Salvio points out Blight Ordinance Charges Landlord for Tenant Damages.

Gleanings from two recent Herald subject articles regarding, “slumlords” in New Britain and a
“three-pronged” initiative of the Board of Education to improve educational success for NB public school students.

First, the latest additions to the “Blight Ordinance.” Recently, I received a copy of a letter - sent to a friend of mine - from the, Connecticut Property Owners Alliance, Inc. Among other things, excerpts from the letter state,

“If the ordinance's intent is to address vacant and abandoned structures, it should state so; if it is targeting occupied properties, then there are 2 sides responsible for blight in occupied properties and it appears only one side is being held accountable according to what we read.

... If a tenant broke all 20 windows and the city ignores [the fact that] the tenant caused the damage and simply fines the landlord, New Britain and its taxpayers must be prepared to spend significant legal costs and pay potentially staggering damage awards from "Due Process" and "Regulatory Takings" lawsuits brought forward by the property owners.

The [ordinance] fails to mention any tenant responsibility for the cause of urban blight or how often New Britain authorities have enforced Public Act 96-74; a law established 15 years ago that created felony and misdemeanor classifications for crimes by tenants damaging a landlords property; the most common cause of blight.

Without an even handed and balanced approach to blight laws and a focus on all the responsible parties creating blight, this effort will fall hopelessly short of its noble goal.”

The Herald has a complete copy of this letter and will investigate and I hope comment, soon.

Within the past couple of weeks a Herald article reporting on a NB BOE meeting, mentioned a three pronged plan/approach that the school district would be using to improve educational performance - K-12 - of district students. In comments on the on-line version of the Herald I mentioned that I felt the district should have included changes in their teacher evaluation model that would include that teachers would be formally evaluated at least twice per year by a qualified administrator; not an informal walk through but a complete formal evaluation.

As the people of Connecticut know, Governor Malloy and the General Assembly are preparing to work on educational reform in the state’s public schools. Readers also have been informed that the state’s largest teachers union has called for changes in the state’s teacher evaluation and tenure policies. The union - Connecticut Education Association - wants teachers to be evaluated every year using a number of factors, not simply test scores.

Assistant Professor of Education, Edmund C. Higgins of Quinnipiac University says the standards to be used for evaluation should be developed by the state, not the individual districts and that evaluators must be trained to conduct effective and consistent evaluations.

There should have been four prongs.


Louis Salvio