INNER-CITY NEWS

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - January 15,2016 2020- August - January 2020 INNER-CITY NEWS July 27, 02,21, 2016

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Volume 27 . No. 2369 Volume 21 No. 2194

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

Newhall Gardens Community Room Named After Community Hero many hours working on the complex’s gardens. She served as a housing authority commissioner as well, and worked for Yale University as manager of hospitality and entertainment at the Morse College Master’s House “I just like helping people especially when they can’t help themselves,” Pearsall said.

Pearsall has committed to beautifying Newhall Gardens. She noted when she first arrived at the senior development, residents did not readily have access to the community room.

Newhallville Alder Delphine Clyburn awarded Pearsall with a citation from the Board of Alders for her dedication and selflessness. In the past, Pearsall and Clyburn have prepared community meals and hosted an annual holiday party for residents.

“It’s not a duty. It’s love,” Clyburn said about Pearsall’s work.

Glofesta Suggs spoke of how she is Pearsall’s non-biological “daughter.”

When Suggs moved to the west side of town around the age 10, she and Pearsall bonded. Pearsall was the neighborhood mom who was loving but firm. “She would correct anyone no matter how old they were,” Suggs recalled.

Pearsall helped Suggs raise her three

by MAYA MCFADDEN New Haven I ndependent

Louise Pearsall harbored doubts about whether her neighbors at Newhall Gardens noticed all the work she did for her community over the past 25 years.

Monday her doubts were eliminated as the community room at the Newhallvile senior public-housing development was named in her honor.

Housing Authority of New Haven Executive Director Karen DuBois-Walton hosted Pearsall’s family and friends at the 19 Daisy St. center for a plaque presentation and lunch to recognize and thank Pearsall for her “lifelong service” to the Newhallville community.

Pearsall, who is 88, has lived in New Haven for 72 years now.

DuBois-Walton described Pearsall as the eyes and ears of the community. “We are all here to thank you for your kind spirit and preservice,” she said.

In her many years of bettering her community, Pearsall has supported the work of six housing authority executive directors. Pearsall always made sure to hold both the city’s and the development’s support staff accountable, DuBoisWalton said. At Newhall Gardens, she served as head of the tenants association for more than two decades and spent

Pearsall with Alder Delphine Clyburn.

daughters as a young mother. In 2008, Suggs lost her 18-year-old daughter to Lupus three years after the diagnosis, and Pearsall was there to support her.

“She helped me to become the woman I am today,” Suggs said.

One year after Suggs’ daughter passed away, Suggs also lost her father. Pearsall was there once again to offer Suggs with all the rights words of strength and keeping her faith in hard times.

Now Suggs cares for Pearsall as her own mother by frequently taking her to the store or out to eat. Pearsall is the last living founding mother of First Calvary Baptist Church on Dixwell Avenue.

Rev. Boise Kimber of First Calvary Baptist spoke of how Pearsall orders him a pack of Georgia pecans, his favorite, two to three times a year. To close his remarks, Kimber led the guest in a prayer over Pearsall, who was diagnosed with cancer last March.

Since her diagnosis, Pearsall has been getting weaker physically. It has been harder for her to move herself around.

In the final remarks, DuBois-Walton presented Pearsall with a leadership award for her exceptional commitment to New Haven.

“I did it to make people feel like they’re somebody,” said Pearsall.

Truck-Safe Routes? There’s No App For That

by CHRISTOPHER PEAK Ct. News Junkie

Not again, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal thought, as he sat in a traffic jam outside Greenwich: Yet another truck tried to scrape through an eight-foot parkway overpass, probably led astray by whatever app had given the bad directions.

Most frustrated drivers can’t do anything more than beat their fists against the steering wheel. But as Blumenthal fumed, calling it “absolutely intolerable and unacceptable,” he decided to actually do something about it.

Blumenthal sent a letter to Google and Apple, co-signed by U.S. Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Ed Markey of Massachusetts, requesting that they update their mapping apps to alert truck drivers about height restrictions on the roads.

The Connecticut Department of Transportation (DOT) had made a similar request almost a year ago. The companies said then that it wasn’t their responsibility, that truck drivers need to buy their own commercial navigation software.

Blumenthal said that the problem is bigger, pointing to college students who might drive their U-Hauls to campus every fall. He said that if tech giants didn’t comply, he plans to hold Congressional

hearings and introduce legislation to force them.

The senator made that announcement at a Monday morning press conference, surrounded by state troopers and civil engineers, in the parking lot of the DOT’s fleet garage in the Amity neighborhood. Behind them, cars flew by on the Wilbur Cross Parkway, drowning out their answers to reporters’ questions about other ways to prevent the mishaps.

“It’s a nightmare for drivers like me,” Blumenthal said. “We need frequent and timely notifications.”

While the state doesn’t have official numbers on how often trucks and buses hurtle into overpasses, officials said they know it’s a problem. Trooper Josue Dorelus said the calls are “routine.” Just one overpass, the King Street Bridge near Greenwich, has been hit nearly 150 times in the last decade.

Blumenthal blamed apps, like Waze, for sending truck drivers to the heightrestricted highways, like the Merritt Parkway, when traffic backs up on I-95.

When they realize they’re on “a road to nowhere,” they often have to back up to the nearest exit, delaying traffic, he said.

Wes Haynes, the executive director of the Merritt Parkway Conservancy, said that signage isn’t enough to prevent col-

CHRISTOPHER PEAK PHOTO U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal asks Google and Apple to add truck-safe routes to their mapping apps.

lisions, as motorists increasingly rely on their phones to tell them where to go, despite what’s on the side of the road.

“Ninety-five years ago, when Congressman Schuyler Merritt advanced his vision of separating car and truck traffic with a new route restricted to cars through his Fairfield County district, he never imagined a future when artificial intelligence would invite trucks to join

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you in the flow, unleashing them as misguided missiles,” Haynes said.

“We cannot engineer our way out of this,” he added. “It is time to put federal regulations in place requiring GPS navigation app providers to provide accurate wayfinding information by not directing trucks onto restricted roads,” especially if Connecticut wants to install tolls on

its interstate highways that could send truckers looking for alternative routes.

Apple and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday afternoon.

“I just think the time has come,” Blumenthal said, calling the app updates a “virtual non-cost.” “I’m hoping they do the right thing.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

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January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

JUNTA Seeks New Leader, Names Interim Chief

by STAFF

New Haven I ndependent

An expert in resettlement and forced migration of Puerto Rican women and families is taking over temporary leadership of one of New Haven’s leading Latino organizations as it seeks its second new executive director in 16 months.

The temporary executive director is Brunilda Pizarro. She is stepping in at the agency, JUNTA for Progressive Action, as Daniels Reyes steps down after 16 months as executive director The text of a JUNTA press release about the change follows: Junta for Progressive Action’s Board of Directors announced today that Brunilda Pizarro would take over as the organization’s interim executive director February 1, 2020.

Brunilda Pizarro succeeds Daniel Reyes, who oversaw a transformation of Junta’s services and community involvement during his 16-month tenure. Reyes streamlined service delivery, re-branded Junta’s core services into three departments – Junta 360, Junta Youth and Junta Rises – and oversaw a significant

increase in Junta’s fundraising following the aftermath of the state 2018 budget crisis.

“We are very excited to have such an innovative and creative leader take the helm of Junta,” Leta Highsmith, Board

Chair said. “The entire Junta Board of Directors is proud of Daniel’s incredible work during his tenure and appreciate his foresight in seeking out such a gifted interim replacement.”

Reyes is leaving Junta to take a position as the Chief Program Officer at The LGBT Center in New York City. Reyes’ last day will be January 31, 2020.

Pizarro will work jointly with Reyes in transition until February. “I am honored to have the opportunity to lead such a historic institution at this important time” Pizarro said. “At a time when Latinx communities and immigrants feel under assault, Daniel has done an amazing job of reaching out to allies throughout New Haven and the state of Connecticut. As the oldest Latinx-community based nonprofit organization in New Haven, Junta has a unique role in helping migrants forge a new life in this city.”

Pizarro, who has been active with Junta since 2018, most recently served on Mayor Justin Elicker’s Transition Team.

Pizarro holds a Master of Environmental Science from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. In the

aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017, New Haven became a climate refuge city for families displaced from Puerto Rico. Pizarro’s thesis centered on understanding the impact of forced migration on Puerto Rican women and highlighted Junta’s pivotal role in facilitating the resettlement of families to New Haven.

Pizarro looks forward to building on the progress set forth by Reyes and pledges to continue the legacy of Junta as a beacon of hope for the Latinx community in New Haven.

About the organization: The mission of Junta for Progressive Action is to collaborate with Latinx communities in the Greater New Haven area to advance the social, economic and civic environment for all, while embracing Latinx cultural traditions. In order to achieve our mission, Junta takes a whole person approach to service provision and engagement in community advancement. We are a diverse organization, representing all of Latin America, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Cuba and the United States. For more information, see: https://www.juntainc.org/.

Advocates Propose $600M Tax Credits For Working Families

by CHRISTOPHER PEAK New Haven I ndependent

This year, anti-poverty advocates’ rallying cry at the state Capitol will be cutting families a break on their taxes by asking millionaires to pay up.

That pitch to make Connecticut’s tax system less regressive was made at New Haven-based Connecticut Voices for Children’s annual budget forum Wednesday morning at the state Capitol building in Hartford.

By raising income taxes on those taking home over $1 million each year and limiting the estate and gift tax exemption to $3.6 million, the state could redirect about $600 million to working-class and middle-class families through two tax credits, two experts argued at the conference.

Across the country, inequality has worsened over the past half-century. Beginning in the mid-1950s, the very wealthiest Americans started earning a larger share of annual income than the bottom half of the country.

Connecticut has been even more starkly divided between rich and poor, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.

With “one-percenters” in Fairfield County raking in an average of $6,291,000 every year, the state’s top earners are making 37.2 times as everyone else’s average paycheck. The state ranks as the third most unequal in the country.

Those divides are only worsened by the state’s tax system, which takes a few

dollars from each pay-stub, rent check, shopping receipt and insurance premium.

The state’s system disproportionately burdens poorer families with property taxes, sales taxes and business taxes, and lets richer families off easy with its income tax and estate tax.

For example, a family making $40,000 will pay a 23.6 percent effective tax rate, leaving it with $30,552 in post-tax income.

A middle-class family making $100,000 will pay a 13.3 percent effective tax rate, leaving it with $86,730 in post-tax income.

And a wealthy family who makes $1.5 million will pay a 7.4 percent effective tax rate, leaving it with $1,390,000 in post-tax income.

While top earners often say that they’ll pick up and move elsewhere, the state could start charging more, argued Patrick O’Brien, a research and policy fellow at CT Voices. Even though Connecticut levies some of the most expensive taxes, those rates don’t look so high when measured against how much residents earn, he said.

“Rather than resolve the problem of rising income and wealth inequality, Connecticut’s regressive tax system exacerbates it by disproportionately taxing the groups whose share has been declining for several decades,” O’Brien said.

“The most pressing tax issue is not the overall tax burden,” he added. “Instead, the most pressing issue is the distribution

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Experts talk taxes at CT Voices’ budget forum Wednesday in Hartford.

of the tax burden.”

O’Brien suggested adding two more brackets with higher income taxes to the system that currently maxes out at $500,000. He said that income taxes on an individual’s annual wages could kick in at 7.99 percent above $1 million and 8.49 percent above $5 million.

He added that the state could charge even higher rates for non-wage income, usually from stock market earnings, at 9.99 percent above $1 million and 10.49 percent above $5 million.

Those increases would still be less than

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the top marginal rates across parts of the Northeast, like 10.75 percent over in New Jersey, 8.82 percent over in New York, and 8.75 percent in Vermont, though they would be higher than 7.15 percent in Maine, 5.99 percent in Rhode Island, and 5.05 percdent in Massachusetts.

O’Brien also suggested undoing a suggested weakening of the estate and gift tax. Currently, that tax kicks in when a person is set to inherit more than $3.6 million, but the exemption is scheduled to increase to $11.4 million.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

Hill Dilemma:

Social Justice? Or Stability?

by ALLAN APPEL

New Haven I ndependent

Development-weary Hill neighbors expressed sympathy for two ideas builders pitched Tuesday night: For-profit rental apartments to newly released prisoners.

And non-profit permanent housing for veterans.

They said they agree with the worthiness of both potential projects. At the same time they asked: How do these approaches help a neighborhood trying to stabilize and turn its dilapidated housing stock and empty lots into affordable homeownership opportunities?

That delicate moral — as well as real estate — challenge was engaged Tuesday night at 2020’s first meeting of the Hill North Community Management Team.

About 30 people attended the meeting in the music room at John C. Daniels International Communications School on Congress Avenue, where the builders of the two proposed projects sought the neighborhood’s support.

Retired New Haven police Sgt. Shafiq Abdussabur was making a revised pitch.

He appeared two months ago at the Hill South Community Management Team to explain his idea to turn two dilapidated houses on Frank Street into year-long transitional efficiency units specifically for ex-offenders working their way back into both the labor and housing markets.

That concept, following the model of Hang Time, a Bridgeport-based reentry support program, focuses on rehabbing 27 and 31 Frank and renting the one-bedroom apartments to people out of jail for at least a year, with a stable employment history.

The tenants would perhaps bunk up with a friend or family member while preparing to take the next step into affordable, independent housing.

The plan would reclaim a wreck of a building and fill it with people invested in the community, rather than outside landlords, Abdussabur argued. He also committed to hire re-entry people to do a lot of the rehab work.

Abdussabur had, in response to Hill Southers’ opposition in November, tweaked his concept. Tuesday night he encountered the same concerned questions from Hill Northers. (The Hill neighborhood is divided into two separate “North” and “South” policing districts with separate management teams.)

The plan two months ago was received with some skepticism by Hill South residents who were weary even of worthy developers motivated by the concept of social justice entrepreneurship. Why not more individual homeownership opportunities instead? they had asked.

So Tuesday night Abdussabur called his reconceived pilot project “affordable workforce housing” that also incorporates concepts of “micro-housing.” Abdussabur

said under his new plan the apartments would not be strictly for people transitioning back from jail but also to disadvantaged New Haveners in general who fall between the cracks of “affordable” and “workforce”people who may not be able to come up with a $1,000 deposit or be eligible for a federal Section 8 rental voucher.

