A strong argument against pistol training for police

Oh Lordy, Lordy, he’s desperate! Do what he say, do what he say!

Woman sues township for “traumatic harm” suffered when cop shot dead her attacker. She says the cop should have played soothing mood music and served herbal tea.

Ellen Shane, 62, of Carteret, N.J., was taken hostage at knifepoint by a parolee at Woodbridge Center Mall and was freed only when a police officer shot the criminal dead. Now she “plans to sue the township for $5 million, claiming it failed to protect public safety and that she was injured as a result of the officer’s acts. Both Shane and her husband, Ronald Shane, ‘are suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome and both have been dramatized from this incident,’ according to the tort claim notice filed by their lawyer, David Corrigan of Eatontown’.” It alleges that the officer should “attempt[ed] to resolve the situation” by other means before shooting.

Just a little to the left and that cop’s bullet would have served justice better and saved his employer millions.

 

Okay, enough nice things about cops – here’s my (latest) pet peeve

THE NEW GREENWICH POLICE BOAT (NO KIDDING). Officer Krupke’s review: “Smooth as my wife’s bottom!” (and so it is)

I’ve complained about this since the formation of the Homeland Security Department: Small town cops pile up useless  military gear. There’s nothing wrong with getting cool things for free from the government and if I were a cop I’d want some of this stuff too. The trouble is, you give boys of any age a new toy and sooner or later they’ve just got to see if it works.

Here’s our own version of this folly, followed by a broader national perspective:

The Representative Town Meeting on Monday voted 166 to 19 to accept a $600,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security for a new, high-tech “port security” police boat capable of detecting chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive devices, as well as fighting fires.

The approval means Greenwich can now join numerous other coastal Connecticut towns that have received federal grants for similar emergency response vessels in recent years.

And here’s what’s happening elsewhere:

Small police departments across America are collecting battlefield-grade arsenals thanks to a program that allows them to get their hands on military surplus equipment – amphibious tanks, night-vision goggles, and even barber chairs or underwear – at virtually no cost, except for shipment and maintenance.

Over the last five years, the top 10 beneficiaries of this “Department of Defense Excess Property Program” included small agencies such as the Fairmount Police Department. It serves 7,000 people in northern Georgia and received 17,145 items from the military. The cops in Issaquah, Washington, a town of 30,000 people, acquired more than 37,000 pieces of gear.

[..] Which means billions of dollars’ worth of military gear are in the hands of small-town cops who neither need the equipment nor are properly trained to use it, critics charge. At best, it’s a waste of resources (since the gear still has to be maintained). At worst, it could cost lives.

Take the 50-officer police department in Oxford, Alabama, a town of 20,000 people. It has stockpiled around $3 million of equipment, ranging from M-16s and helmet-mounted infrared goggles to its own armored vehicle, a Puma. In Tupelo, Mississippi, home to 35,000, the local police acquired a helicopter for only $7,500 through the surplus program. The chopper, however, had to be upgraded for $100,000 and it now costs $20,000 a year in maintenance.

The Nebraska State Patrol has three amphibious eight-wheeled tanks. Acquired almost three years ago, their highest achievement has been helping with a flood last year and with a shooting a couple of weeks ago. Overall, it has been deployed five times. At least, officers love driving them. “They’re fun,” said trooper Art Frerichs to the Lincoln Journal Star in 2010. And the ride, according to Patrol Sgt. Loveless, “is very smooth.”

Then how will they identify their own?

Uncut version of the Third Reich

German court rules circumcision cruel, and barred by law

Pop!

The balloon goes up

I recently extended an offer for land on behalf of clients and wasn’t even rewarded with a counter offer. “That’s why there are different colored balloons”, the seller’s agent rather fatuously replied when I supplied a number of comparable sales that justified our offer (in fact, I felt we were overpaying). “People have different opinions”. Well as Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously told another such idiot, “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts”.

So we went a half-mile away to better land on a better street that has in past seen houses sell for twice what anything has ever fetched on the first one. Hope that balloon collector enjoys his toys.

I guess it’s an honor to be recognized but I’m not sure I want to pay for the privilege

Acknowledging the refined taste of Mac users, so far superior to low-life Windows troglodytes, Orbitz directs Apple crowd to more expensive hotels. Or Orbitz knows a bunch of suckers when it sees them – one or the other.

Paul Tudor Jones loses a round but UVA is back where it started: in trouble

Board reverses itself, reinstates its president. Greenwich resident Jones has been named in news reports as one of the instigators of the original ouster so it could be said that he’s the loser here. Academics like Walter Russell Mead see the real losers as the universities themselves:

Universities are going to have to change or die; the only question is the pace with which they march to either end. Virginia has chosen to crawl and that’s probably not a good thing, in the long run.

Ah! One more reported contract

10 Martin Dale. Asking, at the end, $2.495, and probably going for something less than that. Best land in central Greenwich: flat, 0.7 acres in R-20 zone and a dead end street close to town.

