Danbury bonds & credit is AAA rated (better than the state and the U.S).

Friday night’s surprise downgrade by the credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s from “AAA” to “AA+” has hit our country in a deeply profound way – and has caused panic in the Obama Administration. This past weekend the Administration was busy trying to dispel the importance of this action – mainly because they were concerned of its impact on the economy.

But the action of the Administration misses the mark. The downgrade will be about the stock market and the economy in the short term, but in the long term the action by S&P has damaged the psyche of our country and our business community.

American exceptionalism has been questioned, and now, an independent agency, has said that we are no longer the gold standard in the world economy.

CHALLENGES

-Ability to replenish fund balance appropriation to maintain financial stability

[…]

HISTORICALLY SOUND FINANCIAL POSITION EXPECTED TO CONTINUE

Moody's believes that the City of Danbury will maintain its favorable financial position, given management's prudent fiscal practices and the city's commitment of maintaining unreserved General Fund balance at a minimum 5% and targeted 10% of General Fund revenues. However, inability to fully replenish fund balance appropriations has led to three consecutive years fund balance draws, In fiscal 2010, the city was able to narrow a $2.6 million operating deficit to a $906,000 draw on reserves through savings their 2010 refunding. Total ending fund balance totaled $25.4 million or 14.1% of General Fund revenues, down from its fiscal 2007 peak of $28.3 million or 15.1% of revenues.

WHAT COULD MAKE THE RATING GO UP

-Significant improvement in the city's financial position such as the reduced reliance on reserves for tax relief purposes

In response to the previous comment. Thank god for this blog. If not for this blog then most of the public would have no idea of the constant lies and manipulation heaped on us by the current mayor and his rubber stamp city government. He has no problem in blatantly standing up and lying to the public. Case and point he stood up in a recent debate and proclaimed we have a triple A bond rating. As a matter of fact it was the cornerstone of his accomplishments according to him. When he knows as do i and many others its just a lie. Our bond rating with two of the major rating agencies is not good at best. According to S & P the most respected of all the ratings agencies our rating is the same as Waterbury! Dont believe me look itup. it is all available here on the web. Standardandpoors dot com,Moodys dot com and fitchrating dot com. He knows this and still stands up and proclaims triple A! I wanted to jump out of my seat and scream THATS JUST A LIE!!! Now you may want to believe that this guy is for you and all the others in Danbury. The fact is he would slit your and my throat if it would get him to the next level. Al knows this and tells the truth. You dont like it read the news Times they are more then willing to keep Boughtons lies going for you the public. If you want the truth keep reading Als blogs. It is your choice.

Helena is a candidate for the City Council in Ward 2 where she lives with her husband, David. Helena has two adult children who both attended Danbury Public Schools. Her oldest son graduated from Fordham University with a degree in Physics. Her youngest son graduated from the University of New Haven and is a franchise owner and a 2nd Lieutenant in the army. Helena served on the City Council from 1995 to 2001 and as City Clerk from 2001 until 2003. She was the Mayoral candidate for the Democratic party in 2007. Helena is a para-legal and owns a restaurant, The Atlantic, on Osborne Street. She is very concerned with the city’s direction and thinks we need people on the Council who can voice their opinion. She will meet regularly with her constituents and attend City Council meetings on their behalf.

This area would continuously be maintained by us and would meet any special regulations and guidelines the city of Danbury may have.

"We get thousands of checks from thousands of people and we just wouldn't have any way of knowing something like that is happening."

Mayor Boughton's response to his acceptance of James Galante alleged bundled campaign contributions

• Additional illegal bundled campaign contributions from James Galante



• Democratic town committee members who donated to Boughton's campaign,



• An family-owned immigrant newspaper that has donated (along with immediate family members) over 600 dollars in in-kind advertising contributions in late 2005 (NOTE: although the in-kind advertising contribution was received on 10.10.05, Boughton's campaign did not disclose the contribution until after the election against then Democratic mayoral candidate Dean Esposito on 01.10.06). The same business donated over 1,400 to Boughton during the 2007 campaign cycle (including 1,100 after the ICE ACCESS program was introduced in during the October Common Council meeting)



• Massive contributions from developers (including the infamous Dan Bertram of BRT) and well as



• Contributions from some of the top anti-immigrant, racist, xenophobes in the area.



• Contribution from the main players who contributed to the worst episode in the history of Danbury: The James Dyer scandal of the 1980s.

January 10 2011 campaign finance statement

April 10 2011 campaign finance statement

July 10 2011 campaign finance statement

October 10 2011 campaign finance statement

November 1 2011 campaign finance statement

A judge sentenced Danbury minister and former youth counselor Troy Grant to 20 years in prison on Wednesday, calling him a "classic pedophile" who preyed on society's must vulnerable members.

Superior Court Judge Janet Reynolds brushed aside the defendant's attempted apology and a request by his lawyer for a lesser sentence in imposing the maximum term permitted by the deal that saw Grant plead guilty in September.

"If I could give you more than 20 years, I would," she said.

Lynn/Mark: Do you plan on addressing the issue of overcrowding in the Danbury Schools by re-evaluating the school budget and increasing it to enable the superintendent to build and renovate buildings thereby reducing the number of kids in each school?

