Perhaps it would help if I explained the question a little.
Hartford is a (fairly crummy) city in Connecticut. As do all cities, it has elected offices. Among these offiices are 4 Selectmen (only 3 from a particular party) and 7 Constables (only 4 from a certain party).
The problem is this: Nothing on the Hartford web site tells what the people in these positions do, and, when I e-mailed the City of Hartford for an answer, they ducked the question.
Does anyone on this board know the answer?
Well, neighbor I live down on the coast, but I’ll tell you what the constables do. They are associated at the town level, having little to no council duties, they handle small trickled down judiciary effects. The county of Hartford usually has 4 or 5 constables of a particular party to work at the town level in Hartford. I live in New London County so we are too small to have constables.
They usually work with law enforcement taking on such tasks as enforcing dead beat dad laws, and child support offenders. And other civil and civic public responsibilities relating to the law.
Phlosphr, I seem to keep running into you in threads.
I live in Hartford County. The Selectmen of Hartford are purely political positions, and have no role in government. They are used as honorary patronage-type positions, but city government is changing from a (elected) city council-appointed city manager with a weak elected mayor to a (larger) elected city council and strong mayor. The selectmen are a superflous holdover of the old charter, and I think they are stripped of all power in the new charter.
The constables are also holdovers that are being stripped of power. They were appointed by the elected county sherrif. The CT state constitution was changed a while back, and eliminated the elected position. To the extent that those postitions are used at all, they are process servers.
BTW, if you think Hartford is a crummy city, you haven’t looked around at it enough (IMNSHO).
Does Connecticut still have county government? I thought it was abolished a while back.
Sorry to offend you, paperbackwriter. Perhaps I should have aimed the “crummy” part at the (obscenity removed) who DIDN’T answer my question but responded anyway…and now I’m stopping, before I head into the Pit.
(BTW, thanks for the information!)
Captain Amazing, you are correct, CT got rid of county governments in the 70’s IIRC. County High Sheriffs were the last vestige, and, as I mentioned above, they were eliminated in the 2000 election. Counties still exist, but only as geographical entities, not as political ones.
I wasn’t offended, Governor Quinn. I was simply encouraging you to look around a little more. If you got the runaround on the phone, I’m sorry to hear that. Hartford is no City of Light, but, then, “not crummy” isn’t the highest standard to aspire to.