Or that’s what I told my clients, anyway, and they believed me. Gideon Fountain listing, oddly enough.

As he says, you can’t make this stuff up

Hello and good day to you fine gentleman sir. And how can I, Barack Rasheed Hussein help you and your travel plans?

Obama rips Romney for “offshoring” [sic]

“Yesterday his [Romney's] advisers were asked about this, and they tried to clear this up by telling us there’s actually a difference between outsourcing and offshoring. That’s what they said. You cannot make this stuff up,” the president joked to a booing crowd.

Obama campaign uses Indian call center to book its travel.

No one ever called him a quick study

 

The Biden Bungalow, Wilmington

Joe Biden, having just discovered that middle class people don’t live in $3 million homes, declares that he’s no longer one of them.  ”I had no idea,” he marveled today, “and they tell me that flying around in my own jet is kinda unusual too. Sheesh!”

Sales, contracts

33 Highview Ave (Zillow)

33 Highview Avenue, Old Greenwich, is under contract. Asked $2.725 million. Tried for $3.550 in 2008 and various lower prices since then, with brief periods as a rental.

3 Hearthstone Drive asked $1.395 and went to contract immediately. I have no idea who the buyer is or his intentions but I wouldn’t be surprised if this went to a builder. If so, I admire his confidence in how much he can sell a new house for on this corner of Lockwood. It’s too bad, but we once again seem to be moving back to that market that saw young would-be home owners lose out to spec builders (although again, I don’t know whether that is the case here). Oh well, that’s good news for sellers and after all, what could possibly go wrong?

2 Echo Lane has a contract too. Asked $2.2 million and since it found a buyer in just 36 days, I’d imagine it’s selling for close to that price.

7 Clark Street

7 Clark Street, $3.2 million, went to contract after 49 days. $3.2 on Clark Street – who’d ever have imagined such a thing, years ago?

13 Huntzinger sold today for $3.060 million. Last asking price was $3.250 but 408 days ago the owners wanted $3.950; they didn’t get it.

The same disappointment was experienced by the owners of 11 Greenway, over in Glenville, who priced their home at $1.150 million 481 days ago and sold it yesterday for $692,500. That’s a pretty good buy – Greenway’s a nice street.

And 12 Stillman, new construction, sold for $4.350, asking price was $4.450. That’s about $1 million less than new homes in this Rockefeller development used to sell for but the builder was smart to acknowledge that fact before he priced this, rather than two years from now. Saves time, money and distress while arriving at the same place, sooner.

I liked it, others liked it even more

I mentioned 8 Osceola Drive the day it came on and again the next day when I saw it at its open house. I said it would be a good buy at its asking price of $1.5 million but it went in a bidding war instead and sold today for $1.625. Showing that, slow market or not, buyers will correct a price that’s too low; err in the other direction and that same correction will take place, but often months or even years later.

Riverside’s Meadow Road sale price reported

GAR official photo, 70 Meadow Road

The 70 Meadow Road subdivision, former P&Z member Laura Siefert’s parting turd on the town she served so badly, has sold for $6.350 million. With three lots crammed in where one once stood, the builder’s going to need – what, $5 million? – for each house. Seems like a hefty gamble to me, given the uncertainty as to what the real estate market will look like in 2014, but maybe he’s counting on buyers showing up before or during construction. Nice street, at least.

France wants to place all European budgets under control of European Union

The feckless cheese-eaters long ago relinquished any claim to military power but now they’re willing to cede their sovereignty. Anything to preserve those six-week vacations. History suggests that when a nation displays a sufficient degree of helplessness, invasion follows. Someone, somewhere, must be eying Italy, France and Spain and feeling tempted. Germany again, or is that too tired an act? What’s Putin up to?

If we’ve lost the food critics, we’ve lost the White House

Et tu, Bruni?

Frank Bruni, NYT op-ed columnist, gay restaurant critic and former Obama fan has doubts, finally. Not from reading what smarter people have been saying for years but by watching the man’s performance. He doesn’t like what’s been served up.

While most politicians write their stories once they’ve laid some claim to the spotlight and are already operating in its skeptical glare, Obama did so years in advance, setting the stage long before he strode onto it. The first edition of “Dreams From My Father,” a framing device for the campaigns and speeches to come, was published in 1995. He wasn’t even an Illinois state senator yet.

It was an act of careful and considered self-definition, and with the publication of David Maraniss’s new biography of Obama earlier this month, we learned just how careful and considered. Obama tailored characters to suit his themes and invented a few details of his family’s past, saying that a step-grandfather was killed in combat against Dutch troops in Indonesia when he really, according to Maraniss, died in a fall from a chair as he hung drapes. [emphasis added]

[...] He’s beholden to lawmakers’ whims, buffeted by global winds, as much a spectator as an agent of the most important developments around him, a leader of the free world who follows the news like the rest of us. Against Obama’s wishes and will, his attorney general is investigated and excoriated by a House panel. His jobs bill languishes. Egypt charts a once unexpected course, electing an Islamist president. The Syrian government pursues a bloody crackdown against its people, ignoring the Obama administration’s protests.