The three apartments he hopes to build at 31 Frank would each have three bedrooms, each rented to a different unrelated individual who then shares kitchen, bathroom, and other facilities. “We’re looking to rent each room for $200 a week, or $800 per month,” he explained.

“This is not a rooming house or a sober house,” he said. It follows concepts of “micro-housing” and responds to the ongoing need for affordable living quarters, he added.

To allay neighbors’ concerns about their potential neighbors, Abdussabur promised to field a “housing review team,” comprised of one member of each the Hill South and Hill North management team, along with others, who would help review and pass on rental applicants.

“Their references could replace the deposit,” he explained. “By the month, by the week, we’ll work with you so that the rent is paid on time.”

As an ex-cop, Abdussabur assured his listeners that the project would have the good lighting, and cameras, and other security measures that help make for safety.

“I have the money. All I need is your support. This is cutting edge for New Haven and a model for the community,” he said.

“And this will create jobs.”

Longtime Howard Avenue resident Maria Rodriguez asked Abdussabur why this project needs to come to the Hill, where so much of the housing stock already is dedicated to housing for the homeless and other specialized populations.

And why, challenged Hill resident Abdias Rodriguez, couldn’t some of these lots be “frozen,” so locals like himself could bid for the property? Rather than be outbid either by groups like Abdussabur’s, however worthy, or big developers like Mandy Management?

Veterans On Davenport The same general response — sympathy for potential beneficiaries along with skepticism born of a weary community’s wanting stability through individual homeownership — greeted yet another pilot project that was next up to present to the management team.

The Dixwell-based National Veterans Council for Legal Redress (NVCLR) sought the team’s blessing to build five small one-bedroom apartments, along with a common area/office to provide trauma and other social service care. In efCon’t on page 07

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

Love March At 50: Has Dream Come True?

by THOMAS BREEN

New Haven I ndependent

Young marchers saw a dream come true. Older marchers saw a dream turned nightmare.

Those differing perspectives on the successes of the Civil Rights Movement and on the persistence of racism, warmongering, and economic inequality permeated this year’s celebration of the city’s longest-running Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial birthday parade and church service.

Over 100 local elementary school students, civil servants, and Baptist parishioners filled the streets of East Rock and Goatville Wednesday to participate in the event, the 50th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Love March, as hosted by the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church and its pastor, Rev. Kennedy Hampton, Sr. The late Martin Luther King Jr. was born Jan. 15, 1929.

Under a clear blue sky with police cruisers leading the way and blocking off intersections, Love March participants sang civil rights anthems and waved peace signs high as they wove from the the church’s steps at 100 Lawrence St. west to Whitney Avenue, south to Humphrey Street, east to State Street, and back north to Lawrence.

Back inside the church, attendees filled Shiloh’s pews for an hour-and-a-half service featuring a keynote address by the late Martin Luther King, Jr. himself—in the form of a 43-minute YouTube video recording of the Civil Rights icon delivering his 1967 “Three Evils” speech in Chicago.

“It Came True” Throughout the march and the service, newcomers and veterans alike celebrated the endurance of the Love March and the positive legacy of King — and then articulated contrasting opinions of what the march, King, and the Civil Rights Movement mean a half century later.

“He gave us freedom and worked to make things right,” 10-year-old Barnard Environmental Magnet School fifthgrader Jayden Munoz said about King.

“He put every color together so that we could all go to the same school, drink from the same fountains, go to the same bathrooms,” added 10-year-old Montowese Elementary School fifth-grader Marcus Wear.

“He had a dream, and it came true,” said 13-year-old Barnard eighth-grader Djovany Antoine (pictured), who held aloft the American flag as marched at the head of the parade. “So that there’s no more segregation. No more sitting on the back of the bus.”

Wanda Faison, who marched towards the front of the parade alongside Wear, singled out this year’s participation of nearly 60 Barnard School third grade through eighth grade students as a highlight of her many decades participating

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THOMAS BREEN PHOTOS

The 50th Annual Love March makes its way down Lawrence Street.

Rev. Kennedy Hampton Sr. with a picture of his late father, Love March founder George Hampton Sr.

in the Love March.

“It feels good to see the kids help,” she said.

Back at the church, after dozens of Barnard students led the church in singalongs to “We Shall Overcome” and “This Little Light of Mine,” former New Haven State Rep. Bill Dyson commended the congregation and the adult participants in the march for providing the young people an opportunity to grow into future civil rights activists.

“Just think of the impact that this event has on them today,” said Dyson.

“They’re getting a lesson, and you pro-

vided it. You provided it by your presence.”

“Dream Has Become A Nightmare” While the kids in the march and at the service celebrated a “dream come true,” many of the adults who participated tempered that enthusiasm with both weariness and outrage that the injustices that motivated the Civil Rights Movement persist today.

Vanessa Mike walked in the march holding a poster commemorating the death of Eric Garner, a Staten Island man Con’t on page 18

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

Justice?

Con’t from page 05

fect, a veterans’ community, with permanent, not transitional, housing.

This would be a first in Connecticut, according to NVCLR Executive Director Gary Monk, and it will serve as a model for other groups trying to address the needs of the approximately 23,000 Connecticut vets, who often struggle with homelessness and other quality of life problems.

Principals of the $250,000 to $300,000 project have their eye on 252 Davenport Ave., now just an empty lot. Like Abdussabur’s group on Frank Street, the vets group is negotiating to buy the property from city government’s Livable City Initiative.

Also as in Abdussabur’s project, the vets’ developer, Donnell Hilton, said Hill North residents would get paid job training in construction, maintenance, and design if the project can move forward.

Maria Rodriguez again asked why other neighborhoods were not explored for this albeit worthy project. She noted that this group had appeared before the management team two years ago with the same concept.“The hospital’s nearby. So’s downtown,” replied Monk. Transportation is accessible.

“I’m not against it,” she replied, “but there are so many things going on in the Hill already.”

“They were here two years ago,” replied Howard Boyd, the Hill South team chairman, “but they’re back again with a [revised] plan. We’ll work with them.”

“The veterans are from here,” added Hill Alder Evelyn Rodriguez, “and they are going to be giving back to the community.”

There was no formal vote; the sense of the body was to continue the conversation. When the formal meeting broke up, the impassioned conversation about good deeds and good real estate continued in smaller groups.

At heart, Abdussabur told Alder Rodriguez, his whole plan relies on trust between the developer and the neighborhood.

“You’ve shared your idea with us,” Rodriguez told Abdussabur, “and I respect it.

I’m not saying we can’t consider it. I am saying we need to talk to the residents” of Frank Street, none of whom were at the meeting.

“It’s a very good idea to provide housing but we have to think about location. I’ll be honest. I’m looking more to homeownership,” she added.

“I’m optimistic,” Abdussabur said after his one-on-one with Alder Rodriguez. “I believe in social entrepreneurship, business looking to make social change.

To advance its project and attract interested partners, the NVCLR is holding a housing symposium on March 26 at 6 p.m. int the community room at the Regional Water Authority at 90 Sargent Dr. For more info on the project, the contact is NVCLR Secretary Carolyn Boykin.

Steve Winter: No “Time To Wait” On Housing, Budget, & “Car-nage”

by PAUL BASS

New Haven I ndependent

Steve Winter had heard the song many times. But this time he noticed one of the lyrics for the first time — and it made him think about the change that needs to come in New Haven.

The song is Sam Cooke’s 1963 hit “A Change Is Gonna Come.” The line: “I go downtown / Somebody keep telling me / Don’t hang around.”

Winter was listening to the song Wednesday while sitting on the stage of Hillhouse High School’s auditorium. He was there to be sworn in to a new twoyear term along with the 29 other members of New Haven’s Board of Alders. A local singer named Jordan Watson was performing the civil rights-themed song in honor of the inauguration.

“What struck me was the reference to downtown — keeping out of downtown,” Winter recounted the following day during an appearance on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program.

“That was a lyric that never jumped out at me before.”

On Wednesday it made him think about a topic he kept hearing on the campaign trail this past fall and during his first two years as an alder representing a gerrymandered slice of the Prospect Hill, Dixwell and Newhallville neighborhoods: How many people look at all the building taking place in New Haven, especially downtown but also in neighborhoods, and wonder if this is still their city.

“I’ve seen it as the Yale community starts to come down the west side of” Prospect Hill down to Winchester Avenue and Thompson Street, Winter said.

He heard fears expressed as he took parts in many debates about a builder’s evolving plan to turn a polluted abandoned factory site at 201 Munson St. into close to 400 apartments — most of them market rate. He heard people ask: “Three-bedroom townhouses on Munson Street for $3,500 a month? Who can afford to live there?”

In the short run, Winter and others in the community worked with the builder to hire local people to help construct the complex. And the builder agreed to include some affordable housing.

More promising, in Winter’s view, was the city’s decision to sell an adjoining property to the nonprofit Believe In Me Empowerment Corporation to build a single-room-occupancy (SRO) facility with social services on site.

The burning broader question facing New Haven is how to ensure people in neighborhoods like Dixwell and Newhallville can afford to continue living and thriving here.

Winter echoed a theme of Mayor Justin Elicker’s inauguration speech delivered Wednesday on the same stage from which Jordan Watson sang about change: New Haven should see the boom as an opportunity. It should make room for

PAUL BASS PHOTO Steve Winter (center) lining up wth fellow Alders Evette Hamilton and Tyisha WalkerMyers for Monday’s inaugural procession at Hillhouse High School.

newcomers in a way that helps build everybody up.

Winter embraced the call for “inclusionary zoning” in a recent affordable-housing recommendations report the city has adopted. That means ensuring that new developments include apartments people here can afford. He also embraced the proposals for zoning changes that allow for more “accessory” (“mother-in-law”) apartments and “tiny houses.”

He’d like to see more SRO rooming house-style projects like Believe in Me’s — but only if responsible groups like Believe in Me run them, so the projects strengthen surrounding neighborhoods rather than bring blight.

New Haven’s City Plan Department should study how other cities further along the current urban building boom have addressed the affordability challenge, Winter said. He also called for

exploring “alternative paradigms” like community land trusts.

That Was Fast Winter is beginning his second term on the Board of Alders. He was asked in the “Dateline” interview what was the biggest surprise in his first term. His answer: How quickly it is sometimes possible to get results from city government.

He learned that when neighbors complained to him about broken streetlights.

A woman on wealthy St. Ronan Street said she’d been trying in vain to get a streetlight fixed for two years. Winter took a photo of the broken light. He posted it on the SeeClickFix problemsolving website. Within a week, it was fixed.

That got him wondering if the same results could be produced in the lowincome parts of his ward. He eventually tagged more than 50 broken streetlights

on SeeClickFix, all in Newhallville.

Some involved more elaborate fixes than the one on St. Ronan. But by term’s end they were indeed all fixed.

“There’s a system here. If we engage with it, we can get a lot done quickly,” Winter said.

He also noted that there’s much more that needs fixing, including Newhallville streetlights concealed by overgrown trees.

Dateline New Haven: Alder Steve Winter Looking ahead to the coming term, Winter — who works at a “data scientists and policy wonks” green energypromoting collaborative in his day job — spoke of the city’s budget and “pedestrian carnage” crises as two other central challenges.

Even with 2018’s “scoop-and-toss” refinancing of $160 million in city debt for operating expenses (which Winter questioned) and the 11 percent tax increase the year before, the city is still running a deficit of more than $8 million in the current fiscal year. Winter threw out ideas for addressing the long-term structural deficit by seeking to add a fee on Airbnb rentals in town as well as a congestion fee on Uber rides (to address publichealth concerns like asthma), as well as state enabling legislation for the city to collect special taxes on entertainment and restaurant meals and hospital beds.

He noted that almost as many people (nine) were killed by cars while walking New Haven streets as were killed by guns in 2019.

Winter cited those crises in response to a caller’s question about whether he thinks the alders will be able to work well with the new mayoral administration.

“We have to,” Winter responded. “We don’t have time to wait.”

Capt. Duff Back On The Job

A familiar — and welcomed — face appeared at B Squad line-ups Wednesday afternoon at police headquarters.

Capt. Anthony Duff was there addressing officers as they prepared to hit the street at 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. (pictured above). He was back at work after five months out on medical leave.

Duff, a respected community cop, had been on leave since the night of Aug. 12, when a gunman almost shot him to death.

Duff will work for now on light duty, “helping with administrative functions” throughout the department, said Chief Otoniel Reyes.

“We are above all grateful and very excited to have Capt.

Duff reporting back to duty,” Reyes said.

7

THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

Walker-Myers Wins 3rd Term As Board Prez

by THOMAS BREEN

New Haven I ndependent

Strong. Respectful. Dedicated. Decisive.

Those are among the words of praise that local legislators used to describe West River Alder Tyisha Walker-Myers before unanimously and enthusiastically reelecting her for a third term as the board’s president.

Walker-Myers earned another two years as the head of the Board of Alders Tuesday night during a leadership vote that took place at the regular bimonthly full board meeting in the Aldermanic Chambers on the second floor of City Hall.

The board’s first female president and a chief steward with Yale’s blue-collar Local 35 union, Walker-Myers first ascended to the local legislature’s top spot in April 2015 after longtime Board President Jorge Perez stepped down to become the state’s banking commissioner. She won reelection in both 2016 and 2018.

During her first two-and-a-half terms as board president, the alders have amped up pressure on Yale University to stick to its local hiring commitment made with New Haven Rising and Locals 34 and 35.

The board convened an Affordable Housing Task Force, and created a yetto-be-impaneled new, permanent Affordable Housing Commission.

Walker-Myers played a key role in negotiating and throwing her political support behind Yale New Haven Hospital’s planned new $838 million neuroscience center and St. Raphael campus expansion in the West River and Dwight neighborhoods.

The board has also come under criticism during her tenure for passing for-

mer Mayor Toni Harp’s 11 percent tax increase in 2018 and for struggling to contain persistent budget deficits in police and fire overtime.

On Tuesday night, alder after alder took the mic to laud Walker-Myers for her unwavering commitment to the city, the board, her colleagues and her constituents.

Each described her as having a nononsense personality, of being straightforward and unafraid to voice her mind.

Each also described her as having a tireless work ethic, of being respectful of those she disagrees with and of “wearing her heart on her sleeve.”

“Her dedication to the board has been absolutely phenomenal,” Board of Alders Majority Leader and Amity/Westville Alder Richard Furlow said during his nomination of Walker-Myers for another term as president.