Lynn Taborsak's response:

The Superintendent of Schools and the Board of Education have no authority to borrow money to build or renovate schools. That is the responsibility of the municipal government. The school district provides the programs, staff, equipment, books, and computers to educate our children. The city provide the buildings. They have to work together to resolve the issue of school overcrowding. Mayor Boughton has painted the school district as public enemy #1 because of the cost of school improvements to taxpayers. The truth is that many improvements like new boilers, new windows and solar panels save the district money down the road with lower energy costs. The city receives both Clean Energy grants and state reimbursement for those costs. We can’t have overcrowded, run-down substandard school facilities and expect children to succeed.

Mark Boughton's response:

We have a long range planning committee- the 2020 Task Force is finishing it's report. Once the report has been issued and the Task Force has formed a consensus on its recommendations, we will go to the voters looking for a positive vote. Building and renovating schools is an extremely costly process and will have a significant impact on your tax bill, therefore we must be sensitive to the needs of our taxpayers. Last year almost 200 families lost their home due to foreclosure, these are some of the most difficult economic times since the Great Depression. The final recommendations of the 2020 Task Force must be the most cost efficient possible if we are going to ask the voters to support it. Last fiscal year the Danbury Public Schools ran a significant surplus. That surplus was use to pay down expenses in the coming years. That should indicate the question is nor "does the BOE have enough money?" the question is "how does the BOE spend its money?" under state statute the Mayor or the City Council cannot tell the BOE how to spend its money.

2) Lynn/Mark: Do you feel that it is more important to spend money developing downtown Danbury or to spend that money on solving our school overcrowding problem?

Mark Boughton's response:

I believe that both our important. However, the priority must be balancing the numbers of students in our schools. Right now the BOE has rolled out a plan to address the short term needs, we are working on a long term solution.

Lynn Taborsak's response:

It’s more important to solve the problem of overcrowded schools than to spend taxpayer dollars developing the downtown. Here is why: We currently exceed the recommended class size for elementary school classes by 8. The middle school enrollment exceeds the State Department of Education guidelines by 200 to 300 students in both middle schools. The High School is bursting at the seams. You cannot provide high quality education in hallways, closets and storage rooms. You cannot expect “failing” schools to succeed in meeting the challenges they face with these substandard conditions. The City of Danbury is the landlord for the school district. If the Unified Neighborhood Inspection Team[UNIT] was empowered to crack down on substandard schools, Mayor Boughton would be in court with a list of violations a mile long. He is a bad landlord and he is afraid to tell voters the truth about overcrowding. We need a third middle school and 30 more elementary classrooms to start. We need to get the maximum state assistance possible and present voters with a plan we can afford.

Lynn/Mark: Are you willing to stop the rapid rate of new home/condo construction in order to put an end to the influx of families moving to the Danbury area which, in my opinion, is responsible for the overcrowding that we are now seeing in our schools? Of all the questions I feel the last one is the most important because all of these new homes are what is causing people to move to Danbury in the first place.

Lynn Taborsak's response:

3) According to the demographer hired by the school district to examine population trends, it’s the sale of small starter homes in the 4th, 5th and 6th Wards that is driving the increase in the school population in Danbury. I’m sure that the proliferation of condominiums and luxury townhouses contributes to the school population too, but not to the same extent. The real problem with “over-development” is that it costs more to provide services [fire, police, schools, libraries, roads, water, sewer and parks] than the tax revenue generated by each unit. Danbury turned over the largest tract of industrial zoned land in all of Fairfield County for thousands of condominium units in one meeting of the Zoning Commission in 2004. That was a terrible loss for tax base and for our economic development portfolio. In one evening, we saddled our blue-collar base with the expense of creating an upscale enclave on the out skirts of town. Yet many Danbury seniors can no longer manage the upkeep of a traditional single family home and need a variety of housing choices including subsidized senior housing, age-restricted developments, moderate rental units and more modest town houses where upkeep is included in the common charges. This kind of mixed housing can be key to revitalizing our downtown area where the infrastructure for water, roads, sewers and transportation already exists. We need more of our population and workforce downtown. We don’t need more luxury condominiums on Kennedy Boulevard either. This isn’t just like Baltimore as the Mayor tried to claim in our debate. We don’t have a harbor, a Major League baseball team, a children’s museum, a zoo or an aquarium.

Mark Boughton's response:

3) New condo's and homes are not where the influx students are coming from. Our Planning Department has studied new condo developments and older condo developments, and have concluded that the amount of children generated by these developments is small.

The areas that generating new children for our schools are the older neighborhoods with Victorian homes that have been renovated into a 3 and 4 family home - many before we even had zoning regulations that now prohibit such building.

Think about it, if 40% of the children now enrolling in our schools are living at or below the poverty level, they are not living in a $300,000 condo.

Several years ago we amended our Zoning Ordinances to prohibit much of the building that you see today that occurred in the late 80's and 90's. Homes that were built "shotgun" style on small lots, must now face the street, the zone around Virginia Ave. was changed to prohibit the type of building that you see there - the old RMF-3 Zone. Finally, "shotgun" style condo's have also been prohibited.

Unfortunately, many of the 3 and 4 family homes are pre-existing and non-conforming to today's regulations, but, under the law, they are allowed to continue their current use.
You cannot change history, but we are going to continue to manage responsible development in the future to ensure that our quality of life is protected.