution because it increased production and hopefully hired people, it is hard to be real negative about that," said Jerry Clupper, executive director of New Haven Manufacturers Association.

Overall in Connecticut, the number of 2011 pollutants released decreased 25 percent to 2.1 million pounds, according to the EPA's January toxic release inventory. The state was far better than the New England TRI average, which decreased releases 8 percent.

Red the whole story from Connecticut Business.com
General Cable on the web

Company Location Pounds 2011 2010

of Releases rank rank

1. Cytec Industries 528 South Cherry St., Wallingford 221,665 1 2

2. Covidien 195 McDermott Road, North Haven 174,570 2 3

3. Pratt & Whitney 400 Main St., East Hartford 152,661 3 5

4. PCC Structurals 839 Poquonnock Road, Groton 118,684 4 22

5. GBC Metals 215 Piedmont St., Waterbury 116,755 5 4

6. General Cable Industries 1600 W. Main St., Willimantic 94,312 6 9

7. Unimetal Surface Finishing 15 E. Waterbury Road, Naugatuck 83,956 7 11

8. Summit Corp. of America 1430 Waterbury Road, Thomaston 70,029 8 6

9. Ahlstrom Nonwovens Canal Bank Road, Windsor Locks 61,338 9 8

10. Cray Valley USA 105 Ontario St., Stratford 52,565 10 13

General Cable on Wikipedia

Welcome to Bad Soden,Windham's sister city

Welcome to Bad Soden, Windham's sister city

Bad Soden (also: Bad Soden am Taunus) is a town and spa in the Main-Taunus-Kreis, Hesse, Germany. Population 21,412 (2005). Bad Soden is a popular residential town for commuters working in Frankfurt am Main. It is known for its various springs, which contain carbonic acid gas and various iron oxides. The waters are used both internally and externally, and are widely exported. Soden lozenges (Sodener Pastillen), condensed from the waters, are also in great demand. Bad Soden has a large and well-appointed Kurhaus, an Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, and a small hospital. It also has a residential building by the architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser.

Photographs courtesy Cristel Donahue and Jean de Smet

Link to Ban Soden Pictures
You Tube: Springtime in Bad Soden

The Doorbell: 59 seconds explains the national debt

 The doorbell, the national debt explained in 59 seconds

http://www.ntrc.info/doorbell.html

How many gun permits in your town or city?

By Michelle Tuccitto Sullo
mtuccitto@nhregister.com / Twitter: @nhrinvestigate

If you live in a small town in Connecticut, you are more likely to have a pistol permit than a city dweller.

While Bridgeport has the highest number of permit holders, several small, rural towns top the list with the highest percentage of their population having a pistol permit.

About 170,000 people in Connecticut have them, and the number of individuals seeking them has increased in recent years

Middletown Press Story

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Claire's Italian Garden

Crowning of our Cupid, our own Claire

More of:  Claire's Italian Garden

Why Didn't I Think of That?

Brenden Sharkey, speaker of Connecticut's House of Representative suggests the board of education and town council budgets be presented separately. Stand alone budgets may put a different light on town budget processes and how they are looked at.

He also wanted to see funding for boards of education separated from the budgets of towns. If school boards had to levy their own taxes and mill rates they would be directly responsible to the taxpayers, he said.

“As you go out and try to sell a tax increase to your towns — 60, 70, 80 percent of that is actually going to a board of education,” he said.

Read story from Connecticut News Junkie

A follow up: Windham, Closing Down Ttransparency

Krich: Meetings are to long

It's been over eight months since I wrote a story about the Democratic majority taking away Windham's taxpayers right to speak a second time at town council and town council sub committee meetings.  WINDHAM CLOSING DOWN TRANSPARENCY , originally published April 17, 2012, quotes council member Charles Krich claim that to many concerned citizens were coming to meetings,  speaking twice and repeating themselves. In fact only 3 speakers over a 21 month period (Sept. 2009-Dec. 2010) repeated themselves.   Other council members added that  neighboring town, Mansfield  had recently discontinued their second comment period and that council meetings were just to long.

Recently I  looked back to see if town government has  improved its communications abilities.. Unfortunately nothing  has been attempted to improve the town's communication tactics.  Windham is still using outmoded video equipment, an ad hoc communications committee has not met in 27 months. While some boards and committees stride to publicize their  minutes in a timely manner the board of finance has not made their minutes public in six months.  The upstairs town hall audio equipment, which was recently stolen, was replaced by similar inferior equipment. At a September 3, 2012 public hearing citizens were asked to stick the microphone down their throats so that others could hear the audio from the "Toys R Us" equipment.

Digging further I  found that those councilors that voted to stifle town democratic rights have missed their, misdirected, goals:

•   Instead of streamlining  meetings, meetings  have actually increased  from an average of 2 hours:11 minutes (former 2 public comment format)  to 2 hrs:24 minutes (newly instituted one comment session) 
• Under the former two comment session there were 227 comments during the 1st comment session ( Jan 3, 2011-Jan 4, 2012) or an averaged of 7.83 comments per meeting . With the elimination of the second comment period,comments have decreased to 5.38 comments per meeting, a 31% decrease.
• While public comment has decreased there has been an increase in public comment by appointed and elected officials . Prior to removal of the second public session 19% of those speaking were politicians, after the removal of the second comment session that has increased to 21%.

A 2010 study by Mark Shibles and Robert Villanova for the State Board of education suggests that Windham's problems come down to a lack of communications. Report on District Governance lays it on the line, give and take is imperative to a true democracy.  It's not happening in Windham.

Read the entire story: Windham, Closing Down Transparency