by | Feb 25, 2025 9:12 am | Comments (9)
Thomas Breen photo
No more Bigelow, hello "Bigelow Square"?
A vacant, contaminated waterfront industrial property in Fair Haven took a big step towards becoming a new 12,000 square-foot commercial/industrial building — thanks to a suite of City Plan Commission approvals for the redevelopment of the site of the now-demolished former Bigelow factory complex.
by | Feb 24, 2025 1:57 pm | Comments (12)
Abbey Kim photo
Robert James (right) leads petition procession to the front office.
Elderly renters at a church-owned apartment complex on Goffe Street marched down their building’s hallway holding signs reading “Respect Seniors,” “Justice Matters,” and “Help Us Stay Safe.”
They then delivered a petition to the front office announcing their new status as a tenants union — and demanded a collective bargaining agreement.
by | Feb 18, 2025 8:42 pm | Comments (5)
Laura Glesby Photo
Daniel Juárez at a January Aldermanic Affairs Committee meeting.
The Board of Education has a new member in New Haven Public Schools parent, opera singer, and Yale fundraiser Daniel Juárez, who was unanimously approved for the position on Tuesday evening by the Board of Alders.
by | Feb 14, 2025 11:35 am | Comments (15)
Laura Glesby photos
Local licenses, inspections are on the horizon for tobacco retailers.
Health Director Maritza Bond: Inspections would protect kids from exposure to addictive carcinogens.
The city’s Health Department could soon have the power to crack down on smoke shops that violate the law — by way of a proposed municipal license system that would allow for stricter local regulation of the 212 businesses already OK’d by the state to sell tobacco in New Haven.
Continue reading ‘Municipal Tobacco License Proposal Advances’
by | Feb 13, 2025 9:28 am | Comments (30)
Zachary Groz
Atticus Market: Another bathroom to come?
Rendering of proposed addition, as viewed from Linden.
A group of East Rock neighbors are raising a stink about Atticus Market’s plan to tack on a new 600-square foot structure to the grocery and convenience store to make way for another bathroom.
by and | Feb 12, 2025 1:11 pm | Comments (22)
Zachary Groz photo
Applicant Villanueva: Spot is a "gold mine"
Thomas Breen photo
Landlord Marty Halprin: Time to look for another potential tenant.
A new smoke shop won’t be able to open up next to a methadone clinic and a strip club — after city zoners stamped out the latest bid to convert a vacant storefront into a tobacco sales “gold mine.”
by | Feb 7, 2025 8:24 pm | Comments (40)
Nathaniel Rosenberg photo
Elicker: "Trump is trying to punish those who disagree and coerce local authorities... into carrying out his agenda."
New Haven has teamed up with San Francisco and Portland to sue the Trump administration in order to protect its status as a “welcoming city” for undocumented immigrants.
by | Feb 7, 2025 7:24 pm | Comments (5)
Zachary Groz Photo
Mayor and union prez Cotto haven't always seen eye-to-eye.
In a matter of minutes, with two strokes of a pen, a contract that had taken the city over two years to finalize with the police union was finally made official Friday afternoon.
Continue reading ‘Mayor, Union Prez Ink 6-Year Police Contract’
by | Feb 7, 2025 9:34 am | Comments (9)
Thomas Breen photo
LCI's Brennan, at the scene of a recent tenant-displacing fire in Newhallville.
The Livable City Initiative (LCI) has collected $27,200 over the past few months in hearing officer-approved fines of landlords who have missed inspections, failed to register with the city’s rental business licensing program, or not acted quickly enough to correct blight or housing code violations at their properties.
And the agency is now taking four more landlords to court in a bid to collect an additional $23,700.
by | Feb 6, 2025 10:18 am | Comments (12)
Thomas Breen photo
Snow blankets the Blvd.
The public schools are closed for the day, there’s no parking ban in effect, and nearly two dozen snow plows are out at work trying to keep the streets clean as a small snowfall turns to sleet.
Continue reading ‘Snow Update: 2 Inches; No Parking Ban; No School’
by | Feb 5, 2025 4:15 pm | Comments (7)
Nora Grace-Flood File Photo
COMPASS crew member Nanette Campbell on a call.
(Updated) Social workers and supportive peers plan to continue to respond to New Haven-based 911 calls related to addiction, homelessness, and mental illness through June 2026 — now that the Board of Alders has approved a no-cost yearlong extension of the pilot contract for the city’s COMPASS crisis response team and its associated programs.
by | Feb 3, 2025 10:23 pm | Comments (23)
Laura Glesby Photo
Mayor Justin Elicker: "In these difficult times, I’m so grateful and proud to live in this city we all call home."
Two weeks into an onslaught of federal policy upheavals and funding threats, New Haven is still tackling problems that long precede Donald J. Trump.
That dual focus emerged from Mayor Justin Elicker’s annual State of the City address in the Board of Alders Chamber on Monday night.
by | Feb 3, 2025 8:33 pm | Comments (2)
Thomas Breen file photo
Jefferson announcing plans for 3rd annual Black Wall Street festival.
New Haven’s cultural affairs chief is bringing her diversity-focused toolkit to the cultural center of the Southeast.
Continue reading ‘Cultural Affairs Chief Headed For Atlanta’
by , , and | Jan 28, 2025 5:55 pm | Comments (45)
DeLauro: "This is nothing less than highway robbery."