“You’ve worked tirelessly,” said Dwight Alder Frank Douglass. “I don’t know where you get the strength and the time to absorb the knowledge that you have.

But you’ve always got the answers, and I commend you for that.”

“I just want to thank you for being you,” added Newhallville Alder Delphine Clyburn (pictured), “and for your strength, and that incredible integrity.”

“She’s strong,” Beaver Hills Alder and Local 35 Vice President Brian Wingate said. “She’s dedicated. And I support her 100 percent.”

Downtown Alder Abby Roth, one of the few alders who has broken with leadership and the majority of her colleagues in voting against the approved budgets each of the past two years, also stood up to praise the board’s president for always listening and taking seriously dissenting

THOMAS BREEN PHOTO Re-elected Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers.

opinions.

She described Walker-Myers as straightforward, decisive, and extremely hardworking. “She respects views that are different from hers,” Roth added. “I’m honored to vote in support of her continued strong leadership.”

East Rock Alder Anna Festa, another budget watchdog and frequent financial dissenter, also cast her vote and enthusiastic support for Walker-Myers. “Even though she comes across with this rough, tough demeanor, she’s got a heart of gold,” Festa said. “We often will agree to disagree. We don’t agree on everything. But the level of respect that she has for everyone in this room and City Hall demonstrates her leadership skills.”

After her unanimous reelection, Walker-

8

Myers vowed to her colleagues that she will continue fighting for the same issues—affordable housing, equal access to quality jobs for all New Haveners— that she has fought for during her tenure in leadership to date.

“I’m not the most sensitive person, I guess,” she said. “But I do wear my heart on my sleeve, because I care a lot, not just about this board, but about the city that I grew up in and that I’m raising my family in.”

The board also reelected Jeanette Morrison as president pro tem. It elected Sal DeCola as “third officer,” another leadership position. Richard Furlow was previously reelected at a party caucus as majority leader.

Con’t from page 06

Love March who was choked to death by New York City police in 2014.

“I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe,” read the poster, repeating Garner’s dying words, which would become a refrain of the Black Lives Matter movement.

“That was wrong the way the cops did him,” Mike said. “There’s been so much brutality by the police.”

“If we don’t keep marching, no one will,” said Frank Thompson (pictured), a local truck driver who has participated in the Love March for decades.

At the church service, Mayor Justin Elicker sounded a similarly cautionary note when he said, “We have in our nation a lot of hate right now.”

Marches like this provide a shining example of the love and communal action needed to overcome such hate, he said.

“What brings us together is love.”

As he teed up King’s recorded keynote address, Hampton warned the attendees not to fall prey to the myth that the racial and economic equality King and fellow 1960s activists fought for has been achieved.

“This is a moment to rejoice, but also a moment to be fearful at the same time,” he said.

Listen to this address that King gave in 1967, he urged the men, women and children sitting in Shiloh’s church pews.

Understand that these words were spoken 53 years ago.

“I think the dream has become a nightmare,” he said.

Attendees then shut their eyes and listened as King’s voice came booming over the church’s speakers.

The eponymous “three evils” cited in the speech were those of racism, materialism, and militarism.

“We have come because we see this as a dark hour in the affairs of man,” King said those years ago.

Unemployment rages in African-American communities. Congress responds with an “anti-riot bill rather than a serious poverty program.”

State and federal legislators pass tax breaks for the rich, and cut social service benefits for the poor.

Political leaders drive the country to war after war, while desires for greater efficiency and productivity only lead to endless work.

“Racism,” King said, as attendees murmured in assent, “can well be that corrosive evil that will bring down the curtain on Western civilization.”

“If America does not respond creatively to the challenge to banish racism,” he continued, “some future historian will have to say, that a great civilization died because it lacked the soul and commitment to make justice a reality for all men.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

No Tuxes In Sight At Mayoral Not-Ball

by THOMAS BREEN

New Haven I ndependent

City Hall was filled with winter jackets, striped sweaters and crumpled khakis and jeans rather than tuxedos and gowns — at the official party welcoming New Haven’s new mayor.

Over 100 New Haveners dressed down to attend the event Sunday afternoon on the ground floor of City Hall.

Newly elected Mayor Justin Elicker held the free casual affair in a public space as a contrast to the customary bigticket banquet-hall mayoral ball, to make a point: that his newly minted administration will be accessible to the general public.

City residents mixed with government staffers and department heads at an event that eschewed any kind of program or formal structure.

For three hours, attendees filtered in an out of the reception, leisurely chatting over turkey sandwiches prepared by Petals Market and chocolate chip cookies baked by Gateway Community College culinary students and Herbie Hancock covers played by the High School in the Community jazz ensemble (pictured).

Coming four days after Elicker was sworn into office as the city’s 51st mayor, the casual nature of the reception represented a sharp break with the tone and formality and cost of past mayoral inaugural balls—black-tie affairs and fundraisers with tickets as high as $250 a piece.

Few ties of any color were on display at Sunday’s reception. Elicker himself wore a blue-grey suit jacket over a lightblue spread collar shirt.

When he addressed the crowd half-way through during the event’s only semiformal speech, he spoke not from behind a podium, but instead behind a music stand with a microphone clipped to the top.

Standing alongside his wife Natalie and his youngest daughter April, Elicker (pictured) said the goal of Sunday’s party was to “set the tone about accessibility of government by opening up the doors of City Hall today to you all to ensure that you know that this is your home. This is your hour. This is your church. This is your community. You are always welcome here.”

“This City Hall is going to be accessible to everyone,” he continued. “Nobody will be turned away regardless of what you look like or your ability to pay.”

As they ambled about between different tables and benches and animated conversations, many in attendance lauded Elicker for continuing with the informal ease of access to the highest reaches of city government that he promised while on the campaign trail, where he handed out his personal cellphone number at

THOMAS BREEN PHOTO

Elicker (center) poses for a photo with immigrant activists from ULA.

nearly every stop.

“I’m here to support Elicker, and I want to be present for the start of this change,” said West Division Street resident Lillie Chambers, pictured wearing a white blouse and gray cardigan alongside Dixwell resident Adair Franklin.

“It shows his commitment to community,” Chambers added.

Pat Solomon—pictured sporting a pink sweater and black-and-purple scarf alongside fellow city staffers Evan Trachten and Jeff Moreno —agreed.

“I think this is indicative of his personality,” she said about the newly minted mayor. She called Elicker “humble” and “very observant,” and commended him for bringing a cross-section of New Haven’s ethnic and racial and neighborhood diversity into City Hall for the event.

“I hope they do this at least twice a year,” said Trachten. He said he had seen on Sunday not only colleagues from City Hall, but also residents from Dixwell and Newhallville and the Hill whom he has worked with over the years in his professional capacity at the city’s anti-blight Livable City Initiative (LCI).

“I love that there are no barriers” to city government and its leadership at an event like this, he added.

“It’s different,” Bethel AME Church Rev. Steven Cousin, wearing a grey blazer and a black-and-white pinstriped spread collar. “But different is good.”

There are plenty of people who may want to talk to and celebrate with the mayor but cannot afford an inaugural ball ticket or tuxedo, he said.

Sunday’s event opened the doors of City Hall to residents who may have followed the election but had never even visited the center of city government, he added.

And it did so in an informal, accessible, and non-intimidating way.

“You have to commend him for that.”

Newhallville Democratic Ward Committee Co-Chair Oskar Havyarinama — wearing a black-and-white striped suit jacket above a blue-checkered collared shirt said he hopes the city saved a few dollars on such a low-budget celebration.

“The question is: ‘Where will that money go?’” he asked. Ideally, he said, towards social services ... or lower taxes.

City library staffer Bill Beckett donned a tan, wide-collared jacket and a greenand-white checkered scarf for the event.

He said he too has been encouraged by Elicker’s more casual approach to public office so far.

“I am very pleased that he rode a bike to work,” said Beckett, who makes his daily commute by bicycle as well. “I feel like I have a champion.”

The one attendee this reporter spoke to who lamented the lack of a more formal celebration in honor of the new elected leadership was Fair Havener Mishele E.

9

Rodriguez, who sported a fuzzy purple cardigan and a floral-patterned scarf.

“I wish there was an inaugural ball to celebrate everyone who worked so hard” during the campaign season, she said. Rodriguez helped lead City Clerk Michael Smart’s successful re-election campaign,

and works as one of his two social media managers.

The informal gathering was nice, she said, but suggested it should have been done in addition to, not in place of, a more dressedup affair.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

Mayor Gets His Marching Orders

by THOMAS BREEN

New Haven I ndependent

Will he abolish library late fees by April 12? Will he open the “checkbook” by 2022?

New Haven now has a report card by which to measure Mayor Justin Elicker’s performance in office — based on 52 pages of recommendations like these assembled by a diverse group of the city’s most engaged minds.

Elicker tapped those minds to form his 25-member transition team, which worked two months on a blueprint for action that it released Monday.

Elicker joined the transition team for a press conference Monday morning on the second floor of City Hall to give a sneak peak into some of the many policy priorities, both concrete and squishy, both immediately realizable and long-term stretches, included in that report.

The team’s co-chairs, State Rep. Robyn Porter, public school parent advocate Sarah Miller, and national immigrant rights activist Kica Matos, stood alongside the nearly two dozen other transition team members to outline with pride just how democratically sourced these recommendations are.

They emerged from two public meetings that brought together 497 different participants at High School in the Community, 112 emailed suggestions, 353 survey responses, and 68 meetings with city staff, elected officials, community leaders, and other city residents.

The report itself covers topics ranging from budget and finance, city operations, and economic development to education, climate change, housing, and public safety.

The full report can be read in English here, in Spanish here, on the Elicker transition team’s website here, and in print at the city library branches.

“I’m hoping and trusting that as we present this to our mayor,” Porter said, “that he will take it into consideration and that we will hold his feet to the fire to make sure that what the city is asking to be done gets done.”

“The transition process we feel created not just a report, but many community conversations around central topics of our shared existence here in New Haven,” Miller continued, “which we hope will continue to guide and maybe nudge and maybe push the administration as a reminder to stay grounded in and responsive to the collective wisdom of our community.”

Elicker said that he’s already shared some of the recommendations from the report with his department heads. This report will not be formally adopted as some sort of legally binding document, he said, but will rather serve to inform which policies his administration will prioritize in the immediate, short, and long terms.

“The report is intended for everyone to read,” he said. “People should take a look at the report.”

Each category of recommendations in the report is broken down into three timelines: First 100 Days, Two Years (the length of a mayoral term), and Long Term.

THOMAS BREEN PHOTO

Transition Co-Chair Porter: “We will hold his feet to the fire.”

Elicker joked at the top of the meeting that “First 100 Days” is already a bit of a typo.

He was inaugurated on Jan. 1, held his first full day as mayor on Jan. 2, and the report came out on Jan. 7.

So he has closer to 94 days to realize those shortest-term goals laid out by the transition team in the “First 100 Days” section of the report.

Below is a sampling of both the very specific as well as the broadly ambitious goals laid out by the transition report that all New Haveners can now use to evaluate the success of the Elicker administration over the next 100 days, two years, and indeterminate future.

Specific Goals To Be Achieved By April 12, 2020, or Dec. 31, 2022 1. Abolish library late fees and launch a policy review of late fees. In the “First 100 Days” section of “Arts, Culture, and Library,” the report recommends that the city consider scrapping late fees New Haveners incur when they return a book or a movie to the library after its respective due date.

“People with unpaid fines often fail to pay them because they do not have the disposable income to do so,” the report reads.

“Unpaid fines mean they cannot check out additional books.”

2. Establish an online “check register.” In the “Two Years” section of “Budget and Finance,” the report calls on the mayor to create an online check register that provides a publicly accessible list of all city spending.

That section of the report also recommends that the city “publish the City budget in an easily shared and sorted electronic format” and that the city further break out department-by-department healthcare costs in the regular monthly financial reports and annual budget.

3. Establish a uniform ticket-tracking system for resident requests. Elicker singled this idea out during Tuesday’s press conference as a workflow he and his departments are already working on implementing at City Hall. In the “Two Years” section of “City Operations and Public Works,” the report recommends that the city come up with a ticket-tracking system that allows residents to better understand when their concerns will be addressed by City Hall.

The recommendations also calls on the mayor to “[d]eploy a callback system for departments with call queues, and impose a uniform voicemail policy so that City voicemail identifies the recipients and uses out-of-office notifications.”

4. Establish the Climate Emergency Mobilization Task Force and appoint members to the Lead Paint Advisory Committee. Within the “First 100 Days” sections of “Environment and Climate Change” and “Health and Housing” respectively, the transition report recommends that Elicker prioritize filling and impaneling a task force created by the climate emergency resolution passed last year by the alders, as well as a lead paint advisory committee charged with providing expert policy recommendations around the city’s lead paint poisoning protocols.

The report also calls on the mayor to “establish that New Haven will respond with urgency to the climate emergency by charting a path to a 55% reduction of 1999 greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050.”

5. Support a Sanctuary City ordinance.

In the “First 100 Days” section of “Human Services and Immigration,” the report recommends that Elicker follow through on his campaign pledge to not only retain

10

the sanctuary city executive order first issued by then-Mayor Toni Harp, but also to push for the Board of Alders to adopt a more permanent law describing municipal protections for undocumented immigrants.

6. Establish guiding principles for appointments to the Board of Education.

While this recommendation in the “First 100 Days” section of “Education” may not specify exactly what those guiding principles should be, the report does says that they should be in line with recommendations of the National Association of School Boards and the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education.

Considering how much debate there has been in recent years over who is qualified to serve on the school board, this set of guiding principles could provide a tangible framework for that often-contentious nomination process going forward.

Broader Goals To Be Achieved Sometime Soon. Or Not So Soon Not every recommendation in the report includes a specific action item to be achieved by a set date. Here are a few examples of some of the broader, more ambitious, and harder-to-measure recommendations included in the report.

1. Nurture a collaborative working relationship between the Mayor and the Interim Superintendent. How to get to that closer alliance between the city school system and City Hall, the report foregrounds in the “First 100 Days” section of “Education” the importance of having the mayor and the superintendent get along and work closely together for the benefit of the city’s 22,000plus public school students.

