Bomb Threat Targets AG
by | Feb 21, 2025 4:55 pm | Comments (0)
Tong at the August Democratic National Convention.
The FBI is investigating a bomb threat made to the home of state Attorney General William Tong.
State
Grab The Popcorn: Film Fight At Capitol
by | Feb 19, 2025 3:52 pm | Comments (25)
Elphaba, Sen. Kissel: This bill is wicked. So to speak.
Hartford — Should Connecticut movie theaters have to publish accurate start times for films and previews — or else face $1,000 false-advertising fines?
New Haven State Sen. Martin Looney says yes. Cinema owners say no. And an Enfield lawmaker was embarrassed that such a question would even be asked.
Anti-Eviction Fight Returns To Capitol
by | Feb 18, 2025 2:53 pm | Comments (15)
Thomas Breen file photo
Prez Srajer: "The tenant movement is here to stay."
Nathaniel Rosenberg file photo
"Just cause" co-sponsor Laurie Sweet (center), in January.
Hartford – Connecticut Tenants Union President and New Havener Hannah Srajer was in the middle of laying into the “unchecked greed” of corporate landlords who use no-fault evictions to hike rents when the co-chair of the state legislature’s Housing Committee said her three minutes were up. She asked Srajer to summarize the rest of her testimony.
“The tenant movement is here to stay,” Srajer concluded. “We’re not raising new problems. We’re just making them more visible. Let’s get this done.”
Housing, Climate Top 184-Bill Push
by | Feb 17, 2025 9:15 am | Comments (22)
Thomas Breen file photo
Eco-friendly affordable housing on Dixwell: More, please.
With the Connecticut General Assembly’s legislative session in full swing, New Haven’s eight state lawmakers are pushing 184 different bills that touch on everything from growing housing near transit to digging deep on thermal energy to requiring movie theaters to disclose what time the films, and not just the trailers, actually start.
State To Pay $37M For Wrongful Convictions
by | Feb 14, 2025 10:31 am | Comments (1)
Laura Glesby File Photo
Adam Carmon (left), one of five wrongfully incarcerated New Haveners on tap to receive $M, per state Judiciary Committee votes on Friday.
Adam Carmon served 28 years in prison as the man convicted of killing a 7‑month-old girl and paralyzing her grandmother, a verdict a judge belatedly concluded was a miscarriage of justice produced by prosecutorial and police misconduct in New Haven.
“I cannot return to you the 28 years of life,” Superior Court Judge Jon Alander told Carmon on June 13, 2023, as he dismissed the case and interrupted an 85-year prison sentence. “I can give you the certainty that this long nightmare is finally over.”
On Friday, the legislature’s Judiciary Committee will be asked to ratify compensation of $7.9 million for Carmon, a sum calculated by the state claims commissioner employing a formula enshrined in state law: multiply the years served by 200 percent of the median family income in Connecticut.
Continue reading ‘State To Pay $37M For Wrongful Convictions’
Special Ed Staff Shortages Spotlighted
by | Feb 12, 2025 10:53 am | Comments (11)
Laura Glesby file photo
Typhanie Jackson: "There are some places where we have had some gaps."
High burnout rates, low pay, and insufficient state funding have led to an untenable shortage of special education staff in New Haven public schools.
School employees and parents conveyed that message to Education Committee alders — calling attention to lapsed services for some of the city’s highest-needs students.
Union Prez Files Schools OSHA Complaint
by | Feb 11, 2025 1:29 pm | Comments (26)
Maya McFadden photo
Blatteau: "If we can't be safe in our buildings, what else matters here?"
(Updated) The president of the city’s teachers union has filed a state workplace safety complaint against the public school district for persistent problems with mold, leaks, air quality, and other conditions concerns at New Haven’s two largest high schools.
Tong Seeks Trump-Fighting Budget Boost
by | Feb 6, 2025 4:41 pm | Comments (18)
Tom Breen File Photo
AG Tong: "We need big-brain constitutional knife fighters."
