Woodbridge
Local Coverage about events in the Town of Woodbridge, CT
Liability, Reputation Risk and Moral Hazards at the Beach
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 07/05/2012 - 12:45Liability, Reputation Risk and Moral Hazards at the Beach
Yesterday, I headed over to the Country Club of Woodbridge to swim some laps and get a little rest and relaxation with my family. It was packed there. When we arrived, we could only find one seat beside the pool which wasn’t taken. I swam my laps, splitting the lap lane with a friend who also does many laps in the pool. I noticed lifeguards sitting in locations where they hadn’t been in previous years. There must have been half a dozen lifeguards on duty.
Things have sure changed a lot since my family and I joined the club shortly after the town took it over when the previous club went bankrupt. In those days when I swam laps, I was the only person in the pool being watched by the only lifeguard on duty. While I don’t have specific data, it appears as if the town took a risk in taking over the club and that risk finally started paying off as more people use the facility and the community becomes an even more desirable place to live.
Our lives are made up of risks. Every day we take risks based on calculations about possible outcomes. We might consider various liabilities our actions might produce. We might consider reputational risk, especially if our name is tied to some organization. We may encounter moral hazards when we take risks without considering the larger impact of our actions.
All of this came to mind recently, as I read stories about Tomas Lopez, a lifeguard for Jeff Ellis & Associates in Florida who was fired for aiding in the rescue of a person outside of the area he was supposed to be watching. A company supervisor was quoted on CNN as saying "We have liability issues and can't go out of the protected area," The Jeff Ellis website talks about ‘Aquatic Risk Management”, and friends who have worked as lifeguards for Jeff Ellis here in Connecticut have commented about how they are all about the liability.
Yet this focus on the bottom line instead of the good of the community provides a useful illustration of reputation risk. It will be interesting to see if municipalities that contract with Jeff Ellis & Associates to provide life guard services will rethink their contracts.
Back at the Country Club of Woodbridge, we’ve got some great lifeguards, a great pool director, and all of this is in the context of an effort that goes beyond a short sighted view of the bottom line to a longer term view of the greater good. I hope to get a few more laps in real soon.
Note: A statement on the Jeff Ellis & Associates website says:
It has been incorrectly reported that Jeff Ellis & Associates was involved with the firing
of a Lifeguard in South Florida.Jeff Ellis & Associates is an Aquatic Safety & Risk Management Consulting firm. Jeff
Ellis & Associates does not own, operate or manage aquatic facilities.Jeff Ellis & Associates does not have a contract with the City of Hallandale Beach. Jeff
Ellis Management is a separate company that provides facility management services and
does provide service to Hallandale Beach.
The logo on the Jeff Ellis Management website includes the text "Jeff Ellis & Associates". This looks like hair splitting spin by someone to trying to mitigate against the damage done to the Jeff Ellis empire.
Group Dynamics of Electoral Campaigning
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 07/04/2012 - 06:55Here is another one of my longer blog posts thinking about what it means to run for office. It has also been submitted to the Bethwood Patch.
Recently, I wrote a blog post about being a participant observer in electoral politics. I'm running for State Representative in the 114th Assembly District in Connecticut, which includes all of Woodbridge, much of Orange, and the eastern side of Derby. Since that blog post, I've been very busy with tactical aspects of my campaign and haven't been writing as much as I would like.
This morning, I'm taking a few minutes to reflect on an aspect of running for elected office that I haven't found a lot written about, group dynamics.
I've had a long interest in group dynamics, especially as it relates to online communities and to group psychotherapy. It's a topic I've studied for over a decade and I'm a member of a mailing list of group psychotherapists.
So, let's try to look at this from a group perspective. I'm a member of a very large, non cohesive group. It is made up of about 15,000 members. It is the registered voters in the 114th assembly district. Like any large group, there are interesting subgroups to look at. There are the registered Democrats, the registered Republicans, the unaffiliated voters, and those that are registered with less known political parties.
