INNER-CITY NEWS by INNER-CITY NEWS

THE

New Haven, Bridgeport

Volume 21 No. 2170

NEWS

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

Gun control alone canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t curb violence

Church St. South

Tenants Get A Choice

Sanders PlansStop-Smoking Aggressive Outreach 1

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016 2

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

Brass Preps For School Choice Rush percentages.

by ALIYYA SWABY

Davis-Googe said parents don’t get to choose, but they do get to select from a range of schools. “Everyone can’t go to school A,” she said. But parents should “do the work” of exploring more school options.

New Haven Independent

Almost a month after promising to improve, district leaders are rolling out new plans for making the “school choice” process easier for families. Sherri Davis-Googe (at right in photo), director of choice and enrollment, previewed the plans at the first Board of Education meeting of 2016 Monday night at L.W. Beecher School, updating board and community members present on how the system for matching kids to schools will change. In 2015, 7,773 students applied for spots in schools; 5,203 were placed. Those not placed remained in their original schools, and some were taken off waitlists for schools of choice if spots became available, she said. Davis-Googe said she focused on kindergartners last year, merging kindergarten registration with the overall process, hosting kickoff sessions to inform parents and moving the kindergarten waitlist. Click chance/”here to read more about last year’s choice process. This year, the choice office will

She said a “choice and enrollment advisory committee” would work on finding other measures of progress.

place students from the waitlist more quickly and be more responsive to families’ questions, Davis-Googe said. Rising ninth graders applying this February will have five options, not four, including their neighborhood schools. And families will have more access to useful data surrounding the process, so they can make informed decisions. In 2014-15, 72 percent of kindergartners placed got their first choice; 78 percent of ninthgraders placed got their first choice.

Davis-Googe said she was using the percentage of students who got their first choice as one measure of parent satisfaction. “Our goal would be to have this number increase,” she said. Newly elected board member Darnell Goldson, a former alder, contested the change in titling the process from “school lottery” to “school choice” last year. “Why not call it a lottery, make it clear it’s a crapshoot?” he suggested. He asked Davis-Googe for more precise measures of parent satisfaction than first-choice

The committee will also be responsible for increasing family engagement, improving the placement system, setting enrollment goals and reviewing a 2012 redistricting report proposing new boundaries for school zoning. Student board member Coral Ortiz asked how the office was reaching out students with questions about school choice. Davis-Googe said the guidance office hosts a fair for rising eighth graders, to engage them one-onone. School choice begins with a fair Feb. 3 at Floyd Athletic Center, and another Feb. 6 at East Rock and Wilbur Cross High Schools.

DMV Commissioner Apologizes To Motorists INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

by Christine Stuart

That meant that drivers who had valid insurance were having their registration suspended, which meant they would be ticketed and possibly towed, if they were stopped by law enforcement.

The Department of Motor Vehicles won’t be sharing its insurance suspension information with law enforcement until it can clean up its backlog.

Ayala said if those drivers can prove they had continuous insurance then they will be reimbursed by the DMV for any fees or fines they received as a result of the problems.

“We don’t want people ticketed or towed for this matter until it is cleared up,” Department of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Andres Ayala Jr. said Thursday at a press conference at its headquarters in Wethersfield. Ayala apologized to drivers who were inconvenienced by having their registration suspended even though they were continuously insured. However, Ayala was unwilling to say how many people were impacted by the problem. This week the DMV admitted

DMV Commissioner Andres Ayalas that it had fallen behind on processing insurance suspension notices. In Connecticut, in order to maintain registration on a vehicle, that vehicle must be insured.

“Anything that was our fault, we will make the customer whole,” Ayala said referring to any fees that were levied as a result of the registration suspension. He directed the public to www.ct.gov/dmv/refund for more information about how to get reimbursed. Ayala said the DMV also will

provide documentation to drivers to show in court that the registration suspension was an error. The problem, which has an unknown number of motorists concerned, started when the agency closed in August for a week to upgrade its computer system. During that week none of the insurance suspension notices were sent to motorists and a backlog of notices started piling up. The DMV said Wednesday that a dozen employees will be working this weekend to clean up the backlog. Anyone with questions about whether their insurance is in compliance can visit the DMV’s website and check by clicking on the relevant links.

John P. Thomas Jr. Publisher / CEO Babz Rawls Ivy Managing Editor Liaison, Corporate Affairs Doreen Strong Advertising Director Sales Team Trenda Lucky Delores Alleyne John Thomas III Hilda Calvachi

Editorial Team Staff Writers Ratasha Smith / Current Affairs Anthony Scott / Sports Arlene Davis-Rudd / Politics Contributing Writers David Asbery Tanisha Asbery Jessica Carl Jerry Craft/Cartoons Barbara Fair Mubarakah Ibrahim Dr. Tamiko Jackson-McArthur Michelle Turner Smita Shrestha Kam Williams Content Contributors At-Large Christine Stuart www.CTNewsJunkie.com Paul Bass New Haven Independent www.newhavenindependent.org Dr. Fred McKinney Greater New England Minority Supplier Development Council www.cmsdc.org Memberships National Association of Black Journalist National Newspapers Publishers Association Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce Greater New Haven Business & Professional Association Greater New England Minority Supplier Development Council, Inc. The Inner-City Newspaper is published weekly by Penfield Communications, Inc. from offices located at 50 Fitch Street, 2nd Floor, New Haven, CT 06515. 203-387-0354 phone; 203-387-2684 fax. Subscriptions:$260 per year (does not include sales tax for the in State subscriptions). Send name, address, zip code with payment. Postmaster, send address changes to 50 Fitch Street, New Haven, CT 06515. Display ad deadline Friday prior to insertion date at 5:00pm Advertisers are responsible for checking ads for error in publication. Penfield Communications, Inc d.b.a., “The Inner-City Newspaper” , shall not be liable for failure to publish an ad or for typographical errors or errors in publication, except to the extent of the cost of the space in which actual error appeared in the first insertion. The Publisher reserves the right to refuse advertising for any reason and to alter advertising copy or graphics deemed unacceptable for publication. The entire contents of The Inner-City Newspaper are copyright 2012, Penfield Communications, Inc. and no portion may be reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

Livable City Initiative to fight fires because of his dream of being a firefighter. His former boss, LCI Deputy Director of Housing Code Enforcement Rafael Ramos, was on hand Tuesday night to shake his hand.

by MARKESHIA RICKS New Haven Independent

enduring more than two years of testing and seven long months of learning life-saving and blazebattling skills, 14 men woke up today wearing a new title: firefighter.

Reyes, who has been assigned to Engine 10 on Lombard Street, told the audience Tuesday night that Class 59 started out as a group of strangers. Their hard work at the fire academy turned them into teammates and friends, he said.

With their friends and family watching, the men took their oath of office at Hill Career Regional High School Tuesday night and got to shake hands with their new leader, interim Chief Ralph Black. Black, on day two of the job, gave the recruits a private pep talk before the ceremony. He said during the ceremony that their hard work and dedication had helped them make it through the training academy. And he said that same hard work and dedication will help them have good careers in the fire service. “Your dedication and hard work are what have gotten you to this

MARKESHIA RICKS PHOTO Chief Black in the pre-game huddle.

point,” he said. “It will bring you further in this job. There will be plenty of opportunities. I will be there, the city will be there, and there will be a lot of people there to support you. Just put in that hard work and dedication and things will fall into place.”

them on than Class 59 President Tomas B. Reyes. Reyes (at center of photo) is the son of Mayor Toni Harp’s chief of staff, Tomas Reyes Jr. (pictured to his immediate right) and La Voz Hispana publisher Norma Rodriguez (to his left).

accomplishment, but also his boss’s accomplishment. “This is fantastic,” he said. “It means that all of the great work the mayor is doing is paying off.” The class is the latest to graduate as the city has been filling ranks to cut down on overtime costs.

Not many people had more people in the audience cheering

The elder Reyes beamed with pride for not only his son’s

The younger Reyes traded fighting blight with the city’s

He said this next phase of their careers will only solidify these early bonds and make them family.

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

Class 59 Ready For The Bell

“We will be brothers and sisters, unified and striving for that supreme purpose for this department,” he said. Capt. Frank Ricci, Local 825 union president and academy drillmaster, called the firefighter oath one of the “greatest act[s] of bravery that they will ever” make. con’t on page 6

A DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. REMEMBRANCE When we begin a new year, it is always followed by the federal holiday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Yes, we all have read about him, we quote from his many speeches and writings, we remember him with pride throughout the entire year. Here are excerpts in remembrance of our gentle giant and warrior, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Dr. King was a Baptist minister and social activist who played a key role in the American Civil Rights Movement, from the mid 1950’s until his assassination in 1968. Inspired by advocates of nonviolence, such as Mahatma Ghandi, Dr. King sought equality for African Americans, the economically disadvantaged and victims of injustice through peaceful protest. He was the driving force behind the water shed events

Arlene Davis-Rudd, such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the March on Washington, which helped bring about such landmark legislation as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.”

Dr. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and is remembered each year on Dr. Martin Luther King Day, a U.S. federal holiday since 1986. Early in his career, Dr. King, born in 1929, became a

civil rights activist. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)in 1957, serving as its first president. With the SCLC, Dr. King led an unsuccessful 1962 struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia (The Albany Movement) and helped organize the 1963 non-violent protests in Birmingham, Alabama. Dr. King, also, helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous “I Have A Dream” speech. There he established his reputation as one of the great orators in American history.” Our beloved Prince of Peace, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., remembered on his special Day, January 15th, 2016.

