by | Feb 10, 2023 11:47 am | Comments (31)
Thomas Breen photo
Shafiq Abdussabur at Thursday's public hearing: "Not amused" by mayor's pitch to drop residency requirements for some city dept. heads.
Leaders of the city’s teachers union called for the school board to have two additional elected members — and for the mayor to be stripped of his ed-board voting powers.
by | Feb 6, 2023 1:04 pm | Comments (36)
Yash Roy photo
Bianca Flecha with "Cap the Rent" organizer James O'Donnell.
Bianca Flecha opened the door of her Poplar Street apartment building to find an Australia-raised tenant organizer with a pitch that resonated.
She said her rent has gone up a couple hundred dollars every year that she’s lived in her Fair Haven home.
James O’Donnell, a New Haven-based organizer with the Connecticut Tenants Union, told her that she’s not alone in experiencing such hikes — and that a new bill before the state legislature would help put a cap on those ever-rising housing costs for renters.
Continue reading ‘Statewide Rent-Cappers Canvass Fair Haven’
by | Feb 1, 2023 10:16 am | Comments (27)
File photos
New Haven state lawmakers (clockwise from top left): Gary Winfield, Martin Looney, Robyn Porter, Roland Lemar.
Clockwise from top left: Toni Walker, Juan Candelaria, Pat Dillon, Al Paolillo, Jr.
Taking city ownership of the expansive former Gateway Community College campus on Long Wharf.
Handing back to the state the detention center at police headquarters.
Increasing property taxes on Connecticut’s most expensive houses to better fund its most cash-strapped public school districts.
And — of course — making pizza the state’s official food.
Those are among the 218 proposals contained in bills introduced so far by New Haven’s lawmakers in the Connecticut General Assembly session now underway in Hartford.
by | Jan 31, 2023 3:48 pm | Comments (6)
Laura Glesby file photo
Charter Revision Commission counsel Steve Mednick: Prioritize clarity; "Avoid the culture of disregard or paralysis."
New Haven’s once-a-decade process of revising the city’s foundational document officially began — as the 2023 Charter Revision Commission received a crash course from an experienced municipal-government attorney on the power balances and scope limitations it’ll have to navigate in the weeks and months ahead.
by | Jan 26, 2023 12:35 pm | Comments (14)
Paul Bass Photo
TAC's David Dinielli and law student Eleanor Runde -- who worked on an amicus brief in an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case about tech platforms' legal liabilities -- at WNHH FM.
Consumer warning: If you want to publish a comment at the end of this story calling people names or lying about them committing horrible acts, tough luck. Your contributions don’t immediately get posted. They get reviewed and vetted according to rules of civility (not to mention libel law).
If, however, you have a terrorist video seeking to recruit people to blow up enemies whose religion or nationality you despise, or a lie-filled screed about someone you read about in the news, you can instantly publish it on YouTube. YouTube’s recommendation algorithm might even help you reach hateful loners all over the globe to take action of their own. And if some … unfortunate events follow, oh well. YouTube can continue doing that with more videos — as long as its parent company convinces U.S. Supreme Court justices to maintain its protection under a law passed nine years before the social-media video powerhouse was created.
by | Jan 25, 2023 1:44 pm | Comments (4)
Thomas Breen file photo
Karen DuBois-Walton with Democracy Fund chief Aly Heimer in 2021.
The board that oversees New Haven’s public-financing program has officially submitted a suite of proposed changes that would allow candidates running for city clerk, and not just for mayor, to tap into the clean-money effort — and that would reduce the amount of money that wealthy self-funders can put into their own campaigns and still participate and receive public dollars.
by | Jan 25, 2023 9:40 am | Comments (4)
CHRISTOPHER PEAK FILE PHOTO
The late Hazel Pappas, at an in-person ed board meeting in 2017.
