INNER-CITY NEWS

INNER-CITY NEWS July 27, 2016 - August 02, 2016 THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022

How an Enslaved African Man in Boston Helped Save Generations from Smallpox Financial Justice a Key Focus at 2016 NAACP Convention New Haven, Bridgeport

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Volume 29 . No. 24528 Volume 21 No. 2194

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Chuckey Malloy Malloy To To Dems: Dems: “DMC” Brown,

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Who Helped New Haven Find Its Voice

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Love Flows At Saturday Academy THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022

by LISA REISMAN

New Haven Independent

“I have a question for each of you,” Pastor Valerie Washington began, seated on the soft carpet in a circle of two dozen 3‑to-15-year-olds in the cozy confines of Grand Avenue’s Upon This Rock Ministries.

She was conducting the most recent session of the Saturday Academy, which meets for four hours each month, offering fun, games, and lessons on life skills, as well as spiritual lessons through biblical study. The Academy, which is free and open to up to 60 students, has been meeting since 2011.

“If there was one thing you could do to change the world, to make this world better, what would you do?” Washington asked. “One thing.”

A little boy’s hand shot up.

“I could help people get jobs,” he said.

Everyone clapped.

Another boy spoke in a low voice.

“Yes, Chase, you’d give them food, you’d open up a soup kitchen? Look at that. So people will be able to go and get something to eat if they’re hungry.”

“That’s right,” chorused Simone Joyner and Robin Burke across the circle, as everyone cheered and Chase beamed.

“Tori?”

“I’d wanna help people get houses,” Tori said.

Everyone clapped.

“These are all important because they’re

Pastor Valerie Washington with the kids.

real issues that people face in life every day,” Washington told the group. “People need jobs. People need food to eat. People need housing.”

“So we could all work together,” she continued. “Chase will feed them, that’s right.

And Kayden will help them get a job. And once they get a job, Tori can help them get

a house, and you see how everything you guys do could change the world.”

From the founding of Upon This Rock Ministries on Whalley Avenue in 2005, Washington’s initiatives have focused on children. The church moved to its current location on Grand Avenue in 2016.

“She’s always been about the kids,” said

State Expands Searchable List of Unclaimed Property

by Hugh McQuaid An upgrade to a state governmentmaintained list of dormant assets like unclaimed checks and forgotten bank accounts will allow Connecticut residents to search for inactive property of any value, State Treasurer Shawn Wooden announced Tuesday.

Any Connecticut resident who has forgotten to cash an insurance check or lost track of a savings account for more than three years has likely had those assets turned over to the state. While unclaimed, those assets make millions in revenue for Connecticut each year.

The treasurer’s office maintains a searchable database of that property, called the CTBiglist, which residents can use to identify their unclaimed assets but until recently, the search would only reveal property valued at $50 or more.

According to Wooden’s office, residents can now search for property of any value that has an associated name and address.

“Connecticut residents can now look up their unclaimed property of any value at one cent or greater on CTBigList.com and check the status of their claims on-

State Treasurer Shawn Wooden

line,” Wooden said in a Tuesday press release marking National Unclaimed Property Day. The change follows a CT Mirror story in early January, reporting that the state

had collected more than $40 million in unclaimed property which was valued at less than $50 and therefore impossible to find on the CTBiglist site. The treasurer’s office charged the Mirror $200 for a data request with information more than five years old.

According to Tuesday’s press release, the treasurer’s office was able to expand the functionality of the online system to show property of any value using “new cloud-based technology.”

Wooden announced other upgrades to the system including expanding a “fasttrack” program which allows residents whose property is valued at up to $1,000 to claim the assets in a matter of days.

In July, that limit will expand to claims worth up to $2,500.

Another initiative eliminates the requirement that residents have their applications notarized in order to claim their property.

“Ever since we upgraded our unclaimed property systems to paperless a year ago, it’s been a goal of mine to eliminate the burdensome step of having someone secure a notarization to file their claim,” Wooden said.

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Chazz McCarter, a church minister, who’s known Washington all his life. Washington was his youth leader at his grandfather’s Deliverance Temple Pentecostal Church. “Now I’m passing it on.”

When schools introduced remote learning in spring 2020, Washington, with help from McCarter and Robin Burke, sprang

into action, setting up tables in the church for children of church members to have a place to learn.

“These parents were the essential workers,” Washington said. “They couldn’t stay at home, and they needed to work to be able to provide for their kids. The children needed to be able to continue to get their education but also be in a safe environment with some accountability.”

Soon they were partnering with teachers.

