Hold The (Cell) Phone

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by Melissa Bailey | May 31, 2006 2:51 pm

(10) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: City Hall

Should aldermen get an extra $480 raise per year so they can be reachable on a cell phone? Dwight Alderwoman Joyce Chen (pictured) didn’t get a great reception on that first proposal in this tight tax year. So she took another tack.

In reaction to her first proposal, people said they didn’t think an extra cost of $40 per month was justified. Many taxpayers agreed.

Chen came to Tuesday night’s meeting of the aldermanic Legislation Committee with the numbers on how many city employees are racking up cell phone minutes on the job. She says alders need to be accessible to neighbors, but with long work hours and no cell, she can’t get it done.

Alders on the committee feared city-sponsored phones would be abused, used for personal calls, or bought unnecessarily.

How would we monitor who goes over the plan? asked Newhallville Alderman Charles Blango, who claimed to use 3,200 minutes per month on his own phone. “All my constituents, they call me for the slightest thing.”

Bleep, bleep! rang a noise on the table a few minutes later. Blango, caught mid-speech, passed the phone to Westville Alderman Sergio Rodriguez to take the call. “It was a constituent!” declared Rodriguez, returning to the table.

Others, like East Rock Alderwoman Elizabeth Addonizio, said having the city pay for a cell phone would be a wasted expense, just like the laptops and printers the city buys for aldermen; several said they just don’t use them. “What you haven’t presented here for these cell phones is need.”

OK, said Chen —‚Äù maybe not everyone wants a cell phone. But there is $20,000 in this year’s budget tagged for aldermen’s mailing costs. Could that money be divvied up and used as alders saw fit, either for mass mailings or for cell fees?

This second proposal fared better. The committee agreed to give alders a survey on their mailing and cell phone needs.

Comments

posted by: nfjanette on May 31, 2006 3:39pm

I find myself, at no small surprise, agreeing with Ms. Chen. Aldermen should be given the tools required to best make them available to their constituents. Arguing over this amount of money given the enormity of other budget issues is a classic example of missing the forest for seeing the trees. The city should be cutting a deal with major savings for one big plan for all of their cell phones and then be done with it.

posted by: THREEFIFTHS on May 31, 2006 8:10pm

Use the tax write off!!!!!

posted by: TrueBlueCT on May 31, 2006 8:37pm

The City should pay for better constituent communications. The new website is a great start, but a monthly newsletter/email letting folks know what is going on legislatively at City Hall would be appreciated. Is there a reason why the “call” isn’t available online? And the Zoning docket should be available too!

Of course this presumes City Hall wants the average citizen to know what’s going on….

posted by: Ned on June 1, 2006 7:56am

Why don’t we all just give Joyce Chen access to our bank accounts? Seems to me that she is always looking for ways to spend other people’s money - She needs to check her ego. Hello Joyce, reality calling: you are not so important that you can’t be momentarily out of touch. The sun will still rise in the East…

posted by: charlie on June 1, 2006 11:16am

The best way to save money would be to cut the number of aldermen from 30 to 15. 30 is a very high number for a city this size. Then they could have their cell phones.

posted by: MadinWard2 on June 1, 2006 2:14pm

Who is Joyce Chen? Is she the Alderwoman of Ward 2? If so, I’ve never seen her there. Why does she keep on pushing this issue when she hasn’t shown her face in her own ward for years? Even after winning her re-election under the Green-Dem-Green-er-which is it now?-Dem party guise, she is off rallying for issues that push forward her own agenda and not that of her own constituents. We don’t need her cell phone number, we need her competence.

posted by: TrueBlueCT on June 1, 2006 3:24pm

Charlie is dead on. Heck, half the seats are basically uncontested, and with so many alderpeople it’s hard to know who to hold accountable for what.

posted by: charlie on June 1, 2006 7:07pm

How about this - just eliminate all the odd-numbered wards. Ward 1 and 2 could be combined as Ward 1, etc. Wards 3 and 4 would become Ward 2, etc.

Can an alderman please propose this as a referendum?

posted by: dom on July 12, 2006 1:48pm

why stop at cell phones? lets pitch in for their home phones and AOL & DSL e-mail accounts. Aldermen were unpaid for decades, now they want it to be in essance a paid position. Get a grip, don’t give your cell phone number out. You have a personal phone, you give the number… you pay. Joyce, maybe we can set up a light in the sky signal like batman.

posted by: Lissy36 on August 23, 2006 10:51pm

Heck NO!!!!......They ran for the position, so let them pay whatever it costs. What exactly was going through their minds as they were asking their constituents for their votes? If you won the election, then do the job. No one put a gun to your head in the first place.

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