by | Feb 24, 2020 1:07 pm | Comments (10)
Sam Gurwitt Photos
Campaign gatherings Saturday for Farmer (left), Cabrera (right).
While Bernie Sanders was pulling off a left-Democratic victory in Nevada, two local candidates with similar roots in progressive politics summoned supporters to separate fundraisers on the same day — for the same seat.
by | Feb 21, 2020 1:58 pm | Comments (3)
Sam Gurwitt Photos
Judith Beers stood facing the trunk of a tall ash, her leather clogs perched on its sloping roots. Her right hand rested on a massive boulder, rough with lichen in some places, soft with moss in others.
Continue reading ‘42-Acre Brooksvale Park Extension Advances’
by | Feb 21, 2020 8:56 am | Comments (3)
TSKP Studio
A model of the new middle school plan, with the addition in light gray.
After the Hamden Legislative Council approved bonding for an $11.2 million addition to Hamden Middle School in June, the project’s architect has come up with a new architectural model that might add to the pricetag.
by | Feb 20, 2020 1:28 pm | Comments (1)
St. Mary Street, in the neighborhood where remediation took place.
Sam Gurwitt Photos
Walter Morton at WNHH FM.
As Walter Livingston Morton IV was digging around in state bonding ordinances this spring, he found a welcome surprise: $6 million still lying around in an old state-issued bond for remediation of the Newhall Street area in the southern part of Hamden.
by | Feb 19, 2020 1:18 pm | Comments (3)
Sophie Sonnenfeld Photo
Carmen Parker (at left) addresses Equity & Inclusivity Task Force.
When Helen Ward was moving to Hamden, she was deciding between two neighborhoods. Her real estate agent told her that Spring Glen is a “more desirable” area.
Ward was new to the town. She has since come to wonder about that comment — since Spring Glen is predominantly white, while Whitneyville is more racially balanced, especially its schools.
by | Feb 18, 2020 4:15 pm | Comments (1)
Sam Gurwitt Photos
Jorge Cabrera and Justin Farmer; incumbent George Logan.
A few weeks after Democratic challenger Jorge Cabrera announced a rematch with incumbent Republican George Logan for Connecticut’s 17th State Senate District, Hamden Councilman Justin Farmer has added himself to the mix in a bid to bring younger voices into the fold of Connecticut politics.That means the district with last cycle’s most hotly contested legislative race in the region is poised again for both a competitive primary and a competitive general election.
by | Feb 17, 2020 2:20 pm | Comments (1)
The Hamden police collected 149 firearms in the town’s first-ever “gun buy-back” effort.
by | Feb 17, 2020 8:53 am | Comments (1)
Sam Gurwitt photo
Rehired Deputy Finance Director Rick Galarza, Assistant Superintendent Chris Melillo, and Interim Finance Director Myron Hul.
After a year and a half without a permanent director and months without a deputy, Hamden’s Finance Department is now poised to enter its next budget season with its top two positions filled for the first time since 2018.
Continue reading ‘Hamden Hires Finance Director, Gets Deputy Back’
by | Feb 17, 2020 8:45 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Hank Hoffman.
“I’ll do my impresario thing, which is normal, and then I’ll do something which is not,” said Hank Hoffman, who on Saturday night not only played the part of executive director of Best Video Film and Cultural Center, but also stepped up to the stage on vocals and guitar for the band Happy Ending, which he has been a part of since 1983.
Another special role Hoffman played on this evening: birthday celebrant.
The band always plays a show annually near Hoffman’s birthday, but this year’s was a special one. Hoffman — famously a Beatles fan — was turning 64.
by | Feb 12, 2020 2:50 pm | Comments (1)
Aisha Staggers.
(Opinion) — Last year, an employee at my child’s school made national news as the result of a video in which she is seen in a grocery store spewing racial slurs and spitting on another shopper. The employee was a white woman; her target was a black man. She resigned before the school district could take action, but the damage was done.
The resignation did little to ease racial anxiety among black and brown students at Hamden High School. My daughter was particularly disturbed and like her peers wanted the school to do more.
Continue reading ‘Knowledge Talked, Wisdom Listened At “Names Hurt Us” Forum’
by | Feb 12, 2020 1:24 pm | Comments (4)
A driver struck and killed a 57-year-old Hamden man who was standing inside a bus stop enclosure Wednesday.
by | Feb 11, 2020 9:38 am | Comments (4)
Maya McFadden Photo
Pina Violano of Yale New Haven Health at Monday’s announcement.
The Hamden Police Department will host its first-ever gun buyback and safety event on Saturday to remove unwanted and unsecured guns from community homes.
by | Feb 11, 2020 9:37 am | Comments (0)
Sam Gurwitt Photo
Deval Patrick with Bill and Julie Hague.
