by | Jan 5, 2023 9:39 am | Comments (13)
Renderings of The Monarch (top) and West Ridge Apartments (bottom left): Both OK'd for local tax break deals.
Local legislators signed off on two decade-plus tax break deals for two different affordable housing plans that will see 129 new apartments built in Beaver Hills and West River.
by | Jan 4, 2023 2:44 pm | Comments (10)
File photos
Newly OK'd Charter Revision Commissioners: former LCI head Serena Neal-Sanjurjo, former Probate Judge Jack Keyes, and former JUNTA director Sandra Trevino.
The former head of the city’s anti-blight agency, the director of a prominent college scholarship program, a retired former probate judge, and two alders from opposite sides of the city are some of the New Haveners tasked with reviewing the city’s fundamental governing document in the months ahead.
Continue reading ‘9 Approved For Charter Revision Commission’
by | Jan 4, 2023 11:47 am | Comments (2)
Laura Glesby photo
Fair Haven Alder Jose Crespo calls on colleagues to pray for the city Tuesday.
Prayers, tears, and a collective sense of grief hung over the first Board of Alders meeting of the year as local legislators mourned a brutal few weeks of gun violence that closed out 2022 and began 2023.
Continue reading ‘Violent Stretch Weighs Heavily On Year's 1st Alder Meeting’
by | Dec 23, 2022 10:32 am | Comments (13)
Paul Bass photo
Tyisha Walker-Myers at WNHH FM.
The relationship between police and the community improved in 2022 — and the Board of Alders helped make that happen by doing their job.
So argued Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers.
Continue reading ‘Board Prez Keeps Focus On Policing, Schools, Housing’
by | Dec 21, 2022 10:41 am | Comments (4)
Thomas Breen file photo
More plow trucks, coming soon?
The Elicker Administration has proposed spending $1.3 million in federal pandemic-relief aid on buying new trucks and parks maintenance vehicles for the city’s public works department.
Continue reading ‘$1.3M Plow Truck, Parks Vehicle Plan Pitched’
by | Dec 20, 2022 1:32 pm | Comments (6)
FORD
Ford promotional images for the Interceptor SUV that the NHPD wants to purchase and the electric Mach-E Mustang that the NYPD recently bought. (AI-generated lightning not included.)
The Board of Alders unanimously signed off on the Elicker Administration’s plan to spend $4.5 million in federal pandemic-relief aid on new police cars, fire trucks, and fire hydrant fixes.
by | Dec 19, 2022 8:54 am | Comments (11)
Maya McFadden file photo
Shelley Smith and second grader Maite at New Haven Reads tutoring site.
The Elicker Administration is looking to spend $3 million in federal aid to build out a new math and literacy tutoring program designed to help up to 1,500 public school students catch up on lost learning during the pandemic.
by | Dec 16, 2022 3:03 pm | Comments (33)
Thomas Breen file photos
LCI Board Member Nadine Horton (left): "Rewarding bad behavior." LCI Director Arlevia Samuel (right): "Investing in community.”
Nora Grace Flood photo
The derelict former Monterey Jazz club on Dixwell.
A debate about how to revitalize the Dixwell neighborhood without rewarding a megalandlord for bad behavior has delayed a key vote on the Elicker Administration’s plans to buy four rundown properties for a combined sum of $1.3 million.
by | Dec 16, 2022 2:42 pm | Comments (20)
Emily Hays file photo
NHPS dropout prevention workers canvassing during the pandemic.
Laura Glesby photo
NHPS's Dania Torres and Gemma Joseph-Lumpkin on Thursday.
When Dania Torres knocks on a student’s door, she doesn’t know if she’ll find a kid sick with the flu, a teen wrestling with substance use, a parent reeling from domestic violence, or a family preparing for the fallout of an eviction.
As a New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) dropout prevention worker, Torres is tasked with visiting the homes of students who have missed several — or sometimes most — days of school.
She explained the myriad of challenges that lead kids to build up absences and fall behind in school during a workshop on that very topic of chronic absenteeism hosted by the Board of Alders Education Committee.
by | Dec 15, 2022 9:11 am | Comments (8)
Laura Glesby photo
The city's new mental health initiatives coordinator, Lorena Mitchell.
City Hall’s first-ever “community mental health” coordinator is five months into her job — and focused on building peer-to-peer emotional support systems amid a shortage in formal clinical services.
Continue reading ‘City’s Mental Health Coordinator Checks In’
by | Dec 12, 2022 12:54 pm | Comments (24)
Paul Bass File Photo
Executive parking space: Steve Winter on day one with his work wheels.
New Haven’s new climate czar woke up at 4 a.m. Monday thinking about the planet — then pedaled two wheels through icy slush to help his city save it and create jobs in the process.
by | Dec 8, 2022 9:54 am | Comments (10)
The Board of Alders officially kicked off New Haven’s once-a-decade charter revision process by voting to focus a to-be-empaneled commission’s attention on 10 different considerations — including whether or not to grant four-year terms for the mayor and alders, and whether or not to drop residency requirements for some city department heads.