At times he looks dazed, and flails. To focus his economic message, he gave an unfocused 54-minute speech on the apparent theory that the more sentences in the mix, the greater the odds of a keeper.

Less than a week later, he stepped up to a lectern at the end of a conference of world leaders in Mexico and rambled some more, whatever particular point he intended to highlight getting lost in a wonky, windy tutorial on the European economy. He stammered. Sputtered. Slowed down to the point where he almost went into oratorical reverse.

Guess Bruni wasn’t swayed by Obummer’s legalization of gay marriage.

Bring back for sale signs?

The New Round Hill look?

Done with me, they think, the Greenwich Association of Realtors has returned its attention to Realtors’ “For Sale” signs, reminding us all, in increasingly strident tones, that they are forbidden, even verboten! anywhere, and Realtor Open House signs can be placed on the owner’s property only. Gosh, the GAR leaders lead boring lives!

In response to this new-again campaign, FF sends along the following:

The Town Building Code regulation cites as its empowering legislation Chapter 125, Section 8-14 of the Connecticut General Statutes. Unfortunately, that law was repealed a number of years ago (the regulation for signs was passed in 1993).

There is no legal basis for this regulation, as it does not fall under the “home rule” statutes of the Town. Lets leave out the First Amendment issues.

So, are signs good for the consumer of property, or are they good for certain agents? Why do we have this regulation anyway?

I hate For Sale signs and think they detract from our streetscapes. That said, they sell houses – they sell a lot of houses, even in this Internet era. If there’s no longer a legal basis for banning them, maybe it’s time for Realogy to try erecting them in Greenwich again?

Just wondering.

UPDATE: it occurs that the GAR’s prohibition of for sale signs on client’s property and claiming the authority to do so because of an enabling statute that was repealed three years ago is in itself an unfair restraint of trade. Add it to the complaint, Danno.

Perhaps a round of windsurfing would be cheaper?

Democrats cancel NASCAR kick-off at convention because of cost. John Kerry was disappointed of course, whining, “who among us does not love NASCAR?” but did suggest some alternative activities to keep NEA members busy while waiting to anoint the Messiah:

Medal tossing over the White House fence, lying to Congress, comparing purple hearts, golfing (of course) and, naturally, water sports. No word which will be approved by Clooney and Jessica Parker, so stay tuned.

You might want to watch out for Trulia “suggested values”

19 Havemeyer Lane sold yesterday for $535,000. Trulia estimate was $938,000. Computers don’t know Havemeyer.

Open House recycling day

Can’t find much of interest today and I hate revisiting old listings that are still ridiculously priced – it only encourages these people.

Using state law to extract a higher price?

Stanwich Acres (Official GAR architect’s rendering)

Greenwich Reform Synagogue sells its unwanted property to Stanwich School. Both institutions purchased separate pieces of the old Catholic Diocese land; the school wanted to expand onto the Synagogue’s property and the Synagogue was willing to sell, “for a price, Ugarte, for a price”. That price could not be agreed upon and last December talks were called off.

Then they were back on again and deal was struck. What prompted the school’s change of heart and persuaded it to increase its offer? I don’t know, I wasn’t involved in this deal in any way, but a clue is suggested but its significance missed by the Greenwich Time:

Last October, the synagogue announced it was pulling out of a tentative plan reached with the school to develop the 257 Stanwich Road property. Stanwich School would have paid the synagogue to renovate and expand its lower school on synagogue property.

The congregation would then have used that money to build a new synagogue, either on the 11.5-acre property or at another location.

Instead, synagogue officials said in October the congregation planned to build condominiums on the property.

What GT missed, at least according to the rumors I hear, was the nature of those “condominiums” – low income housing, permitted under the state law that allows developers to override zoning regulations if a portion of the project will accommodate the poor. Threatened with sharing its campus with non-Stanwich School types, the school caved. Hey, that’s the rumor – I report gossip, you decide.

But something caused Stanwich to change its mind.

He’s up and ready to go again

Got your schedule for today mapped out yet? Your president does:

9:05 am || Departs Boston
11:15 am || Arrives Atlanta
1:25 pm || Delivers remarks at a fundraiser; Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel
2:10 pm || Appears at a fundraiser; Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel
3:35 pm || Departs Atlanta
5:10 pm || Arrives Miami
5:45 pm || Attends a fundraiser; private residence
8:30 pm || Delivers remarks at a fundraiser; The Fillmore Miami Beach at the Jackie Gleason Theater
9:45 pm || Departs Miami
12:10 am || Arrives Washington