by | May 17, 2011 7:43 am | Comments (20)
Thomas MacMillan Photo
The hole in this year’s budget looks just about the size of a parking lot.
Broadway parking lot, to be precise. That’s the one the city plans to lease to Yale for $3 million to go toward this year’s budget.
by | May 17, 2011 6:51 am | Comments (10)
Three months after the city laid off 16 police officers, prompting hundreds of New Haven’s finest to march on City Hall, police Chief Frank Limon is looking for federal funding to hire 21 new cops.
by | May 13, 2011 7:48 am | Comments (15)
Thomas MacMillan Photo
Finance chair Shah: “You have the floor when I give it to you.”
Last year it was called “I.B.B.” This year’s multimillion dollar hope-and-pray section of the New Haven’s new city budget is called “Labor Concessions And/Or Service Reductions.”
by | May 11, 2011 11:08 am | Comments (5)
Thomas MacMillan Photos
Goldfield (top photo) and Kilpatrick (above).
The parking authority has a plan to bond for up to $6.1 million to pay for garage improvements. It has secured a good interest rate for the first five years of payments. It’s the second five years that have Alderman Carl Goldfield worried.
by | Apr 29, 2011 11:34 am | Comments (32)
Melissa Bailey File Photo
As he tackles a new $4.2 million hole in this year’s budget and seeks a long-term solution to deficits, Mayor John DeStefano declared himself an opponent of a controversial plan to sell future revenue from parking meters in return for one-time cash.
by | Apr 27, 2011 7:18 am | Comments (19)
Thomas MacMillan Photo
Alderman Elicker.
Despite all the new schools in town without leaky roofs or antiquated heaters, the Board of Ed’s maintenance costs will remain unchanged this coming fiscal year. The number of people coming to work will change: The school district predicts 150 layoffs.
by | Apr 19, 2011 7:54 am | Comments (38)
City lawmakers thought they had killed it. Even the mayor gave it up for dead. Now a group of aldermen, working closely with a company lobbyist, has unearthed and galvanized a disgraced parking meter monetization plan.
by | Apr 11, 2011 8:05 am | Comments (25)
Thomas MacMillan File Photo
The first day of school at the new Hooker School.
After students moved into a new Hooker School on Whitney Avenue, the state slapped the city with a penalty for making the building too big. Now it’s one of 12 school construction bills headed for the city’s budget next year amid a fiscal crisis.
Continue reading ‘City Seeks $18M For “Ineligible” School Costs’
by | Apr 6, 2011 8:20 am | Comments (45)
Paul Bass Photo
Labor’s Dorman and Poindexter: Why hire amid layoffs?
The school district opened a nationwide search to replace four top administrators — rankling labor leaders grappling with pending layoffs of lesser-paid employees.
by | Apr 6, 2011 7:28 am | Comments (2)
Allan Appel Photo
School nurses at Tuesday night’s hearing.
School nurses returned to another public hearing on the budget to warn against layoffs, drawing alarming pictures of children potentially succumbing to food-allergy caused shocks and seizures and asthma-triggered cardiac arrest and other potentially tragic consequences.
by | Mar 23, 2011 1:28 pm | Comments (33)
NBC Connecticut
Greene.
Dorothy Greene told the mayor that she fears she’ll lose her job — and her home — if a private company becomes her boss at Wilbur Cross High School. The mayor’s response: These are tough times requiring tough choices.
by | Mar 22, 2011 12:11 pm | Comments (33)
Gwyneth Shaw Photo
The email that stuck in Cherlyn Poindexter’s craw — that would remain in her craw a month later amid a city budget crisis — invited people to a “good-by” party.
by | Mar 22, 2011 7:32 am | Comments (7)
Thomas MacMillan Photo
Alderman Paolillo.
As lawmakers sought to have the mayor rehire 16 cops laid off last month, one aldermen urged them to take it further: Why not rehire all 82 dismissed city workers?
by | Mar 21, 2011 2:30 pm | Comments (25)
Thomas MacMillan File Photo
With an 18 percent-plus spike in suits against New Haven, City Hall’s top lawyer is recruiting more hands to help deal with a ballooning workload.
by | Mar 18, 2011 7:50 am | Comments (32)
Thomas MacMillan Photo
Elder Johnson.