Con’t from page 5 It is an act that he Ricci said comes with a lot of personal sacrifice for the individual firefighter as well as their families. He outlined what the sacrifice will look like going forward. “Their career is beginning today, and your sacrifice is beginning today,” he said. “It is extremely difficult to be the support system for a firefighter. Chief Black gave me all of your work schedules, and I’m going to share them with you. Christmas: they’re working. New Year’s Eve: they’re working. Your anniversary: they’re working. Your kid’s first day of school well they work nights that night. But they’re going to get stuck on alarm and they’re working.” Class 59 graduates are: Jeff O’Neil; Rob Walker; Mike Salzillo; Justin Kubek; Tomas B. Reyes; Matthew Muolo; Robert Glynn; Tyler Punzo; Dan Kisluk: Brandon Sulivan; Dan Scotto; Brett McCarthy; Johnathan Kendall; and Mike Bianchi. EMS Supervisor Kenneth Oliver pins a member of Class 59.

City Halfway To Stop-Smoking Outreach Target by ALIYYA SWABY

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

New Haven Independent

The city is getting better at helping people quit smoking and preventing others from starting the habit. So reported Harp administration officials Thursday. They updated the public at City Hall on their effort to make the city tobacco free, six months after passing an ordinance prohibiting the use of tobacco in public spaces. In mid-May the Board of Alders unanimously passed an ordinance outlawing tobacco products from government buildings, playgrounds, sports fields, school grounds and Lighthouse Park. The city can create and restrict smokers to specific spaces within the public areas.

ALIYYA SWABY PHOTO Okafor updates public at THursday press conference.

Better public health means “abstinence” from all tobacco products, Mayor Toni Harp said Thursday. “There is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke.”

Over the last year, since convening a taskforce to address the problem, the city has reached more than half its target number of 2,500 adult tobacco users, engaging them in

interventions to help them quit smoking. Officials have also ensured 13,615 students 91 percent of a target 15,000 are getting tobacco prevention education, so they don’t get addicted,

said Martha Okafor, social services director. Local universities have either made their campuses completely tobacco free or started to ban the substance from certain parts. The Housing Authority of New Haven made Monterey Place tobacco free this past September. Okafor said the city does not currently have specific plans to extend that ban to all public housing in the city. But a proposed federal law is pending that could require New Haven to implement and enforce a citywide ban in public housing. “We will take it one step at a time,” Okafor said.

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

4 + 4 = Stalemate by ALIYYA SWABY

Caraballo was a school social worker and then principal of Hill Central, which she said makes her a good candidate for board president or vice-president. “I’ve worked in this district. I have experience,” she said after the meeting.

New Haven Independent

The new Board of Education took no time before demonstrating that internal divisions and a controversial even-numbered count can stymie action. Edward Joyner and Darnell Goldson, the first-ever elected members, joined the board for its first meeting of 2016 Monday night at L.W. Beecher School’s cafeteria. They immediately dove into the proceedings moving two new motions and contributing to a vote hold-up illuminating the growing divisions among a onceunanimous board.

Goldson said he voted for Harp to give her the “opportunity to finish up a full term,” because she “hasn’t had enough time to prove that she’s the best person for the position. 4-4 ALIYYA SWABY PHOTO

Goldson, at left, voted in Harp for president; Joyner did not.

Joyner immediately nominated Caraballo the sole vote against Harp’s taking the presidency in September econded by Carlos Torre.

The new year saw Mayor Toni Harp retain her board presidency in a 5-3 vote, against challenger Alicia Caraballo, revealing a level of opposition on the board that didn’t exist until recently.

Board member Che Dawson nominated incumbent Mayor Harp, seconded by Gonzalez. In the 5-3 vote in favor of the mayor retaining the presidency, Joyner, Torre and Caraballo voted for Caraballo.

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

Then attempts to vote in a vice president and secretary flopped and were postponed to the next meeting. The new year also brought back board member Daisy Gonzalez. The Board of Alders sought to rectify a glitch in the city charter by voting last month to un-appoint her to the Board of Ed, but the Harp administration and Board of Ed argued that that vote was not legally binding, so they could ignore it. The result: The board this year has eight members, not seven. Which means it will be harder to pass measures, with five, not four, members yes votes needed. Especially given already existing divisions. And in fact one of its first votes for vice-president saw the vote split 4-4. Gonzalez Seated The language in the 2013 charter revision switching to a hybrid board of elected and appointed members did not account for how to drop from eight to seven members, as required under the char-

Goldson, Gonzalez, Dawson, Michael Nast and Harp voted for Harp.

ter. The Board of Ed passed a resolution in mid-December proposing a gradual shift to seven members by January 2017. A week later, the Board of Alders voted to dump the most recently appointed ed board member, Gonzalez, to preserve the seven-member board. The Board of Ed is preparing to legally fight to keep Gonzalez if necessary, and voted for just one year to have an eight-member board until another board member’s term expires. Parents addressed board members Monday to back Gonzalez

and weigh in on how the ed board should handle the disagreement. “I’m asking the public to bear with us as we transition into what the charter revision committee and ordinance meant ...This is our transition here,” Mayor Harp told the dozens of people who filled the cafeteria. Harp Challenged One-routine votes for officer roles of president, vice president and secretary for the year got jammed up in the transition.

Joyner handed out a typed press statement at the end of the meeting explaining his decision: “My vote tonight was not a vote against Mayor Harp, whom I supported to become the mayor of our city, but rather a vote that I believe supports the interests of the students, parents, and citizens that urged me to run for this office. My vote for Ms. Caraballo is for someone who is qualified, retired and thus has the time to devote to such an important and monumental job ... “Secondly, the school board is an entity of the state, not the city. With the Mayor being the president, it makes the board a de facto department of city hall. I do not think we should expect our mayor to take on yet another job given the gravity of her duties running our city especially since there is a person willing and qualified to take on that responsibility.”

The vote for vice president was even more disputed, ending in a 4-4 tie between incumbent Dawson and contender Caraballo. Again, Joyner (pictured above right) nominated Caraballo, seconded by Torre. Nast nominated Dawson, seconded by Gonzalez. Joyner, Torre, Goldson and Caraballo voted for Caraballo showing that new member Goldson, a former alder, may be an unpredictable vote on the board. Nast, Harp, Gonzalez and Dawson voted for Dawson. “That vote fails,” Harp said, once the count had been doublechecked. They moved on to vote for a secretary. No one made any nominations. Mayor Harp decided to move the vote for the other two officers to the next board meeting. 8, Not 7 Acting City Corporation Counsel John Rose told alders who voted to rescind Gonzalez’ appointment two years before her term ends that the Board of Ed had no legal responsibility to follow that decision. Alders hired their own lawyer W. Martyn Philpot Jr., who disagreed with Rose. .org/index.php/ archives/entry/the_lawyers_win/ »Philpot is also a lawyer for the Board of Ed, doing work on exCon’t on page

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

Church St. South Tenants Get A Choice by PAUL BASS

it to.

New Haven Independent

“We want the vouchers,” Marx said, “and we want the promise” fulfilled. She urged HUD to obtain written guarantees from Northland. And she urged city officials to work hard to find owners of other housing complexes to accept project-based subsidies.

Hundreds of Church Street South families still living in limbo heard about a sped-up housingrescue plan which might land them permanent new homes sooner, but could leave New Haven with less low-income housing in the long term.

“There needs to be new development in the New Haven area,” Marx said, not just of market-rate housing, which is booming, but subsidized housing, too.

That fear surfaced at a mass meeting held at Gateway Community College Thursday night. Two hundred fifty tenants of Church Street South gathered there to hear about next steps in their journey from dangerous, decrepit federally-subsidized housing to promised safe new apartments.

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

Officials from Northland Investment Corp. which owns the crumbling 301-unit complex across from Union Station and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the federal agency that pays the full $3.7 million annual rent tab under the Section 8 program, announced details of the rescue plan. Northland, whose Church Street South buildings have received dozens of condemnations and unsafe-condition citations, is in the process of gradually clearing out all the tenants and helping them find new homes, before razing the complex to make way for a new planned mixed-use development. Northland Vice-President Peter Standish (pictured with Spanishlanguage translator Michelle Rodriguez-Ford from New Haven’s housing authority) said all families will choose between forms of Section 8 subsidies for their next homes: • They can have Northland transfer their current Church Street South Section 8 subsidy to a new complex owned by someone else, where the rent will continue to be attached to the apartment, not to the tenant (a so-called “projectbased” subsidy). Sealing a deal with enough owners of new complexes will take months at the earliest. If tenants eventually move out of those new apartments, the subsidy remains in place at the

Moving Violation

PAUL BASS PHOTO Tenant

Meanwhile, on Thursday night at Gateway, HUD and Northland officials said they’re asking all 288 Church Street South families (not all 301 units had been occupied when the city started condemning some of them) to make a preliminary choice. They asked the families to fill out forms stating whether they lean toward accepting portable vouchers or moving to a new project-based Section 8 subsidized complex.

