Bielefield Elementary Evacuated to Wesley

Parents of Bielefield students were just notified via the Honeywell Alert System that their children are being evacuated to Wesley School. Neither the Superintendent or BOE Chairman Ted Raczka could be reached for comment in the last hour. There is no additional information available on the district's website as of 1:55pm.

Anyone with additional specific information is encouraged to comment on this article. The top priority at the moment is our children's safety and the accurate spread of information. Thank you!

Council Passes Series of Energy-Saving Ordinances

In what might have been the most tedious exercise in legal requirements and Roberts Rules of Orders, the Middletown Common Council passed a number of expenditures ordinances which fund energy-saving and money-saving advances at all Middletown Public Schools. The savings, achieved school-by-school through a number of improvements ranging from new energy-efficient windows to photo-voltaic cells, are projected to be large enough to provide full payback for initial expenditures.

Both Councilman David Bauer and Vinnie Loffredo questioned why what appears to be one large money-saving, energy-saving project was being broken down for expenditure school-by-school. But Attorney Joe Fasi, hired to prepare the contracts, noted that any expenditure of more than $500,000 must be approved by referendum. Each of the projects, notably, is below that figure.

The Council tabled another set of ordinances to create a new parking authority because there were not enough council members present at the time of the vote to achieve the supermajority (9 votes) needed to pass the ordinances. These ordinances will be considered at a special meeting on June 22.

The Council did approve the expenditure of $2.5 million to pay retroactive salaries for police officers negotiated last year.

In a response to a question, town Attorney Timothy Lynch explained that although the Council passed a resolution that a portion of money earned from the sale of Cucia Park to the Army must be set aside for open space, that the council was free to pass another resolution to repeal the original resolution. In the recently-passed budget, Council members assume that up to $1.5 million of revenue from the sale of Cucia Park, for which the Army is reported to have bid $2 million, would be returned to the General Fund for expenditure next fiscal year.

For at least the first half of the meeting, each Council member and the mayor was shadowed by a student from Woodrow Wilson Middle School. Students fled the chamber during a break in the reading of the energy-saving ordinances.

The Council honored Martin Reardon for his service in the Marine Corps, his work with veterans and for his longtime chairmanship of the Memorial Day Parade.

The Council also commended the Police Department for their prompt reaction, and ongoing work after the murder of Johanna Justin-Jinich, and for their part in the capture of her alleged assailant, Stephen Morgan.

The Council also tabled approval of the waiving of showmobile fees for Fellowship Church.

Not a week after the majority Democrats on the Council returned spending to the budget for items such as July 4 fireworks, and pottery classes for senior citizens, Councilman Ron Klattenberg proposed a ban on waiving of showmobile fees.

"I can't remember the last time we charged for use of the showmobile," Mayor Sebastian Giuliano said.

"I think the Council should set a new tonewith the waiving of showmobile fees," Klattenberg said. "I suggest that we reject all requests for waiver of showmobile fees."

Klattenberg cited the tough economic times as a basis for his proposal.

Finance And Governance Concentrates on Finance

The F&G Committee began with a financial warning and ended with one on Wednesday evening.

Councilman David Bauer, testifying as a public citizen, said that he was worried about a report he had heard from city employees that money was being wasted on a rented sanitation truck.

According to Bauer, a city truck is under repair, and the Sanitation Department rented a used vehicle at a higher price than they could have rented a new vehicle with the same specs as city trucks. In addition, a one-week repair has extended to three weeks, and the department is now requesting an additional $5000, on top of a $900o request for rental and repair costs.

Committee chair Ron Klattenberg recommended that Bauer bring his concern before the council meeting on Monday.

At meeting's end, finance director Carl Erlacher warned committee members that a request for $2.5 million dollars from the reserve fund will be made at Monday's Common Council meeting. Erlacher explained that the expenditure would cover police salaries negotiated in the last contract talks.

Erlacher stated that the expenditure would drop the reserve fund to $9 million.

"I was looking toward the day when Aetna leaves town, in building that reserve," Erlacher explained. "Now we don't have that buffer. Next year we'll have to come up with another plan."

One of the ways the city is looking to make money is through hiring a bill collector to collect on past due bills, fines and license fees. The collection company takes a percentage of the recovered funds. Fourteen thousand past-due bills were handed over to the collector.

In between the financial warnings, the committee sent a series of ordinance recommendations forward to the Common Council recommending expenditures for energy saving measures at Middletown's Public Schools. In a presentation, Kendall Jackson, director of school facilities, and Doreen Hamilton from Honeywell Business Solutions explained how the expenditures would more than payback the original outlay in savings.