by | Dec 12, 2005 2:11 pm | Comments (0)
“The storm has passed over. Y’all remember the storm?” City Hall’s Sheila Allen Bell (pictured) asked a crowd at the Graduates Club Monday afternoon. The event was the annual luncheon meeting of Empower New Haven. From the feds to first-time homeowners, the talk wasn’t of storms past, but of the calm — and the good works — that have followed at New Haven’s biggest anti-poverty experiment of the past decade.
by | Dec 7, 2005 9:56 am | Comments (3)
A dozen hard-core bicyclists tired of near-death encounters on the road rolled in to “Mayor’s Night In” at City Hall Tuesday to urge the city to do more to protect two-wheelers from motorized menaces. Melinda Tuhus, an avid cyclist herself, was on hand and filed this report.
by | Dec 5, 2005 10:04 pm | Comments (0)
In a meeting with 20 aldermen present, there was little dissent or hesitation to push for New Haven to become one of the three pilot cities to participate in the new statewide pilot program for taxpayer-financed municipal elections.
Continue reading ‘It’s Unanimous: New Haven Pols Want Clean Elections’
by | Dec 4, 2005 10:55 am | Comments (0)
Can New Haven end chronic homelessness in ten years? Gary Spinner (in picture) and other advocates, with the help of homeless people in New Haven, have put together a City Hall-solicited plan to do that. (Click here to read the report.) Melinda Tuhus was at the announcement of the plan and filed this report.
by | Dec 1, 2005 10:43 am | Comments (2)
Ezekiel Barfield (in photo) doesn’t usually ride a city bus; he drives to work in Bridgeport. But he joined dozens of CT Transit riders Thursday morning to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the day seamstress Rosa Parks sparked a seminal chapter in U.S. civil rights history by refusing to relinquish her seat in the white section of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. If Parks were alive today and living in New Haven, would she ride a city bus?
by | Dec 1, 2005 7:56 am | Comments (0)
New Havener Marsha Hurt brought her two young children to a vigil at the war memorial on Broadway Wednesday night to commemorate the 1,000th U.S. prisoner to be executed since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. It was part of a national mobilization called by the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
by | Nov 30, 2005 4:07 pm | Comments (6)
Chief Cisco Ortiz (above) appealed at a mid-day press conference outside police headquarters Wednesday for the public’s help in solving four shootings, including a murder, that took place within 32 hours of each other.
by | Nov 30, 2005 3:25 pm | Comments (0)
Bleeding on the sidewalk on Kensington Street, 22-year-old Marquis “Toby” White said those words to Ed Beamon after a man in a passing car shot him Tuesday. Beamon (above) returned to the scene of the shooting Wednesday and recalled consoling Beamon until the police arrived. Toby White did die in his hospital bed Wednesday morning. The shooting was one of four within 32 hours that police said were related to a spat between young men from the Dwight and Hill neighborhoods.
by | Nov 28, 2005 5:41 pm | Comments (0)
Below is a press release issued Monday by Community Action Agency about its new director, who comes to the job after the state Department of Social Services moved to take control of the troubled, scandal-ridden agency.
by | Nov 28, 2005 12:48 pm | Comments (3)
Philip Ball committed an act of defiance against City Hall Monday morning: He parked his Saab by an hourly meter outside his Elm Street law office. After receiving at least 40 tickets over two years, Ball has taken the city to court to challenge its interpretation of the law governing parking for people with disabilities — people like him.
by | Nov 25, 2005 9:20 am | Comments (0)
Reader Howard Blas took these shots the other day while passing the Coliseum in its latest stage of falling to the ground. Have a photo of something happening in New Haven? In your neighborhood? Downtown? Click here and send it our way.