Connecticut’s “people’s lawyer” is putting out a call for reinforcements.
Guv To Pharma: Drop Drug Prices, Please
by | Jan 27, 2025 3:11 pm | Comments (6)
Zachary Groz Photo
200 execs at 100 College, for "legislative breakfast."
Bracing for a federal funding drought and higher state costs for Medicare and Medicaid, Gov. Ned Lamont urged pharma executives to work with Hartford on cutting the cost of prescription drugs Monday morning at a gathering held by the life sciences lobbying group BioCT.
Tenants, Reunite! For Anti-Eviction Bill
by | Jan 23, 2025 5:31 pm | Comments (9)
Nathaniel Rosenberg photo
CTTU Vice President Luke Melonakos-Harrison at the mic, fighting for "for housing stability, for dignity and respect."
(Hartford) New Haven’s tenants union leaders are back at the state Capitol for the second straight year to push for limits on landlords’ ability to evict tenants — and they’re hoping this session goes better than the last.
Teachers Union Prez Teams Up
by | Jan 17, 2025 11:23 am | Comments (5)
Leslie Blatteau at WNHH FM: “If our students have stable housing, our job is going to be less hard in the classroom.”
Leslie Blatteau noticed that 70 percent of New Haven’s teachers live in the suburbs — and saw an opportunity to boost state-level support for New Haven’s schools.
State $25M Sweetens Supply Chain
by | Jan 16, 2025 1:16 pm | Comments (8)
Thomas Breen photos
Thursday's presser at DISTRICT.
Bracing for Trump II tariffs and protectionism, the Lamont administration has launched a $25 million effort to try to build out “strategic supply chains” closer to home — in an effort to get ahead of potentially higher prices for imported goods.
2 Years In, Canna-preneur Battles Bummers
by | Jan 15, 2025 10:30 am | Comments (5)
Affinity's Rino Ferrarese at WNHH FM; some of his company's strains (top).
Rino Ferrarese noticed that the people who help him grow cannabis to sell in Connecticut end up buying their own stash elsewhere.
Therein lies a challenge for Connecticut’s fledgling industry.
Continue reading ‘2 Years In, Canna-preneur Battles Bummers’
Big City Mayors Make Big $chools Push
by | Jan 14, 2025 9:30 am | Comments (14)
Facebook photo
Mayor Elicker (at the mic) in Hartford on Monday.
(Hartford) Mayor Justin Elicker and Supt. Madeline Negrón made the trip to the state’s capital Monday — to stand alongside mayors and superintendents from Bridgeport, Stamford, Waterbury, and Hartford and deliver a collective call for state government to up its public education funding by $545 million.
GOP Focuses On Guarding Fiscal "Guardrails"
by | Jan 9, 2025 4:55 pm | Comments (7)
Top state Republican Proto at New Haven City Hall: "I’m not sure how loosening the guardrails reduces $6-a-dozen eggs or $4.50 milk."
Republicans are ready to argue during the upcoming state legislative session for preserving Connecticut’s “fiscal guardrails” and cutting energy costs.
So said GOP State Chair Ben Proto in a conversation Wednesday at New Haven City Hall, where he was attending the swearing-in of local Republican Registrar of Voters Lisa Milone.
Continue reading ‘GOP Focuses On Guarding Fiscal "Guardrails"’
After Chair Change, Lemar Targets Towing
by | Jan 8, 2025 4:06 pm | Comments (13)
Hugh McQuaid/CTNJ file photo
General Law Chair Lemar: “Have you seen those towing articles?”
(Hartford) Connecticut’s towing industry better watch out. There’s a new sheriff in town — and he’s got his sights set on scrapping storage fees, eliminating “patrol towing,” requiring companies to take credit cards, and otherwise protecting consumers.
Rideshare Drivers, Unite! Again
by | Jan 8, 2025 2:59 pm | Comments (3)
Nathaniel Rosenberg photo
Jesenia Rodriguez and Frank Douglass: Too many rides, not enough pay.