Continue reading ‘Alders Establish Charter Revision Commission’
by | Dec 7, 2022 12:21 pm | Comments (15)
Contributed photo
Blake St. tenants union members winning official recognition from Fair Rent Commission Executive Director Wildaliz Bermudez (center).
A group of Blake Street renters delivered a 31-name petition to City Hall — and officially became New Haven’s first legally recognized tenants union.
by | Dec 7, 2022 8:51 am | Comments (1)
Fair Haven Health's parking lot plans.
A Fair Haven community healthcare center has won a key city approval needed to expand its parking lot — and, eventually, its Grand Avenue headquarters.
by | Dec 6, 2022 4:35 pm | Comments (0)
Laura Glesby photo
Fire Chief John Alston addresses the family of Thomas Mieles.
A month after a car struck and killed 27-year-old firefighter Thomas Mieles on the I‑91 highway, the Board of Alders honored his service to the city with citations issued to the late Fair Havener’s family members.
Continue reading ‘Alders Honor Family Of Firefighter Killed In Highway Crash’
by | Dec 6, 2022 12:32 pm | Comments (26)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
Paul C. at the "Tent City" encampment on the West River.
City officials and local professionals concerned with combatting homelessness gathered at City Hall to sound the alarm on a growing housing crisis — as they considered ways to pay for more affordable places for New Haveners to live.
Continue reading ‘Homelessness Advocates Brace For "Tidal Wave"’
by | Dec 6, 2022 9:05 am | Comments (19)
FORD
Ford promotional images for the Interceptor SUV that the NHPD wants to purchase and the electric Mach-E Mustang that the NYPD bought. (AI-generated lightning not included.)
Should a once-in-a-lifetime flood of federal money be used to fund more gas-powered public safety vehicles, while the city contends with a looming climate crisis and one of the highest asthma rates in the country?
Alders raised those questions — even as they moved ahead the Elicker Administration’s proposal to use $4.5 million in federal pandemic-relief aid in part to buy new non-electric police SUVs and fire trucks.
Continue reading ‘$4.5M Fire Truck, Police SUV Plan Advances’
by | Dec 1, 2022 5:36 pm | Comments (12)
Maya McFadden photo
Career High's Jonathan Berryman with Board of Ed VP Matt Wilcox Wednesday.
The Board of Education has hired a national search firm to try to find the next city schools superintendent by March — raising public concerns that the process to find Iline Tracey’s replacement needs to be longer and more community-focused.
by and | Dec 1, 2022 2:55 pm | Comments (34)
File photos
Alder board prez Walker-Myers, Elicker: Let's talk about it.
Four-year terms for local elected officials are back on the table, according to a new memo describing the mayor’s and the Board of Alders president’s priorities for debate in a once-in-a-decade charter revision process.
by | Nov 30, 2022 5:08 pm | Comments (9)
Paul Bass Photo
Jim Turcio looked down from 14 stories above New Haven and marveled at a landscape that has been changing before his eyes — with his OK required at every step.
Continue reading ‘Turcio, City's Building Boom Boss, To Retire’
by | Nov 29, 2022 5:25 pm | Comments (11)
Nora Grace-Flood hpto
Crump (center): Cox's life expectancy "severely compromised" if he doesn't get the right care.
Richard “Randy” Cox heralded the arrests of the five New Haven police officers who left him permanently paralyzed a step towards justice — while the 36-year-old New Havener’s family and legal team slammed state prosecutors for not bringing heavier charges against those same cops.
by | Nov 29, 2022 9:07 am | Comments (7)
Thomas Breen photo
Stone St. houses, slated for demolition ...
... to be replaced by 65 new apartments.
A Branford-based developer plans to knock down four rented single-family houses and build 65 new apartments for low-income seniors and people with disabilities, according to a new 17-year local tax break application for a project slated to go up in the shadow of West Rock.
by | Nov 28, 2022 3:21 pm | Comments (20)
NHPD image
Ofc. Diaz, Sgt. Segui, and Ofc. Pressley lifting Cox into wheelchair.
Five city cops have been arrested on two misdemeanor charges apiece for their roles in the June 19 incident that left 36-year-old New Havener Richard “Randy” Cox injured and paralyzed while in police custody.
by | Nov 23, 2022 10:45 am | Comments (0)
Kimberly Wipfler photo
Arabic interpreter Nuha Ibrahim and attendee Rajaa Abdella at Sunday's workshop.
(Updated with response from city) Camila Guiza-Chavez asked a roomful of women — mostly refugees, many facing housing insecurity — if anyone had applied for the city’s new federally funded, pandemic-era housing assistance programs.
“No,” was the unanimous reply.
Then she asked if anyone in the room had even heard of these programs. She was met again with a resounding: “No.”
by | Nov 23, 2022 9:55 am | Comments (0)
144 more apts., en route to Blake St.?
Local legislators cleared the zoning path for 256 new mostly market-rent apartments to be built in Westville and Long Wharf.
Continue reading ‘Alders Approve Plans For 256 New Apartments’