“A well-functioning school system relies on key decision-makers developing positive relationships that are grounded in un-

derstanding of and respect for one another’s distinct statutory roles and responsibilities,” the report reads. “Although the City Charter provides for the Mayor to be a member of the Board of Education, this dynamic is an outlier in school boards around the country and for good reason: because it leads to hyperpoliticization. Our new Mayor can avoid this trap by maintaining an overall focus on children and by recognizing that district educators are charged with educating and that the role of the City is to bring resources to support education.”

The “Education” section also calls on the mayor to declare 2020 “the Year of the Whole Child in New Haven,” and to develop strategies around teaching in alignment with children’s developmental needs, understanding of racism and implicit bias among students and educators, culturally affirming and historically truthful curriculum and teaching, and supporting students navigating trauma and mental health challenges.

2. Announce an Inclusive Growth Initiative. The first recommendation listed in the “First 100 Days” section of “Economic Development, Workforce, and Transportation” calls on the mayor to “initiate a community-led plan for shared economic growth.”

That plan should start with recommendations on how to “close the revenue gap with Yale and Yale New Haven Hospital,” the report reads.

“The process should include residents, institutions, businesses, and community organizations—everyone invested in the economic success of the City and its residents.

The single most important thing the City can do for economic development is create a common, unifying narrative that residents and institutions can come together to plan and work together to achieve. The plan should specify what sectors the growth efforts should focus on, and it should define goals, including what a “good job” entails, how institutions can help provide good jobs for City residents, how to facilitate tangible opportunities for certain vulnerable (e.g., formerly incarcerated) and underrepresented (e.g., persons with disabilities) groups, how to grow green jobs, and how to ensure that New Haven contractors are preferred for construction work.”

3. Establish new city-generated revenue.

Not taking into account the city’s pushing out of debt payment costs through the Aug. 2018 $160 million bond refunding, the city’s actual annual deficit could be as high as $50 million, the report’s “Budget and Finance” section reads. The city must find ways to secure new revenue, both from the state and from within the bounds of New Haven.

The first recommendation in the “Long Term” section of “Budget and Finance” calls on the city to consider new fees and taxes such as a stormwater fee, hospital bed tax, a local sales tax, and a commuter tax.

Con’t on page 18

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

11

New Health Chief Named THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

by THOMAS BREEN

New Haven I ndependent

A Fair Haven native is coming home to take command of the city’s embattled health department.

The Board of Public Health Commissioners voted Wednesday night to approve the Fair Haven native, Martiza Bond, as the city’s next public health director.

Bond has led Bridgeport’s public health department for the past three years.

The health commission, not the legislative Board of Alders, has the final say over who will lead the city’s Health Department. Now that the board has selected Bond, she will begin her new role before the end of the month.

“I’m ecstatic that she has agreed to take this position,” Mayor Justin Elicker told the Independent.

“Her expertise and background will be very helpful” in guiding the city’s public health response to everything from substance use disorders to the child lead paint poisoning.

Bond served for 10 years as the executive director of the Eastern Connecticut Area Health Education Center before she stepped into the job as Bridgeport’s top public health official.

Her LinkedIn page says that she also has a B.S. in public health from Southern Connecticut State University, a management degree from Albertus Magnus1 Lyman_InnerCity_5.472x5.1.qxp_Layout

College, and a master’s degree in public health from the University of Connecticut Health Center.

She worked as a community health outreach worker for the Naugatuck Valley Health district after college. This 2013 article in a publication called Hispanic Executive credited Bond for “recruiting minority and nontraditional students into the burgeoning health-care field—and developing groundbreaking programs in the process.”

A bio sent out by city spokesperson Gage Frank Thursday says that, as the public health director for Bridgeport, Bond led 11 “diverse regulatory divisions and social services programs yielding proven results, including, but not limited to, increased revenue and efficiency. Director Bond also launched the Public Health Accreditation process within her first year of appointment.”

Frank said Bond has worked in the public health sector for over 18 years in both urban and rural settings.

Bond told the Independent Thursday that, when she saw the job opening in her native city, she pounced. “It was a chance to be able to come home,” she said.

She said her first priority upon taking office will be to conduct assessments of every division of the Health Department to make sure that they are all meeting the highest of 2promoting public 1/10/20 12:10standard PM Page

January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

health, preventing disease, and protecting residents.

Bond said she has been closely following the lead poisoning lawsuits and public criticism the Health Department has faced again and again and again in recent years, particularly after the city decided in November 2018 to stop enforcing local lead poisoning laws and send out inspectors only for children who met a higher state threshold for lead poisoning.

She did not commit to any specific policy or protocol around lead inspections until she has formally taken office and reviewed how the department is currently working. She did say that “any blood lead level is a dangerous blood lead level.”

“This is going to be a multi-sector approach,” she said about combating child lead poisoning in the city. It will involve city lead inspectors, pediatricians, parents, landlords, and other public health experts.

During his successful mayoral campaign, Elicker foregrounded his own criticism of how the prior administration handled child lead poisoning cases.

The Health Department has been led for the past half year by Acting Health Director Roslyn Hamilton. Hamilton in turn replaced former Health Director Byron Kennedy, who resigned last June to take a job as the state prison system’s top doctor.

TWITTER Maritza Bond: Any lead level too high.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

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Friday, January 17th 12:00pm - 1:30pm

Thornton Wilder Hall - 2901 Dixwell Avenue (Miller Library Complex)

This event offers attendees the opportunity to reflect on Dr. King’s life, his mission, how he has affected our lives, and what we continue to learn from his service and wisdom. Members of the public are invited to attend and light refreshments will be served.

Mayor Leng, along with the Hamden Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration Committee, will welcome guests to this celebration. The Keynote Speaker will be Senator George Logan. The Moderator for the event will be Reverend Sallie Lowry of Gabriel Outreach Ministry, New Haven, CT.

Making Twice the Impact

20 Church Street, New Haven, CT 06510 203-285-2000 | GatewayCT.edu More info: (203) 287-7009 or by email at pdonnelly@hamden.com Lyman_InnerCity_5.472x5.1.qxp_Layout 1 1/10/20 12:11 PM Page 4

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

Landmark Desegregation Case Moves Closer To Final Settlement

by Christine Stuart Ct. News Junkie

HARTFORD, CT – Thirty years after the court decision that required the state to work with Hartford to desegregate the city’s schools, the parties are finally getting closer to a resolution.

The interim agreement inked Friday

by Hartford Superior Court Judge Marshall K. Berger expands the number of magnet seats available over the next three years to both Hartford students and to students from the surrounding suburbs.

An additional 1,000 seats will be made available – 600 for Hartford students and 400 for students from suburban towns – at a variety of Hartfordarea magnet schools.

In 2007, the number of minority Hartford students attending integrated schools was about 11%. That figure quadrupled between 2007 and 2012, but has since stagnated and hovered between 43.9% and 49% over the last six years.

“In the struggle for justice we are accustomed to the fact that steps forward are accompanied by a push back,” Elizabeth Horton Sheff, mother of lead plaintiff Milo Sheff, said outside Superior Court Friday. “Today, in this courtroom, we took a step forward.”

As of Friday there were 10,354 applications and three weeks left to enter the lottery for the Regional School Choice Program, which gives students in the Greater Hartford area an opportunity to attend a magnet school.

The Sheff lawsuit helped create the Regional School Choice Program, but there are far more students who want access to a quality education offered by various magnet schools than the program has available.

Friday’s settlement opens up 62 seats at the Academy of Aerospace and Engineering in Windsor and 150 new seats at Riverside Magnet School in East Hartford over a three-year period.

Interdistrict Magnet Schools – such as the Greater Hartford Arts Academy in Hartford and the Connecticut International Baccalaureate Academy in East Hartford – will be able to fill more seats as well, potentially providing space for an additional 350 Hartford students. The Hartford pre-school magnet program also will increase by one 20-student classroom each year.

The settlement further requires Hartford Host Magnet Schools and Regional Education Service Center Magnet Schools to enroll at least 50% Hartford residents among incoming students in each school year, provid-

ing an estimated 120 additional places for Hartford resident students.

The state Education Department also will provide up to $300,000 for Open Choice districts that offer at least 20% more seats than they did the prior year.

Those are the suburban schools that accept Hartford students.

Friday’s settlement also will provide funding for Hartford’s neighborhood schools.

The approximately $2 million settlement signed by the parties and the court Friday reallocates money already budgeted by the General Assembly, and does not require legislative approval. However, a final settlement is expected to be negotiated in 2022, and will require legislative approval if it is in excess of $3 million.

Gov. Ned Lamont thanked Horton Sheff for bringing the lawsuit.

“You guys gave us a kick in the back of our pants there and we needed it 30 years ago. We had to wake up,” Lamont said.

He said they’re doing much better than before, “but we have a long way to go.”

Outside the courthouse, Attorney General William Tong offered praise for Friday’s settlement agreement.

“It’s a big investment in kids and it’s

CHRISTINE STUART / CTNEWSJUNKIE

Elizabeth Horton Sheff

a sustained long-term investment in kids,” Tong said.

But Friday’s agreement only addresses segregation in the Hartford school system, while segregation continues to exist in other school systems in Con-

necticut.

“I think the rest of the state – we’re inspired by this case,” Lamont said.

“What we’re seeing as successful here in Hartford, we’re going to take around the rest of the state.”

Celebrating Celebra Cele

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

14

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

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Job Corps is a U.S. Department of Labor Equal Opportunity Employer Program. Auxiliary aids and services are available upon request to individuals with disabilities. TDD/TTY telephone number is (877) 889-5627.

15

‘We Are Intelligent’ THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

T.M. Landry students, teachers use self-efficacy to master learning

By Candace J. Semien, Jozef Syndicate Reporter, The Drum / NNPA

LAFAYETTE—The excitement in Marjorie Coulanges’s voice is unmistakable.

For two years, her son Nicholas has lived three states away, attending a small, private academy. A week before Christmas 2019, Coulanges is awaiting her son’s visit, full of smiles, confident in his academic and social growth. She said this growth was not happening in the Miami, Florida, high school he attended before moving to T.M. Landry College Prep Academy in Lafayette, Louisiana.

T.M. Landry is a year-round, tuitionbased, nonpublic school which began in 2005. The school has a unique model to educate students. It is a combination of rigorous courses, self-autonomy, selfefficacy, and a demand for master learning, said co-founders Michael and Tracey Landry. According to its website, the school is designed for students who want to “pursue a serious, purposeful education” and achieve success in college and beyond.

“Coming from the neighborhood where we grew up, most Black kids weren’t truly being educated,” said Michael Landry.

“We wanted to try to help kids who society didn’t believe have the potential of becoming educated or who were interested in learning.”

“Nicolas wasn’t doing anything,” Coulanges admitted. The full-time nurse explained that an episode of the Ellen Show led her to research and visit the school where she interviewed the school’s founders, talked with students, then ultimately chose to relocate her son. “I was very serious about this. I could not make a mistake with my son’s future,” said Coulange.

“It’s just amazing!” She said. “He’s gotten back to his love of mathematics again and has matured so much.” Next year, Nicholas Delatour will graduate from T.M. Landry with As in pre-calculus and physics and a C in calculus I from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette where he completed dual enrollment courses. He has received early action from St. John’s University in New York and is waiting on responses from other highly competitive universities where he plans to study number theory.

His handshake is firm and eye-contact direct when he shares how being a student at T.M Landry changed the trajectory of his life. “I had no ambition. No goals. I was just drifting by,” he said.

“This school has impacted me more in

a year than 15 years in public education has. Now I want to learn more. Mr. Mike helped me release my confidence in my ability.”

Last fall, Devon Hill, eight grader, watched as her older classmates introduced themselves and discussed their first days at T.M. Landry. They all were given The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale as one of their first reading assignments. One tenth grade student said the book changed how she was thinking about herself. Devon’s older brother, Hunter, said he uses the book as daily motivation even though it is not assigned. He said he remembered visiting the school and meeting students who talked boldly about their plans to attend Ivy League and Top 50 universities.

When he started T.M. Landry, his self-esteem was low, and it’s improved. “Before now, I would’ve told you that there was no way. I couldn’t see my self stepping up. (Now,) I see so many opportunities.”

Devon smiled in agreement but said her first experience had nothing to do with reading. She was adjusting. For the first time “in a long time” she was at a school and no one was bullying her, she said.

“It’s such a breath of fresh air. Every time I walk in the door, it’s a family. It doesn’t matter race or gender. They are all constantly supporting one another,” said Desaix Hill, Devon and Hunter’s mother.

“We went from a kid who was anxious to one who was happy and confident, who knows the sky is the limit,” said Lanier Cordell, the Hills’s grandmother.

Education scholars like Erin Wheeler Ph.D., executive director of College Beyond, and Calvin Mackie Ph.D. of STEM NOLA have said a student’s “belief” is critical for their success. This belief, which is called “self-efficacy,” is the belief in one’s ability to complete a chosen, specific task, Wheeler explained.

“That is what fuels students. Once they believe, then, anything else is possible,” said Tracey Landry who is completing doctoral studies is on educational leadership. “With self-efficacy, students of color will typically become engaged in the (education) process and that leads to learning. We have to tap into it. We have to let them know they can achieve. Selfefficacy is everything.”

Preparing Master Learners Imagine walking into a converted skating rink with a high ceiling where college flags hang, Mac desktops line one wall for students to work and check the stock market. Long black tables and chairs line

M Landry 5th grader D’Myrie Clay completes algebra problem for high school peers. Nicholas Delatour

that adjacent wall where lunch is served and where upperclassmen work on college assignments. The day begins with every student participating in a morning meeting, which is a process the founders pulled from Corporate America. They all don their red, grey, and white uniform.

One student is selected to start the day by motivating the student body. “We want the kids to be prepared for careers,” said Michael Landry. “It’s part of developing master learners.”

After the meeting, students are dismissed to class. Only one wall separates the students. Middle and elementary students occupy one side, high schoolers the other. There are no other classroom walls or partitions. Teachers—a total of four at any given moment—stand in front of roll-a-way whiteboards and chalkboards teaching small groups of students who sit a foot or two from the teachers.

Before leaving for the day, the students select their class schedule for the next day based on their needs. If a student

16

feels behind in a writing assignment, they can choose to take a half day with that teacher to not fall behind, explained Michael Landry. Students who are interested in attending the school are invited to spend two days in classes before applying. Once admitted, they are given a few weeks, if necessary, to adjust to the school culture, said Tracey Landry.

‘It is a Luxury’ Unlearning what education and learning should look like and how schools should operate can be a hurdle for parents, Tracey Landry said.