“With the children being on their laptops, we were able to introduce ourselves to their teachers. If someone was struggling in a certain area, the teacher would let us know. Then we would target that subject,” she said.

The program, which transitioned into an extended-hours affair with funding from New Haven Public Schools in September 2021, hasn’t ended with schoolwork.

“We teach them proper communication,” Washington said. “When an adult is speaking, when anyone is speaking, we tell them it’s important you hear them out, and when they’re done, you can ask ‘are you done? may I speak?’”

“We teach them about hygiene, about bullying, about helping their parents, cleaning up, taking out trash, cleaning their rooms,” she said. “We tell them all the time, your parents work all day to provide for you, they come home, they have to cook, so it’s up to you to pitch in.”

“We teach them they have a voice too,” Con’t on page 17

Word On The Street: Brrrr!

by MAYA MCFADDEN and NORA GRACE-FLOOD New Haven Independent

The word on Dixwell Avenue Thursday was: Brrrrrrr.

That’s where 21-year-old Jacob Galarza tried his best to keep warm in his hoodie while making sure needy people had food to eat.

As temperatures inched into double digits, Galarza was working at the Keefe Center, carrying two boxes at a time into community center’s food pantry area to be unpacked then organized into grocery bags for residents to pick up later in the day.

Galarza spoke with WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” program’s “Word on the Street” team in between shlepping the goods.

Galarza, who lives in Newington, travels to Hamden three time a week to help prepare and distribute groceries from the Keefe food pantry. He also take a 40-minute drive back on Saturdays and Sundays to help run the warming center from 7 p.m to midnight.

On top of volunteering at Keefe almost daily since last March, Galarza works at All Access Sports in Plainville.

He noted that another word on the street is: gas money. He spends a lot of it getting

Keefe Center volunteer Jacob Galarza shlepping boxes in the cold Thursday morning.

to and from the center and his second job.

Galarza attends Springfield College remotely, majoring in human services.

“I just like helping people,” he said.

Working at the center has helped Galarza to confirm that he wants to pursue a career in human services, he said.

Helping at Keefe — which operates as a warming center, food pantry, and food distribution site for Hamden — Galarza has built relationships with visitors who talk to him about their day’s agenda and upcoming job interviews, and ask for him to pray for them.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022

Part 1 of our 4-part series in celebration of Black History Month

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Their impacts on athletics, entertainment, education, journalism, government and industry continue to influence our lives.

We look forward to the youth of today continuing to mold our world and its bright future.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022

Fernanda Franco Books New Gig At New Haven Reads

by KAREN PONZIO

New Haven Independent

Fernanda Franco brings every aspect of her artistic self to her new job as outreach director of New Haven Reads. “I walk into the office at Bristol Street, and I feel like Belle from Beauty and the Beast because you walk in and the walls are lined with books and it’s beautiful,” she said. She sang that last line, not unlike the character did in the movie.

Franco, who began her new job in December 2021, is already well-known around New Haven as a musician. She fronts the band Fernanda and The Ephemeral (a.k.a. FaTE) and performs solo and in collaboration with other New Havenarea musicians, whether at a New Haven Jazz Underground event, a State House jam session, or a celebration on the roof of the Arts Council building. At her newest gig, she is thrilled to be recognized and accepted as a practicing artist.

“The cool thing is that they celebrate that I’m an artist, that I’m part of the community,” said Franco. New Haven Reads executive director Kirsten Levinsohn even asked Franco to sing at a recent event.

“She asked, ‘would it be okay if you sang?’ and I was like, ‘oh yes!’” said Franco, noting that all the staff at New Haven Reads have made her feel welcome.

“They’re very like-minded, and you know, I’m crazy, I’m fun, I’m positive. I’m overly positive sometimes, and everybody there is very similar and very passionate about the work.”

That work includes not only running New Haven Reads’s book bank, but providing a variety of services, including its main program of offering one-on-one tutoring services to children. Franco is working on getting the word out to as many people as she can to build up that program, including her fellow artists.

“Our meat and potatoes is the tutoring program, so I kind of want to do a call to arms for musicians and artists in the city to come and tutor, because there’s something really beautiful about that end goal,” she said.

In her previous job as an ESL teacher, Franco became all too familiar with the struggles many students have with learning to read, made even more difficult with the onset of Covid. She also knows that tutoring can benefit both the child and the teacher.

“One of my tutors said something so brilliant, which was ‘you know, it does so much for us,’ ” Franco said. “Right now with the pandemic, I think all of us feel so much pressure, and there’s just a lot of negativity. But when you’re tutoring, you’re just sitting there and reading with this child and you’re watching them grow.

