Bianca Flecha with "Cap the Rent" organizer James O'Donnell.
Bianca Flecha opened the door of her Poplar Street apartment building to find an Australia-raised tenant organizer with a pitch that resonated.
She said her rent has gone up a couple hundred dollars every year that she’s lived in her Fair Haven home.
James O’Donnell, a New Haven-based organizer with the Connecticut Tenants Union, told her that she’s not alone in experiencing such hikes — and that a new bill before the state legislature would help put a cap on those ever-rising housing costs for renters.
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Laura Glesby |
Feb 6, 2023 1:04 pm
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NHFT President Leslie Blatteau at Friday's state hearing.
New Haveners joined teachers, students, and public education allies from across Connecticut for a marathon legislative hearing at which they called for more state funding for school districts that serve the most vulnerable students.
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Nora Grace-Flood |
Feb 3, 2023 5:56 pm
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Oscar Britt: Getting out of the cold at Columbus House Friday night.
Jim Pettinelli with Sen. Blumenthal, Gov. Lamont, and Sen. Murphy at Friday's funding presser.
Oscar Britt has a plan to survive subfreezing temperatures this weekend thanks to a connection he made with outreach workers who found him a hard-to-secure shelter bed at Columbus House.
The state is hoping to hire many more such workers who can connect with many more Oscars in New Haven and beyond — thanks to a newly announced federal infusion of $18 million to pay for a variety of homelessness services.
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Frank Ricci |
Feb 2, 2023 10:23 am
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Ex-fire union President Frank Ricci.
The following opinion essay was submitted by Frank Ricci, a retired former New Haven Fire Department drillmaster, union president, and battalion chief. Ricci is currently a Fellow of Labor for the Yankee Institute and an advisory board member for FDIC and Fire Engineering Magazine. He was also the lead plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court case Ricci v. DeStefano.
New Haven state lawmakers (clockwise from top left): Gary Winfield, Martin Looney, Robyn Porter, Roland Lemar.
Clockwise from top left: Toni Walker, Juan Candelaria, Pat Dillon, Al Paolillo, Jr.
Taking city ownership of the expansive former Gateway Community College campus on Long Wharf.
Handing back to the state the detention center at police headquarters.
Increasing property taxes on Connecticut’s most expensive houses to better fund its most cash-strapped public school districts.
And — of course — making pizza the state’s official food.
Those are among the 218 proposals contained in bills introduced so far by New Haven’s lawmakers in the Connecticut General Assembly session now underway in Hartford.
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Nora Grace-Flood |
Jan 30, 2023 5:07 pm
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DOT Commissioner and New Havener Garrett Eucalitto: "Intent" of speed cameras is not to surveil people, but to keep them from getting killed.
Yale medical student Aishwarya Pillai “Zoomed” up to Hartford to tell state legislators about the crushed skulls and other carnage she’s seen patients endure in the wake of local car crashes — and to relay her own experience nearly getting run over on South Frontage Road while trying to leave her shift at Yale New Haven Hospital.
Pillai recalled those gory details in a virtual plea made during a hybrid online/in-person public hearing at the State Capitol, where a host of New Haveners expressed their concerns with growing road dangers and then called on the Connecticut legislature to enact traffic safety measures — including allowing for speed and red-light cameras — to help cut down on future car-driven damage to life and limb.
At Thursday's protest outside of Gateway Community College.
Gateway Community College student and Board of Regents student representative Alina Wheeler lives on the edge — of affording to be able to stay in school, of being “just poor enough” to have her healthcare covered as she works towards graduating.
She and fellow community college students in similarly precarious spots are now worried they might not be able to finish out their educations thanks to a potential increase in tuition that could be coming down the pike now that the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities Board of Regents has announced plans to raise tuition at state universities by 3 percent.
Gov. Ned Lamont announced Wednesday afternoon that the state has set aside $12.5 million for a new “Eviction Prevention Fund” that will provide eligible applicants with up to $5,000 to pay back rent.
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Maya McFadden |
Jan 18, 2023 8:52 am
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State Comptroller Scanlon (right) taking a baklava break with legislative liaison Kevin Kurian at Pistachio Cafe ...
... and talking retirement plans with Westville salsa entrepreneur Alisa Bowens-Mercado, Tuesday.
Angela Naranjo now puts aside 3 percent of her Westville massage-therapy paycheck towards her retirement — thanks to a new state program that encourages workers across Connecticut who do not have employer-backed retirement plans to start saving early, even if they have decades to go before leaving the workforce for good.
