Budget hearing demonstrations a success

As most of you know, we spent the last two evenings in front of Old Town Hall, putting on a show and calling for lower taxes. By all accounts, and despite the horrible weather (last night especially), both evenings were a resounding success! We garnered a lot of press coverage including photos and some excellent quotes from our membership.

Highlights of the demonstrations, from my point of view, were

• leaving popcorn at the seat of each council person before anyone arrived and having the clerk push them all to the edge of the desk bcause she didn’t know what was in them,
• Mike Germano being the only councilperson willing to eat our popcorn (in fact I think he ate two bags the first night),
• Carol Noble commenting on how much she loved Carol’s portrait of her (and the clown hat), and
• the thoughtful remarks made by HART members to the Council.

I could go on and on about the events themselves, but you can read about them in the papers (or in our archive). Instead, I’d like to take the opportunity to thank a bunch of people who put a lot of work into making these two evenings a success:

Thank you to everyone who showed up and spoke on our behalf at the two hearings.

Thank you to all of the committed HART members who braved the inclement weather to draw more attention to our cause by standing outside Old Town Hall with balloons in one hand, placards in the other, and Henrici masks on their faces.

Thank you to Mark Sanders for bringing his barrel and standing outside in the cold rain with barely a stitch of fabric on his legs.

Thank you to Joe LeGrand, Barbara Schlein, and Mac Sanders for doing such a wonderful job preparing the popcorn for hearing attendees. I’m sure many people were thankful for the sustenance during those two long hearings.

Thank you to Carol Christmas for working so hard on the councilperson heads and Henrici masks.

And last but not least, a big thank you to Kelly McCarthy for coming up with the circus theme. I highly doubt Hamden has ever seen such a theatrical protest. It was a great idea and was beautifully executed.

Congratulations to everyone… you did a great job!