by | Aug 2, 2022 11:46 am | Comments (32)
Thomas Breen photo
Pressure from activists, like these attendees at a June public hearing, led to an addition of housing dollars.
City-backed housing programs got an extra $4 million boost on top of a planned $14 million, as alders signed off on a final amended version of how the Elicker Administration should spend $53 million in federal pandemic-relief aid.
by | Jul 19, 2022 2:49 pm | Comments (5)
Yash Roy Photo
Fair Rent Commission Executive Director Wildaliz Bermudez and City Corporation Counsel Patricia King present tenant union proposal to alder committee.
Tenant unions are now one step closer to getting a seat at the table in New Haven government.
by | Jul 12, 2022 2:06 pm | Comments (11)
Thomas Breen photo
Housing advocates at Monday's hearing.
Bolstered by personal stories and political calls to arms, over two dozen affordable housing advocates made their final plea for city government to invest tens of millions of dollars in federal pandemic-relief aid into more, better, and cheaper shelter.
Continue reading ‘Housing Backers Make Last Pitch For Covid $’
by | Jul 6, 2022 9:12 am | Comments (9)
Health and Human Services Committee Chair Darryl Brackeen, Jr. on Tuesday.
New Haven and … Cuba?
The city made its bid for a potential spot in U.S. diplomatic history Tuesday, as alders voted unanimously in support of a nonbinding resolution urging President Joe Biden to resume an Obama-era rapprochement with the Caribbean island nation.
by | Jun 24, 2022 3:30 pm | Comments (8)
Yash Roy Photo
Seth Godfrey recalls FBI visit during testimony Thursday night.
U.S.-Cuba diplomacy was the topic of discussion at City Hall, as alders advanced a measure calling on the president “to build a new cooperative relationship” with the Caribbean nation.
The occasion was a hearing Thursday night held by the New Haven Board of Alders Health and Human Services Committee.
The three alders present — committee Chair Darryl Brackeen, Fair Haven’s Sarah Miller and Downtown’s Alex Guzhnay — heard testimony on a nonbinding resolution to end the U.S. blockade against Cuba and reverse President Trump’s reversal of President Obama’s policy of increasing ties between the two nations.
by | Jun 20, 2022 3:18 pm | Comments (5)
Hamden’s next mayor may run for a four-year term rather than two if a town charter change aiming to improve governmental accountability and productivity is approved.
Lengthening the time Hamden’s top leader spends in office is one of the amendments that a reinstated Charter Revision Commission (CRC) is looking to make in the town’s “constitution.”
by | Jun 16, 2022 8:19 pm | Comments (8)
Thomas Breen Photo
Gov. Lamont (center) at Brazi's lunch with local clergy.
At reelection campaign stops with local faith leaders and elderly residents, Gov. Ned Lamont faced a flurry of questions about how best to keep New Haveners safe — from gun violence and reckless drivers alike.
by | Jun 14, 2022 11:49 am | Comments (21)
Thomas Breen photo
Affordable housing activists at City Hall Monday evening.
Should the city spread tens of millions of dollars in federal pandemic-relief aid across a hodgepodge of housing, vocational technical education, youth engagement, business support, and climate resiliency initiatives?
Or should it spend a bulk of that money in a concentrated effort to buy rental properties away from megalandlords and subsidize New Haven’s most struggling tenants?
Alders heard both arguments while deciding how to allocate $53 million of the city’s one-time Covid-relief bounty.
Continue reading ‘Housing $ Choice: Big Bang Or Modest Mix?’
by | Jun 10, 2022 4:47 pm | Comments (4)
Contributed
Dave Cruz Bustamante: We deserve the vote.
Rising Wilbur Cross junior Dave Cruz-Bustamante is gathering troops of students and an activist outlook to bring to the table with him as the newly elected Board of Education’s (BOE) student representative.
by | Jun 9, 2022 1:29 pm | Comments (24)
Thomas Breen photos
City officials join Quinnipiac Gardens tenants and tenant union organizers for Thursday press conference. According to LCI, Quinnipiac Gardens has no outstanding housing code violations.
(Updated) The mayor and top City Hall housing officials traveled to an apartment complex on the east side of town to promote a newly proposed law empowering tenant unions — and to encourage renters to band together to advocate for fair rent and safe living conditions.
by | Jun 8, 2022 3:21 pm | Comments (15)
Up next at Long Wharf Theatre (clockwise from top left)?: Model smoking INSA pre-rolled joint; theater's sign on Sargent Dr.; INSA cannabis chocolates; theater's current home in the Food Terminal.
Could the Long Wharf stage that hosted performances by Sam Waterston and Anna Deavere Smith become a spot to purchase “Mellow Bar” cannabis chocolates and “Infused Rocket” pre-rolled joints?
That possible future won a vote of support from an aldermanic committee that greenlit the legal sale of marijuana on Long Wharf — including on an industrial stretch of Sargent Drive where a Massachusetts-based cannabis dispensary hopes to move in to the longtime, soon-to-be-former home of Long Wharf Theatre.
by | Jun 7, 2022 9:16 am | Comments (14)
Thomas Breen file photo
City Plan Director Brown: One year needed to rezone Long Wharf.
The City Plan Department has proposed putting a one-year pause on new developments on Long Wharf — in a bid to attract more shops and apartments, and fewer gas stations and truck repair facilities, to the city’s industrial waterfront.
by | Jun 3, 2022 3:17 pm | Comments (37)
Wikimedia
Gas-powered leaf blowers: lifeline or life-destroying?
