by | Feb 16, 2023 3:29 pm | Comments (5)
Abiba Biao photo
At the "Cocoa, Cards & Climate Action" outside City Hall.
Young climate activists gathered at City Hall to deliver love letters to the planet — and to press city government to up its care for the environment.
by | Feb 16, 2023 8:47 am | Comments (35)
Thomas Breen photo
Time to reset the clock? The Edgewood Park sundial.
A new group of citywide parks advocates is calling on Mayor Justin Elicker to up his administration’s care for open spaces — including by reinstating a stand-alone department for parks and trees.
Continue reading ‘"Friends" To City: Bring Back Parks Dept.’
by | Feb 14, 2023 4:53 pm | Comments (11)
Laura Glesby photo
Hillhouse teacher Raven Mitchell: "We take on more than what's in our contracts."
Frustrated by years of working extra jobs to support her family, Fana Hickinson nearly left the teaching job she loves at New Haven Academy — until a draft union contract promised her a salary increase that convinced her to stay.
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 9, 2023 4:02 pm | Comments (45)
Paul Bass file photo
The former Church Street South property, above and below.
Elicker (at bottom left): "Disappointed & frustrated." Northland's Gottesdiener (bottom right): City's version "inaccurate at best, a lie at worst."
Five years after bulldozers demolished the 30-building Church Street South community across from Union Station, the land remains a fenced-off wasteland of prime real estate with no signs of progress on plans to rebuild.
by | Feb 9, 2023 8:53 am | Comments (9)
Monday's FRAC meeting, complete with active public-attendee chat.
City government still has 112 full-time non-cop vacancies — while the city’s revived fiscal watchdog commission still has three empty seats — as the Elicker Administration continues to struggle to fill job posts so that overtime doesn’t spike and current workers aren’t overly stretched.
Continue reading ‘City Vacancies Dissected As FRAC Comes Back’
by | Feb 8, 2023 3:27 pm | Comments (3)
More plows coming soon.
The Elicker Administration won its final needed approval to use $1.3 million in one-time pandemic relief dollars to purchase new public works equipment.
Continue reading ‘$1.3M Plow Truck, Parks Vehicle Plan OK'd’
by | Feb 6, 2023 9:39 pm | Comments (9)
Laura Glesby Photo
Mayor Elicker: "This year, in 2023, I’m here to report the state of our city is bright and New Haven is on the move."
While low test scores and attendance rates speak to profound challenges in New Haven’s public schools, the daily perseverance of dedicated staff and a curriculum overhaul are just some of the reasons for hope.
Mayor Justin Elicker offered that message in his annual State of the City speech before the Board of Alders on Monday evening, during which he declared that New Haven’s status is “bright.”
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 30, 2023 4:48 pm | Comments (0)
Maya McFadden Photo
Clinton Avenue literacy coach Marilyn Ciarleglio (center) with NHPS Asst. Supt. Keisha Redd-Hannans.
Clinton Avenue School literacy coach Marilyn Ciarleglio has spent the past week getting a “refreshing” taste of a new K‑3 reading curriculum that has a Spanish-language component that’s been a gamechanger in helping teach multilingual students to read.
by | Jan 27, 2023 10:02 am | Comments (15)
Thomas Breen file photo
At a 2019 Financial Review & Audit Commission (FRAC) meeting at City Hall.
The following opinion essay was submitted by Dennis Serfilippi, a certified public accountant who works as a chief financial officer consulting for early- and late-stage technology companies.
New Haven is flush with $188 million in funding — $115 million from the feds, $50 million from the state, $10 million from Yale, and a $13 million tax increase.
by | Jan 27, 2023 9:07 am | Comments (17)
Maya McFadden photo
Kim Harris (center) & students, speaking up for tutoring plan.
The Elicker Administration’s bid to spend $3 million in federal aid on a new math and literacy tutoring plan moved ahead — against a backdrop of questions and concerns around how exactly the city will find the hundreds of volunteers needed to make this program work.
