Posting Will Resume Shortly

Dear friends and supporters thank you so much for your consideration of our blog and your many comments insights and letters. At the moment I am taking some time away from blogging to refocus my bearings on what has become a very active and overwhelming political life. Stay tuned in a short while I will begin the next phase of the Infowar as soon as I recover from my ballot fatigue.

Milford Polling Locations and Instructions

First and foremost find your voting center by going to the bottom of this page or click THIS LINK. Know where to go.

Next bring your ID. Acceptable forms of ID are valid non expired drivers licences, military, or passport id's, or certified state ID's. If you have none of these go to the Parson's complex voter registrar and obtain a voter ID card.

Once this is sorted out, on Tuesday November 2Nd. go to your designated voting location between the hours of 6:00am till 7:30pm . If you are unfamiliar with the Diabold system watch the video above explaining its use.

As a final note, and to make sure your vote counted look at the numerical counter on the Diebold machine. (The counter will be located on the front panel and look like the odometer on your car.) Notice the number before you put your card in, then look again to be certain the number counted up.

Any problems please report them to the poll watchers and contact me on my cell. (203) 247-4357. or call the Voter Regisrar Office by clicking HERE.

This Blog Courtesy of Rocco Frank (Independent Candidate For The 118th State Rep. Race)
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POLL FINDER
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Richetelli & Candidates Hijack Veterans Day Speeches!

Had a great day with the Veterans at the Parade. Loved everything about this Veterans Day except the Political Parties who name Dropped prior to this Tuesdays Vote. Was also not too keen on the Sophomoric speeches where our local leaders each complimented themselves and reminded us how great a job they all did and how wonderful our community is. Hard not to notice that our leaders have no clue on what to say to people in a Triple Dip Recession... its too funny... it all has to always be good never can it be the way it really is... no connection to reality. It's kind of sad.

Anyhow, this years Veterans Day was kind of surprising, I did not expect to hear so many politicians talk. In previous years, and in other towns, several local veterans took to the podium and told us many inspiring and heartfelt stories about their personal experiences during and after times of war. Hearing Veterans speak during Veterans day is one of the best ways we can appreciate them, more of us have to hear what they have to say and share with us their stories of courage, inspiration and survival.

The worst part of this Veterans day was that most of the people who took center stage in the Milford gazebo never enlisted or fought in a war. Someone grumbled attention was low, if I had to guess why its because I think people are sick and tired of our local kleptocratic politicians hijacking and dominating every public event. The last person I wanted to hear speak this Veterans Day was Jim Richetelli, our candidates for office, and their praise for their "chicken hawk" teams! "

Why The Milford Public Schools Are Giving Your Children Such a Poor Education

By: Richard Sieron – Milford Independent Party Candidate for School Board for the 5th District

A recent Connecticut Post article headline asked: “Who’s to blame for Milford’s low test scores?” That article quoted former Alderman Jack Fowler: “The poor results on the CAP tests are truly shocking. After 11 years in our system, our students are dead last in math and writing and next to last in science and reading among comparable school systems.” The Milford PTA Council passed out brochures at its recent Board of Education Candidates Forum. In those brochures was found a statement by each of the 10 Republican and 10 Democrat candidates, answering the question: “Why do you want to be on the Board of Education?” Not ONE of them had ONE word to say about the dumbing down of our students, never mind offering a solution to that very serious problem. 

Typical bland answers to the question included sentences like: “To contribute toward continued improvement of Milford’s school system.” At that Forum, the procedure for picking which candidate to answer each question was to provide equal time between the Republicans and Democrats, ( I did get a fair shake there) but the petty politics is outrageous. George Washington, in his farewell speech, warned us to beware of political parties. You can see how it is destroying our public school systems and can also see how it has (past tense) destroyed our federal government.

The tenth amendment to the Constitution specifically reserves powers to the states that are not delegated to the federal government. The Constitution does not delegate any powers whatsoever to the federal government relating to education; therefore the federal government must keep its sticky fingers out of education in Connecticut. We have people right here in Milford that are just as smart as any Washington bureaucrat, if not smarter. Alabama may need “No Child Left Behind, “ but we do not.

While campaigning for election to the school board, I happened to knock on the door of two homes where teachers reside. In both cases they eagerly invited me into their living room and each of them informed me of the same two things. First, they said they spent a huge amount of time teaching to the federally mandated tests, taking much valuable time away from traditional academic subjects. Second, they told me they are not allowed to formally teach the students how to think.

In talking to some school board members, I accidently made an astonishing discovery. There are two layers of administration between the teachers and the school board, namely the school Principals and the Superintendent. As a result, the school board has no way of knowing what problems the teachers have identified in terms of curriculum and teaching methods unless, of course, the Superintendent somehow obtains that information and passes it on, but that does not appear to be happening. However, it is the Board of Education’s responsibility and not the Superintendent’s to be concerned with those issues. See my proposed solution for this problem at the end.