Thomas: Any real places to show me?

apartments for new tenants to use. • Or they can obtain vouchers they can take with them to go find a landlord of their own to rent to them. Those “portable” vouchers will travel with them from home to home, and remain in effect only as long as the tenants qualify for subsidies. Families can leave the state and still use them. This two-choice plan is a big development for the families waiting for new homes. Transferring the families’ subsidies to new locations is a slow bureaucratic process. Top HUD officials agreed to make two exceptions to how that process usually works to speed it up. One exception was allowing Northland’s project-based subsidies to be transferred to new complexes owned by other landlords. The other exception was

giving tenants the choice to get portable vouchers instead, and to do that before Northland has compiled a list of possible new complexes willing to accept the project-based subsidies. What About Later? That’s good in the short run for the Church Street South families, said Amy Marx, a legal aid lawyer whose advocacy for the tenants forced city and federal officials to take action this past year at Church Street South. Legal aid and the tenants applaud the news about the option of taking portable vouchers, she said. It gives tenants more choices and gets them faster relief from living in substandard conditions. But Marx said she fears the plan may prove harmful in the long run for other low-income families in

general seeking subsidized housing in gentrifying New Haven. Technically, Northland must promise that when this is all over—and it finds families new homes and razes Church Street South—there will still be 301 homes elsewhere supported by the project-based Section 8 vouchers formerly attached to the complex. That way New Haven theoretically doesn’t lose the amount of subsidized housing it has in town. But Northland can fulfill that promise by finding locations anywhere in Connecticut, not just in Greater New Haven. And it will no longer have an incentive to make good on the promise at all, Marx noted, unless HUD officials have the capacity and will to force

Their choices won’t be binding, Rick Daughtery (pictured above), regional director of HUD’s multiple-family housing division, assured the crowd. Officials simply want to get a preliminary feel for how many families will choose each option. He also assured families that HUD or Northland will pay the cost of their moves when they do obtain permanent new places. That promise elicited a warning from one tenant in the crowd, Ruben Negron. Negron (pictured with his son Yamil) and his family are among the few who have already moved into a new apartment from Church Street South. (Northland had to move 58 of the families to temporary hotel rooms because of unlivable conditions; 35 of those families so far have been placed in new apartments.) Negron and his family found a new subsidized apartment in East Haven. The movers provided to help

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

Parents Call For Ed-Board Mediation

coming from. How can we move forward with parents?”

by ALIYYA SWABY New Haven Independent

Johnson said directors of instruction and district officials “make decisions that we feel is in the best interest of the child.” They understand angry parents care about their children. “The resolution in all cases will fall on: Where does the child fall?”

A few days after submitting a letter to the Board of Ed requesting they mediate a disagreement with the city, parents gathered to rally support for a beloved board member at risk of getting the axe. Leaders used Thursday’s Citywide Parent Team meeting at Wilbur Cross High School to field questions about the disagreement, which centers around whether the ed board should have eight or seven members for the next year. They encouraged parents to support Board of Ed member Daisy Gonzalez, whom the Board of Alders voted to remove from her position in late December, terminating her term two years early. (Gonzalez remains on the ed board, which has retained lawyers to fight to keep her there.)

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

The Citywide Parent Team nominated and elected Gonzalez as a parent liaison to the Board of Ed, and she was then appointed by Mayor Toni Harp, not Ruth Swanson, who is on the parent group’s steering committee. Gonzalez is a direct link for parents who otherwise would not feel heard on the board, Swanson said. The language in a 2013 charter revision switching to a hybrid Board of Education comprised of elected and appointed members did not account for how to drop from eight to seven members, as required under the charter. The Board of Ed passed a resolution in mid-December proposing a gradual shift to seven members by January 2017. A week later, the Board of Alders voted to dump the most recently appointed ed board member, Gonzalez, to preserve the seven-member board. The Board of Ed is preparing to legally fight to keep Gonzalez if necessary, and voted for just one year to have an eight-member

Con’t from page 8

4 + 4 = Stalemate pulsions.

listed the schools they each oversee and fielded individual questions. “Do you have to go to the Board of Education or parent liaison when you have a concern?” one parent asked.

board until another board member’s term expires. “It’ll take a year to resolve it with lawyers,” Swanson said of the dispute. “By then it will be at the correct number and we will have lost Daisy.” Jennifer Ricker presented a letter to the Board of Ed at Monday’s meeting urging them to use mediation instead of legal action. Even if the Board of Ed transitions to being fully elected, having a parent liaison such as Gonzalez is important for representing those who are outof-district, Ricker said. She is from Hamden and said it is “nice to know that I have a parent liaison on my side,” although she cannot vote for the elected

members. At least one person on the other side of the debate was listening to their plea. Beaver Hills Alder Richard Furlow showed up to Thursday’s meeting to sit in the audience and listen, urged to do so by parent constituents. He declined to comment when leaving the meeting, because of potential litigation connected to the dispute. Ricker and parent leaders Thursday night also brought in the district’s directors of instruction, to direct parent questions about how to get their concerns heard. Abie Benitez, Gil Traverso, Lola GarciaBlocker, Kim Johnsky and Iline Tracey explained their roles,

Tracey listed the chain of command for parent concerns: first, teachers and administrators at school level, then “if you’re not getting headway,” a parent liaison, then “if you’re not getting any answer” a director of instruction, then district parent advocate Danny Diaz, and as a last resort Superintendent Garth Harries. “Some people jump the gun and go straight to the superintendent,” she said. “Do you really want parents involved?” asked Letisha Harris, who has a child at King/ Robinson. Yes, Tracey said. “The question would be the level of involvement we want,” which school leaders should work with parents to define. Nijija-Ife Water said a lot of parents “feel like they have gone up the chain of command and still” haven’t gotten responses. “That starts to develop a very angry parent. By the time they get to you, they’re so angry. They can’t talk to you. You can’t understand where they’re

Superintendent Garth Harries said the Board of Ed is prepping for legal battle and is working on hiring a lawyer. In the meantime, Gonzalez will keep her seat. Goldson asked whether Philpot will face repercussions in his job with the Board of Ed for helping the Board of Alders oust Gonzalez. Harries said Philpot was “put in a very difficult position” and wrote his position for the alders “without reviewing the resolution the board passed.” He did not breach his contract, Harries said. Jennifer Ricker, who heads the Citywide Parent Team, submitted a letter Monday night asking that Gonzalez keep her seat and that the Board of Alders and Board of Ed use mediation instead of a “costly lawsuit” to figure out how. “With current opposing views between the Board of Alders and Board of Education, our hope is that the decision is made to use mediation to resolve this concern without a costly and lengthy lawsuit, which will directly distract all parties from focusing and advocating on our children’s behalf,” the letter states. “As the school district and city work to implement and teach restorative practices to youth, it is imperative for our adults to lead by example tU‘mediate and resolve conflict through discussion.” Ricker said Gonzalez has “continuously stood up” for parents and should remain a board member. Gonzalez thanked Ricker and the Citywide Parent Team: “I appreciate my moms.”

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016 14

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016 16

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

BECOME A FOSTER OR ADOPTIVE PARENT… ATTEND AN INFORMATIONAL SESSION

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INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

Department of Children and Families

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

Black Students at White Colleges Face Unique, Hidden Mental Health Challenges racial battle fatigue and institutional racism requires significant internal commitment and external support,” the study states. “Black college students are brilliant, talented, and creative, and they dream as big as other students. Pursuing higher education should not make them sick.”

by Zenitha Prince Senior AFRO Correspondent

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

Black college students who attend predominantly White institutions harness a particular level of pluckiness and mental fortitude in order to achieve—usually having to prove their intellectual worth in the face of glaring or more covert bigotry. But that mental toughness and perseverance can take a toll on their psychological health, according to a new study from Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

The study seems to buttress findings from a Gallup study, on which the AFRO reported back in October. According to that report, Black alumni of historically Black colleges and universities tended to thrive more – in several areas of “well-being” – than Black graduates of predominantly White institutions.

“Weathering the cumulative effects of living in a society characterized by White dominance and privilege produces a kind of physical and mental wear-and-tear that contributes to a host of psychological and physical ailments,” said study co-author Ebony McGee, assistant professor of diversity and urban schooling at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College. “We have documented alarming occurrences of anxiety, stress, depression and thoughts of suicide, as well as a host of physical ailments like hair loss, diabetes and heart disease.”

Using critical race theory, the pair challenged the celebration of “grit” as a guiding principle for achievement among Black students, saying the resulting mental health risks are often overlooked.

