State

State Offers 700-Seat Magnet Compromise

by | Sep 23, 2019 9:07 pm | Comments (10)

Christopher Peak Photo

Board member Tamiko Jackson-McArthur (center): A huge win.

New Haven will be able to add 700 more spots for city residents next year at its magnet schools thanks to a deal with the state.

Under the deal, the state agreed to let New Haven fill every spot in its inter-district magnets, and the city will withdraw a request to charge tuition to suburban towns.

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Union Station Garage Foes Not Giving Up

by | Sep 3, 2019 12:21 pm | Comments (11)

Thomas Breen photo

Anstress Farwell pitches mixed-use, not more parking, train station.

Fereshteh Bekhrad and Rick Wies design

2nd parking garage-less visions for what the area around Union Station could look like,

As the state plods ahead with its plans to build a second parking garage next to Union Station, one local New Urbanism activist is stepping up her fight against the car-centric proposed construction.

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Suburban “Pushback” Feared On Magnets

by | Jul 18, 2019 12:03 pm | Comments (11)

Melissa Bailey File Photo

Yoga at New Haven Academy, one of city’s inter-district magnets.

The last time New Haven tried to charge tuition for its inter-district magnet schools, state lawmakers told the city, Nice try.”

This time, school officials are treading cautiously about trying again to send suburbs a bill, fearing another backlash.

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Suburbs Profit Off New Haven’s Magnets

by | Jul 5, 2019 1:29 pm | Comments (44)

Christopher Peak Photo

Career High students walk out in protest over city budget cuts — while suburbs keep money meant to educate them. Below: State funding formula for inter-district magnets outside Hartford.

Connecticut School Finance Project

Suburban school districts are being paid millions of dollars for students they don’t teach, while sticking New Haven taxpayers with the bill for educating their kids.

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Scorecard: Wage Wins; Weed, Tweed Stall

by | Jun 18, 2019 3:18 pm | Comments (34)

Thomas Breen Photos

Robyn Porter: Bringing home the minimum-wage, family leave bacon.

City Capitol lobbyist Robert Reed: “Work still to be done” after state legislative session.

A $15 minimum wage. Paid family and medical leave. Black and Latino studies in public schools. More school aid.

But no major property tax reform. No marijuana legalization. No Tweed airport runway extension.

Those are among the local legislative wins and losses during the state General Assembly’s latest regular session.

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Train Progress Hailed; Buses? “Stay Tuned”

by | Jun 17, 2019 3:07 pm | Comments (23)

Thomas Breen photo

Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz and Gov. Ned Lamont board the Hartford Line at Union Station, check in with passengers (below).

Sophie Sonnenfeld Photo

Local, state, and federal officials descended on New Haven Monday to celebrate the resounding success” of a year-old commuter rail line that connects New Haven, Hartford, and Springfield.

They also said that a decade-in-the-works bus study is almost complete, and that long-awaited local transit improvements should be coming … sometime soon?

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Transit Deals Inked For Primary Care Hub

by | May 29, 2019 3:13 pm | Comments (2)

Thomas Breen photo

Primary care movers (from right): YNHH VP Jennifer Wilcox, Fair Haven Health CEO Suzanne Lagarde, YNHH VP Cynthia Sparer, Hill Health CEO Michael Taylor, Yale School of Medicine Associate Dean Stephen Huot.

YNHH images

Current YNHH primary care patients within and outside of 10 mile radius (green line) of 150 Sargent Dr.

Yale New Haven Hospital has signed contracts with Uber and two other regional transportation services to provide free transit for carless patients who live more than a 40-minute bus ride away from a proposed new primary care hub on Long Wharf.

According to a hospital survey of current patients, that number could be as high as 9,500 people.

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332,000 May Get Raises. Waiters Will Wait

by | May 13, 2019 7:23 am | Comments (14)

Sam Gurwitt Photo

Robyn Porter with constituents at Three Brothers.

Twenty hours after State Rep. Robyn Porter led the charge to get a $15 minimum wage through the Connecticut House of Representatives, she sat with constituents in the Three Brothers Diner relishing a years-in-the-making victory. The victory was checked only by a compromise proponents had to make, which exempted from the raise the servers bringing plates of eggs and toast.

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Last-Chance Push Planned For Prison Phone-Call Bill

by | Apr 24, 2019 11:46 am | Comments (1)

Worth Rises

Connecticut’s prison inmates currently pay the second highest rates in the country to make phone calls in the country. If Hamden State Rep. Josh Elliott gets his way, they could soon pay nothing to call their loved ones — but only if his bill doesn’t lose momentum and get buried in a busy session of the General Assembly.

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Cop Video Released; Hamden Never Told New Haven It Was Crossing The Border

by | Apr 23, 2019 3:00 pm | Comments (22)

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State police Tuesday afternoon released video from the camera worn by a Hamden police officer as he fired bullets at two unarmed people in a car in New Haven’s Newhaville neighborhood.

It showed the officer firing directly into the passenger window of the car. Meanwhile, the state’s police commissioner revealed that Hamden failed to notify New Haven police that an officer was crossing into town to confront a suspect and that a Yale police officer who also fired his gun did not turn on his body camera.

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Lamont: Debt Or Tolls? Your Pick

by | Apr 22, 2019 12:53 pm | Comments (12)

Thomas Breen photo

Gov. Ned Lamont Monday with Chamber President Garrett Sheehan.

Gov. Ned Lamont presented New Haven’s business community with a choice for how the state will pay for necessary transit improvements: through tolls or through debt.

Connecticut’s governor made that pitch Monday morning in a keynote address to the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce about his nascent administration’s economic development priorities.

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Dalio Doubts

by and | Apr 8, 2019 1:23 pm | Comments (25)

Christoper Peak Photo

Fatima Rojas (center) and Sarah Miller (right) speak out at Board of Ed meeting.

(Opinion) — On Friday, Gov. Ned Lamont announced a $100 million donation to the state of Connecticut from the Dalio Philanthropies to strengthen public education and promote greater economic opportunity.” The five year initiative is to be matched two-to-one by the state and unspecified private donors, with state funds this year coming from surplus dollars.

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