Manchester, N.H.— Deval Patrick was in the midst of an answer about job creation when a middle-aged woman clutching a blue leather bible walked in the door of the bookstore where he was making a last appeal to voters.
“My name is Licarda,” the woman with the bible began, interrupting another questioner in line. “I have mental illness issue, and the system is broken in our nation.”
by | Feb 10, 2020 9:00 am | Comments (24)
Sam Gurwitt Photos
Alex Taubes, Martin Looney, and Jameson White.
After four decades of running largely unopposed in either the primary or general election, or both, State Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney faces 2020 challenges from both the ideological left and right.
by | Feb 10, 2020 8:49 am | Comments (0)
Daniel Shoemaker Photos
“Best Video is my best place.” remarked Guinea-born guitarist and longtime New Haven resident Mamady Kouyate, who on Friday returned with his band, the Mandingo Ambassadors, to perform at Best Video Film and Cultural Center for the second time in under a year.
Continue reading ‘Mandingo Ambassadors Return To Best Video’
by | Feb 7, 2020 8:55 am | Comments (5)
Sam Gurwitt Photos
Democrat Josh Elliott and Republican Kathy Hoyt.
Kathy Hoyt talks to home buyers and homeowners in New Haven County every day, and after hearing over and over that people can’t afford to live in Connecticut, she aims to change that — by trying to unseat State Rep. Josh Elliott.
by | Feb 7, 2020 8:51 am | Comments (1)
Allison Hadley Photos
“You know in The Grinch when he has a ‘wonderful, terrible idea? That’s how we’re feeling about learning all of this,” said Chris Evans, Mile Twelve’s guitarist. He and the rest of the band — David Benedict on mandolin, Catherine “BB” Bowness on banjo, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes on fiddle, Evan Murphy on guitar and vocals, and Nate Sabat on bass and vocals — grinned ruefully at the packed house Thursday night at Best Video Film & Cultural Center in Hamden. He had just explained that to shake up their tight tour schedule, the band had decided to learn — and play at Best Video for the first time — the entirety of Tim O’Brien’s landmark bluegrass (country? acoustic?) album Fiddler’s Green, an album that clearly carried the heart of the band.
by | Feb 5, 2020 8:43 am | Comments (5)
Staff Photos
Cabrera (left), Logan: 77 votes apart last time.
Top state Democrats turned out in force Tuesday night to help union organizer Jorge Cabrera kick off a rematch State Senate challenge that pits two starkly different political visions against each other.
by | Feb 4, 2020 9:18 am | Comments (7)
Sam Gurwitt Photo
Josh and Carmen Parker: Teacher apologized. Fire the principal.
Almost two weeks after her daughter had been cast as a slave in a class play, Carmen Parker stood with 100 other people to demand, among other fixes, a student to teacher pipeline and a central reporting system.
by | Feb 3, 2020 5:12 pm | Comments (11)
Two teens threw a 92-year-old man to the ground and stole his car.
by | Feb 3, 2020 3:52 pm | Comments (2)
Sam Gurwitt Photos
Hamden’s July DTC convention.
After a heated set of caucuses for Hamden’s Democratic Town Committee (DTC) earlier in the month, primaries for the committee in seven Legislative Council districts are now set, exceeding the town’s record.
by | Jan 29, 2020 4:00 pm | Comments (32)
Sam Gurwitt Photo
Carmen Parker (standing in back) with husband Josh.
After finding out that her daughter’s teacher had been placed on administrative leave for planning a play that would have black children playing slaves, Carmen Parker had a message for the Hamden School District: The problem is not the teacher, it’s the system.
Continue reading ‘Slave Play Teacher Put On Leave; Parent: “Scapegoating” Not The Answer’
by | Jan 29, 2020 2:53 pm | Comments (4)
Laura Glesby Photo
Hamden Lt. Tim Wydra.
Hamden Police Lt. Tim Wydra said he was bringing advice for the “ladies” of New Haven’s Newhallville Community Management Team: Amid a dramatic uptick in purse snatchings in recent weeks, “do your best not to be a victim.”
Continue reading ‘Purse Snatchings Plague Newhallville, Newhall’
by | Jan 28, 2020 4:09 pm | Comments (8)
Sam Gurwitt Photo
Parent Carmen Parker: “They sent my baby home a slave.”
A play aimed at introducing elementary school students to the horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade has instead sparked concern about how race is taught today in Hamden schools.
by | Jan 27, 2020 9:26 pm | Comments (0)
Sam Gurwitt Photos
An assembly at Hamden High School last year.
The internet has been down at Hamden’s schools for two and a half weeks, with recovery delayed by a seagull fried in an electrical transformer. But a light is visible at the end of the arduous tunnel of cyber-recovery.
Continue reading ‘Hamden Schools: Fried Seagull Won’t Prevent Cyber-Recovery’