Those findings were explored in the paper “Reimagining Critical Race Theory in Education: Mental Health, Healing and the Pathway

“We have witnessed Black students work themselves to the point of extreme illness in attempting to escape the constant

to Liberatory Praxis,” which McGee co-authored with David Stovall, associate professor of African American studies and educational policy studies at University of Illinois at Chicago.

threat of perceived intellectual inferiority,” McGee said. “We argue that the current enthusiasm for teaching African American students with psychological traits like grit ignores the significant injustice of societal racism and the toll it takes, even on those students who appear to be the toughest and most successful.” The study compared such highachieving Black students to the historical figure John Henry—a slave who literally worked himself to death trying to prove his worth. “John Henryism is a coping strategy often adopted by high-

achieving African Americans, who may unconsciously (and increasingly consciously) sacrifice their personal relationships and health to pursue their goals with a tenacity that can be medically and mentally deleterious,” the study states. The researchers urged more comprehensive examination of the mental, physical and emotional harm faced by African-American students and called on colleges and universities to make systemic, holistic changes to promote the wellness of those students. “The process of healing from

“Although HBCUs are struggling in a number of areas, their overall success in providing Black graduates with a better college experience than they would get at non-HBCUs needs to be examined more closely, and potentially modeled, at other institutions,” the researchers wrote. “The profoundly different experiences that Black graduates of HBCUs and Black graduates of non-HBCUs are having in college leave the HBCU graduates feeling better prepared for life after graduation, potentially leading them to live vastly different lives outside of college.”

consist of 1.1 percent of the population in New Hampshire, we have done the groundwork to get their support,” he said. “Even though their population is small, we will not take them for granted. We want to walk away from New Hampshire winning the Black vote.”

by James Wright Democratic presidential contender U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders may be largely unknown nationally among African Americans, but said he plans to work hard to win their support in his quest for the party’s nomination. Three top Sanders advisors— campaign manager Jeff Weaver, senior strategist Tad Devine and the director of African-American outreach, Marcus Fennell— conducted a conference call on Jan. 6 detailing their plans to reach out to Black voters. Weaver said former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton enjoys a significant advantage among Blacks, citing a poll that has her leading Sanders 73 percent to 12 percent nationally among Blacks, but said Sanders will compete for their vote. “We have found that when people of all backgrounds get to know Sen. Sanders they tend to support him,” Weaver said. “He understands the challenges that African Americans face whether it is the unfair criminal justice system, the fact that Blacks have less wealth than Whites and have more trouble getting credit and their employment status tends to be more unstable.” Sanders is a former mayor of Burlington, Vt., a city which comprises a 3.8 percent Black population, and has represented

Vermont, both in the House and presently the Senate, a state with a Black population of 1 percent. Despite the low Black population of his state, Sanders has consistently supported civil rights legislation and earned a 100 percent rating from the NAACP in its recent civil rights federal legislative report card. Sanders traveled to Baltimore on Dec. 8 to tour the predominantly Black SandtownWinchester neighborhood, and said he was was moved by the poverty that he saw. Fennell said Sanders’ concern for African Americans is genuine. “Sen. Sanders thinks that the Black Lives Matter Movement is

important,” Fennell said. “He has talked to leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement more than any of the other presidential candidates of either party.” Over the decades, Black leaders in the Democratic Party have complained that the first states to hold presidential contests—Iowa and New Hampshire—have small African-American populations and candidates don’t talk about Black issues in those places. Iowa will hold its caucus on Feb. 1; New Hampshire will conduct the first primary on Feb. 9. Weaver said Sanders will be different. “We held an event recently in

Iowa and the senator talked about criminal justice reform and economically empowering lowincome communities,” he said. “Sanders highlighted two African Americans who were with him who are dealing with the criminal justice system and are recovering addicts. The presentation was made in front of a predominantly White audience.” Weaver said he will talk about Black issues and the adverse effect of institutional racism regardless of the composition of the audience. Fennell said that he was working on gaining the support of African Americans in New Hampshire.

The next state to hold a primary after New Hampshire is South Carolina, on Feb. 27, which is 27.9 percent Black and among Democrats, half of its voters. Devine said that Sanders’ radio ads on Black-oriented stations have aired since last year and the Clinton campaign recently started its Black media outreach effort in the state. Fennell said Black media blitzes are “just the beginning.”

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

Sanders Plans Aggressive Outreach to Black Community

“Throughout the campaign, we will be talking to stakeholders and leaders in the Black communities, visit barber shops and beauty salons focusing on voter mobilization, work with faithbased organizations and we are coordinating a historically Black college and university tour in a few weeks,” he said. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders walks alongside the Rev Jamal Bryant, right, during a walking tour of the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore. (Photograph: Patrick Semansky/ AP)

“Even though Blacks only

Gun control alone can’t curb violence BY JESSE JACKSON America may now have more guns than people.

Studies show a clear correla-

tion: the more guns, the more homicides and the more people shot. Cities are racked by gun violence, yet gun ownership is much more prevalent in rural areas, as vividly displayed by the Bundy bunch that occupied an Oregon wildlife refuge over the weekend.

According to a General Social Survey report, gun ownership is declining. About 35 percent of adults were estimated to live in a household with a firearm in 2014, down from over half in the early 1980s. As hunting has declined in the country, so has gun owner-

ship. Gun ownership is higher among whites than among blacks or Hispanics, higher among men than women. Gun ownership rises with income. It is higher among those earning more than $90,000 a year than among those earning less than $25,000. It is highest in the South Central U.S. and lowest in the Northeast and Pacific regions. Now weapons designed for the purpose of mass killing in war are available for purchase at gun shows, online and at many gun stores. These weapons are pow-

erful enough to stop trains or strafe planes that are landing or taking off. These are tools for terrorists, easily available for sale in America. Obama has already delivered 15 national statements after shocking incidents of gun violence. Yet no national reforms have been passed or even gotten much consideration. After the Charleston massacre, the Economist magazine compared mass shooting in the U.S. with the groCon’t on page 22

As President Barack Obama announces new executive action on gun control, U.S. gun manufacturing is a growth industry, almost doubling since the begin-

ning of Obama Administration (5.6 million in 2009; 10.9 million in 2013). From 2001 to 2013, according to a Centers of Disease Control and Prevention report, 406,496 Americans were killed with firearms on U.S. soil. In contrast, the number of U.S. citizens killed by terrorists at home or abroad over the same years number 3,380. Chicago suffered a spike in gun homicides in 2015 with 470 homicides and 2,939 shooting victims, the worst of all U.S. cities.

The Best Films of 2015 By Dwight Brown

NNPA News Wire Film Critic Movies have become a great comfort in what has been a tumultuous year. They’ve entertained us. Made us laugh, feel courageous, scared, romantic and educated us too. It’s a perfect time to reflect on the films, performances and Black artists who made 2015 special. And might as well get a head start on the high-quality movies that will contend for Oscars and be released in theaters and on DVD/VOD in weeks to come.

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

Amy (***1/2) Amy Winehouse burned bright like a firefly and died just about as quickly. Her jazzy, smooth and tortured Billie Holidayish voice haunts the soundtrack. Her infamous drug addiction and self-destructive relationships are on view. A brilliant and sobering documentary by director Asif Kapadia. Black Panthers: Vanguard of a Revolution (****) Whittling down what must have been countless hours of possibilities (archival footage, interviews, photos) into a thoughtprovoking and coherent documentary about the Black Panthers was done expertly by director/producer/writer Stanley Nelson and editor Algernon Tunsil. Few stones are left unturned. Creed (***) Only an ingenious filmmaker (Ryan Coogler) could fathom a continuation of the Rocky saga that is as much of a crowd pleaser as the original. Michael B Jordan steps up as Apollo Creed’s son Adonis, and he takes his punches with grace. Sylvester Stallone digs deep to render his best performance ever as the aged pugilist Rocky Balboa. A knockout. The Revenant (***1/2) After

the success of his Oscar-winning film Birdman, one might have thought filmmaker Alejandro G. Inarritu might miss a beat. He didn’t. His tale of a frontiersman, who survives a brutal bear attack, is left for dead then seeks revenge for his son’s murder, is a violent and riveting experience. Leonardo DiCaprio deserves the Oscar for Best Actor for sheer brilliance and guts. Room (****) A young woman (Brie Larson) and her vulnerable son (Jacob Tremblay) have been locked up in a shed and held hostage for years. They plot their escape. A deceptively simple script (Emma Donoghu), directed with skill and restraint (Lenny Abrahamson), turns into an astounding and heartwrenching film that never loses its dramatic edge. Sicario (****) FBI Field agents Kate (Emily Blunt) and Reggie (Daniel Kaluuya) seek revenge when a drug cartel kills their colleagues. They team up with a smarmy Defense Department “contractor” (Josh Brolin) and a mysterious figure

(Benicio Del Toro) to hunt the bad guys. Imagine Zero Dark Thirty tequila style. Genius direction (Denis Villeneuve), perfect screenplay (Taylor Sheridan) and superb ensemble acting. Son of Saul (***1/2) First time filmmaker László Nemes has written and directed a devastating Holocaust drama based on an innovative creative strategy: “The camera is his [Saul’s] companion; it stays with him throughout this hell.” The audience witnesses a very personal story about a man determined to give a dead teenager a proper burial at Auschwitz. The claustrophobic cinematography keeps you astonished. Straight Outta Compton (***1/2) This isn’t some chump change Sundance indie movie about the rap group NWA and hip-hop culture. This is a fullfledged, big-budget looking homage to the L.A. rap scene, that smartly, emotionally and historically capsulizes the life and times of Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre and everyone around

them who caused the big bang that popularized West Coast rap music. An Oscar-caliber film. Timbuktu (****) We read how Islamic fundamentalists are encroaching on the basic liberties of people in Africa and the Arab world. Veteran filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako (Bamako) approaches this complicated social phenomena by creating a simple allegorical tale about a sheepherder who comes under the wrath of an Islamic tribunal and the results are deadly. The film is as spiritual as a biblical passage. Wild Tales (****) If a past transgression has been eating your soul alive, these twisted vignettes could be your remedy. Tales of revenge, miscalculations, deceit, unbridled anger and jealousy beyond anything you can fathom are doled out with a wicked sense of humor by director Argentinean writer/director Damian Szifron. Macabre and hysterical.