The late longtime public education advocate Hazel Pappas was present yet again, this time in memory only, at the Board of Education this week — as current New Haven educators invoked the impact she had on countless local students, parents, teachers, and school staff who were able to meet her face to face at in-person meetings.
by | Jan 24, 2023 1:55 pm | Comments (21)
Laura Glesby Photo
Wilcox: "Not all board members would be able to meet in person."
Local legislators endorsed Board of Education Vice President Matt Wilcox’s bid to serve another term on the city’s school board — after grilling the mayoral appointee on the board’s online-only meetings and fractured parental trust.
by | Jan 23, 2023 4:10 pm | Comments (7)
Paul Bass Photo
Tom Goldenberg.
Democratic mayoral challenger Tom Goldenberg added his voice to those calling for a return to in-person Board of Education meetings, in a press-release preview of comments he plans to make at City Hall Monday night.
by | Jan 17, 2023 4:39 pm | Comments (19)
Paul Bass Photo
Shafiq Abdussabur at WNHH FM: Community grows face-to-face.
The city’s Board of Education should ditch the remote and resume meeting in person to tackle the school system’s challenges, in the view of Democratic mayoral candidate Shafiq Abdussabur.
by | Jan 17, 2023 12:28 pm | Comments (23)
Kimberly Wipfler photos
Hannah Srajer and Emmett Santisi (right) make their rent-cap-bill pitch to Hill resident Johnna Davis during Saturday's canvass.
Hitting the doors in the Hill.
Tenants rights advocates from across Connecticut descended on the Hill to knock on nearly 100 doors in their bid to win local renter support for a new rent-hike-stifling legislative campaign.
by | Jan 13, 2023 12:36 pm | Comments (65)
Thomas Breen file photo
New Haven's Kim Hart, with Claudette Kidd: "Our purpose is to put the onus of evictions not on the tenant, but on the landlord."
Hundreds tune in for Thursday's Zoom campaign launch.
Hundreds of tenant rights organizers from across Connecticut gathered online to kickstart a new campaign focused on limiting annual rent increases — on the same day that two New Haven state legislators introduced a bill in Hartford that would cap such hikes at no more than 2.5 percent a year.
Continue reading ‘Lawmakers, Activists Seek To "Cap The Rent"’
by | Dec 8, 2022 9:54 am | Comments (10)
The Board of Alders officially kicked off New Haven’s once-a-decade charter revision process by voting to focus a to-be-empaneled commission’s attention on 10 different considerations — including whether or not to grant four-year terms for the mayor and alders, and whether or not to drop residency requirements for some city department heads.
Continue reading ‘Alders Establish Charter Revision Commission’
by | Dec 6, 2022 9:05 am | Comments (19)
FORD
Ford promotional images for the Interceptor SUV that the NHPD wants to purchase and the electric Mach-E Mustang that the NYPD bought. (AI-generated lightning not included.)
Should a once-in-a-lifetime flood of federal money be used to fund more gas-powered public safety vehicles, while the city contends with a looming climate crisis and one of the highest asthma rates in the country?
Alders raised those questions — even as they moved ahead the Elicker Administration’s proposal to use $4.5 million in federal pandemic-relief aid in part to buy new non-electric police SUVs and fire trucks.
Continue reading ‘$4.5M Fire Truck, Police SUV Plan Advances’
by and | Dec 1, 2022 2:55 pm | Comments (34)
File photos
Alder board prez Walker-Myers, Elicker: Let's talk about it.
Four-year terms for local elected officials are back on the table, according to a new memo describing the mayor’s and the Board of Alders president’s priorities for debate in a once-in-a-decade charter revision process.
by | Nov 10, 2022 2:01 pm | Comments (13)
Thomas Breen photo
Ready for pandemic-relief-funded repairs?
The Elicker Administration is looking to spend $4.5 million in federal pandemic-relief aid on new fire trucks, new police department SUVs, and comprehensive repairs to the city’s aging fire hydrants.
by | Nov 9, 2022 3:07 pm | Comments (18)
Laura Glesby photos
A contingent of Wilbur Cross community members, including Board of Ed Student Representative Dave John Cruz-Bustamante, art teacher Melody Gallagher, and soccer captain Matteo Festa.