Another matter of importance concerns the use of computers in our Milford schools. The New York Times recently reported that employees of Silicon Valley giants like Apple, Hewlett Packard, Yahoo and Google send their students to schools where no computers are provided for the students. They believe that computers inhibit creative thinking, movement, human interaction and attention spans and I strongly subscribe to that premise and I am an IT professional. I also believe that students should not be allowed to use calculators in the

classroom. They must be taught how to make simple calculations using pen and pencil. It’s rather strange that the bright students who opt for advanced math classes have never been taught how to make simple calculations without using a calculator.

U.S. public education was far better a hundred years ago. One major contributing factor to the decline is the ever growing intrusion of non-academic courses and programs. Educators have pressed for more and more non-academic curriculum materials while laymen have pressed for more “back to basics.” The 3 R's have almost disappeared from the curriculum. A large percentage of our Milford High School seniors do not know that Abraham Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation;. do not know who Josef Stalin was and cannot locate Great Britain on a world map. I recently gave a cashier at the mall theater a $20 bill and a $1 bill to pay for two $8 tickets. Without any prompting on my part, he informed me that he had never found any student who could make that simple change calculation. I am ashamed when people like that tell me they don’t understand why our students are so ignorant.

Today, there is virtually no chance that any bright student might ask why our Constitution is being violated daily and why so many citizens believe the Congress is so corrupt. Notice the issue is not politics – Republicans vs Democrats, the right vs the left or liberal vs conservative. Our students should be encouraged to ask questions about what has happened to our government, such as: “Why have we heard it said that we have the most corrupt government the world has ever seen?” Do you believe that and similar questions are proper topics for 17 year old high school seniors? Many responsible citizens have told me “Yes, “ The Founding Fathers, headed by Thomas Jefferson, would emphatically have said “Yes.”

Today, there is virtually no chance that any bright student might ask why our Constitution is being violated daily and why so many citizens believe the Congress is so corrupt. Notice the issue is not politics – Republicans vs Democrats, the right vs the left or liberal vs conservative. Our students should be encouraged to ask questions about what has happened to our government, such as: “Why have we heard it said that we have the most corrupt government the world has ever seen?” Do you believe that and similar questions are proper topics for 17 year old high school seniors? Many responsible citizens have told me “Yes, “ The Founding Fathers, headed by Thomas Jefferson, would emphatically have said “Yes.”

It has been proven that the correlation between financial inputs and education outputs is very weak and shaky Milford is one of the more affluent Connecticut cities and yet, as the Connecticut Post pointed out, the quality of education in our schools is at the bottom of the heap.

If elected, here are some specific goals I would urge upon the board of education:

(1) Totally eliminate Federal mandated exams. Obama has promised not to withhold federal funds to those so doing and we could accept those funds on an interim basis

(2) Make major revisions to the curriculum. Purchase text books from vendors that do not craft them based on the specs of the biggest buyers, which practice results in the same text books supplied to `most every public school in the country. I highly recommend a web site named: “What do textbooks teach?” - Velocity Press (enter those exact words into Google, including the quotation marks)

(3) Completely remove computers from student access. Do not allow them to bring calculators to class.

(4) Introduce course material that teaches the students how to think and how to ask probing questions. Challenge the teachers to challenge the students .

(5) Appoint an ombudsman to interface directly between the teachers and the school board, providing safeguards to protect the teachers from recrimination.


Cast your vote on Tuesday, November 8 at Harborside Middle School.


Unaffiliated voters are strongly encouraged to get out and vote. Don’t leave the administration of our city government and particularly our schools strictly to party loyals.


Vote for the Milford Independent Party

Our candidates, include myself, John Grant (Planning and Zoning) and Rocco Frank, running for Mayor.


Sincerely,

Richard Sieron

Tel 203-878-2396

Personal Note From Rocco Frank

Elections and election years have been an adventure for me.I have stood by my convictions as a free thinking Milford Independent, and to the best of my ability made that widely known in the last Four elections. As this year concludes, and I look back, I must ask myself if I regret the efforts that I and the MITC have put forth. Having often questioned my choices, my decisions, your challenges, and the financial sacrifices that our team has made, I can without a doubt conclude that there are great people and heroes out there who share in our common vision of one day having a truly honest, fair, and receptive local government.

Never did I tell anyone how to vote, nor did I seek to instill a misplaced belief in what I perceive to be the art of aggressive campaigning and vote mongering. We instead maintained our simple belief that we need to focus on the big issues, and support “honest people.” Each and every year, I did the best job possible in delivering those individuals to the ballot and yet every election we hear similar self promoting words that sell candidates. Words like: “Experienced,” “Qualified,” “Responsible,” “transparent,” “efficient” and the unanimous self proclamation of “love” for our city.