“I had to trust their model. It was something I had not seen before and it was working for other students. I just had to trust,” said Coulanges. “I’m glad I did.

What Mike and Tracey have given to him with this school, I could not give to him.”

“This is not a school for every kid. Not a set structure. They set goals and focus on what is learned and not what is covered.

Everything here is a unique experience.

There’s a lot of focus on the kids and it’s self-directed… It is a luxury here. I am surprised it is not overcrowded,” said Cordell who has been at the school for two years.

One ‘luxury’ the students interviewed agreed on is having administrators who “really care.” “They want the best for us,” Delatour said.

High schoolers said they often call the Landrys with questions even until early morning, on weekends, and during holidays. And Michael Landry said the calls are encouraged. “We don’t want to stop that fire (for learning),” Michael Landry said.

The school stays open on weekdays until 7pm and teachers are available until 6pm to assist students. “The whole time they are here, these students are doing work,” said Cordell who often waits for Hunter and Devin until the evening before heading home 30-miles away.

“We stay and get as much as we need.

If we are missing something we know we can stay and until we learn it…and we teach each other,” said Gailen George, a senior who said he initially tried to get kicked out of the school, but now he “owns” his education.

This self-direction and self-autonomy is a challenge for students and their parents upon admission, Tracey Landry admitted. Once the student understands their education is “up to them and they are supported and challenged while they are here, then they will come to task and push themselves,” Michael Landry said.

In Multiplication is for White People, Lisa Delpit, Ph.D., explained, “Many of our children of color don’t learn from a teacher, as much as for a teacher. They don’t want to disappoint a teacher who they feel believes in them… It is the trust that students place in these strong teachers that allows them to believe in themselves. It is the teachers’ strength and commitment that give students the security to risk taking the chance to learn.

Wheeler said when a student believes that they can complete a certain task with success, they begin to discipline themselves accordingly by applying the right effort and seeking help. Specifically, she found that self-efficacy strengthens the academic performance of college students who are studying biology. Other research has shown that building selfefficacy for non-white or underserved students is critical and has significant impact on academic success, she said. “All Con’t on page 18

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

Will Your Dream Job Ever Become Your Reality?

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior Correspondent

A common New Year’s tradition is the list of resolutions for the upcoming 365 days. For some the list will be improvement-based, like losing weight or obtaining a new certification. Others may focus on different objectives, like a family vacation or finally saving more for retirement. Whatever items your list contains, all resolutions lists share two things in common: Some of our goals are attainable, others not so much.

If one of your resolutions for the start of the new calendar year is the pursuit of that ever-elusive dream job, you’re not alone. A survey of 2,000 American adults taken by the virtual phone company, TollFreeForwarding, revealed that only about 24% of respondents will ever get to become what they wanted to be when they were younger. And just a tiny fraction of us — only 10% — can make that claim right now.

Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of those that reported working in the job of their dreams, also said that the job lived up to the expectations they placed on it during childhood.

Of the remaining 76 percent that have never experienced working in their dream job or profession, over a third (39 percent) say they regret not pursuing their aspirations further. When asked to identify the most significant factor in never achieving those childhood dreams, 34 percent said that they “don’t have the required skill set or knowledge.”

Other significant factors include “financial constraints,” (16 percent of respondents) and “I prioritized raising a family” (10 percent). Putting family first was significantly more prevalent among women, with 14 percent selecting it compared to just 3 percent of men.

The survey also discovered significant differences in the aspirations of men and women during childhood. Women were much more inclined to select caregiving and public service-related jobs – with teacher, doctor/nurse, and veterinarian making up the top three.

Science and engineering are among the most male-dominated industries, and video gaming has long been stereotyped as a male-oriented profession.

“These statistics say something about the differences between men and women, and how different upbringings influence what we want to do when we grow up,” researchers concluded.

The survey noted that public service jobs, teachers, doctors, and nurses were the most popular childhood dream jobs of respondents. Those were followed by actors, athletes, writers, and musicians.

Scientists and lawyers also made the top 10.

While those initial dreams may have

changed significantly by the time that we achieve our high school or college diploma, it’s common for Americans to wake up one morning, get dressed for work, and realize that our work leaves us unfulfilled.

“Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to a job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it,” said Ellen Goodman.

For African Americans, who are often still either the first or among the very few in their family to achieve an advanced degree, the current job or career path can have nothing in common the career they envisioned when they walked across the stage to accept the diploma.

However, a few have adopted the longheld belief that doing work that we love — work that actually makes us happy — has benefits that far outweigh the financial rewards.

In the TollFreeForwarding survey, researchers noted the rise of digital technology and social media, which they said had formed a new type of celebrity.

As children head for YouTube and video games such as Fortnite for entertainment, they search for idols that align with these interests, according to the researchers.

“My dream job was to work in social services with children and families,” said Karen Akpan, a content creator for TheMomTrotter.com, a website that shares budget travel tips, homeschooling life experiences, and parenting information.

“I graduated from college with my Bachelor’s degree and couldn’t find a

job to pay me over $12 an hour,” Akpan stated.

“I then decided to go back for my Master’s Degree, hoping that it would help.

Unfortunately, I still wasn’t making more than $12.50 an hour or so and, living in California, that was torture.”

Akpan decided to start writing about travel and how she and her family were able to travel on points and miles. She said that’s worked out well despite lots of student loan debt, the economy, and not getting paid the wages she believed she deserved.

“Little did I know that I was going to be able to turn my passion into profit. I absolutely love what I do know,” Akpan stated.

Robert Remak, who co-founded the men’s attire website, ArtoftheGent.com,

17

said while in college, he dreamed of being a CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

That dream became deferred when Remak said he realized that he didn’t want to become a part of an already established corporate culture filled with inequality.

“I wanted to create positive change in the overall corporate culture,” Remak stated. “My purpose for wanting to be a CEO was to prove to the world by example that, if you truly put your employees first, you will become more profitable in the long term. Not squeezing out as much production from each employee and measuring them against rigid key performance indicators,” he added.

“My dream job when I finished high school was going to med school. My dream job when I finished college was to

be a nurse practitioner or physician assistant,” said author and public speaker, Lisa Swift-Young.

While neither of those dreams became a reality, Swift-Young said she did marry, and she now has two adult children.

“My daughter and I run a business together, and I published a book. So, although my dream of becoming a physician didn’t come true, I feel like in a lot of ways, I was able to give back,” SwiftYoung stated.

“I think we’re fairly stable. We’ve both been employed consistently with ups and downs, but we are definitely in a position where we should be able to retire before the age of retirement. So, my dream job didn’t come true, but my dream life, I’m living it.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

When We Need It Most – Martin Luther King Day

by Sharon Waxman, TheWrap.com

“Violence is not the way,” said King.

“Hate is not the way” At times like these, with division and anger leading the national conversation, we can feel grateful that there is a day to honor someone who represents their polar opposite.

At times like these we may hang on to the words of Martin Luther King like a life raft as we swim, daily, in waters polluted by ALL CAPS tweeting, racebaiting, lies and childish insults from our commander in chief.

Remember there was a time when words uplifted, not tore us down: “Violence is not the way,” said King.

“Hate is not the way. Bitterness is not the way. We must stand up with love in our hearts, with a lack of bitterness and yet a determination to protest courageously for justice and freedom in this land.”

King preached non-violence, but also freedom and justice and equality. These are the core values of our democracy at any time.

It’s so often hard to remember this.

In the age of Trump many of us — I

do, at least — feel ashamed to see words giving comfort to white supremacists.

And some of us feel helpless witnessing a brutal federal policy that separates families in our name.

Now in the age of Facebook Live, we have also been made painfully aware of the continued, systemic racism faced by people of color no matter who has been in the Oval Office — including an African-American president.

With that in mind let us recall the observation King made about the arc of history being long but bending toward justice. Let us recall that he taught us how freedom for all is driven forward — by incremental effort.

“If you can’t fly, run; if you can’t run, walk; if you can’t walk, crawl; but by all means keep moving,” he urged us.

Here is something else worth remembering: A Republican president, Ronald Reagan, signed the legislation to create Martin Luther King Day in 1983. This was only the second national holiday created to commemorate and honor an American, after George Washington.

So we take comfort in that, just as we may take comfort in the advances our country has seen toward the values King espoused in the diversity of our new House of Representatives, and in

the richness of our popular culture from Oprah to “Black Panther” to Beyonce.

Because of him, we have a national hero who is African-American and celebrated everywhere, officially, thanks to his sacrifices and those of his generation who marched and sat in and stood up for human dignity.

More than ever, we need his words and his legacy.

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

Amen.

What Did Martin Luther King Do to Progress the Civil Rights Movement?

King’s accomplishments are numerous.

They include:

biography.yourdictionary.com

Martin Luther King, Jr. worked hard to bring greater equality to America and ensure civil rights for all people, regardless of race. Notably, he brought publicity to major civil rights activities, emphasizing the importance of nonviolent protest.

In doing so, he modeled sound leadership to the African-American civil rights movement. What did Martin Luther King do to progress the civil rights movement?

He stood as a pillar of hope and model of grace.

King’s Contributions and Accomplishments Martin Luther King, Jr. was a wellknown civil rights activist who had a great deal of influence on American society in the 1950s and 1960s. His strong belief in nonviolent protest helped set the tone of the movement. Boycotts, protests, and marches were eventually effective, and much legislation was passed against racial discrimination.

Assassinated in 1968, King led a brief life filled with many great accomplishments, working to promote equal treatment of all races. His nonviolent approach to protesting, his legions of followers, and his true belief in the ability of mankind to live in peace went a long way toward the advancement of civil rights during this tumultuous time in history.

• Providing leadership in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 • Delivering his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963 • Being an advocate for nonviolent protest in the Memphis Sanitation Worker Strike in 1968 • Being instrumental in establishing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in • 1957, a civil rights organization that supports the philosophy of nonviolence This is just a brief overview of the career of a great man and of his impact on the civil rights movement and the world.

Montgomery Bus Boycott In Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, King led a boycott against city buses that refused to let blacks sit in the front seats.

The protest gained followers rapidly, and it led to a citywide boycott of the bus system until the rules were changed.

Even though King and his followers were sent to jail, the boycott did succeed and the unfair, racist law allowing seg-

18

Con’t from page 16

‘We Are

students have a measure of self-efficacy.

Some students have a lesser sense because of their environment.”

Cordell said from what she has experienced at T.M. Landry, opportunities “for minorities are astonishing. This school, Mike and Tracey, it all changes the students’ views about what their own potential is,” she said. She, Colanges, and Hill said T.M. Landry has exceeded their expectations.

2019 T.M Landry Scholars Heading to Top Colleges, Again As a nonpublic school, the school does not receive state and federal funding and does not seek state approval. However, to maintain transparency and alignment with state standards, a new board of directors reinforces administrative policies and financial governances, said board member Linda Johnson. These measurements, as well as the consistent success of T.M. Landry high school students in college courses and on tests, have helped the school sustain its relationship with admissions departments at top universities nationwide, said board president Greg Davis.

In December 2019, six of eight seniors received early action letters from universities, and eighth through tenth graders earned ACT scores ranging from 19 to 28. Five sophomore enrolled in dual enrollment classes at Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge earned As in college algebra and pre-calculus, while six other students attended the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, earning As and Bs in calculus II, conceptual physics, precalculus trigonometry, and college algebra and also Cs in physics with calculus and calculus I and II. Of the school’s 49 graduates, 40 have graduated from college or are currently in college at schools including NYU, Harvard, ULL, Southern, Stanford, and Brown. According to school records provided by Davis, 71% of elementary and middle school students performed at or above grade level for the 2018-2019 school year. These were results from TerraNova tests which is a nationallynormed, standardized achievement test that meets most states’ annual testing requirements.

“Our number one goal has been educating kids. We know all students are capable of performing at the highest level academically no matter what their socialeconomic background is. All kids. All kids are capable,” Michael Landry said.

Administrators said they plan to restart its free Saturday tutoring for students from other schools. “It’s not about T.M. Landry or this school over that one. It’s about how students from Southwest Louisiana can show the world that we are intelligent,” Michael Landry said.

Con’t on page 19

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020 Con’t from page 18

regation aboard the buses was changed.

History reports this as the boycott that put King on the map. He emerged as a leader in the civil rights movement while cementing his dedication to change via nonviolent methods.

“I Have a Dream” In 1963, King and other leaders of the civil rights movement organized a huge march for equal rights in Washington, D.C. With a massive crowd of over 200,000 followers, the march protested racial discrimination in schools and the workforce. They demanded minimum wage for all workers. It was the largest gathering in Washington, D.C.’s history.

This was the site of King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

His speech marked him as a master orator, capable of punching his points with anaphoras - words or phrases repeated for emphasis - while citing powerful sources, including the Bible and the U.S. Constitution.

As a result of the march and the speech, the citizens of the nation began to put growing pressure on the presidential administration of Lyndon B. Johnson, encouraging the president to push for civil rights laws to pass through Congress and become recognized on a national level.

Memphis Sanitation Worker Strike In 1968, 1,300 black sanitation workers in Memphis were protesting their terrible working conditions, discrimination, and low pay. It was obvious they were discriminated against when they were sent home without pay while white workers stayed on the job.

They started a strike on February 12, 1968. Shortly thereafter, Martin Luther King Jr. came to Memphis to speak and support the second march of the sanitation workers.

The strike lasted for 64 days and grew into one of the major civil rights events.

The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the sanitation workers demanded higher wages, union recognition, and an end to discrimination.

This attracted the national news media as well as others who joined the cause, like community leaders and members of the clergy. The strike finally ended on April 12, 1968, and the city of Memphis agreed to the workers’ demands, even though more strikes had to be threatened to make them honor the agreement.

King’s Use of Nonviolent Social Change Because of his commitment to peace, nonviolence, and equality, King’s civil rights protests made genuine headway in American society. Without question. Martin Luther King Jr. advanced the movement with his well-spoken elegance and grace.

Even as his oppressors exercised force

and brutality, King remained insistent on nonviolence. On January 30, 1956, King’s home was even bombed. Instead of responding in kind, he and his members took to church pews and prayed in protest of their violent discrimination.

King’s stark insistence on nonviolence was a major factor in the acknowledgment given to the civil rights movement during such a time of unrest. His genuine desire for the country to come together was recognized as a great contribution to America.