Con’t from page 21

Gun control

tesque air pollution in China: a horrible health hazard which the country appears incapable of addressing. Gun control doesn’t cost much. America has another abiding challenge the explosive catastrophe of urban poverty that also goes unmet. The City Observatory, an urban policy think tank in Portland, Ore., reports that the number of highpoverty urban neighborhoods in the nation’s 51 largest cities tripled to 3,100 between 1970 and 2010. The number of poor persons living in those areas doubled over those years. The poor are more isolated and concentrated than ever. AfricanAmericans and Hispanics suffer the highest rates of poverty and are the most isolated into separate and unequal neighborhoods. Twenty percent of U.S. children lived in poverty by end of 2013; poverty among AfricanAmerican children was nearly twice that (38 percent). To deal with our impoverished neighborhoods, it isn’t enough to get rid of the guns. The public squalor of our inner cities has to be addressed: schools modernized, affordable housing built, mass transit supplied, available jobs created. Dealing with entrenched poverty costs real money, but less than we spend on the police, jails, drugs, alcoholism, and chronic illness the dysfunction that comes from poverty. Today’s politicians don’t want to spend political capital on guns or fiscal capital on poverty. They’d rather pay more on the back end from failing to act than risk the up-front political and economic costs of dealing with the problems. So the war on guns is lost; the war on poverty abandoned. And the hopes of millions are dashed by that failure. In the circus of the current presidential campaign, these are two fundamental challenges that ought to be at the center of our debate.

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

TELL ‘EM I SAID IT INTRODUCTION BY SAMUEL T. ROSS-LEE This is my first article for the Inner-City News. I thank Ms. Babz Rawls Ivy for extending the invitation to share some of my views on these pages. For those of you who, through this medium, are meeting me for the first time, allow me to introduce myself. I have lived and worked in New Haven for the past 14 years, serving as the Pastor of The Immanuel Missionary Baptist Church, the oldest African-American Baptist Church in the state. We proudly celebrated our 190th Anniversary this past October. Prior to coming to the area, I served as the Pastor of The Gill Creek Baptist Church in Columbia, South Carolina for nearly eight years. A native of Florida, I am the adopted son of a Church of Christ preacher and his wife. I spent the early part of my youth, until the age of 11, in the foster care system, and in the Baptist Church.

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

I am an alumnus of two Historically Black Institutions. Howard University, the so-called “Mecca” of HBCUs, from which I did not graduate, and Morehouse College, which I affectionately refer to as

“A Small School On The Red Clay Hills Of Georgia,” from which i did graduate and which, by the way, provided the first two African-American Presidents to Howard. Between Howard and Morehouse, I served in the United States Army, for Three years and was honorably discharged. I graduated Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I am also an overprotective father.

Here in New Haven, I have served on a Charter Review Commission, as a member of the Board of Ethics for eight years. I have taught Public Speech and Debate to summer school students in the New Haven Public School System. And I presently assist the debate coaches at The Engineering and Science University Magnet School. I work with some awesome kids, parents and coaches in The New Haven Aces and Academics Tennis program, coaching the 14 and under age group, who have played their way into the State Championship Playoffs for the past two seasons. Go New Haven Aces and Academics! I lay out this brief introduction (I’m sure there will be more to come in later writings) because I firmly believe, as I was taught in Divinity School, that biography shapes a person’s thinking, per-

spective, and for purposes of this column, their writing. I use the word “shapes” here because I do not contend that one’s biography pre-determines that person’s ideas. Two persons with very similar life experiences may have vastly different perspectives and ideas.

I am reminded of a vignette that was broadcasted on television in central Texas where I served the lion’s share of my military duty. It was the story of two brothers who grew up with the same alcoholic father. One brother turned out to be an alcoholic, the other a teetotaler. When asked “How did you turn out to be who you are in regards to drinking?” They both gave the same answer: “What did you expect, given what my father was.” Shaped by the same experience, the boys settled on very different conclusions. Biography shapes us, but it does not necessarily determine who or what we will be or do. I will rely a great deal on my biography, both explicitly and implicitly, in this these articles, because it does shape me. As should be obvious to some and apparent to all by now, I am an African-American Baptist Preacher and Pastor. The “African-American” part of that title is very important to me and is essential to how I understand my role,

both in and outside of the church.

The Black Church in America is an unique institution. I have often referred to it as the “Anti-institutional Institution”. By this I mean that outside of every recognized and legitimately accepted institution in America, the Black church took shape. In the back woods of the slave plantations, where enslaved Africans gathered out of view and even control of the so-called slave masters, Black religion was formed out of a mixture of African ritual, appropriated Christian symbols, ideas and scriptures, along with organic songs culled from the suffering they experienced as a people who yearned for a freedom that neither established American Christian institutions advocated for nor any other American institution desired. This Anti-Institutional Institution has as its foundation a legacy, merely by its existence, of cognitive protest, and, at its best, it is still that today. The Baptist part of my identity is affixed both by circumstances and by choice. I was placed by the state of Florida with a family that just happened to be Baptist by identity. As such, I grew up attending the Baptist church as I lived with that family for about seven of my early years. I returned to my Baptist roots

while serving in the military and attending college. The Baptist denomination has its own protest roots, as it was established in America in the unchartered land of what became Rhode Island, through its founder Roger Williams’ helpful leadership. The first Baptists in America established themselves as a people of faith who demanded religious freedom from governmental control. The Christian faith, of course, has its own (sometimes forgotten) identity as an outside minority group, forced to operate under the powerful status quo of the Roman Government, enduring the indignity of martyrdom and the arrogant dismissal of the established religion of its day. But Christianity was also established on the radical notion that community is not only important to the dignity of the individual but also vital to the well-being of the world. My biography fits firmly within the context of all three of these traditions: Christianity, religion as defined by enslaved Africans, and the Baptist Faith. This holy and historic trinity defines me. If readers find in my writings a spirit of protest, iconoclast, and love for community, I say simply this: It is the heritage bequeathed me.

The U.S. Supreme Court Rehearing Affirmative Action: Here We Go Again!

By Professor Kevin L. Antoine, JD

Nationwide — Every few years, the U.S. Supreme Court revisits the issue of admitting African Americans and other under represented groups into college. This issue goes by many names, equal opportunity, affirmative action, diversity, inclusion, and most recently holistic

admission. The U.S. Supreme Court has let stand the practice of colleges using many factors when reviewing the credentials of students applying for admission. These factors include, gender, geography, family income, disability, gender identity, LGBT, military status, language spoken at home and race just to name some of them. However the only factor that ends up in a lawsuit when a white applicant is denied admission is race, more specifically, the race of an African American student that was admitted. I cannot think of any affirmative action lawsuits where a white applicant that was

denied admission because the college admitted another student who was a military veteran, or gender identity, or disability.

War, passage of the 13th amendment, and the assassination of a president to end slavery in America.

and Human Services). Though first establish to help African Americans, these federal agencies now assist all Americans.

No other population in America is so heavily burdened with the task of enjoying life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness than African Americans. This historical burden stems all the way back to 1776, the birth of the nation when white colonist won their freedom from Great Britain, but denied freedom to their African slaves. In 1807 America abolished the international slave trade, however the institution of slavery continued in America for another 58 years. It took a Civil

After passage of the 13th Amendment, the newly freed population, though free, could not read or write, had no schools, housing or healthcare. The great emancipator Abraham Lincoln established the Freedmen’s Bureau, the first federal government office with oversight of education, housing, employment and healthcare. These programs exist today as agencies in the executive branch of the federal government (The Departments of Education, Housing, Labor, Health

By 1876 reconstruction ended with the election of Rutherford B Hayes as president. Hayes granted former confederates the right to hold political offices in the south. In short order southern states began to turn back the clock on all of the equal opportunities afforded African Americans under reconstruction. Sounds familiar. Here we go again! One hundred years after President Lincoln issued the

sonally (insisting “I am not a racist”) I became defensive and thereby resistant to questioning what their passionate outburst might really be about. As a result an important learning and growing opportunity was missed not only by me, but by everyone – staff and students alike – at my school!

by Melissa Spear, Executive Director

When I was in 6th grade my school in Richmond, CA was “integrated” by bussing black children in from surrounding communities. This was a painful and emotional experience for all concerned. The children being bused in were clearly not happy to be at our school, while those of us from the school felt confused and threatened by the intensity of emotion that seemed to be directed at us by our new classmates.

This experience left an indelible impression on me. I knew intuitively that there was something deeply wrong, some injustice that lay at the root of what was happening, but I had neither the information nor the tools I would have needed at that point in my life to figure out what was really going on. I have come a long way in my understanding of this episode in the intervening decades. Much of this understanding has come as a result of the work we are engaged in at Common Ground to develop the knowledge, self-awareness, skills and systems necessary to align our work with one of our core values, to cultivate “a diverse human community that thrives within an environment of trust, equity, dignity, and interconnectedness.”

Will I say something wrong? Will I use my power (privilege) inappropriately to subvert the agenda? Do I have anything of value to contribute? Are my reactions coming out of some deep desire to protect myself, my position, the advantages I gain from the current system? What if I disagree? Do I have any idea what I am talking about? Will my thoughts and opinions be disregarded and what will I, should I do if they are?