These words mean different things to different people, for instance, those who receive large salaries and great public benefits are one group with a strong affinity for our community. They are also the most protective over their prosperity and financial well being. On the other hand there are those of us who will be opening up our tax bill in 2012 and wondering where the additional money will come from to pay for food, medicine or transportation. Each of us read, share and learn what we can, we talk to our friends, and often with great angst and confusion, blindly vote for a candidate or political party not knowing if we made a good/bad decision.


For this reason, I believe that one of the most important parts of being a leader is to be a person of good character, a person who is a fair and capable problem solver. With so many of you in a “world of hurt” I cannot help but feel sad. In doing so, I have maintained that Character matters more than experience, it matters more than education, how successful you are, how much money you have in the bank or how politically connected a candidate is. It’s about asking the tough questions. Questions about Seniors, Veterans, a $4.95M appropriation on a small N.H. Ave. firehouse, or the $2M appropriation on a Grove St. sewage pump. It’s about questioning no bid contracts, nepotism, and undeserved bonuses. What makes me different from my opponents is that I love the people of this community more than I love the Government.

When voting remember what you heard this year, countless petty “Penny Foolish” battles over office chairs, Halloween décor and discontent, trash museum controversy, and 9/11 conspiracies relative to campaign signs. Thanks to your encouragement, you have kept us going… therefore I hope and pray that more of you stand with me at the polls this November 8th.

Richetelli, Blake and Joy Mum on Missing Millions

This morning when I left my office for lunch at the ComputerFox, I bumped into a local Firefighter who was with me standing in line at Dee's Deli. I introduced myself and casually began to talk about the New Firehouse on New Haven Ave. that is being built at a reported cost of about 4.2 Million.

This was perfect timing because last night the Milford Independent Town Committee met, and we discussed several issues, including the work of Dick Sieron who recently met with our new Super. Ms. Feser on education issues, but none dominated the meeting with more energy and vigor than this firehouse cost. We even had a member of the MRTC come down to ask us questions because he said "he had no idea this sort of thing was going on and that no one in the MRTC or MDTC was talking about it."

This morning he thanked the MITC for being so vigilant while others are so distracted, but to get back to my conversation with the Firefighter, whose name I will not mention, he said "we (Firefighters) are all wondering what happened to the money as well! This has been a divisive issue in the MFD!" and after I read the latest discontent with the 98-102 vote over discord with Chief Lavecchia, it became clear that the real estate deals being made are a big part of the MFD vote of "No Confidence."

Last week, Lavecchia lost his bid to the Fire Commission to combine his est 90K salary with his pension, Lavecchia wanted the same deal that Chief Mello got despite public outrage. He argued it was fair because the MPD set the precedent and Mayor Richetelli supported his request. His objective was to cash in early on his pension and be rehired as the Chief. However, and much to the credit of the fire commission, his request was disallowed and denied. Bob Joy said he also opposed it yet Blake is not on record for or against it.

These facts should bring to light our research at the MITC, we visited the new firehouse ourselves last night. We did the research and posted the construction estimates on this blog a few short days ago. We determined that the true and just construction costs for this Two Bay Garage, with no basement and an attached single story structure should have cost about 1 Million to 1.4 Million without the land. This estimate also included the Architectural design fees, and Union labor brick and steel construction.

Our Vice Chair Steve Borer who is very connected with the Fire Department and has friends and family in the Fire Department confirmed what I heard this morning, last night; that firefighters like their jobs too much. They are afraid that if they speak out or ask questions they will be punished, fired or sanctioned. This is becoming the common theme in our town, and we are hearing it more and more that city employees are afraid to come forward.

Currently Alderman Giantasio is going to be asked to provide proof, and a veritable and credible estimate of how this 4.2 Million of taxpayer money was spent. The justifications from Mayor Richetelli and the Board of Alderman are going to be expected and scrutinized with great detail, and I am going to call out to the chairman of each political party to ask the tough questions as well and hold those culpable accountable on the excessive construction amounts.

As it stands Lametta Construction has a Back Hoe on the fenced in construction site, and despite my personal knowledge of Lametta, I asked around what their reputation was. The trail leads to the City of Stratford, who declined to comment, but none the less those in the know said they were appalled with this company and advised and insisted that Milford not use them. I am still planning on speaking with Former Stratford Mayor Jim Miron to get the details on why Stratford is so visibly upset with this developer. When I find the answers hopefully it will shed some light on why there was no "Groundbreaking ceremony" on this firehouse as is customarily done.