African-American Civil Rights Movement King’s civil rights movement lasted from around 1955 to 1968. Its goals were to abolish racial discrimination in many areas including public transportation, employment, voting, and education.

Nonviolent protests and civil disobedience during this time caused many crises, forcing the government to intervene. The protests consisted of sit-ins, marches, and boycotts. Notable legislation during this time included the: • Civil Rights Act of 1964 - This banned discrimination in employment and public accommodations based on “race, color, religion, or national origin.”

• Voting Rights Act of 1965 - This act restored and protected the right to vote.

• Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965 - This allows immigration from groups other than those from the traditional European countries.

• Fair Housing Act of 1968 - This banned housing discrimination in both sales or rentals.

An Undying Legacy On the evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was standing out on his second-story balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was there to support the Memphis Sanitation Workers’ strike described above. While he stood in the evening light, a sniper bullet struck him in the jaw, severing his spinal cord, and killing him. He was only 39 years old.

In the end, a two-bit criminal named James Earl Ray was convicted of his murder and sentenced to 99 years in prison.

Ray initially pleaded guilty to avoid the electric chair and then later attested he was set up as part of a larger government conspiracy. King’s widow and children actually believe his murder was part of a conspiracy involving the U.S. government, too.

Still, King single-handedly moved the needle on the civil rights movement, advocating for dignity, respect, freedom, and equality. His high moral probity allowed him to stand calmly in the face of intense violence, proving love (or at least respect) does conquer all.

DONT LET THEM COUNT YOU OUT!

19

THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

INNER-CITY NEWS July 27, 2016 - August 02, 2016

Window Replacement Project at Gaylord Towers

PUBLIC NOTICE

INVITATION TO BID Bristol, Connecticut

NOTICE

The Bristol Housing Authority will receive sealed bids on or before 2:00 p.m. EST, Wednesday, February 12, 2020 at theirHOUSING offices at 164 Jerome Avenue, Bristol, Connecticut VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL PREAPPLICATIONS AVAILABLE 06010, and said bids will be publicly opened and read aloud immediately thereafter.

Bids will be received for furnishing all labor, equipment HOME INC, on behalf of Columbus Housematerials, and the tools New and Haven Housingnecessary Authority,to complete the Window Replacement Project at Gaylord Towers, 55 Gaylord Street, is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this Bristol, develConnecticut 06010. The scope of work shall include but is not limited to new vinyl winopment located at 108 Frank Street, New Haven. Maximum income limitations apdow replacements and related work. Sealed bid packages to be clearly marked “Window ply. Pre-applications will be available from 9AM TO 5PM beginning Monday Ju;y Replacement Project at Gaylord Towers” and “Attention: Mitzy Rowe, CEO.” 2016 andthrough endingwill when sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) Please have A 25, pre-bid walk be held on Wednesday, January 29, 2020 at 10:00 a.m. been received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be mailied upon remeet at the Gaylord Towers Community Room, 55 Gaylord Street, Bristol, Connecticut questAttendance by calling isHOME INCrecommended at 203-562-4663 those hours. Completed pre06010. strongly for allduring bidders. applications must including be returned to HOME INC’s officesasatprepared 171 Orange Street, Third Contact Documents Plans and Specifi cations,

by J ASSOCIATES Floor, New Haven, CT 06510.

ARCHITECTS, 84 Market Square, Suite 3, Newington, CT 06111, will be on file at the Bristol Housing Authority 164 Jerome Avenue, Bristol, Connecticut. Contract Documents can be reviewed and purchased within the Advanced Reprographics on-line plan room at www.advancedrepro.net or by calling (860) 410-1020. Project information can also be obtained online at Projectdog.com.

MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER DISPONIBLES The VALENTINA Bristol Housing Authority reserves the right toPRE-SOLICITUDES reject any or all bids and/or to waive any informalities in bidding, when such action is deemed to be in the best interest of the Bristol Housing Authority. bid documents filledHaven out completely when submitHOME INC, en nombre deAll la Columbus Housemust y debe la New Housing Authority, está ted.aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo Aubicado satisfactory Certifi ed Check an amount equallimitaciones to five percent (5%) of en laBid calleBond 109 or Frank Street, New in Haven.

Se aplican de ingresos themáximos. base bid, shall be submitted with each bid.

The Bid Bond shall be made payable to 25 the Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes Bristol Authority and be properly executed by the Bidder.

A 100% Perforjulio,Housing 2016 hasta cuando se hanshall recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) mance, Labor and Material Bond is also required. All sureties must be listed on the most en las oficinas de HOME INC. Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas por correo a petición recent IRS circular 570. llamando a HOME INC al 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirse “Attention of bidders is directed to certain requirements of this contract which require a las oficinas de HOME INC en 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, New Haven , CT 06510 . payment of Davis-Bacon wages, and compliance with certain local, state and federal requirements. This is a Federally funded project.”

NOTICIA

No bids shall be withdrawn for a period of sixty (60) days after the opening of bids without the consent of the Bristol Housing Authority.

NEW HAVEN

For further information, please contact Carl Johnson, Director of Capital Funds, Bristol Housing Authority at (860) 585-2028 or Jay R. Victorick, J242-258 ASSOCIATES ARCHITECTS at (860) 665-7063.

Fairmont Ave

2BR Townhouse, 1.5 BA, 3BR, 1 level , 1BA

“AN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION/EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPOLYER MBE’s, WBE’s, SBE’s AND SECTION 3 DESIGNATED ENTERPRISES ENCOURAGED All new apartments, new appliances, new ARE carpet, close to I-91TO&SUBMIT” I-95

highways, near bus stop & shopping center

EMERGENCY MEDICAL TECHNICIAN

Pet under 40lb allowed. Interested parties contact Maria @ 860-985-8258 (EMT)

The Town of Wallingford is accepting applications for EMT. Must possess a H.S. diCT. Unified Deacon’s Association is pleased to offer a Deacon’s Certificate Program.plus This isone a 10 (1) month program designed to assist in the ploma or G.E.D., year of recent experience asintellectual an EMT.formation Must of beCandidates 18 years response to the Church’s Ministry needs. The cost is $125. Classes start Saturday, August 20, 2016 1:30oldin and be a Connecticut or National Registry Certified EMT with CPR Certification 3:30 Contact: Chairman, Deacon Joe J. Davis, M.S., B.S. 996-4517 Host,of General Bishop Elijah Davis, vehicle D.D. Pastoroperator’s of Pitts Chapel U.F.W.B. Church 64 Brewster and(203) a valid State Connecticut motor license.

Starting wage $ 672.00 (weekly), St. New Haven, CT plus an excellent fringe benefit package. Apply: Department of Human Resources, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492.

Phone (203) 294-2080. The closing date will be January 24, 2020. EOE

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY INVITATION TO BID: LaRosa Building Group, as CM, invites all trade con-

tractors to bids bid the project located in consisting Sealed areExchange invited Place by theTowers Housing Authority ofWaterbury, the Town CT of Seymour of until miscellaneous to August 150 occupied residential units. This subject 3:00 pm renovations on Tuesday, 2, 2016 at its office at 28project SmithisStreet, to CHRO Set Aside requirements. Trade contractor bids are due to LaRosa no later Seymour, CT 06483 for Concrete Sidewalk Repairs and Replacement at the than 3PM on January 24, 2020. Bids can be emailed to Vincent Parete vparete@larosSmithfield Gardens Assisted Living 26 cations Smith Street Seymour. abg.com or faxed to 203-599-6210.

PlansFacility, and specifi are available electronically by contacting Vince by email or phone 203-235-1770. LaRosa Building Group is A anpre-bid Affirmative Action,will Equal Employer.

Small, Minority, conference be Opportunity held at the Housing Authority Office 28Women, Smith Disabled, and Section areon strongly encouraged to bid.

Street Seymour, CT3 Businesses at 10:00 am, Wednesday, July 20, 2016.

Construction Foreman M/F-

Bidding documents are available from the Seymour Housing Authority Of3+ years Solid CTDOT Exp. 40hr Hzwhpr . Coordinate, Perform, Sufice, 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579. pervise, Onsite Functions, Support Crew, Maintain Records. Statewide Work. Females and Minorities encouraged to apply. Email resume: miThe Housing Authority reserves the right to accept or reject any or all bids, to chelle@occllc.com Great Pay for Great Work. AA / EOE reduce the scope of the project to reflect available funding, and to waive any informalities in the bidding, if such actions are in the best interest of the Housing Authority.

BROOKSIDE ESTATES I & II, ROCKVIEW I 6 Solomon Crossing New Haven, CT 06515

Beginning Tuesday, January 21st, 2020 until Tuesday, February 4th, 2020 (From 9am - 5pm) PRE-APPLICATIONS for Spacious 2, 3 & 4 Bedroom Apartments WILL BE AVAILABLE AT:

MichaelsComingSoonCommunities.com All Pre-Applications must be postmarked no later then February 4th, 2020

Rents are Based on 30% of income MAXIMUM INCOME LIMITS APPLY* 1 Person 2 Persons 3 Persons 4 Persons

5 6 7 8

$52,850 $60,400 $67,950 $75,500

Persons Persons Persons Persons

$81,550 $87,600 $93,650 $99,700

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Everyone in the household 18 years of age and older will be screened for Credit/Criminal background check. Income, Asset, Student Status & Landlord Reference will be verified. *Restrictions Apply.- See Pre-Application Cover Page for more information Only one Pre-application per Household will be accepted.

Invitation to Bid: Incomplete applications will be rejected 2nd Notice Please note: SELECTION WILL BE MADE VIA A LOTTERY SYSTEM If you do not have access to download & print the pre-application, you may call 203.691.6599 TTY 711 and request one to be mailed to you.

SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE Old Saybrook, CT

(4 Buildings, 17 Units) ALL PRE-APPLICATIONS WILL BE DATE & TIME STAMPED & Rate REVIEWED IN Tax Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage Project THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY ARE RECEIVED. New Construction, Wood Framed, Housing, Selective Demolition, Site-work, Castin-place Concrete, Asphalt Shingles, Vinyl Siding, Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Casework, Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection.

This contract is subject to state set-aside and contract compliance requirements.

NEW HAVEN POLICE NOW HIRING

State of Connecticut Office of Policy and Management

Bid Extended, Due Date: August 5, 2016 The State of Connecticut, Office of Policy and Management is recruiting for Anticipated Start: August 15, 2016 a Policy Development Coordinator Project documents available via ftp link below: position. http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage Further information regarding the duties,

eligibility requirements and application Fax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com instructions for this position is available at: HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran, S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified Businesses Haynes Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 https://www.jobapscloud.com/ AA/EEO EMPLOYER CT/sup/bulpreview.asp?R1= 200109&R2=1581MP&R3=002

Apply online at Policeapp.com Or Visit our Social Media Pages For More Information New Haven Police Department Recruitment Team

20

Nhpdrecruitment

NHPDrecruitment

The State of Connecticut is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and strongly encourages the applications of women, minorities, and persons with disabilities.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020 INNER-CITY NEWS July 27, 2016 - August 02, 2016

Garrity Asphalt Reclaiming, Inc seeks:

DELIVERY PERSON

Construction Equipment Mechanic preferably experienced in Reclaiming and Road Milling Equipment. We offer factory training on equipment we operate. Location: Bloomfield CT We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE Contact: Tom Dunay

NOTICE

NEEDED

Phone: 243-2300 HOME INC, on behalf of860Columbus House and the New Haven Housing Authority, Email: tom.dunay@garrityasphalt.com is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this develWomen Minority Applicants are New encouraged to apply income limitations apopment & located at 108 Frank Street, Haven. Maximum Action/ Opportunity Employer ply.Affirmative Pre-applications willEqual be available from 9AM TO 5PM beginning Monday Ju;y 25, 2016 and ending when sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) have been received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be mailied upon request by calling HOME Reclaiming, INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours. Completed preGarrity Asphalt Inc seeks: applications must be returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange Street, Third Reclaimer Operators and Milling Operators with current licensing Haven, CTbe06510. andFloor, cleanNew driving record, willing to travel throughout the North-

Part Time Delivery Needed

east & NY. We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits

NOTICIA

Contact: Rick Tousignant Phone: 860- 243-2300

One/Two Day a Week,

Must Have your Own Vehicle

Email: rick.tousignant@garrityasphalt.com VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply Affirmative Action/deEqual Opportunity Employer HOME INC, en nombre la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está

If Interested call

aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 Tractor Trailer Driver for Heavy & Highway Construction Equipjulio,Must 2016have hastaacuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes ment.

CDL License, clean driving record, capable of(aproximadamente 100) en las oficinas HOME INC. Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas operating heavydeequipment; be willing to travel throughout the por correo a petición llamando&a NY. HOME 203-562-4663 horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirse Northeast We INC offeralexcellent hourlydurante rate &esas excellent benefits a las oficinas de HOME INC en 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, New Haven , CT 06510 .

Union Company seeks:

(203) 435 -1387

Contact Dana at 860-243-2300

KMK1907 Insulation Inc. Hartford Turnpike

Email: dana.briere@garrityasphalt.com Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer

North Haven, CT 06473

POLICE OFFICER

Competitive examinations will be held for the position of Police Officer in the Clinton, Guilford, Hamden, Orange, Seymour and West Haven Departments.

Candidates may register for the testing process at www.policeapp.com/southcentral.

Application deadline is Friday, February 14, 2020.

The physical performance, written and oral board exams will be administered by the South Central Criminal Justice Administration.

THE DEPARTMENTS PARTICIPATING IN THIS RECRUITMENT DRIVE ARE EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYERS.

Coventry Housing Authority

is accepting applications for its Section 8 Elderly/Disabled housing. Annual income limit is $21,200 (one person) & $24,200 (two people), Also accepting applications for its State Elderly/Disabled housing. Annual income limit is $52,850 (one person) & $60,400 (two people). Interested parties may pick up an application at the Coventry Housing Authority, 1630 Main St., Coventry, CT, or have one mailed. Completed applications must be postmarked or hand delivered no later than January 31, 2020. For more information call 860-742-5518.

Constuction Laborer

Looking for a Laborer with experience in Crane/Pile Driving operations. We HAVEN Invitation to Bid: HELP WANTED: LargeNEW CT guardrail company Mechanical Insulator position. will consider those with no prior experience. Required skills/qualifications inInsulation company offering good pay

242-258 Ave 2nd Notice looking for Laborer/Driver with Fairmont valid CT CDL Class clude: OTC 105 OSHA10 hour Certification, Valid Drivers License, Must be and benefits. Please mail resume to above address.