The work Common Ground is engaged in to examine our organizational norms, assumptions, attitudes and behaviors is intended to help us live up to our values – to cultivate “a diverse human community that thrives within an environment of trust, equity, dignity, and interconnectedness.” Just as important, the work is about making Common Ground even more accessible, relevant and effective at delivering mission impact to all communities.

The conversations we are having at Common Ground have been hard, but they are getting easier with time. In part it is because the relationships are getting deeper. In part it is because we are acquiring more skill. Regardless, I know I cannot expect to ever be totally comfortable in this work simply because it requires acknowledging and confronting painful realities.

But perhaps most significant, at Common Ground we believe that unrecognized, unaddressed bias is deeply damaging to our community, our society and even our country as a whole. For this reason we want to effectively and proactively address injustice and inequity wherever it manifests, and make sure we are a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.

Melissa Spear is Executive Director of Common Ground

tive and Inclusive Organizations – that will provide the support and facilitation skills necessary to accomplish this aspirational goal. I have learned many important lessons over the three years that I have been engaged in this work at Common Ground that are effectively transforming the way I walk through the world. For one, I have gained a much more rigorous and deep understanding of the ways key societal institutions and systems have been designed to favor white people, and disadvantage people of color, and how this has led to a significant wealth gap, disproportionate incarceration rates, and an unacceptable achievement gap in education among other inequities. This awareness has helped me to em-

pathize with, and share in the anger that has been expressed in response to the injustices perpetrated on communities of color in Ferguson and elsewhere by biased systems, institutions and yes, people. I have also come to understand how important it is to be able to differentiate between expressions of anger about institutional racism, and personal accusations of racism. The children who were chanting “I’m black and I’m proud” on those school steps 40 odd years ago were not personally accusing me of being racist. Their outcry was not about me. It was about a system and a society that was treating them unfairly and unjustly based on the color of their skin.

When I think back to how illequipped all of us at Washington Elementary School were to deal with the difficult circumstances that brought us together, I realize how important it is for Common Ground to do a better job preparing both our staff and students to directly address similar challenges.

Note: Later this year Common Ground will be sending out a questionnaire that will help us assess how well (or poorly) we are doing at “cultivating a diverse human community that thrives within an environment of trust, equity, dignity, and interconnectedness.” We are hoping to receive a robust response as this will guide our work going forward. I hope you will take the time to share your thoughts and feelings with us!

By reacting to their chant per-

Being honest about the bias built into our institutions, and the existence of systemic racism is often uncomfortable, but it is neces-

We began this work three years ago, and recently entered into a partnership with CEIO – the acronym stands for Co-creating Effec-

It is scary for me, a white person, to engage in a frank, sincere, real conversation about race and racism – especially with a black person.

I recently had the privilege of hearing Charles Blow deliver a powerful and inspiration speech about race in America. In his speech Mr. Blow laid out in clear and compelling terms how deeprooted bias and institutionalized racism has not only disenfranchised the black community, but also kept us from truly realizing our core values as Americans – that all men are created equal, and that here, in the United States of America, there is liberty and justice for all. We are diminished as a society by norms, attitudes, behaviors, systems and institutions that perpetuate racism, or any form of “-ism” for that matter.

Perhaps most importantly, I have learned that to really do the work of “cultivating a diverse human community that thrives within an environment of trust, equity, dignity, and interconnectedness” I have to embrace complexity and take risks.

I remember standing out in the playground and watching the new students assembled on the front steps of the auditorium loudly chanting with fists raised “Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud!” At 11 years old I sensed they were angry, and I could not help feeling that this anger was somehow directed at me–was somehow an accusation that I personally had some responsibility for whatever it was they were angry about. I did not understand how that could be true. “After all” I naively thought at the time, “I have nothing against them, I am not racist, I want us to be friends!”

sary if we hope to live up to our values not just as an organization, but as a country.

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

ED Reflections: Facing The Realities of Race

Before I Forget

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

Love, Hope, Help and Acceptance in Our Fight against Alzheimer’s

by B. Smith and Dan Gasby Harmony Books Book Review by Kam Williams “Restaurateur, magazine publisher, celebrity chef and nationally-known lifestyle maven B. Smith is struggling at 66 with a tag she never expected to add to that string: Alzheimer’s patient... Part memoir, part caregiver’s guide, this work is a unique entry on the Alzheimer’s shelf. Crafted in short chapters that interweave [B. and husband Dan’s] narrative with practical and helpful advice, readers learn about dealing with the day-to-day challenges of Alzheimer’s, family realities and tensions, ways of coping, and coming research that may tip the scale, as well as lessons learned along the way. At its heart, Before I Forget is a love story illuminating a love of family, life and hope.” — Excerpted from the Book jacket Barbara Elaine Smith was born on August 24, 1949 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to

Florence and William, a maid and a steelworker, respectively.

The darling, little daughter would grow up to do her

parents proud, embarking on a series of phenomenallysuccessful professional careers. She started out as a model, becoming the first AfricanAmerican to grace the cover of Mademoiselle. The talented Renaissance woman parlayed that success into endorsement deals and her own nationallysyndicated TV show, ”B. Smith with Style.” She would also launch her own product line, publish a magazine and several cookbooks, and open restaurants in Manhattan, Washington, DC and out on Sag Harbor. With the help of her husband, B. built such a formidable business empire that she became widely known as ”The Black Martha Stewart.” Unfortunately, upon consulting a doctor a couple of years ago because of a nagging forgetfulness, she received the devastating diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s. Although she and Dan have since reordered their priorities, the two have steadfastly refused to allow the disease to either crush

their spirits or diminish their love for each other. As B. puts it, ”I’m still myself. I just can’t remember things as well as I once did.” In ”Before I Forget,” she and Dan share their inspirational message of hope while issuing a rallying a cry to the AfricanAmerican community which suffers from Alzheimer’s at over twice the rate of whites. The autobiography primarily focuses on the last five years of B.’s life, although it does devote a few chapters to earlier periods, including her childhood in Pennsylvania. However, the thrust of the book is to kickstart a frank conversation about Alzheimer’s from recognizing the warning signs, to identifying its stages, to reciting lesson’s learned thus far. Above all, the memoir is a reaffirmation of a couple’s undying love, as evidenced by Dan’s waxing romantic with, ”I am so grateful for the honor and pleasure of your company, and for the privilege of sharing your life.”

Study: Blacks More Likely to Develop Alzheimer’s Disease by Jonathan Hunter African-Americans are significantly more likely to develop Alzheimer’s Disease then Whites, according to a new study. The findings were the result of a meta-analysis by race for Alzheimer’s disease conducted by Emory University researchers, the first effort of its kind. The

study, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, found that after adjusting for age, gender and education African Americans were 64 percent more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease compared to Whites. According to their data, 8.6 percent of African Americans develop Alzheimer’s disease, but only 5.5 percent of Whites do. The study’s lead author, Kyle Steenland, a professor of

environmental health and epidemiology at Emory’s Rollin’s School of Public Health, worked with researchers at Emory’s Alzheimer Disease Center. Together, they analyzed data from six U.S. population-based studies to determine the prevalence and incidence by race of the disease. “It is generally accepted that African-Americans have higher incidence and prevalence of

Alzheimer’s disease, but there has been no quantitative estimate of the higher incidence,” Steenland said in a statement on Emory University’s website. “A 64 percent higher incidence among African-Americans is quite a large difference, in our view. We wanted to come up with an overall estimate of racial differences to help motivate further exploration of possible

causes, such as biological, psychological and socioeconomic factors.” Steenland said he believes that the data could provide important insights as the 65-and-over population in the U.S. continues to rise, and non-White immigration to the country continues. jhunter@afro.com

by George E. Curry George Curry Media Columnist This season’s national college football championship has been decided, but no one knows how much longer we must continue to wait until the head coaching ranks are no longer largely reserved for White males, even those who have been failures at other schools. Although Blacks were 53.4 percent of Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) players going into the 2015-16 football season, only 13 (10.2 percent) of the head coaches were African Americans, according to The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at the University of South Florida. To make matters worse, Black and White coaches with similar records often face starkly different futures. Writing in the Washington Post, Donald H. Yee wrote, “Last week, one of the few black head football coaches in the NCAA’s Football Bowl Subdivision, Ruffin McNeill at East Carolina University, was fired. His record was 42-34, along with a 30-18 conference record. The winning percentages, respectively, are 55 percent and 63 percent.

To its credit, the NFL established the Rooney Rule in 2003 that requires each NFL team to interview at least one minority candidate for each head coaching vacancy. In 2009, the requirement was expanded to include interviews for general managers and similar positions. Unfortunately, universities don’t have a similar requirement.

“McNeill, clearly, was not treated with the same patience Iowa showed Ferentz.”

But the problem extends beyond the sidelines, which might explain why it’s so difficult for Black coaches to get a fair shake.

Bowling Green State University announced that it has hired Mike Jinks, an associate head coach at Texas Tech University, as its new head coach. With McNeill’s firing and the hiring of Jinks, there are now 10 Black head coaches among the 128 coaches in the Football Bowl Subdivision – less than 8 percent.

As Richard Lapchick, director of The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, said, “This year’s increase is so discouraging. At a time when almost all colleges and universities say they emphasize diversity and inclusion as core values, the fact is that in the 2015-16 report, 89.8 percent of our presidents were white, 86.7 percent of our athletics directors were white, and 100 percent of our conference commissioners were white. In those positions, 78.9, 79.7, and 90 percent were white men, respectively. Overall, whites held 342 (88.8 percent) of the 385 campus leadership positions reported in this study, which was an increase from 88.2 percent in 2014. Whose America do these statistics reflect?”