This may also explain why it did not appear in the bidding system for city contracts, and also explain why this was a "no bid contract" to a developer that our neighbor warned us about. These are tough and serious questions that have to be answered. These are also the reasons why the Independent Party was formed, to fight this type of questionable policy and development on behalf of our failed two party system that refuses to do so.

The MITC gets few votes, makes no friends, makes no money, imperils themselves and gets routinely attacked for being a taxpayer advocate. I admire all those individuals in our city who dare to speak out and stand up for the seniors and veterans who are living on a restricted income, and I am saddened by the kids who can't seem to get an unencumbered education. As the facts emerge, I will continue to update this blog, and continue to report back with details on what appears to be a corrupt "Joe Ganim" type of construction deal.  Please report any facts or details you have to me personally.

REFERENCES

Firehouse Construction Estimator at the below link:

Milford Board of Alderman Approve 4.95 Million for new Milford Fire station.

http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2010/11/26/news/milford/bb2mifireapprove112610.txt

Ben Blake Quoted

Alderman Ben Blake, D-5, said he voted to approve the funds for the new fire station because LaVecchia convinced him it will “increase efficiency.” “Hopefully, it will improve safety and be cost-neutral or result in cost savings,” Blake said.

Jim Richetelli Quoted

"an environmental assessment of the site for the new firehouse brought no concerns. He said the architect, DeCarlo & Doll of Hamden, is designing the building, and he hopes construction could start by year’s end." “This is part of the master plan that dates back 40 years,”

Waste Fraud and Abuse Comparison

Conservative One Story 6,000 Sf
http://www.reedconstructiondata.com/rsmeans/models/fire-station/connecticut/new-haven/


Liberal Two Story 10,000 Sf
http://www.reedconstructiondata.com/rsmeans/models/fire-station2/

Rocco J. Frank Jr.
(203) 247-4357

Blake's Unethical Police Union Endorsement

This week the Milford Police Union decided to endorse my Democratic Candidate for mayor much to the chagrin of the local Republicans. This was a surprise and a disappointment since they offered a hefty package to the department.

The Republican Candidate, offered up Simon Lake School as a police substation and training center, the Republicans also were silent when the Chief of Police collected his pension in tandem with his salary. There is no shortage of legal problems at the local police department here in Milford either. For those of you who may not know, last year one of our officers killed two youths from Orange in what appeared to be a drag racing incident. This resulted in an investigation whereby dash cam video tape evidence was "accidentally" deleted by the Police Department. The city is now facing a wrongful death lawsuit that could reach into the millions, not to mention the pain and hurt imposed on the families and friends of these young adults.

None of this is to say that the endorsement is not compromised, but one thing that is certain is that its hypocritical at best and criminal at worst. This is the same police department whose detectives were quoted in the papers as saying "I did nothing criminal" when I offered to drop off the ballot in exchange for "Jobs" paid and unpaid for the Milford Independents who are seeking oversight at the highest levels in city hall. We soon got our answer from this police department who did an "investigation" without a criminal complaint being filed, and saw fit to attempt to discredit and embarrass the Independent Party by reporting to the New Haven Register and The Milford Orange Bulletin that I (Rocco Frank) was investigated, even though it was on record there were no criminal complaints filed.

Aside from it being improper to investigate a local citizen without anyone filing a complaint, I found it odd that our detectives randomly open up investigations based on what Journalists like Brian McReady write in the paper. This is not a responsible or professional way to operate a police department, and I find it more troubling that they attempt to corrupt the political process.

Both my opponents, are very similar, almost identical and this endorsement shows that similarity once again in graphic detail. While I am not going to elaborate on anything other than the facts here and try to avoid speculation I will offer my opinion, and that opinion is that the local police stand to benefit more from local Democrat law firms than they do the police training facility and substation supported by both Mayoral Candidates. The reason I say this, is because their record of misconduct, combined with whatever was on those tapes they destroyed, must give many police officers in this city pause.

By nature the city does not always hire attorneys to protect Police officers, and with the state of affairs as they exist today it is quite possible that the local Police Union received more compensation and favors from the Democrats than from the Republicans. Me on the other hand, demanded that we hold the chief of police accountable for the speeding incidents in town, was critical of his salary deal, and demanded we open local public hearings at City Hall before the Board of Alderman to find out how the public is treated by the local police department.  I wanted to see new local ordinances created to better protect the public. I also would have fired the Lt. who destroyed the videotaped evidence and suspended Mello for the way he allowed the department to wildly operate.

This is why I am probably disliked and targeted by the Milford P.D., because unlike my opponents I refuse to look the other way, nor would I accept an endorsement from any city employees who in my view are conflict of interest. Especially so when a candidate says he or she is representing the majority of people in town, who pay their salaries,  and do not work for the city.