Continue reading ‘In The Stages of (Coliseum) Death & Dying’
by | Nov 17, 2005 4:06 pm | Comments (0)
Engineer Bijan Notghi of the city’s traffic department helped inaugurate a new era in downtown parking — and possibly the country — Thursday by installing one of 525 new meters that accept “smart cards.” Now you won’t have to fish for coins or mess with those pesky parking vouchers anymore. Read on to find out how it works.
by | Nov 16, 2005 5:24 pm | Comments (0)
New Haveners worried about pending budget cuts in Congress staged a mock Thanksgiving feast at City Hall Wednesday to highlight how those cuts will hurt people in Connecticut. One of 100 similar events nationwide organized by MoveOn.org, the gathering called on Gov. Rell to oppose oppose the Budget Reconciliation bill if it includes cuts to vital programs like Medicaid, food stamps, and student loans. “This is nothing more than a “reverse Robin Hood” budget. The Republicans are robbing from the poor to pay back the rich,” said MoveOner Martha Tyrone. “If this budget passes, many people in Connecticut will be looking at empty plates this Thanksgiving.” “In Connecticut alone, 430,000 people rely on Medicaid to keep their families healthy, 280,000 people need food stamps to keep food on their table, and 123,000 depend on student loans to provide for a better future. Funding for important programs like Medicaid comes from both the federal government and the State of Connecticut. Connecticut can’t afford to pick up the slack for the federal government if these budget cuts go through.”
by | Nov 10, 2005 1:32 pm | Comments (1)
Following is the text of an Oct. 20 letter to the chairman of scandal-plagued Community Action Agency from the commissioner of the state Department of Social Services (DSS).
by | Nov 10, 2005 11:59 am | Comments (3)
Officer Steve McMorris prepares to check out of Yale-New Haven Hospital Thursday morning and head home for a well-deserved rest after a dramatic rescue. Earlier that morning he climbed a pole at Three Judges Motel and saved the lives of three people trapped in a fire. “The only thing I could think of,” McMorris said, “was: ‘I’ve got to get up there.’”
by | Nov 4, 2005 2:52 pm | Comments (1)
A plan to free up $1 million, quick, for youth programs in New Haven — part of the response to the rash of violent crimes by gangs of kids — moved ahead after aldermen on opposing sides struck a compromise over lunch.
by | Nov 3, 2005 8:50 am | Comments (1)
Halloween is over, but a related Mexican celebration —” with a somber message —” is in full swing all week on the New Haven Green. An immigrants rights group in New Haven is using one of Mexico’s biggest holidays to draw attention to a tragedy it hopes to help end.
by | Nov 2, 2005 7:19 pm | Comments (0)
Stamford police were stuck in their investigation of the murder of a 75-year-old woman. They had physical descriptions of two suspects, but no info on who they might be. Then the New Haven police came down to discuss two people they were looking for in connection with the death of a man found dead in the West River in Edgewood Park. The New Haven cops had the names of those two people; the Stamford cops found them and arrested them for the Stamford murder. Now New Haven cops want to interview the two about the Edgewood Park death. It’s a tale of two deaths, two cities, and two suspects.
by | Nov 2, 2005 4:50 pm | Comments (0)
Five hundred females who get stuff done in New Haven lunched in the Omni ballroom Wednesday to “celebrate women and girls” — and a 10-year-old charitable fund that’s reaching $1 million.
Continue reading ‘“Today We Celebrate the Power of Women and Girls”’
by | Nov 2, 2005 4:18 pm | Comments (1)
New Haven’s public-housing chief, Regina Winters, said Monday that she’s stepping down. The housing authority has narrowed a search for her successor to two finalists.
by | Nov 2, 2005 11:07 am | Comments (0)
Schoolteacher Stephen Kobasa of New Haven lost his job at a parochial school when he declined to fly the American flag in his classroom. Now people who have long admired his commitment to peace causes are sending money to help his family through the ordeal of unemployment and finding a new job. An account has been set up at People’s Bank. You can send checks, payable to Anne Somsel and/or Stephen Kobasa, to the bank at 265 Church St., New Haven, CT 06510. Note that it should be deposited to account #116-xxx2421. And include a note.
by | Nov 1, 2005 3:53 pm | Comments (0)
by | Nov 1, 2005 11:25 am | Comments (0)
by | Oct 31, 2005 8:27 pm | Comments (2)
Thirty-five years ago, officials broke ground at the future site of the New Haven Coliseum. Monday, in front of a small crowd dotted with white hard hats, part of the rusty relic fell to the ground, marking the beginning of the end of the New Haven institution which rocked for more than 30 years with hockey brawls, raucous concerts and dunking Globetrotters.
by | Oct 31, 2005 8:43 am | Comments (1)
The head of a not-for-profit agency in town said Monday she has paid all the back money owed to undocumented workers who helped build new artist housing in Westville. The workers walked off the job after charging that a subcontractor exploited their illegal status to avoid paying them.