The 10 Black coaches are: James Franklin, Penn State; Darrell Hazell, Purdue; Curtis Johnson, Tulane; Mike London, Virginia; Derek Mason, Vanderbilt; Trent Miles, Georgia State; David Shaw, Stanford ; Charlie Strong, Texas; Kevin Sumlin and Willie Taggert, South Florida. Many Black coaches labor for years as assistants before getting a chance at the top job. However, many White coaches who fall from grace quickly get second and third chances. For example, Mike Price was fired for visiting a strip club before he could assume the job as head football coach at the University of Alabama. Still, he was able to land a job as head coach at the University of TexasEl Paso. After it was discovered that George O’Leary lied on his resume at Notre Dame, he was hired as head coach at the University of Central Florida. And Larry Eustachy’s problems at Iowa State included acknowledging that he was “a recovering alcoholic,” but that

didn’t prevent him from getting the top job at Southern Mississippi. Some Black coaches have been spectacular yet remain underrated. David Shaw, whose Stanford team trounced Iowa in this year’s Rose Bowl 45-16, is a perfect example. Under Shaw, no Pac-12 program had more players drafted in the past four years, including Andrew Luck, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2012 NFL draft. Stanford’s website catalogues the university’s recent success:

“…three Pac-12 football championships in four years, five BCS/New Year’s Six bowls in a six-year span, all combined with an NCAA Graduation Success Rate (GSR) of 99 percent, leading all major-college football programs.” Black coaches in the NFL are often under-appreciated. If there were any questions about the skills of Black coaches, they should have been permanently put to rest in 2007 when the Indianapolis Colts, under Tony Dungy, squared off against Lovie Smith’s Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI. It was the first time

George E. Curry is President and CEO of George Curry Media, LLC. He is the former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine and the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service (NNPA). He is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. Curry can be reached through his Web site, georgecurry.com. You can also follow him at twitter.com/ currygeorge, George E. Curry Fan Page on Facebook, and Periscope. See previous columns at www.georgecurry.com/ columns.

“Around the same time, college football writers were praising the University of Iowa for its patience with head coach Kirk Ferentz, who is being lauded for his performance this year. Ferentz has an overall winning percentage of 60 percent, and a conference winning percentage of 56 percent. Ferentz is in his 17th season at Iowa. Before this current 12-1 season, his overall winning percentage was 58 percent – comparable to McNeill’s.

two African American coaches met on football’s ultimate stage.

“Iowa, however, had to endure seasons where Ferentz won one, three and four games. McNeill never won fewer than five. As any knowledgeable college football fan knows, East Carolina’s budget is not even half of Iowa’s. McNeill’s salary at East Carolina wasn’t even within the top 60 in the country, while Ferentz has perennially been one of college football’s highest paid coaches.

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

Black Head Coaches — College Football’s Last Frontier

As I See It: Black-owned Newspapers Benched During College Football Playoffs Dame, the participants in this years’ bowl. It didn’t even matter that the Informant is a member of the National Newspaper Publishing Association (NNPA) a network of over 200 Black owned and operated newspapers that reach millions of readers weekly.

By G. Napier Barnes III

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

Special to the NNPA News Wire from the Arizona Informant The more things change, the more they remain the same. As a little boy growing up in the segregated South, it had never dawned on me that someday schools like the University of Georgia, the University of Alabama, Ole Miss or Louisiana State University would ever have people of color representing their storied athletic programs, let alone attending the school. At the time, all of the college educated people that I knew attended schools like Howard University, Virginia Union University, Shaw University, or Hampton Institute now known as historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). In 1966 I was still in grade school and couldn’t understand all the commotion when Virginia Intercollegiate Association (VIA) superstar Leroy Keys decided to attend Purdue University on a football scholarship. The VIA managed athletic events (including championships) for the states’ colored high schools during those times of separate, but unequal opportunities. The Virginia High School League (VHSL) had the same responsibilities for the White high school players of the state. The two never mixed as it seem to me that it was almost against the law to compete athletically with my White counter parts. Keys may not have been the first African-American from Virginia to leave the South to play football, but to us, he was a folk hero doing something that we could only dream about. We followed his career with the Boilermakers by reading the Richmond Afro-American. The mainstream newspapers didn’t seem that interested in covering his exploits on or off the field. He did reach All-American status and was considered for the Heisman. Fast forward a few years, more African-Americans began going to mainstream schools, especially after the Trojans of the University

In contrast the primary local news agency, in this case The Republic, could be granted eight credentials based on their daily circulation alone, plus an additional two seats to reporters on the “non-sport” side of their organization.

instrumental in covering events that have been important to our community and it also has the unique ability to give our special perspective on events.

of Southern California thoroughly stomped the Crimson Tide of the University of Alabama in September of 1970. U.S.C. was an integrated team (something common in the North and West) and its historic game with Alabama was the first time that an integrated team had played in

the segregated Deep South. Trojan Sam Cunningham ran amuck, causing Alabama’s Legendary Coach Bear Bryant to open up the possibility of bringing Black players into that program. I read about the game and its consequences, again in the Black Press. The Black Press has been

When the College Football Playoff (CFP) system came into play last season the powers that be passed a series of requirements that has basically kept minorityowned news agencies from covering their events first hand. Using our Arizona Informant as an example, in order to get media credentials to cover this year’s Fiesta Bowl, the Informant, as a weekly publication, must have a circulation of at least 500,000 readers. If the Informant could not make that requirement they could receive credentials if a “full-time staff member” has covered all of the participating institution’s regular season games. It didn’t matter that the Informant had covered every Fiesta Bowl since its inception in the early 1970’s. It didn’t matter that there was no way, as a local news agency, that we could have covered every game of Ohio State or Norte

The same regulations apply to Monday’s national championship game on January 11 between Alabama and Clemson. There are three African-American newspapers in South Carolina, the home of the Clemson University Tigers. I would suspect that neither the Charleston Chronicle, the Community Times, nor the South Carolina Black News have circulations in excess of 500,000. Maybe not even combined. The same could be said of the four Black-owned news agencies in Alabama. The Birmingham Times, The Greene County Democrat, the Mobile Beacon Citizen, and Speakin’ Out News more than likely do not meet the 500,000 circulation criteria. With the news business being what it is, especially with the smaller organizations, it is also almost impossible to have a “full-time staff” assigned to a school to cover all of its athletic events. I would expect that none of these papers have in their budgets money in case a team makes it to the national championship game. I am positive that the people who wrote these regulations knew that they would be eliminating a certain segment of our society. And then again the people who forced Leroy Keys out of the state knew what they were doing also. Barnes says that the people who wrote the regulations for the CFP media credentials knew that they would be eliminating a certain segment of our society. This photo was taken during the 2009 Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix, Ariz. (Enoch Lai/Creative Commons)

Connecticut’s First Choice For Urban News Since1990

Classifieds Classifieds 203 387-0354 PLACING AN AD EASY

BUSINESS HOURS - MONDAY FRIDAY 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM - 50 FITCH NEW HAVEN CT, 06515 - Career/Education/Training • Bid• L egal and Public Notices • Health Care • Real Estate • Professional

Mechanical Insulator Insulation Company offering good pay and benefits. Please forward resume to P.O. Box 475, North Haven, CT! 06473 This company is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer

ADVANTAGE MAINTENANCE INC. Now accepting applications for final construction cleaning laborers. Cleaners are sent to jobsites, to sweep, mop, dust, vacuum and prepare sites for tenant/owner occupancy. Potential candidates should meet the following minimum requirements. • Have OSHA 10 training • Be able to lift 50 pounds. • Have reliable transportation. Applications will be accepted in person only at 15 Lunar Drive Woodbridge, CT 06525. Advantage Cleaning LLC is an AA/EEO employer.

The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport Invitation for Bid (IFB) C.F. Greene Apartments Interior Finishes Solicitation Number: 057-PD-16-S The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport d/b/a Park City Communities (PCC) is requesting sealed bids for interior finishes at C.F. Greene Apartments. Solicitation package will be available on January 11, 2016. To obtain a copy of the solicitation you must send your request to bids@parkcitycommunities.org, please reference solicitation number and title on the subject line. A pre-bid conference will be held at 150 Highland Ave, Bridgeport, CT 06604 on January 26, 2016, @ 10:00 a.m. Although 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 February 4, 2016 @ 2:00 p.m. Answers to all the questions will be posted on PCC’s Website: www.parkcitycommunities.org. Seal bids will be received until February 12, 2016 @ 2:00 PM, at which time the bids will be publicly opened and read aloud.

Housing Authority of the City of New Haven The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven (HANH) advertised the opening of the Housing Choice Voucher Program (HCV) from January 26, 2015 through February 6, 2015. The lottery for placement on the HCV waiting list will be held December 8, 2015.

Request For Proposals Program Management Services The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven (HANH) is currently seeking Proposals for Program Management Services. Proposals will be received until Wednesday, February 24, 2016 @ 3:00PM. A Pre-Proposal conference will be held at 360 Orange Street, New Haven, CT 06511 on Wednesday February 3, 2016 @ 10:30 AM. A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from HANH’s front desk at 360 Orange Street beginning on Monday, January 19, 2016 @ 3:00 PM. Additional questions should be emailed only to Karen DuBois-Walton at, bids@newhavenhousing.org no later than February 10, 2016 @ 3:00 PM. All answers to the questions will be posted on HANH’s Website: www.elmcitycommunities.com. Please click on the link for Vendors and then Current Bids.