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 9:32 am | Comments (7)
A visual rendering of the planned new Grand Avenue clinic.
A Fair Haven neighborhood-anchoring healthcare center won permission to build 26 new clinical exam rooms — along with a food pharmacy, community space for job and digital literacy training, and a splash pad — all as part of a now-approved expanded Grand Avenue campus.
by | Jan 24, 2023 3:23 pm | Comments (3)
New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker is working from home after testing positive Monday evening for Covid-19.
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 24, 2023 11:02 am | Comments (23)
Thomas Breen photo
Two-families on the rise: A construction worker on the job on Downing St.
The only contractor to respond to a city bid to build a new two-family house in the Hill won the contract at a price of $690,000 — or roughly $246 per square foot — raising questions about just how much it costs to construct small-scale residential developments in New Haven in 2023.
by | Jan 23, 2023 9:16 am | Comments (12)
Nora Grace-Flood File Photo
In Hamden, tree branches turn into mulch with the help of a tub grinder. Could New Haven do the same?
Leaves and branches that fall from New Haven trees might someday be revived as municipally managed mulch and top soil, thanks to a Westville alder’s new legislative proposal.
by | Jan 19, 2023 3:52 pm | Comments (2)
Laura Glesby photo
At Tuesday's Board of Alders meeting.
Local legislators signed off on a new higher salary for City Hall’s human resources director position — as the Elicker Administration has now filled that previously vacant role with a new hire.
Continue reading ‘City Hires New HR Manager; Alders OK Salary Bump’
by | Jan 16, 2023 5:27 pm | Comments (10)
Markeshia Ricks file photo
Wilcox testifies at 2019 confirmation hearing at City Hall.
The mayor has tapped Board of Education Vice President Matt Wilcox to serve another term on the city’s school board.
by | Jan 16, 2023 11:45 am | Comments (6)
Abiba Biao photo
Immigrant rights organizers, advocates at City Hall presser.
Immigrant workers spoke out against alleged wage theft and on-the-job abuse at a City Hall press conference focused on beefing up whistleblower protections.
Continue reading ‘Immigrant Workers Protest Alleged Wage Theft’
by | Jan 13, 2023 3:10 pm | Comments (8)
Reuel Parks: "When we are unwilling to intervene, we miss an opportunity to prevent the worst outcome."
An ex-parole officer and clinical therapist who grew up “dodging violence” in the Bronx has been chosen to lead the city’s new office of violence prevention — and to use his lived and professional experience to help quell cycles of brutality.
Continue reading ‘City Hires First Violence Prevention Coordinator’
by | Jan 9, 2023 5:20 pm | Comments (13)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
Licensed dealer Ray Pantalena.
Wait until you get home to break into your stash, don’t eat or smoke it all at once — and please keep it away from the kids.
by | Jan 9, 2023 1:57 pm | Comments (3)
Thomas Breen file photo
The former Winchester Arms plant at Munson and Mansfield, slated for demolition.
Laura Glesby Photo
Science Park Development Corp's David Silverstone: "I'm afraid someone's going to get hurt."
Science Park’s redevelopers are still planning to knock down an abandoned factory building saturated in toxic oil and marked by broken glass.
They’re now one small step closer to realizing that goal, as alders advanced a grant application that would cover a portion of the $10 million they need to demolish and remediate the derelict former site.
by | Jan 6, 2023 11:09 am | Comments (3)
Markeshia Ricks file photo
Environmental advocate Marjorie Shansky: “I don’t know when the last time New Haven amended their inland wetland regulations was. I don’t even know if it complies with the law.”
Map shows delineation of wetlands from standard soil by Wilbur Cross track, which has been approved for conversion into synthetic turf.
Inland wetlands advocates are urging city decision-makers to beef up their environmental education, training and expertise in order to help protect New Haven’s endangered ecosystems.
Continue reading ‘Enviros Chart Path To Wetlands Protections’