There is the group of people who vote in primaries, the group of people who vote in municipal elections, the group of people who vote only in presidential elections, and the group of people who don't get out and vote at all.
I have chosen, perhaps because of some valence, to take up the role of candidate. For my friends with a group relations bent based, I am perhaps engaged in what Wilfred Bion would refer to as Basic Assumption - Pairing. My opponent and I are engaged in a discourse representing different views of how our community should move forward. The rest of the group watches, perhaps adding comments here or there, and hoping that the person whose views most closely match theirs prevails. We are seeing this dynamic intensify in U.S. politics as politics becomes more and more polarized.
The subgroup of those who are politically active and are hoping my views will prevail show a wide range of reactions. Some have contributed the maximum amount of money permissible to my campaign. With the Citizens Election Program in Connecticut, that is $100. They have spent time helping me get my message out. They express frustration that I have not been raising enough money, that I have not been contacting enough voters, or that I have not stayed closely enough to my message. They have high hopes for my campaign, and nothing will be enough to satisfy them until I get elected. Others, who are politically active and that I've hoped would be more involved in the campaign have resisted my requests for assistance and have expressed frustration at my repeated requests.
My job, assuming I get elected, will be to represent all of the people in the district. Not just those who share my views, or not just those that hold specific expectations of me.
At times, I hold the frustrations of my most ardent supporters, the weariness of my least enthused supporters, and I try to maintain the participant observer role in such a way that I might transform local politics.
How do we move away from basic assumption - pairing thinking, while at the same time holding fast to our hopes and dreams? How do we find common ground while seeking to differentiate ourselves from our opponents? How do we keep campaigning at peek performance without burning out?
These are the questions I struggle with as I campaign. Part of my stump speech is, don't vote for me because I have all the answers, parroted from party leaders or talking heads on cable television. Vote for me because I'll ask the tough questions. How do we understand the group dynamics of electoral politics and shift them to more of a working group behavior is just one of those difficult questions.
Legislative Acts Affecting Seniors - More Information
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 06/23/2012 - 22:13The following is the latest blog post I've submitted to the Bethwood Patch.
Earlier this month, the State Representative from the 114th Assembly District, which includes Woodbridge, shared a blog post on the Bethwood Patch about 'Legislative Acts Affecting Seniors'. I am running against her in the November election and I applauded her blog post. My campaign is about getting people more informed and more involved in their communities, including in what is happening up in Hartford.
In this light, I would like to expand upon her blog post. She mentioned three bills, but did not mention the bill numbers or how to get more information about them. I did a little research at the Connecticut General Assembly website, and believe I know more about these bills now.
The first bill mentioned was an Elderly Rental Rebate Program. I believe this was S.B. 105, AN ACT CONCERNING THE RENTAL REBATE APPLICATION PERIOD.
It was introduced by the Planning and Development committee, where no one voted against the bill. It had 11 co-sponsors, including Sen. Joe Crisco from Woodbridge. There was a public hearing on the bill in February, where the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities and the Director of Elder Services for the City of New Haven expressed support for the bill. There was no opposition voiced.
The bill moved to the Appropriations committee where Rep Pat Dillon from New Haven moved the bill and Sen. Bob Duff from Norwalk seconded the motion. Like with the Planning and Development committee, the bill passed this committee with no opposition. My opponent sits on the appropriations committee, and with 51 other legislators, voted to support the bill.
The bill was voted on in the Senate with a roll call vote, and all thirty-six State Senators voted in favor of the bill. The CGA website does not list a vote tally for the House, so I assume it passed by unanimous consent.
The second bill listed, appears to be S.B. 138, AN ACT ESTABLISHING A TASK FORCE TO STUDY "AGING IN PLACE". This bill was introduced by the Aging Committee. It had 17 co-sponsors, including Sen. Joe Crisco from Woodbridge. The bill was moved by Rep. John Frey of Ridgefield and seconded by Senator Edith Prague of Columbia. Like the first bill, this bill cleared its committee unanimously. Several people testified in favor of the bill and there was no opposition.