The riders: five stars. The gig: not so much.
(Hartford) Dwight Alder Frank Douglass and a dozen fellow rideshare drivers from across Connecticut got behind the wheel Wednesday morning — to drive up to the state Capitol and push for higher pay and greater protections from what they say are exploitative practices by Uber and Lyft.
Rookie Reps Target Evictions
by | Dec 18, 2024 3:03 pm | Comments (30)
Paul Bass Photo
Time for state to step in for tenants: State Reps.-Elect Laurie Sweet and Steve Winter at WNHH FM.
Laurie Sweet is headed back to the state Capitol to push a tenants’ rights bill — this time to help pass the law rather than push someone else to.
Traffic Camera Plan Heads To State For Review
by | Dec 10, 2024 4:29 pm | Comments (12)
19 locations for red light and speed cameras.
After more than six months of compiling data on speeding, red light running, and local “roadway geometry,” the Elicker administration has submitted a 365-page report to the state’s transportation department — and hopes to install automated traffic-safety cameras by next spring.
Continue reading ‘Traffic Camera Plan Heads To State For Review’
2nd Arts High School Comes Into Focus
by | Dec 5, 2024 9:26 am | Comments (4)
Maya McFadden File Photo
At Betsy Ross's Winter Fest: High school performers, coming soon.
Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School (BRAMS) will have an inaugural ninth grade class next year — as the district works to transition the 5 – 8th grade middle school to a 7 – 12th grade high school in order to better accommodate students’ high demand for arts instruction.
DOT Chief Races To Meet Fed $ Deadlines
by | Nov 26, 2024 3:37 pm | Comments (12)
Thomas Breen photo
Transportation Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto at the announcement of $25 million in "Move New Haven" Biden Bucks.
Connecticut’s transportation chief is stepping on the gas — to get public-transit paperwork in to Washington before a new presidential administration takes over.
State $$ Sought To Support Disconnected Youth
by | Nov 22, 2024 12:29 pm | Comments (15)
Jabez Choi photo
Rosales: "It feels like a family" at Hillhouse.
Jaqualine Rosales is no stranger to moving. After leaving her family in El Salvador, she lived for a time in Texas, and then in South Carolina. Now in New Haven, the 18-year-old Hillhouse High School student lives by herself. She doesn’t feel alone, though.
“I’ve been to a lot of schools and I’ve seen a lot of education [in] different ways,” Rosales said on Thursday at a press conference calling for deeper state investments to help young people who might otherwise fall through the cracks. “But New Haven has something special because this school feels like [a] second home to me…it feels like family.”
Continue reading ‘State $$ Sought To Support Disconnected Youth’
Traffic Violence Victims Remembered
by | Nov 18, 2024 10:44 am | Comments (13)
Jabez Choi photos
Sherry Chapman: “The trauma to families is immeasurable and life lasting."
342 flags marking each life lost on CT's roads since last November.
Carri Roux had expected to find her son, Luke, back at the house after she finished walking the dog. But he was missing.
He never made it home.
Two years later, at a locally hosted memorial for lives lost on Connecticut’s roads, Roux described how scenes from that horrible day remain “etched” in her memory — and how a serious statewide focus on traffic safety could prevent future tragedies.
Winfield & Cabrera: Don’t Bend To Trump Blackmail
by | Nov 15, 2024 10:00 am | Comments (18)
Paul Bass Photo
Cabrera and Winfield at WNHH: Where would it end?
Gary Winfield and Jorge Cabrera are determined not to blink.
Continue reading ‘Winfield & Cabrera: Don’t Bend To Trump Blackmail’
103 Drop By DMV At The Library
by | Nov 14, 2024 11:40 am | Comments (2)
Jabez Choi photo
Lala McClain (right), with Will Tuttle: "This is a beacon of hope for me today."
Kevin DeSilva seemed to experience the impossible — he was in and out of the DMV in under an hour, and he didn’t even have to leave New Haven’s city limits.