Alder Avshalom-Smith: Blowers hurt breathers; ban hurts businesses.
The environmentalists said: The persistent roar of gas-powered leaf blowers pollute the air and cause long-term health and environmental damage.
The landscapers whose income currently depends on those leaf blowers said: Advocates who want to ban them are out of touch.
“I want to see how many calluses they have,” said one professional.
by | May 30, 2022 10:30 am | Comments (12)
East Rock Alder Anna Festa.
The next time New Haven decides whether to “scoop and toss” municipal debt, a small group of officials will continue to make the call without a broader debate and vote among the full Board of Alders — despite the efforts of a city alder to make a change.
At least, that was the outcome of the latest vote on an effort to change the process by which municipal debt restructurings take place.
by | May 30, 2022 10:20 am | Comments (22)
Nick Wagner / San Antonio Report
Stormy Flores holds a sign honoring some of the victims of the Robb Elementary School shooting during a prayer vigil in Uvalde.
(Opinion) The school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, is unacceptable, yet only in the United States is it likely to happen. The political sector, which should be leading the country, has failed to lead.
Therefore, it must be bypassed, and some other sector must lead us to stop this kind of outrage.
I believe the sector that can lead us is made up of the teachers and administrators of all schools.
by | May 20, 2022 4:33 pm | Comments (7)
Melissa Bailey Photo
The late Winfred Rembert in the Newhall Street home where he made the magic happen.
Now that the late Winfred Rembert has won a Pulitzer prize, is it time for New Haven finally to honor its most talented artist of the last half century?
by | May 20, 2022 1:41 pm | Comments (11)
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Malacki Lewis: It's working. Keep it.
Malacki Lewis was failing all of his classes at Hamden High School until his mother found out about an alternative learning environment known as the Hamden Collaborative Learning Center. Since transitioning to the smaller public program, he has fallen in love with learning and plans to graduate alongside his peers at both HHS and HCLC this spring before attending Gateway Community College.
by | May 13, 2022 2:44 pm | Comments (16)
Kimberly Wipfler Photo
Mauro working the Xfinity Hall convention floor.
Inside the convention hall, candidates jostled for last-minute support to win the party’s endorsement. Democratic Town Committee Chair Vincent Mauro Jr. had his two candidates picked. If this were his uncle’s day in charge, or his father’s — heck, even if this were 2010 — he could have given the signal, and all of New Haven’s delegates would have lined up behind him to vote with one voice.
Continue reading ‘Party Chair Confronts Un-Conventional Era’
by | Apr 28, 2022 4:00 pm | Comments (17)
Thomas Breen photos
Downtown/East Rock Alder Eli Sabin (right) talking about buses by the hub on the Green.
So long, fares?
What if the current three-month CT Transit bus-fare holiday went on … forever?
Downtown/East Rock Alder Eli Sabin has raised that question, and thrown his support behind that outcome, with a newly submitted resolution that calls on the state to make riding the bus free for Connecticut residents, permanently.
by | Apr 25, 2022 1:51 pm | Comments (7)
Maya McFadden photo
LCI Deputy Frank D'Amore tracking neighborhood blight.
LCI general fund positions in the mayor's proposed budget.
Will two more “neighborhood specialists” help cut down on blight, hold landlords accountable, and build trust in City Hall?
Or does New Haven need to rethink — and potentially overhaul — the structure of its anti-blight and housing-code-enforcement agency, before adding any more “generalist” positions to the city budget?
by | Apr 20, 2022 12:02 pm | Comments (7)
Paul Bass file photo
Educators rally outside City Hall for full school funding.
Mayor's proposed FY23 budget
Expenditure breakdown for proposed schools budget.
Teacher salaries. Student transportation. Building maintenance. Special education.
All of those costs are on the rise — and New Haven’s public schools need at least $5 million more to close the gap.
by | Apr 18, 2022 3:18 pm | Comments (15)
Thomas Breen photo
City police officers lined up in August 2019.
Trustworthy. Emotionally Mature. Courageous. A good communicator. And, ideally, from the ranks of the city’s own police department.
A dozen members of the public singled out those characteristics during the first public meeting about what New Haveners would like to see in the city’s next police chief.
by | Apr 15, 2022 10:35 am | Comments (10)
Thomas Breen photo
City Health Director Maritza Bond at Thursday's budget workshop.
Should the city add two new public health nurse positions to the budget … at a time when 25 already-existing nurse positions are vacant?
by | Apr 7, 2022 2:55 pm | Comments (5)
Next year, these a capella ladies will likely be able to buy alcoholic drinks at Hamden Fest ...
... but other town events, like this dance for disabled children, will probably still not include liquor.
It’s June 11, 2022. You’re getting ready for a day of purchasing homemade postcards, sampling the products of local potrepreneurs, and either encountering or evading politicians campaigning at Town Center Park during the annual Hamden Fest.
How much would buying an ice cold Corona on-scene contribute to the experience?
This year’s attendees of Hamden Fest may get to find out for themselves, thanks to a proposed amendment put forward by Hamden’s mayor to allow for the sale and distribution of alcohol at town celebrations on a case-by-case review basis.
Continue reading ‘Hamden Looks To Lift Spirits By Allowing Booze Sales At Town Events’
by | Apr 7, 2022 1:37 pm | Comments (2)
Thomas Breen photo
Mayor Justin Elicker, Republican challenger John Carlson, Aly Heimer at 2021 Democracy Fund debate.
Following up on the Democracy Fund’s biggest year yet, the municipal public-financing program is considering expanding into other citywide electoral contests beyond just the race for mayor.