Sen. Prague offered a minor amendment to the bill and it passed both chambers without any opposition.
The third bill appears to be S.B. 139, AN ACT CONCERNING NOTIFICATION OF FINANCIAL STABILITY OF NURSING HOME FACILITIES AND MANAGED RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITIES TO PATIENTS AND RESIDENTS.
It also was introduced by the Aging committee. Again, Sen. Joe Crisco from Woodbridge was one of the co-sponsors. This bill had 16 co-sponsors. Another of the co-sponsors was Sen. Gayle Slossberg from Milford. With redistricting, Sen. Slossberg's district now includes a southern portion of Woodbridge. Like the previous bill, this bill also passed Aging with no opposition. It went to the Public Health Committee where it passed with no opposition. It then went on to pass both chambers with no opposition.
I applaud the important work that the State Legislature did in passing these bills, and especially Sen. Crisco and Sen. Slossberg in being co-sponsors of these bills. I hope I will get an opportunity to serve with Sen. Crisco and Sen. Slossberg in co-sponsoring bills that helps our state better serve it's senior citizens.
School's Illusions
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 06/13/2012 - 22:10It's been a busy few days, and I'm behind on my blogging, but I did get a chance to write the following post this evening, which I've also shared at the Bethwood Patch.
As I scanned Facebook this evening, I found a picture that one of my elementary school classmates posted of her first grade class. I was in a different class, but I recognized many names of long time dear friends. It was a grainy black and white picture of the kids standing on the school steps.
One person commented, "Everyone looks so cute! Remember when girls couldn't wear pants to school? I think we were in 5th or 6th grade when this rule changed." It was a different time and a different town. A small town of less than ten thousand, where a lot of college professors lived. It was a town that helped shape who I am today.
Then, I stumbled across some pictures of a friend that I got to know right after college. We went to the same church in New York City, a church where many of the young parishioners went on to become priests. For some, it was a fairly quick journey, for others it took many years. My friend was one who took a longer, more circuitous route to the priesthood. She was up in Hartford celebrating the Ordination to the Sacred Order of Deacons where another friend from church in New York was being ordained.
The pictures of the bishops and the ordinands in their fresh scrubbed faces, most likely just out of divinity school added to my rosy thoughts about education.
All of this set an interesting contrast to my experiences Monday night when I went to the Amity Board of Education meeting. I went to speak about my opposition to using police dogs to search students for drugs. Yes, there were drugs at my high school thirty five years ago, and I'm sure there are drugs at Amity, but somehow, the experiences were radically different.
High school is a very difficult time for many people. My high school classmates have shared reflections back on those days, "the tears and fears and feeling proud, to say I love you right out loud" at a school dance. "The moons and Junes and circus clouds." Yes, I sang "Both Sides Now" with my school chorus.
In many ways, the public comments at the Amity Board of Education focused on keeping our children safe from drugs, their right to go to a drug free school, where school policies were not considered a joke, and where there wasn't peer pressure to try drugs. The other side of the public comment focused on the students civil rights to not be subject to unwarranted searches, and the efficacy on using police dogs to curb drug use at the high school.
If I honestly believed that using police dogs would prevent drugs from being at the school, would cause students not to view school policies as a joke, and would eliminate the peer pressure to use drugs, that I'm sure exists at Amity today, like it did at my high school thirty five years ago, I might be more inclined to support the opinion of those that would like to see broader use of police dogs at the school. However, I don't believe that would be the result, if anything, I fear the opposite result. Students will still find ways to use drugs. They will still heap scorn on school polices, and they will still pressure classmates to engage in dangerous and illegal activities.