Thomas Breen photo
Mayor Elicker (right), with Acting CAO McCarthy Wednesday, after the Trump administration rescinded the funding-freeze memo: "What a waste of time and energy."
(Updated) Elected officials and grassroots nonprofit leaders scrambled to figure out how to keep government and social services running at home amid a frenzied nationwide battle over a Trump administration plan to freeze federal spending.
Continue reading ‘Fed Freeze Frenzy Leaves City, State In Chaos’
by | Jan 28, 2025 9:15 am | Comments (2)
Laura Glesby Photo
Daniel Juárez: En route to ed board?
When Board of Education nominee Daniel Juárez’s oldest child was approaching high school — with a daunting local school lottery process on the horizon — Juárez and his wife had a question for their two kids enrolled in New Haven Public Schools.
“We said, ‘What would you guys think about moving to the suburbs?’” Juárez recalled on Monday evening.
“They said, ‘Absolutely not!’”
by | Jan 24, 2025 4:50 pm | Comments (12)
Laura Glesby Photo
Erycka (with Alyssa-Marie, both of the Children of Marsha P. Johnson): "Our fear and anger deserves a healthy place to be felt."
Queer rights advocates and city officials gathered at the New Haven Pride Center Friday to send a resounding message: that no presidential executive order can erase the reality of transgender people — or dim New Haveners’ commitment to protecting queer rights and safety.
by | Jan 21, 2025 4:33 pm | Comments (14)
Thomas Breen photos
Sodas and energy drinks, not allowed ...
... cigarettes and vaping products, still allowed, at 864 Whalley.
A “Not For Sale” sign remains taped to the top of a beverage case filled with Monster energy drinks, Powerade and Diet Coke at the Grab n’ Go Market in Westville Village — where city zoners recently rejected Mohammed Ababneh’s bid to sell soda and prepackaged food in addition to vaping products and cigarettes.
by | Jan 21, 2025 1:04 pm | Comments (3)
Nathaniel Rosenberg photo
Heimer: Expanding public financing to City Clerk's race would be "an increase in democratic participation."
New Haven’s Democracy Fund wants to test expanding its pioneering mayoral public financing program to other citywide races to make them more often contested and competitive.
That’s why the program’s board voted to request $60,000 from the mayor’s upcoming Fiscal Year 2025 – 2026 budget to fund a pilot program for citywide seats, including City Clerk, Registrar of Voters and Board of Education.
Continue reading ‘Democracy $ Sought For More Than Just Mayor’
by | Jan 16, 2025 9:44 pm | Comments (27)
Laura Glesby photos
U-ACT protester Mell: “Show me the law telling me I cannot walk up those steps!”
Alexis Terry in the tent on City Hall's first floor.
Four dozen people showed up to City Hall on Thursday night to protest a city policy of issuing 72-hour eviction notices upon discovering outdoor encampments — leaving a symbolic tent outside the mayor’s office after a standoff with police.
by | Jan 16, 2025 4:23 pm | Comments (2)
Nathaniel Rosenberg Photo
Newly elected board Chair Lesley Heffel-McGuirk (left): "I feel very strongly about the Democracy Fund, and about democracy in general."
Mayoral candidates can now raise less money from individual contributors, and put a lot less of their own money into campaigns, if they want to receive a public grant and matching funds through the city’s public financing program.
Continue reading ‘New Rules Take Effect For Democracy Fundees’
by | Jan 16, 2025 9:27 am | Comments (8)
One last tobacco store could soon be allowed...
Allan Appel File Photo
...here? As circled in red in map above.
New Haven could soon have room for only one more smoke shop — specifically on one block of industrial Water Street cut off from the rest of the city by I‑95.
by | Jan 15, 2025 9:36 am | Comments (7)
Asher Joseph file photo
Winter: We're not on track for 2030. Elicker: That assessment's "premature."
New Haven is one step closer to one more electric garbage truck — but still under 10 percent of the way to its goal of a fully electric fleet by 2030.
Continue reading ‘With Trash Truck Approval, City Steps Electric’
by | Jan 14, 2025 1:07 pm | Comments (4)
Nora Grace-Flood File Photo
COMPASS crew member Nanette Campbell on a call.
Is COMPASS a Yale-backed public relations stunt — or a good faith and effective effort to improve crisis response services all across New Haven?
Alders sought answers to those questions, and received testimony and data bolstering the program’s cause, as they advanced a plan to extend the police-alternative pilot for another year.
Continue reading ‘Crisis-Response Pilot Seeks 1-Year Extension’
by | Jan 10, 2025 3:19 pm | Comments (18)
Laura Glesby Photo
W. Matthew Harp, right, and his attorney Kirt Westfall.
LCI Photo
The since-cleaned-up backyard of 75 Brewster.
One man’s trash is another man’s tenant’s loose tires, copper pipes, and splintering wooden cart of debris and furniture.
Local landlord W. Matthew Harp floated that idea at a series of back-to-back civil citation hearings involving some of his properties, which saddled him with nearly $20,000 in fines.
by | Jan 10, 2025 1:43 pm | Comments (11)
Thomas Breen photo
Yondr pouches, now not just for Barnard.
Cellphone-restricting pouches are officially headed for all New Haven middle and high schools, now that alders have approved a nearly $371,000 contract with the tech-securing company Yondr.