You’re helping them through the difficul‑ ties.”

Franco speaks from direct experience.

“I tutor, you know, because I love teaching and that’s a passion for me,” she said.

“It makes my heart swell, and honestly it helps to keep me kind of grounded when

FERNANDA FRANCO PHOTO Fernanda Franco

I’m not feeling my best. Because it brings me back to like, ‘why am I working? What am I doing? Why am I Zooming a million hours a week?’ And then you tutor and you’re like, ‘this is why, because you want to the kids to have the best opportunity that they can to grow.’ But then also I feel great.”

In Franco’s experience, anyone can tutor, and everyone does. “I see people from all walks of life tutoring,” she said. “We have high schoolers. We have college students.

We have doctors, nurses, psychologists.

We have musicians, artists, and we even have teachers, so they literally spend all day long teaching and then they come to New Haven Reads, and they tutor. It’s wild, right? But that’s passion.”

Another aspect of New Haven Reads’s community outreach, which Franco said is in its “baby stages,” is Future Teachers Club, aimed at New Haven high school students interested in becoming a teachers. It will offer training in tutoring as well as lessons on teaching strategies that might ready them for a career in education.

“It’s my version of community,” said Franco. “We really need teachers right now, and there’s a terrible shortage, so why not help sow the seeds that already are starting to flower and bloom?”

Tutor coordinator is another of Franco’s roles, interviewing and training interested applicants and acting as their main point of contact while filling in as a tutor her‑ self when there are holes in the schedule.

Covid gave the nonprofit many challenges they worked hard to overcome, including keeping their tutor program going. Most recently, they decided to spend the month of January online when there was a rise in cases after the holidays. They are gearing up to go back in person with their programs this week.

“It’s been a really crazy time,” said Franco. “We had to train all of the people who didn’t teach online.” She is looking forward to returning to Bristol Street, with Covid distances and precautions in effect.

Tutoring will return to its 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. daily schedule, and book bank operations will continue throughout in the day, with teachers often coming in and picking out books for their classroom libraries. (That service is also offered online for teachers who cannot make it there in person.)

The idea of free books seems too good to be true to most people, and it is one of the aspects of New Haven Reads that gets Franco most excited both personally and professionally.

“I leave work every day with like five books at least, and now when people visit my house I have one part of my bookshelf that is all book bank material, and so people leave my house with books now” she said. “It’s so good. It really is like the dream because you go in there and every book is free, and whatever you love you can take and then you can bring back the ones you finish and you’re not clutter‑ ing your house, which is another awesome thing.”

Free books in walking distance of your home is yet another aspect of New Haven Reads that Franco is determined to get the community aware of.

“A lot of people don’t know it exists,” she said. “For me coming in now, I’m brand new. I keep saying ‘I’m green on the scene,’ but it would be so easy for high school students to come over and find something. Adults too.”

Add in the other programs New Haven Reads provides — like its pre-K and kindergarten programs taught by certified teachers — and the wealth of new ideas just waiting to be realized, and Franco is nearly bursting with pride. “There’s just a lot of really positive things coming out of this nonprofit,” she said.

Positivity and enthusiasm are engrained in every cell of Franco’s being, and she is thrilled to be in a position to put those qualities to good use in her new job.

“I think that my approach to professionalism is very different from other people’s,” she said. “When I was younger, I used to tone it down.… ‘You can’t smile, and you have to sound very professional and use big words and show them that you did a really good job on your SATs,’ ” Franco recalled people saying to her. “My perception of leadership is so different.

I get my hands dirty … but I am also going to be silly. I’m going to send you smiley faces,” she added with a laugh. “Why can’t I be nice and fun and be my bubbly self and also project leadership?”

Franco considers herself a “very optimistic person,” though she noted “there will always be someone out there in the world who says, ‘why are you smiling? what are you so happy about?’ and I’m like, ‘what are you so mad about? Why can’t I be happy?’”

Franco’s dedication to remaining posi-

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tive and optimistic and being wholly and unabashedly her own person has been embraced and encouraged, not only by New Haven Reads, but by the New Haven arts community that she has been a part of for the past few years.

“The arts community in New Haven can’t be beat, I mean, it’s out of this world beautiful,” she said. “I did find an artistic family. I arrived, and no one said, ‘why are you so happy?’ They were like ‘you are shining, girl,’ and I was like ‘I am!’

They’re just so nice.”

FaTE has not played a gig since the Sunday in the Park event at Edgerton Park in September 2021, and Franco herself has been somewhat quiet musically.

