ok, let's help mo get home

ok, adam wakefield is in the military and he's deployed. the LEAST his fellow citizens of the great state of connecticut can do is HELP HIM GET HIS PUP HOME (from afghanistan)!

wait a sec, wait a sec, i just went to donate AND THEY'VE REACHED THEIR GOAL! that is such joyous news! thanks peeps o' connecticut. even though you elected da liebs, you done me proud with this one!







Conn. Army Sniper On Mission To Send Puppy Home From Afghanistan

A Connecticut Army sniper is on a mission to send Mo, the puppy he adopted in Afghanistan, to his home in Clinton. The Army has told Adam Wakefield, 24, that the dog cannot stay with him at the Army base. A website, sendmohome.bbnow.org, is raising money to help bring Mo to Connecticut and pay for quarantine and vaccinations...........

pic:

Adam and Mo

(Photos courtesy Brian Wakefield)

Connecticut Army sniper Adam Wakefield wants to get his four-legged friend Mo on a flight back to the States.

i don't have a dog right now but

i still would love a dog park. i think they're great. well all the one's i've visited are

i hope the money can be raised. of course zoning is a dog horse of a different color. west hartford is NOT the easiest town to get something passed in. don't know if people are aware of that, but it's NOT

Site Found For West Hartford Dog Park; Hurdles Remain

By BILL LEUKHARDT The Hartford Courant

WEST HARTFORD —

The town's first dog park — a fenced place where canines can run free under owner supervision — will be in Fernridge Park if the citizens group seeking the plot can win zoning approval and raise money to pay for site improvements.

A town council subcommittee working with the 300-member West Hartford Dog Park Coalition decided Wednesday night that a small section of Fernridge could be used for the park. It was one of five spots under review by the town and the coalition.

"It's a huge milestone we've passed," coalition President Mandy Pike said Thursday of the group's two-year search for land for the dog park. That search sped up last December, when the town council voted to help the coalition find a site.

Nothing can be done until the proposal wins town planning and zoning approval, which is required for any new use of parkland, Town Manager Ronald Van Winkle said..........

park street, king eddie and (alleged) corruption

sort of sounds good together, no? only time will tell oh and hartford needs it's OWN buddy cianci doesn't it?

Perez Trial: City Official Testifies About Developer's Shoddy Work
By JOSH KOVNER The Hartford Courant

HARTFORD

On May 8, 2006, a top city official wrote to a bonding company about major, long-standing problems with city contractor Carlos Costa on the multimillion-dollar restoration of Park Street. Assistant Public Works Director John McGrane asked the company to pull Costa's performance bond and meet with city officials about terminating Costa's contract for the project. The project was woefully behind schedule, plagued by shoddy work, and inflated by claims for extra payments by Costa that threatened to drive up the cost of the $5.3 million job, according to city records. Eight days later, on May 16, 2006, Charles Crocini, director of capital projects for the city and a man who reported directly to Mayor Eddie A. Perez, wrote a letter to the bonding company rescinding McGrane's call for action. The letter kept Costa on the job, which was eventually finished 2½ years late and with $2 million in additional claims from Costa still pending. .............
Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez listens to his lawyer, Hubert Santos, left, talk to the judge during the opening minutes of his corruption trial Wed. morning, the first day of his trial, a trial that is expected to last 6 weeks. At right is defense atty. Hope Seeley. (STEPHEN DUNN, Hartford Courant / May 12, 2010)

man i'm pissed

i live in a 3 family in west hartford. i've lived here for YEARS AND YEARS. i have been getting mail (which i've left in my box with a note that the addressee is NOT me) and NOW phone calls from creditors for someone who used to live below me. she must have given them MY phone number. i just called back one of the creditors and told them i'm not who they're looking for and to knock it off

i am so effing pissed someone would do that to someone else. anyway, i'm not going to go after her (as in contact her and tell her i think she's an asshole, NOT physical by any means). she's got some issues (and i'm being kind here) and she has two teenage sons.

i just wanted to vent. you know.

i'm done now

i'm just asking...........

i'm wondering why king eddie (and almost everyone else) is concentrating on park street so much and LEAVING ALL THE OTHER HARTFORD AREAS IN DIRE STRAIGHTS. how about concentrating on let's say the WEST end or the NORTH end. they too are vibrant but can be more so. i found out what the mill rate is in hartford and was shocked off of my chair. i thought west hartford was bad. NOPE, hartford is almost TWICE that of west hartford. it's 70 something, the HIGHEST in the state i believe. what's up with that king eddie (who by the way wants to raise it). what are the businesses going to do? what are the homeowners going to do? hartford must have change in order for it to thrive.

don't get me wrong. i'm HAPPY for park street (i just drove down on friday so i've seen the brick walks and the new street lights and the new curbs and the like). i'd just be happier if king eddie SPREAD THE WEALTH

Park Street Life: Hartford's Hispanic Thoroughfare Has Retail Vibrancy Downtown Longs For

By KENNETH R. GOSSELIN The Hartford Courant
It's been well known for years that Park Street has the retail vibrancy missing from downtown Hartford since the heyday of the department stores in the 1950s.

But what's surprising is how much more vibrant it is.

A recent, first-ever study of the Park Street retail corridor by the city showed a storefront vacancy rate in the single digits, compared with 43 percent for retail spaces downtown. Both have approximately the same amount of total space — about 500,000 square feet.

So why the difference?

The 2-mile-plus Park Street retail corridor — running from Main Street to Prospect Avenue — has an enviable mix of restaurants, clothing boutiques, bodegas, jewelry shops and grocery stores, partly the result of planning and support by the local merchants association.

"Mostly, it just happens," said Marisol Monserrate, small business coordinator for the Spanish American Merchants Association. "It's just the way the street is. There is a lot of energy on Park Street. People see empty properties, get interested and get right on it."

Some of the success has to do with the smaller retail spaces and far lower rents on Park Street. Most of the storefronts have apartments above them, with well-populated neighborhoods close by, providing crucial, ready-made foot traffic of the sort that downtown still lacks.

Then there are the shoppers like Edith Rivera, who live nowhere near Park Street.

Once a month, Rivera drives 45 minutes from New London to visit La Plaza del Mercado grocery store and a Spanish bakery on the section of the street that runs through Frog Hollow.................