Elder Willie Johnson had a theological question for the lawmakers who want neighborhood churches like his to start paying for the cost of removing stormwater from their property. “My only concern is that God sends the rain,” Johnson (pictured) remarked at a crowded public hearing. “And how can we be charged for what God does?”
Aldermen Stephanie Bauer and Matt Smith responded with similarly spiritual questions, with an environmentalist bent: What penalties must people pay for disrupting God’s natural order with pollution and asphalt?
by | Mar 14, 2011 8:18 pm | Comments (45)
Gwyneth K. Shaw Photo
Toni Daddio’s husband couldn’t come to Monday’s pro-labor rally downtown, but she made sure he could listen in as she marched for both of them.
For Daddio, a cook at Fair Haven School, and her husband, who’s a custodian at Worthington Hooker School, the fight over the city’s budget is personal.
Continue reading ‘Hundreds March On City Hall To Protest Budget’
by | Mar 14, 2011 11:22 am | Comments (9)
Melissa Bailey Photo
An effort to plug a multi-million dollar city budget hole with the sale of the Temple Street Garage has apparently come up short.
by | Mar 11, 2011 12:01 pm | Comments (22)
Rev. Sharpton.
As the battle between the mayor and unions heats up, labor is bringing in a heavy hitter: Rev. Al Sharpton. Police union brass has decided not to join this parade.
Continue reading ‘Rev. Al To Rev Up Unions—Minus Cop Leaders’
by | Mar 11, 2011 9:12 am | Comments (34)
Privatizing school custodial services would cut janitor salaries in half, perhaps forcing their families onto food stamps and state-funded health care.
Continue reading
‘Report: Privatization
Would Impoverish Custodians’
by | Mar 11, 2011 9:05 am | Comments (34)
Thomas MacMillan Photo
Wilbur Cross junior Isaiah Lee arrived at a public hearing on the city budget with an armful of textbooks, complete with a message for city lawmakers.
by | Mar 7, 2011 8:25 am | Comments (7)
Uma Ramiah Photo
Pat Wallace.
Yoga and tai chi for seniors topped a list of requests, as city officials pleaded with aldermen for their piece of a shrinking pool of federal block grant money.
by | Mar 4, 2011 9:03 am | Comments (46)
Thomas MacMillan/Melissa Bailey File photos
Alderman Goldson (left) and spokesman Joseph.
With budget cuts forcing libraries to shut their doors on the weekends, one alderman offered a solution: Eliminate the city spokesperson.
Continue reading
‘Goldson: Library Hours
Trump Spokesman $$’
by | Mar 2, 2011 2:24 pm | Comments (30)
ScottWalker.org/ Independent Photos
Wisconsin’s Walker, New Haven’s DeStefano.
As the mayor braces for a confrontation with union leaders, he asked them to show the “maturity” to distinguish New Haven government’s approach to fiscal crisis from, say, Wisconsin’s. Replied one labor negotiator: There’s no difference.
by | Mar 1, 2011 2:51 pm | Comments (33)
Paul Bass Photo
AFSCME negotiator Kevin Murphy and custodians union President Robert Montuori (foreground) at the mayor’s budget announcement.
(Updated) Parking-meter monetization is dead. Cops are spared more layoffs — for now. The mill rate stays the same. But New Haveners get less from government, and some more tough long-term fights loom, as a result of Mayor John DeStefano’s newly proposed $475 million city budget.
by | Feb 28, 2011 9:02 am | Comments (27)
Neighbors from the Hill were at the library Saturday afternoon learning how to become active citizens by using SeeClickFix. Now, thanks to a city budget crisis, they have a concern they can post on that website: The fact that they can no longer gather at the library on weekends.
Continue reading ‘Saturday? Neighborhood Library’s Now Closed’