Yet returning to Both Sides Now, it's school's illusions I recall. I remember best, things like singing in the choir, playing in the band, being in musicals. I never was particularly talented, but I had the chance to participate in something beautiful, something bigger than myself.
My high school always had students going to All State for one reason or another. I had some incredibly talented friends and classmates, and that is what I'm most happy to remember. The Amity Board of Education meeting started off recognizing great teachers, and incredibly talented students at the high school. It ended with the board voting to approve setting aside money for building a black box theatre at the school. It struck me that those who pushed hardest to expand the use of police dogs at the school were also the ones who showed the most resistance to supporting the black box theatre. Perhaps, this too, reflects both sides of school.
I savor my positive memories of high school, the school's illusions of talent young students with a great life ahead of them, as opposed to a view of students as suspected drug users on the road to ruin. I hope our school board remembers this part of high school and seeks positive ways to help the students reach their dreams, whether they need help with substance abuse issues, or hitting the high note on Broadway.
Dragons Live for Ever: A Celebration of the Multi Aged Group Program at Beecher Road School
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 06/09/2012 - 03:14Friday evening, the current Multi Aged Group, or MAG, students gathered around the fourth year teacher who was holding the microphone from the podium set up on the North Playground at Beecher Road School. They belted out the words to Puff the Magic Dragon. "Dragons live forever, but not so little boys…"
They had gathered, along with parents, teachers and 'ancestors', those who were in the MAG program over the years, to celebrate twenty years of the MAG program. I looked around me at these ancestors. Standing not far from me were some 'hedgehogs', members of MAG from from 1994 through 1998. One of the first tasks of MAG students in their first year, was to work together through compromise and consensus to come up with a name for their base group of students who started that year. Those who started in 1994 were hedgehogs.
Now, these hedgehogs, had graduated from college, but they still sang along gleefully, not only to Puff the Magic Dragon, but to other songs, silly songs about bed bugs and Frosty the Pickle. Yes, dragons live forever, but in successful educational programs, so do little boys.
Many years ago, in what seemed like a different lifetime, I was an information technology executive for a hedge fund in Stamford. My daughters went to a private school which always talked about fostering a life long love of learning. It was a great school, and I never thought that I would be able to find a program that competed with it, especially not in a public school. Yet here I was, as my youngest daughter prepared to complete her final year of MAG, watching the fruits of a program that far exceeds the best of many private schools.
What has made the program so successful? Perhaps some of it comes from learning to respect the people around you, from recognizing that the adult teachers, the fourth year teachers and the first year teachers, all have something valuable to offer. Perhaps some of it comes from fostering community, both within the classroom, and beyond; drawing in family members and community members to liven up the classroom. Perhaps some of it comes from recognizing that what matters is not the color of the students skin, their scores on the CMTs or the size of their parents bank accounts, but the content of their character.
Yes, dragons live forever. They are not all friendly dragons like Puff. They are the dragons of bigotry and oppression, of apathy and ignorance. They are the beliefs that size of bank accounts or scores on standardized tests count for more than the ability to respect the people around us and live in community, communities that help everyone. We need to continue to fight these dragons.
Little boys don't have to give up the ability to enjoy life, to love school, and to work together for a better world. Indeed, it are these sort of characteristics that help students be successful and have helped build the wonderful country we now live in. It is these characteristics that allow recently college graduates to sing along gleefully with six year olds in their first year of MAG silly songs about pickles and bed bugs.
The news remains filled with stories about schools cutting back funding, or using police dogs to treat even the best students like suspected criminals. No, those program aren't working, and perhaps some of the problem is that they don't start off by getting everyone to sit down nicely in a circle, respectfully listen to one another, and work together through consensus and compromise to build a better world.
What can I do to help? Perhaps through running for State Representative, I can share some of this respect for others and love of learning around Woodbridge, Orange and Bethany, and even up in Hartford. Please, come sit in my circle.
(Cross posted to the Bethwood Patch, with pictures on Flickr)