Naranjo, a 34-year-old Westville native, shared her story about getting ready for retirement — many years down the line — during a neighborhood walking tour promoting that program as hosted by newly elected state Comptroller Sean Scanlon.
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Kimberly Wipfler |
Jan 17, 2023 12:28 pm
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Hannah Srajer and Emmett Santisi (right) make their rent-cap-bill pitch to Hill resident Johnna Davis during Saturday's canvass.
Hitting the doors in the Hill.
Tenants rights advocates from across Connecticut descended on the Hill to knock on nearly 100 doors in their bid to win local renter support for a new rent-hike-stifling legislative campaign.
New Haven's Kim Hart, with Claudette Kidd: "Our purpose is to put the onus of evictions not on the tenant, but on the landlord."
Hundreds tune in for Thursday's Zoom campaign launch.
Hundreds of tenant rights organizers from across Connecticut gathered online to kickstart a new campaign focused on limiting annual rent increases — on the same day that two New Haven state legislators introduced a bill in Hartford that would cap such hikes at no more than 2.5 percent a year.
Bysiewicz's (seated) term-two team: Chief of Staff Taijah Anderson, Senior Adviser Joseph Carvalho, communications chief Chelsea Neelon, External Affairs and Constituent Services Director Brittany Foulds, Chief Legal Adviser Christine Jean-Louis, and John Kelly (scheduling and special projects).
The New Haven-to-Lieutenant Governor’s Office pipeline keeps flowing, with two new appointments announced Wednesday.
(Updated) Erick Russell raised his right hand Wednesday, took the oath to be the state’s new treasurer — and already found himself grappling with the first scandal of the second Lamont administration.
CT Education Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker: "I want Team New Haven to know that the Department of Education is here to support the work that you are doing."
Tuesday's state delegation-organized meeting about NHPS.
Connecticut’s top education official and New Haven state lawmakers called city public school district leaders to the table for a reality check on student chronic absenteeism — and for a discussion on improving local public education while working as one “Team New Haven.”
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Thomas Breen |
Dec 15, 2022 1:49 pm
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On the scene of a "48-hour film" set in 2016.
A New Haven-based fiscal policy watchdog has proposed cutting a money-pit state film tax credit as part of a broader suite of reforms targeting Connecticut’s “unfair tax system.”
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Thomas Breen |
Dec 8, 2022 5:23 pm
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Dixwell Plaza's planned new ConnCAT Place redevelopment.
Dixwell Plaza’s mixed-use redevelopment, a new health center on Grand Avenue, and new affordable apartments on Shelton Avenue were some of the dozen New Haven projects to receive over $21 million in support from Hartford in an end-of-year windfall of state aid.
Lemar: "I am excited to guide the legislature through this transformative time for our state's infrastructure."
New Haven State Rep. Roland Lemar will again be in a top legislative role for developing statewide transportation policy come January as he prepares to serve a third term as House chair of the Transportation Committee.
Valerie Tanner, pictured, helped her cousin Quiana Tanner pitch her local "Try This Pie" bean pie business to attendees at Tuesday's economic summit.
Job creation? Or filling jobs already created?
Economic development gatherings have tended to focus on the first question. A statewide confab held in New Haven Tuesday afternoon pivoted to the latter.
DOT Commissioner-to-be Garrett Eucalitto, on the Green in March 2021.
Gov. Ned Lamont has tapped yet another New Havener from within the ranks of his administration to lead a major state government department during his second term.
A week before the state legislature gathers to vote on whether CT Transit buses should remain fare-free through April, the Board of Alders formally called on state government to make public buses free to ride forever.
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Thomas Breen and Paul Bass |
Nov 16, 2022 4:53 pm
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Newly tapped next state economic development Commissioner Alexandra Daum with Gov. Ned Lamont at Thursday's announcement at Hotel Marcel.
Gov. Ned Lamont turned to a New Havener from within the ranks of his administration to shepherd Connecticut’s economic development for the next four years.
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Paul Bass, Thomas Breen and Laura Glesby |
Nov 9, 2022 12:24 pm
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Erick Russell with rest of Democratic statewide team at Wednesday presser: LGBTQ history made.
Thomas Breen photo
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (right) with supporter Sydney Perry Tuesday night.
Democrats elected to fill all of Connecticut’s statewide elected offices for the next four years — including the first New Havener to win one of those offices in 36 years — claimed a mandate Wednesday to continue and build on the policies of the previous four.