Laura Glesby photo
A lightly muddy Blake Field on Friday afternoon.
Broken ankles. Used syringes. Mud-induced match cancellations. Low morale.
Those were just a few of the high school sports-related obstacles that Wilbur Cross coaches and students spoke out about having to surmount time and again, as they successfully urged alders to move forward with long-awaited upgrades to the East Rock Athletic Complex.
Continue reading ‘Student-Athlete Pleas Power Field Repairs’
by | Nov 7, 2022 9:00 am | Comments (21)
Laura Glesby photo
Wanda Perez: Buses are a lifeline to doctors, food pantries, family.
Thomas Breen file photo
Fares, be gone!
As she juggles the cost of everything from utilities to laundry, the past seven months of fare-free buses have given Wanda Perez one less expense to worry about.
“That helps me go to my doctors’ appointments, to see my loved ones,” Perez told a room full of bus riders, transit advocates, and alders — as they collectively pushed for making the state’s temporary bus fare holiday permanent.
by | Nov 2, 2022 9:27 am | Comments (15)
Thomas Breen file photo
The deadly Ella T. Graso-Columbus-Davenport-Orange Avenue intersection.
As another pedestrian death reminded New Haven of the perils of walking on Ella T. Grasso Boulevard, plans to make that state-owned roadway safer have been pushed back yet again.
by | Oct 27, 2022 2:33 pm | Comments (0)
Melissa Bailey photo
Artist Winfred Rembert: Future mural subject?
188 Bassett: Recently damaged by people camping inside the building.
New life may soon light up a long-dead former social services building on Bassett Street — in the form of a mural remembering the late Newhallville artist Winfred Rembert.
by | Oct 26, 2022 9:00 am | Comments (11)
Chris Peak file photo
Board of Ed Prez Rivera: Zoom meetings = more accessible.
The Board of Education will continue to meet online only for the foreseeable future — as the board president defended virtual gatherings as more accessible to the public, while a fellow board member criticized the move as less accountable to teachers, students, parents, and staff.
by | Oct 21, 2022 12:11 pm | Comments (13)
Paul Bass Photos
Dom Rapini (top) and Stephanie Thomas at WNHH FM.
Would letting people cast ballots earlier make the voting process easier? Or harder?
The two major-party candidates vying to become the state’s top elections official split on that issue — and on broader issues of how voting should work.
Continue reading ‘Sec'y State Hopefuls Split On Voting Rules’
by | Oct 10, 2022 12:22 pm | Comments (10)
The early voting question slated for Nov. 8's ballot.
New Haveners will have the chance to vote this second Tuesday of November about whether or not they should be able to vote in future elections before the second Tuesday of November.
Continue reading ‘November Election Q: Should CT Vote Early?’
by | Aug 15, 2022 2:32 pm | Comments (38)
Thomas Breen photos
Jose (right) on Ferry Street: A new center with private bathrooms "would be nice," much better than going "in the woods."
Harm reduction crew at 229 Grand lot: John Burroughs, John Rivera, Mark Jenkins, Alder Sarah Miller, Jaclin Lucibello, Emme Magliato.
A Fair Haven-based harm reduction coalition has its sights set on turning a vacant Grand Avenue lot into a one-stop “engagement center” for sex workers, day laborers, drug users, and other struggling populations.
They have the backing of local businesses and social service organizations. Now they’re looking for help from City Hall.
Continue reading ‘"Engagement Center" Eyed For Problem Block’
by | Aug 3, 2022 3:03 pm | Comments (23)
Thomas Breen photo
Rose-Wilen and Piscitelli on Tuesday: "Long Wharf is the city's neighborhood."
The city's vision for a denser, mixed-use, redeveloped Long Wharf.
A proposed one-year building moratorium on Long Wharf is now one vote away from adoption — after alders and city planners made clear that certain projects, like Fusco’s planned new 500 waterfront apartments, would not be affected by the land-use pause.