Monday, February 11, 2013

Blizzard 2013: Message From Councilman Phil Pessina


As I have been reviewing all of the posts from our city residents stranded and paralyzed by this  Blizzard Event, which as others I have personally experienced, as the Council Minority Leader and member of the Public Safety Commission and Finance and Government Committees I am calling for the following information to be presented to both of these commissions at both of our meetings scheduled for later this month:
1.  That Mayor Drew present the results of his Emergency Management After Action Report, which will detail department by department the challenges that they were presented with, as well as their successes in keeping our community safe and accessible;  the caveat of course are those residents who's streets were not open in a timely fashion; we need to identify them and ensure that in the future we can galvanize private & public collaboration to prevent this from occurring in the future. 

2.   The financial impact on the departments and to the Budget, including the emergency expenditures, repairs to include the private costs for outside contractors support.  This impact report should include a review of our Emergency Vehicle fleet to assess their capability to traverse these types of severe weather events.

3.   The impact on our dedicated city employees covering their availability, food and rest periods which they all needed and continue to need.  A Review of alternate shift schedules with our Labor Union Presidents, where possibly all of our essential employees can have similar emergency shift scheduling to ensure rest, feeding and shelter capabilities.  

4.   The infrastructure prioritization utilized to identify major routes, street clearing and the identity of transportation modes for picking up and transporting hospital critical employees, fire and police personnel ho may have been stranded during the storm.  Also, route clearing to our city's Emergency Shelter (MHS).

5.    Have our I.T. Department propose a frame work on our city's Webpage an area for Emergency Information,which would continued to be update to better inform our resdients of the particular storm impact throughout a weather event; or other infrastructure, emergency events which our city may encounter.

6.    Any other pertinent  information Mayor Drew develops from his meetings with his directors.
 In addition, past Mayors should be contacted for their response suggestions and contributions to assist Mayor Drew.

THESE SUGGESTIONS AND FOLLOW UP REVIEWS BY THESE TWO IMPORTANT CITY COMMITTEES, ARE BEING MADE RESPECTFULLY TO THE MAYOR, OUR CITY DIRECTORS AND EMPLOYEES WHO HAVE WORKED TIRELESSLY THROUGH THIS EVENT FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE TO DEVELOP AN ADDENDUM TO OUR CITY'S EMERGENCY OPERATIONS PLAN FOR RESPONSE GUIDELINES, INFRASTRUCTURE IDENTIFICATION A PERSONNEL PLAN, EQUIPMENT AND COSTS FUNDING ANALYSIS FOR FUTURE MAYORS TO UTILIZE DURING THESE TYPES OF EVENTS! 

WE ALL NEED TO BE PART OF THE SOLUTION AND REPRESENT THE TYPE OF MIDDLETOWN RESIDENTS WE ALL ARE; MOVING TOWARDS ASSISTING EACH OTHER AND HELPING WHEN AND WHERE WE CAN.

Thank you and keep safe!

Councilman Phil Pessina

Editor's note: Former Mayor Seb Giuliano was asked by the Patch about his take on the snow removal strategyghttp://middletown-ct.patch.com/articles/former-mayor-e4b5f14a

The Mess is reporting that the Napa warehouse's roof located on Newfield street has collapsed. No one injured.

12 comments:

  1. Phil we are still waiting for the China report- which you asked for on the Council floor, then bagged everyone on as you stated in the Press article. You are the one giving this guy passes to screw up.

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  2. Thanks Phil- this was very poorly planned on the part of those in charge ie Mayor Drew. Periodic plowing would have been a much better idea and hiring contractors- we knew about this for over a week! Something tells me the funds weren't there since this Mayor has been pissing them away.

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  3. Memo to Drew - the lack of transparency since you've took office and outright mis-statements you made about this storm and other issues have not gone un-noticed by the public. We are not as dumb as you treat us. It is strongly suggested that you start making changes to the way you govern and communicate if you hope to have a successful term and be re-elected. Right now both are in jeopardy.

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  4. Why did Drew heap praise on himself for an almost non-existent highway crew? Can there be an investigation into why plow trucks are not operating as in previous snow storms? Does he have a relative who fell asleep and he’s covering up, thinking the little citizens wouldn’t say anything?

    I knew Drew was going to be bad news for our city when his trip to China was announced. Quietly after he returned. No Chinese company will move to Middletown. Just like Malloy’s trip. No Chinese company will move to Connecticut. We should be thrilled we’re allowed to build in China and that’s what the trips were for.

    Middletown hasn’t had a concerned, intelligent, hard-working mayor in decades. Each new one cleans what was done before, and then dirties with his/her own private list of perks and ineptness. Isn’t there someone out there who wants to, and CAN, handle mayoral responsibilities in a fair way?

    Maybe we need to return to a county-wide government that spread responsibilities and benefits over several towns.

    ReplyDelete
  5. With all due respect councilman, other administrations handled storms just as bad just fine, Sounds like you are just doing damage control for Mr. drew. My street still isn't passable. I could careless how many tak forces and reports will be created to explain this away.

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  6. Ever hear of the saying "Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it"? Remember the CL & P guy who kept telling everyone power would be back and it wasn't during the Oct 2011 storm? Mr. Drew ignored history and repeated it by not delivering on his predictions.

    Should he face the same fate as the Cl & P guy?

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  7. Thanks Fill, the self-importance of your statement would have gone over my head without the ALLCAPS alert.

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  8. Phil - Middletown is so sick of your grandstanding, blowing smoke up our a--. You were a good cop should have stayed deputy chief, but please don't try to lead because we're sick of hearing you tell everyone how great city employees are but at the same time they dropped the ball

    ReplyDelete
  9. Dear Mr. Governor

    Hi my name is danny. I am the mayor of a place called middletown. Isn't that great? I love to write press releases about how good I am and all the wonderful things I do. Some people don't like that but I just ignore 'em.

    anyway, during the snow storm, I was busy writing press releases and playing with my video games. No one told me I was supposed to have a plan about getting the streets plowed. Now these whiners are complaining because their streets aren't plowed - like it's my fault that it snowed over there house or something.

    I'm in a bit of a jam here. I gotta look good so I can get a big job on somebody's coat tails. I'm real good at that by the way (wink wink just in case you have a job opening). Can you send some of your big toys for the DPW guys to play with? A few loaders and plows ought to do the trick.

    Thanks for helping a fellow Danny out.

    from danny drew

    ReplyDelete
  10. I applaud any effort to review performance in order to find improvements. After-action reviews are a standard practice in business and government to review past operations for ways to improve performance and efficiency. An honest, open review of past operations is a productive, positive way to find improvements, remove reduncancies and find gaps. It can provide the basis for an improved response plan for the next emergency. It is not to assign blame. It is evaluation, not criticism. This was a significant weather event. Such events provide excellent opportunities to find improvements, if you're willing to look for them. Or, you can become defensive, and say that you did the best you could, attack the critics, and say that any honest critique of performance is a political vendetta.

    Ken McClellan
    Chairman, Middletown Republican Town Committee.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thank you Mayor Drew for making Middletown the laughingstock of the state right up there with Hartford. We were the lead story on 2 different networks because you mismanaged the storm response. That is the kind of publicity this town does not need.

    ReplyDelete

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