La Autoridad de Vivienda de la Ciudad de New Haven (HANH) anuncia la apertura del Programa de Vales de Elección de Vivienda (HCV) del 26 de Enero, 2015, a través 6 de Febrero de 2015. EL sorteo para la colocación en la lista de espera del HCV se llevara a cabo el 8 de diciembre 2015.

Housing Authority of the City of New Haven

Regional MSW Coordinator

Request For Proposals Homeownership Counseling Services

The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven is seeking to fill the position of Development Associate. Please refer to our website for details: http://www.cfgnh.org/About/ContactUs/ EmploymentOpportunities.aspx EOE electronic su

Town of Bloomfield Mini Bus Coordinator – Reposted Position $32.55 hourly Previous applicants need not apply. For details and how to apply visit: www.bloomfieldct.org Pre-employment drug testing AA/EOE

The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven (HANH) is currently seeking Proposals for Homeownership Counseling Services. Proposals will be received until Wednesday, February 24, 2016 at 3:00 PM. A Pre-Proposal conference will be held at 360 Orange Street, New Haven, CT 06511 on Wednesday February 3, 2016 @ 11:30 AM. A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from HANH’s front desk at 360 Orange Street beginning on Wednesday, January 20, 2016 @ 3:00 PM. Additional questions should be emailed only to Karen DuBois-Walton at, bids@newhavenhousing.org no later than February 10, 2016 @ 3:00 PM. All answers to the questions will be posted on HANH’s Website: www.elmcitycommunities.com. Please click on the link for Vendors and then Current Bids.

Housing Authority of the City of New Haven Request For Proposals Consultant Services for Research and Evaluation of the MTW (Moving to Work) Program The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven (HANH) is currently seeking Proposals Consultant Services for Research and Evaluation of the MTW (Moving to Work) Program. Proposals will be received until Wednesday, February 24, 2016 at 3:00PM. A Pre-Proposal conference will be held at 360 Orange Street, New Haven, CT 06511 on Wednesday February 3, 2016 @ 11:00 AM. A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from HANH’s front desk at 360 Orange Street beginning on Tuesday, January 19, 2015 @ 3:00 PM. Additional questions should be emailed only to Karen DuBois-Walton at, bids@newhavenhousing.org no later than February 10, 2016 @ 3:00 PM. All answers to the questions will be posted on HANH’s Website: www.elmcitycommunities.com. Please click on the link for Vendors and then Current Bids

Welder-Exp. Welder for structural steel Misc shop. Send resume:gwf@snet.net

The Wallingford Regional Solid Waste Project seeks a part-time Resource Recovery Project Coordinator (up to 19.5 hours/weekly). The coordinator provides a range of administrative services to member towns, the Policy Board and the Town of Wallingford, as host community. This is a responsible, professional position that requires a bachelor degree and five (5) years of increasingly responsible experience in the solid waste or related fields. Hourly Rate: $38.00 $42.00. Apply to: Personnel Department, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492. Phone # (203) 294-2060, Fax # (203) 2942084. A downloadable application is available on the Town of Wallingford’s website (www.town.wallingford.ct.us) by going to the Personnel, Pensions & Risk Management page. Applications will be received until the position is filled.

Drivers: Company Drivers. $5000 transition bonus. Paid out in the first 4 months - Call us for details! New Home Time policy: 5 days out - 2 days off; 10 days out - 4 days off; 15 days out- 6 days off. We offer: average $1200-$1400 weekly. $1500 quarterly bonus. $5000 referral bonus. Dedicated lanes. Longevity bonus. Dedicated driver advocate team. Health, dental, vision benefits available. Paid layovers & orientation. Requirements: must have CDL-A with tanker & hazmat endorsements. Have or be willing to obtain TWIC card. 1yr. tractor-trailer exp. Call Jessica: 866-983-0855 or apply online at www.Work4QC.com

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

The

Inner-City Inner-City News

The

Inner-City Inner-City News Connecticut’s First Choice For Urban News Since1990

Classifieds Classifieds 203 387-0354 PLACING AN AD EASY

BUSINESS HOURS - MONDAY FRIDAY 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM - 50 FITCH NEW HAVEN CT, 06515 - Career/Education/Training • Bid• L egal and Public Notices • Health Care • Real Estate • Professional

Listing:! Maintenance Assistant Immediate opening for a part time maintenance assistant for grounds and building maintenance. Position requires flexible work schedule. Some heavy lifting required. Computer knowledge a plus. Send resume to HR Manager, 401 Soundview Road, Guilford, CT 06437. **An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer**

Adult Basic Education & Literacy Teacher (P/T) – New HavenSeeking a dynamic certified secondary ed. or adult ed. teacher to provide basic education and literacy instruction to adult women with children. The candidate must possess a State of CT Teaching Certificate and have experience instructing and supporting adult learners. Bachelor’s Degree in Education; plus 1-3 years’ exp. Candidates who are fluent in English and Spanish are preferred. Position will require morning hours as determined by program needs. Eight (8) hrs./wk. Pay rate $29.00/hr. no benefits. Apply to: ESGI – HR, 432 Washington Ave., North Haven, CT 06473/hr@esginh.org/ Fax:203-495-6108. EOE/AA – M/F/D/V TRANSFER STATION LABORER Off load trailers, reload for trans/disp. Lift 50 lbs., operate industrial powered trucks and forklift. Asbestos Worker Handler Training a +. Resumes to RED Technologies, LLC,173 Pickering St., Portland, CT 06480; Fax 860.218.2433; or Email to info@redtechllc.com. RED Technologies, LLC is an EOE.

Listing: Senior Accountant. Immediate opening for a degreed accountant w/ 2+ years public accounting experience in an extremely fast-paced petroleum environment. Duties include data transmission, tax prep, assistance w/monthly closing, account analysis/reconciliation, assistance managing network and system projects. Strong Excel and analytical skills a must. Great growth potential. Candidate must possess a high level of accuracy and attention to detail. Petroleum industry and propane experience a plus. Send resume to: Human Resource Dept. P O Box 388, Guilford CT 06437. **An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer**

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

Water/Sewer Inspector Performs responsible inspection work involving the installation, connection, or repair of water and sewer lines for the Town of Wallingford, CT. Requires a high school or trade school diploma, plus 2 years of progressively responsible utility construction experience. Successful candidates must have a valid Connecticut driver’s license and be in possession of a P7 construction license issued by the State of Connecticut or obtain P7 license within one (1) year of appointment. The Town offers a competitive pay rate of $59,682 to $76,368 per year plus an excellent fringe benefit package. Applications or resumes will be accepted until January 4, 2015 (or the date of receipt of the 75th application) at the following address: Personnel Department, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main St., Wallingford, CT 06492, (203) 294-2080. Fax: (203) 294-2084. EOE

Garrity Asphalt Reclaiming, Inc seeks: Reclaimer Operators and Milling Operators with current licensing and clean driving record. We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits Contact: Rick Tousignant

Phone: 860- 243-2300

Email: ailto:rick.tousignant@garrityasphalt.com”rick.tousignant@garrityasphalt.com

Welder-Exp. Welder for structural steel Misc shop. Send resume:gwf@snet.net Town of Bloomfield Part Time- Non-benefited After School Activity Specialist $10 to $12 hourly After School Program Director $16 - $20 hourly After School Assistant Program Director $13 - $15 hourly For details and how to apply, go to /www.bloomfieldct.org/” www.bloomfieldct.org. Pre-employment drug testing. AA/EOE

Garrity Asphalt Reclaiming, Inc seeks: Construction Equipment Mechanic preferably experienced in Reclaiming and Road Milling Equipment. We offer factory training on equipment we operate. Location: Bloomfield CT

Union Company seeks: Tractor Trailer Driver for Heavy & Highway Construction Equipment. Must have a CDL License, clean driving record, capable of operating heavy equipment; be willing to travel throughout the Northeast & NY. We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits Contact: Dana Briere

Contact: James Burke

Phone: 860-243-2300

Phone: 860- 243-2300 Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits

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

Special Education Coordinator Wallingford Public Schools is seeking a highly qualified instructional leader for the position of Special Education Coordinator. Start Date: On or about March 1, 2016. Intermediate administrator’s certification and experience as a special education teacher and/or administratorpreferred. Regionally competitive salary and benefits package.on-line @ www.wallingford.k12.ct.usDeadline: February 1, 2016

City of Norwich Department of Public Utilities Utility Project Engineer Salary: $90,896 – $110,614

Visit www.norwichct.org/hr to apply and for more information regarding qualifications, and application deadline. AA/EEO.

Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer

The Housing Authority of the City of Norwalk, CT is seeking bids for Janitorial Services. Bidding documents can be viewed and printed at www.norwalkha.org Norwalk Housing Authority is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Curtis O. Law, Executive Director

City of Norwich Department of Public Works JANITOR Salary: $43,069 - $43,894 Visit www.norwichct.org/hr to apply and for more information regarding qualifications, and application deadline. AA/EEO.

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016

INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2016 - January 24, 2016 32