A license2BR and able to get a medical card.

Must be able to lift over 50 pounds, Minimum age of 18, Must Provide personal transporTownhouse, 1.5 BA, 3BR, 1 level , 1BA able to pass a drug test and physical. CompensaMAIL ONLY tationCT to and from the jobsite.

All new apartments, new appliances, new carpet, close to I-91 & I-95 Old Saybrook, tion based on experience. Email resume to dmasThis company is an Affirmative Action/ Please contact: highways, near bus stop & shopping center (4 Buildings, 17 Units) tracchio@atlasoutdoor.com AA/EOE M-F Equal Opportunity Employer.

Eric Bombaci Pet under 40lb allowed. Interested parties contact Maria @ 860-985-8258 Tax Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage Rate Project Bombaci Construction 8605754519 CT. Unified Deacon’s Association is pleased to offer a Deacon’s New Construction, Wood Framed, Housing, Selective Demolition, Site-work, CastBombaciconst@aol.com

SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE

The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport

Request for Qualifications (RFQ) in-place Concrete, Asphalt Shingles, Vinyl Siding, Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Casework, Architectural and Engineering Services Exp. F/T Lay Out person for structural Steel and Misc. Shop.

Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection.

Solicitation Number: 136-PD-20-S Send resume: hherbert@gwfabrication.com

Certificate Program. This is a 10 month program designed to assist in the intellectual formation of Candidates in response to the Church’s Ministry needs. The cost is $125. Classes start Saturday, August 20, 2016 1:303:30 Contact: Chairman, Deacon Joe J. Davis, M.S., B.S. (203) 996-4517 Host, General Bishop Elijah Davis, D.D. Pastor of Pitts Chapel U.F.W.B. Church 64 Brewster St. New Haven, CT

This contract is subject to state set-aside and contract compliance requirements.

The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport d/b/a Park City Communities (PCC) isBid seeking proExtended, Due Date: August 5, 2016 posals from qualified architects and engineering firms to assist in various architectural andAnticipated engineerStart: August 15, 2016 Sealed bids are invited by the Housing Authority theselect Town of Seymourfirms who shall be placed on an A/E ing projects on an as needed basis. The PCCofwill multiple Project documents available via ftp link below: until 3:00 pm on Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at its office at 28 Smith Street, Invitation for Bids roster.

Solicitation package will be available on January 13, 2020 to obtain a copy of the solicitation http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage Seymour, CT 06483 for Concrete Sidewalk Repairs and Replacement at the you must send your request to bids@parkcitycommunities.org, please reference solicitation number McConaughy Terrace Sanitary and Storm Sewer Improvements Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour.

Fax or EmailAve, Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang and title on the subject line. A pre-bid conference will be held at 150 Highland Bridgeport, CT@ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran, S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified Businesses The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven d/b/a Elm City 06604 on January 22, 2020, @ at10:00 a.m. Although is not mandatory, submitting a bid for 32 Progress Haynes Construction Company, Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 A pre-bid conference will be held the Housing Authority attendance Office 28 Smith Communities is currently seeking Bids for McConaughy Terrace the project without conference not20, in 2016. the best interest of the Offeror. Additional quesAA/EEO EMPLOYER Street Seymour, CT atattending 10:00 am, on Wednesday,isJuly Sanitary and Storm Sewer Improvements. A complete copy of tions should be emailed only to bids@parkcitycommunities.org no later than January 30, 2020 @ the requirement may be obtained from Elm City’s Vendor Col3:00 p.m.documents Answersare to all the questions will be posted PCC’sOfWebsite: www.parkcitycommunities.

Bidding available from the Seymour Housingon Authority laboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems. org. shall Seymour, be mailed, hand delivered fice,Proposals 28 Smith Street, CT or 06483 (203) 888-4579.by February 6, 2020 @ 3:00 PM, to Ms. Caroline com/gateway beginning on Sanchez, Director of Procurement, 150 Highland Ave, Bridgeport, CT 06604. Late proposals will

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY

ELM CITY COMMUNITIES

Monday, January 6, 2020 at 3:00PM.

ThebeHousing Authority reserves the right to accept or reject any or all bids, to not accepted.

reduce the scope of the project to reflect available funding, and to waive any informalities in the bidding, if such actions are in the best interest of the Housing Authority.

21

THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

INNER-CITY NEWS July 27, 2016 - August 02, 2016

NOTICE VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE HOME INC, on behalf of Columbus House and the New Haven Housing Authority, is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this development located at 108 Frank Street, New Haven. Maximum income limitations apply. Pre-applications will be available from 9AM TO 5PM beginning Monday Ju;y 25, 2016 and ending when sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) have been received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be mailied upon request by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours. Completed preapplications must be returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange Street, Third Floor, New Haven, CT 06510.

NOTICIA VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 julio, 2016 hasta cuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) en las oficinas de HOME INC. Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas por correo a petición llamando a HOME INC al 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirse a las oficinas de HOME INC en 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, New Haven , CT 06510 .

HELP WANTED: Large CT guardrail company

looking for Laborer/Driver with valid CT CDL Class A license and able to get a medical card. Must be able to pass a drug test and physical. Compensation based on experience. Email resume to dmastracchio@atlasoutdoor.com AA/EOE M-F

Equipment Operator Help Wanted: Immediate opening for Equipment Operator for Heavy and Highway Construction.

10 hour OSHA certificate required. CDL license a plus but not required.

Please call PJF Construction Corp.@ 860-888-9998. We are an equal opportunity employer M/F.

Laborer Help Wanted: Immediate opening for Construction Laborer for Heavy and Highway Construction.

10 hour OSHA certificate required.

Please call PJF Construction Corp. @ 860-888-9998. We are an equal opportunity employer M/F.

CDL Driver Help Wanted: Immediate opening for CDL Driver for Heavy and Highway Construction.

10 hour OSHA certificate and clean CDL license required.

NEW HAVEN

Please call PJF Construction Corp. @ 860-888-9998. We are an equal opportunity employer M/F.

242-258 Fairmont Ave 2BR Townhouse, 1.5 BA, 3BR, 1 level , 1BA

Project Manager/Project Supervisor

All new apartments, new appliances, new carpet, close to I-91 & I-95 highways, near bus stop & shopping center

HELP WANTED

Pet under 40lb allowed. Interested parties contact Maria @ 860-985-8258

City of Bridgeport / Various Departments CT. Unified Deacon’s Association is pleased to offer a Deacon’s

Certificate Program.

ThisSpecialist is a 10 month program to assist in the intellectual formation of Candidates Airport Certifi cation (starting atdesigned $42,913.00): Public Facilities; Airport Division. in response to the Church’s Ministry needs. The cost is $125. Classes start Saturday, August 20, 2016 1:30-

3:30 Contact: Chairman, Deacon Joe J. Davis,Labor M.S., B.S. Benefi ts Manager (starting at $90,549.00): Relations; Benefits Administration Division.

(203) 996-4517 Host, General Bishop Elijah Davis, D.D. Pastor of Pitts Chapel U.F.W.B. Church 64 Brewster

St. NewPolicy Haven,Analyst: CT Budget Office of Policy and Management.

Civil Engineer I (starting at $75,021.00): Public Facilities; Engineering Division.

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY

Director of Public Facilities (starting at $131,706)

Information Services Technology Staff: Various positions will be posted.

Sealed bids are invited by the Housing Authority of the Town of Seymour until 3:00 pm on Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at its office at 28 Smith Street, Public LibraryCT Staff: Library & Librarian(s), positions to be posted.

Seymour, 06483 forAssistant(s) Concrete Sidewalkvarious Repairs and Replacement at the Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour.

School Crossing Guard ($11.00 - $12.64 per hour): Police Department.

OPM Policy Analyst: Office of Policy and Management.

Tax Assessor (starting at $116,680.00): Finance Department, provisional position, available for A pre-bid conference will be held at the Housing Authority Office 28 Smith applicants immediately.

Street Seymour, CT at 10:00 am, on Wednesday, July 20, 2016.

For more information, visit our website at: https://www.bridgeportct.gov/citycareers

Bidding documents are available from the Seymour Housing Authority Of-

The City Bridgeport providesSeymour, equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for emfice, 28of Smith Street, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579. ployment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type specific to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any

other protected by federal, state the or local laws.

Thecharacteristic Housing Authority reserves right to accept or reject any or all bids, to

reduce the scope of the project to reflect available funding, and to waive any informalities in the bidding, if such actions are in the best interest of the Housing Authority.

Invitation to Bid: 2nd Notice

SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE

Help Wanted: Immediate opening for a Project Manager/ProjOld Saybrook, CT ect Supervisor for Heavy and Highway Construction. Previous (4 Buildings, 17 Units) experience on CTDOT projects required.

Civil Engineer

Diversified Technology Consultants (DTC) is a multi-disciple engineering and environmental consulting firm. DTC is a leader in servicing governmental clients for four decades. DTC prides itself as having worked on a wide variety of project types. From schools and senior centers to town halls and universities, our diverse portfolio provides extensive experience to our communities.

As DTC enters its forth decade, we are seeking an energetic, organized and proactive professional in our Civil Engineering Department. The successful candidate(s) will work closely with our technical staff in support of DTC’s strategic goals and objectives.

This is an entry level position located in our Hamden, Connecticut office.

Responsibilities:

• Assist in the preparation of plans, specifications, supporting documents, and permit applications for private and municipal projects.

• Assist in preparation of calculations such as storm drainage, water supply & wastewater collection, cost estimates, and earthwork quantities.

• Perform design and drafting using AutoCAD Civil 3D. MicroStation experience is beneficial but not required.

Qualifications:

• Graduate from an accredited college or university with a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering.

• Engineer in training certificate preferred.

For Further information or to apply send resumes to ellen. nelson@teamdtc.com DTC is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

DTC is a Drug Free Work Place.

Individuals with Disabilities, Minorities and Protected Veterans are encouraged to apply.

Town of Bloomfield Vehicle Mechanic Technician

FT-$30.49 hourly CDL License required Tax Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage Rate Project For details and how to apply Please call PJF Construction Corp. @ 860-888-9998.

We are an equal opportunity employer M/F Go to www.bloomfieldct.org New Construction, Wood Framed, Housing, Selective Demolition, Site-work, Castin-place Concrete, Asphalt Shingles, Vinyl Siding, Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Casework, Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection.

This contract is subject to state set-aside and contract compliance requirements.

The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport Request for Qualifications (RFQ) HUD ChoiceDue Neighborhood (CNI) Planning Coordinator Bid Extended, Date: August 5, Initiative 2016 Solicitation Number: 135-PD-20-S Anticipated Start: August 15, 2016

Project documents available via ftp link below: The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport d/b/a Park City Communities (PCC) is seeking proposals http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage from qualified Planning Coordinator for HUD Choice Neighborhood Initiative (CNI). Solicitation package will Fax be oravailable on &January 13,Lang 2020 to obtaindawnlang@haynesconstruction.com a copy of the solicitation you must send your request to bids@ Email Questions Bids to: Dawn @ 203-881-8372 HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran, S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified Businesses parkcitycommunities.org, please reference solicitation number and title on the subject line. A pre-bid conferHaynes Company, Ave, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour,CT CT 06483 ence will be held atConstruction 150 Highland Bridgeport, 06604 on January 22, 2020, @ 11:00 a.m. Although AA/EEO EMPLOYER attendance is not mandatory, submitting a bid for the project without attending conference is not in the best interest of the Offeror. Additional questions should be emailed only to bids@parkcitycommunities.org no later than January 30, 2020 @ 3:00 p.m. Answers to all the questions will be posted on PCC’s Website: www. parkcitycommunities.org. Proposals shall be mailed, or hand delivered by February 6, 2020 @ 3:00 PM, to Ms. Caroline Sanchez, Director of Procurement, 150 Highland Ave, Bridgeport, CT 06604. Late proposals will not be accepted.

22

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020 Con’t from page 10

Mayor Gets

The report also recommends that the city host regular challenge competitions for students, urban planners, and other interested locals to come up with ideas on how to resolve the city’s most vexing structural financial issues. “Questions that would be appropriate for a challenge competition are how to lower utility costs and how to rationalize the City’s fleet.”

4. Work towards achieving a comprehensive multimodal transportation network.

Spanning the “First 100 Days,” “Two Years,” and “Longer Term” sections of “Economic Development, Workforce, and Transportation,” the report calls on the city to rethink and reconfigure its public transit system.

That includes making all city streets “Complete Streets” that are safe for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists; encouraging transit-oriented development; pursuing coordination between all bus and private shuttle transit systems in the region “to create an efficient and attractive transportation alternative to driving,” and facilitating “safe, convenient access to and from Union Station and Long Wharf via multiple transportation modes.”

Some of the slightly more specific transportation recommendations include installing more traffic-calming devices like curb extensions, intersection bump-outs, and neckdowns with paint, delineator tubes, and planters; promote Yale University’s free shuttle service to non-Yale affiliates; explore creating a “Tweed Airport Impact Zone to make investments in Complete Street, housing soundproofing, noise barriers, and other community benefits.”

5. Hire locally for city jobs. In the “Two Year” section of “Economic Development, Workforce, and Transportation,” the report calls on the city to “reestablish municipal government as a leader in exemplifying and promoting local hiring and living wages.”

The city should be “an anchor employer committed to New Haven hiring,” the report reads. The mayoral administration should “embrace the principle that ‘One Job Should Be Enough,’ and expect all employers to provide living wages, benefits, and a fair process for workers who want to unionize.”

6. Reorganize LCI to focus on code enforcement. In the “Longer Term” section of “Health and Housing,” the report calls on the city to shift the focus of the Livable City Initiative almost entirely onto its antiblight, property owner support, and code enforcement work and away from housing development.

“Support a housing code enforcement unit that is staffed and resourced to support property owners and to inspect housing units and enforce codes in the City,” that section of the report continues. “Improve the coordination of inspections across departments and consider consolidation of code enforcement. Develop clarity in addressing complaints about housing conditions.”

NEW HAVEN’S GRASSROOTS COMMUNITY RADIO STATION! www.newhavenindependent.org

JOE UGLY IN THE MORNING Weekdays 6-9 a.m.

THE TOM FICKLIN SHOW Mondays 10 a.m.

MAYOR MONDAY!

MERCY QUAYE

Mondays 11 a.m.

Mondays 1 p.m.

“THE SHOW”

MICHELLE TURNER Tuesdays 9 a.m.

“WERK IT OUT”

“DJ REL”

ELVERT EDEN Tuesdays at 2 p.m.

MORNINGS WITH MUBARAKAH

“JAZZ HAVEN”

Wednesdays 9 a.m.

Wednesdays 2 p.m.

STANLEY WELCH

“TALK-SIP”

LOVEBABZ LOVETALK

Thursdays 1 p.m.

Mondays-Fridays 9 a.m.

ALISA BOWENSMERCADO

FRIDAY PUNDITS Fridays 11 a.m.

23

THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

Stress Can Kill: Hypertension In Black Americans

Chronically high levels of stress may increase Black Americans’ risk of high blood pressure, a new study suggests.

“Given the disproportionately high burden of hypertension in AfricanAmericans, determining if chronic stress increases the risk of hypertension in this population is an important question that could guide prevention strategies,” said lead study author Tanya Spruill, an associate professor at NYU School of Medicine.

For the study, researchers analyzed data from more than 1,800 black participants in the Jackson Heart Study. They found that over seven years, those who reported long-term high stress levels were 22% more likely to develop high blood pressure than those with low stress levels.

High blood pressure can contribute to stroke, a leading cause of death and disability.

The link between stress and blood pressure was independent of sociodemographic factors, traditional high blood pressure risk factors, and health behaviors.

The results were published on October 16, 2019, in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

“Over the study follow-up period, almost half of the participants developed hypertension,” Spruill said in a journal news release. “This highlights the need for new hypertension prevention strategies for African-Americans. Lifestyle change is effective, however, it can be challenging to achieve.”

Spruill said that culturally sensitive

stress management interventions may help prevent high blood pressure and reduce subsequent heart risk among Black Americans. But more research is needed first.

“Because this is an observational study, we interpret the findings cautiously.

However, our results suggest that evaluating chronic stress over time rather than at a single occasion can help identify those at greatest risk,” she said.

Blacks report higher overall stress levels than whites, the authors noted.

For more information on Black Americans and high blood pressure, visit The American Heart Association.

SOURCE: Journal of the American Heart Association, news release, Oct. 16, 2019

Shannon Sharpe, 50+ and in the Best Shape of His Life!

by Derrick Lane, BlackDoctor.org

As a personality on Fox Sports’s Skip and Shannon: Undisputed, Shannon Sharpe had to stay in shape when he was on the field. But what about now? The Pro Football Hall of Famer and threetime Super Bowl champion is over 50 and literally doesn’t have to do anything, but he’s in better shape–and some may even say–the best shape of his life now.

“I tell people, when I train I don’t do a Hansel and Gretel workout,” he told Mens Health. “I don’t drop breadcrumbs.

I saved nothing for the trip home.”

Turning 50 in the best shape possible means following a strict fitness/lifestyle routine — something that Sharpe excels

Shannon Sharpe

at with stringent discipline.

“They say that insanity is doing something over and over again, but [expecting] different results,” Sharpe continues.

“I do the same thing over and over for the same result — to be healthy and happy at the end of the day.”

Sharpe shared his weekly workout regimen, diet and nutrition plan, and gave us a little more insight about why he goes so hard in the gym, even though his playing days are long over.

Sharpe is up each weekday at 3:15 a.m. to shower and make the 4 a.m. call time in preparation for Undisuputed’s 6:30 a.m. PST start. Before he goes on the air, Sharpe has the same breakfast inside the show’s dressing room every day. “It’s

always egg whites, oatmeal, water, and whatever fruit they have, normally pineapple, orange or grapefruits,” he says.

In addition to paying attention to his diet, Sharpe says Tru Niagen gives him an edge in maintaining his condition.

The clinically studied supplement boosts levels of a molecule called NAD, which is a lot easier to remember than its formal scientific name of Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide.

During his playing days, he returned to his Atlanta home in the offseason and trained under… … NPC official Ty “Ropeman” Felder and NPC competitor Darrell Monson.

“In college, I started lifting weights and changing my body, and I was hooked. I

was like an addict. When my teammates were going to parties at 10 o’clock at night, I’d be in the weight room. Eventually, football was like a byproduct, because I would’ve rather lifted than play football. Football allowed me to do what I really, really loved to do: lift weights.

For me, benching was the thing. In college, you benched three days a week – Monday, Wednesday and Friday; Tuesday and Thursday were for legs. I’m tall with long arms, so you wouldn’t think I’d be a good bencher, but I taught myself how to be good, and I was just naturally strong.”

Looking “Sharpe” Shannon (see what we did there). Keep up the great work!

One 6-Piece From Sanity: How Weight Is Weaponized Against Black Women Joi’ C. Weathers is a contributing writer for BlackDoctor.org

My entire life I have battled my impulse of whether or not to eat a 6-piece fried hard or kale. It has been a long, drawn-out, depressing, aggressive, evil battle. Worse still, the war I’ve waged in my mind has only been amplified by those closest to me.

Phrases like, “Oh, you’ve put on a few pounds”, or “Be careful now, you know your mama’s side of the family all get big” have chased me in the endless loop of insecurity and low self-esteem. So much so that every health journey I’ve embarked on was plagued with binging and guilt. I never gave myself the opportunity to “trust the process”. How could I? I didn’t trust that my progress would ever be enough for those around me, so why even fight the inevitable?

Sadly, I sang the song of so many Black women who, for all their attempts to better their health and their appearance, were thrown off course by words spoken against them.

What is this obsession we have to use weight as a topic for casual conversation, as if determining the current size of a person someway will drive the conversation in one direction or another? Do you really think telling someone, “Girl, you filled out there, haven’t you?” is NOT going to be something that is internalized?

In a society that wants credit for its “first plus-size” campaign in 2020, it is clear we have a long way to go where the varied shapes of women aren’t viral fodder. Don’t get me wrong I love seeing our thick sisters slaying and being comfortable in their own skin, but the truth is this STILL is not the typical

thought process for what is considered normal, and we all know it.

Even with this knowledge, we use weight like it’s a prop from Law and Order. We are so conditioned that even when I expressed to a loved one how this type of interaction made me feel, I was made to seem overly sensitive. However, the words lingered and instead of appreciating the covenant relationship that Black people share with chicken, I drowned my emotions and lack of selfworth in an order from Harold’s that I didn’t necessarily need at the time. So much for speaking life into others.

We can Google the statistics on obesity with our eyes closed. We know the ailments it triggers, we know the cost of an unhealthy lifestyle, and we have seen the examples in our own families. Therefore, it’s on us to make the conscious choice to either build up or tear down

24

those who are bravely taking a step in the direction to better themselves.

In life, everything we do has a ripple effect, so the next time we feel our tongue’s tingling to make a snarky

comment about someone’s appearance, please remember to season your words with the flavorful salt that is also used to batter-fry things to perfection- and treat your loved one the same way you’d want to be treated… with love.

Joi’ C. Weathers is a contributing writer for BlackDoctor.org and the host of Joi’ Has Questions- one of the top podcasts in Chicago, Illinois. A graduate of Roosevelt University- where she majored in IMC and minored in Common Sense, she has worked on global creative campaigns for some of the world’s largest brands. A champion for the marginalized and a self-proclaimed mild sauce connoisseur, you can find her in her spare time eating kale, and minding her business with family and friends. Connect with Joi’ on Instagram, @Joihasquestions and subscribe to her show here.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

H O N O R I N G AC TO R & AC T I V I ST

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

Learn how having healthy credit can help you access new opportunities, plus some tips on how to manage it.

The benefits of having strong credit

Your credit score is one of the most important measures of financial responsibility. It’s a big part of what lenders and vendors look at when considering you for a loan or line of credit. It also can impact your ability to rent an apartment, sign a phone contract, or even get a job. Once you have established good credit, work to keep it that way so you can continue to enjoy the opportunities that come with good credit.

The financial benefits of good credit Strong credit can help you get: • Easier approvals: Mortgage lenders, landlords, and auto finance companies will check your credit to see how reliable you are when it comes to paying bills on time and managing debt. Some employers will run a credit check if the job requires you to access money or sensitive data.

• Lower interest rates: A high credit score not only makes it easier to be approved for services but it may also mean you may qualify for a lower interest rate on future credit accounts. You also likely won’t need a co-signer to get approved.

• Savings on insurance: According to Certified Credit Counselor Netiva Heard, founder of MNH Financial Services, LLC, having a good credit score can help you save money on insurance rates, though the impact of your credit on this may depend on the state you live in.

“Insurance companies have found that those with higher credit scores file fewer claims,” says Heard. As a result, some adjust their rates so people with good credit tend to pay lower premiums.

• Additional savings: Having good credit may even give you the ability to purchase a service without putting down a costly deposit beforehand. To learn more about the perks of having good credit, visit the Hands on Banking® website.

How to manage your credit You can manage your credit to help you with future purchases — such as a home or vehicle — in a number of ways: • Use credit cards smartly: Sometimes simply having a credit card can lead to spending more than you intended, leaving you unable to afford the balance.

Failing to pay your credit card balance

on time every month can rack up interest and hurt your credit score, so don’t spend more than you’ll be able to pay back. If you’re considering using a credit card to build your credit, take a look at the Hands on Banking website for tips on using one responsibly.

• Pay down other debt: Your credit card balance is not the only thing that can affect your credit score. Student loans and other forms of debt can lower your credit score if not managed correctly. Keep track of payments, and try to pay a little more than the minimum balance each month. Keeping your debt low can help you maintain and even improve your credit over time.

• Ask for help when you need it: If making payments on time for your credit card or a loan payment becomes too difficult, don’t be afraid to speak with the lender to negotiate a payment plan that works for you. It’s better to get ahead of any potential problems before you fall behind on payments.

Regularly review your credit Beyond credit growth, review your credit reports annually to make sure nothing fraudulent or negative has been reported.

Every 12 months, you can access your report for free from each of the three largest credit bureaus in the United States at annualcreditreport.com. “Be sure to check the inquiry and personal data sections where signs of identity theft can be spotted right away,” says Heard.

Ultimately, strong credit can help you

reach your goals by qualifying you for loans, contracts, discounts, and access to even more credit options. Discipline and the ability to pay your credit-related debts off every month comes first, however. © 2019 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A All rights reserved.

FREE PHONES

When you switch 2 lines. Plus sales tax and activation fee. ID validation required.

Switcher Instant Rebate: For a limited time at participating Metro® by T-Mobile stores, purchase a Samsung Galaxy A20 or LG Stylo 5 phone and port-in an existing eligible wireless number to that phone and receive an instant $239.99 rebate off full retail price with validation of name, address, and date of birth provided through independent database and presentation of matching identification. Limit four (4) Switcher Plus Instant rebates and four (4) total combined Switcher Plus, Switcher, New Line, and Upgrade Instant Rebates per account/household.

Excludes phone numbers currently on T-Mobile or active on Metro in past 90 days. Provided in form of credit against regular purchase price at time of sale and has no cash value. See store associate for complete details. Sales tax not included and is collected in accordance with state and local laws. Certain restrictions apply. Offer available while supplies last. No rain checks. General: $15 activation fee per line. Not all phones or features available on all service plans. Coverage and services not available everywhere. Rates, services, coverage, and features subject to change. Phone selection and availability may vary. Screen images simulated and subject to change. Metro features and services for personal use only. See store or metrobyt-mobile.com for details, coverage map, restrictions and Terms and Conditions of Service (including arbitration provision). Metro and other words, slogans, designs and devices are registered or unregistered trademarks of T-Mobile USA, Inc. All other brands, product names, company names, trademarks, service marks, and other intellectual property are the properties of their respective owners.

Copyright ©2019 T-Mobile USA, Inc.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

2020 UConn Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Living Legacy Convocation

Saturday, February 15th

@JorgensenUConn

WE SHALL OVERCOME

Tickets on sale Friday at 10:00am only at

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860.486.4226 | @JorgensenUConn 27

THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

January 15, 2020 - January 21, 2020

JANUARY R A E Y NEW IG G W E N SA L E

Feb. 2

– Jan. 13

Start your year fast. Gig speed fast.

Whether it’s getting in shape, learning to speak French or picking up the guitar, New Year’s resolutions can be tough. But for a limited time, you can easily check one resolution off your list—during the Xfinity New Year, New Gig Sale. With an upgrade to Gig-speed Internet free for a year, Xfinity makes it easy for everyone to stream more on all their devices. Plus, ask about Xfinity X1—the easiest all-in-one entertainment experience—so you can get the Emmy Award–winning X1 Voice Remote to use your voice to find all your favorite movies and shows.

Now that’s a resolution that’s simple, easy, awesome.

Internet | TV | Voice

$

79

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Save $350 on this great offer

With a FREE upgrade to up to

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for 2 years with 2-year agreement Equipment, taxes and other charges extra and subj. to change. See details below.

The Xfinity New Year, New Gig Sale ends February 2.

Go to xfinity.com, call 1-800-xfinity, or visit an Xfinity Store today.

Restrictions apply. Not available in all areas. New residential customers only. Limited to Standard Triple Play with Performance Pro 200 Mbps Internet and Voice Unlimited. Early termination fee applies if all Xfinity services are cancelled during the agreement term. Equipment, installation, taxes and fees, including Broadcast TV Fee (up to $14.95/mo.) and Regional Sports Fee (up to $8.75/mo.), and other applicable charges extra, and subject to change during and after agreement term or promo. After 12 months, speed will be reduced to Performance Pro 200 Mbps Internet unless customer calls to add 1 Gig service. May not be combined with other offers. TV: Limited Basic TV service to receive other levels of service. Netflix and Amazon Prime Video streaming membership required. Netflix and Amazon Prime Video use your Internet service and will count against any Xfinity data plan. Internet: Maximum download speed 940 Mbps when hardwired via Ethernet. Actual speeds vary and are not guaranteed.

For factors affecting speed visit www.xfinity.com/networkmanagement. Voice: If there is a power outage or network issue, calling, including calls to 911 may be unavailable. All devices must be returned when service ends. Call for restrictions and complete details. © 2020 Comcast. All rights reserved. NPA229597-0002 NED AA Q1 JS V12

135994_NPA229597-0002 N New Gig Sale ad 9.25x10.5 NewHaven V12.indd 1

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12/20/19 4:48 PM