“I feel like for three months I didn’t pick up an instrument, but once I do pick up an instrument it’s so therapeutic,” she said. Rehearsals for the band have been limited due to time and Covid, but Franco has seen her bandmates socially and they are talking about releasing another single sometime this year. She is also leaning toward releasing a few solo tunes.

“Everybody made a pandemic mix tape, right?” she said with a laugh. “I have couple songs that I want to release as a solo project which will be really fun.” Seeing it written in this article, she said, “will light a fire under my butt.”

In addition to singing the praises of her FaTE bandmates, Franco is eager to return to collaborations with friends and fellow musicians, such as Dylan McDonnell and chad browne-springer of Phat A$tronaut, as well as many others. “The community that we have is so beautifully tight knit,” she said. “It’s just so nice. It’s not elitist.

It’s very accepting of everyone, and everyone is just trying to do the best they can for each other supporting each other.”

And now Franco is asking for the support of those friends in that community on another level.

“I want musicians and artists to show up physically in a meaningful way, because we can cry about what our community looks like all day long,” Franco said. “We might even ignore the fact that we have such a huge disparity in education between our Black and Latino students and our White students, and our private school students versus our state school students.

We could ignore all that or we can help, right?… It might take a little bit of courage to get your butt out of the house and learn a new skill or do something that makes you a little uncomfortable, but once you are in it and you’re doing the thing that you know is making a difference, then it’s magic. You can change your community.

You can change the world one person at a time, but you have to get out. You have to do something. You can’t just sit there scrolling your Instagram and being sad.”

“It’s my call to arms!” she yelled while smiling widely. “Let’s go!”

Please visit the New Haven Reads website for more information about its programs and volunteer opportunities as well as its book bank hours.

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Shakeup At City Hall THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022

by THOMAS BREEN

Through a mix of department-head retirements and non-reappointments, the Elicker Administration will soon have a host of new faces in — and former Harp appointees out of — various leadership positions in City Hall.

Among the agencies to receive new leaders are the City Plan Department, the Fair Rent Commission, and the Elderly Services Division.

Mayor Justin Elicker confirmed that planned City Hall shakeup in a Monday morning interview with the Independent.

He said he will not be renewing the appointments of City Plan Director Aicha Woods and Elderly Services Director Migdalia Castro.

He said that Fair Rent Commission Executive Director Otis Johnson and Public Safety Communications Director George Peet are both soon retiring.

And he said that city Labor Relations Director Cathleen Simpson will soon resign.

As is the case with most city departments heads, all of these top city officials were on four-year contracts set to expire on Tuesday. (The charter states that city department heads serve four- year terms that start on Feb. 1 every four years.)

FILE PHOTOS On the way out: City Plan Director Aicha Woods, Fair Rent's Otis Johnson, Elderly Services chief Migdalia Castro.

“This is the first opportunity I have to appoint a team that best fits the vision that we have for New Haven,” Elicker told the Independent on Monday, referring back to the many four-year department head contracts he inherited two years in when he first came to office in 2020.

Asked about the churn at the top of the City Plan, Fair Rent, and Elderly Services Departments in particular and about his priorities when thinking about who will lead those departments next, Elicker said, “There’s a real opportunity here. There’s been a lot of work done on affordable housing. I think we need to expand hous-

ing accountability and ensure that there’s more advocacy within the city to protect tenants who are in unsafe or abusive environments. That’s a real opportunity I think we have, through Fair Rent and other departments.”

City spokesperson Kyle Buda said that Simpson’s last day as labor relations director will be Feb. 11. Castro will continue as the head of elderly services until her replacement is announced. Woods will continue as the head of city plan until her replacement is announced.

Elicker stressed that these personnel moves are not about his pushing out City

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Hall leaders tapped by his predecessor.

He pointed out that he will be reappointing to new four-year terms several departments heads who worked under former Mayor Toni Harp in some capacity. They include Livable City Initiative Executive Director Arlevia Samuel, City Engineer Giovanni Zinn, Fire Chief John Alston, youth services director Gwendolyn Busch Williams, and public works director Jeff Pescosolido.

He also plans to reappoint city Corporation Counsel Patricia King and newly tapped city transportation director Sandeep Aysola.

Buda confirmed that a handful of other city department heads — including Director of Cultural Affairs Adriane Jefferson, City Librarian John Jessen, and city Health Director Maritza Bond — are all technically hired by independent boards and not by the mayor. He also said that city Building Official Jim Turcio does not require reappointment at this time, because of a state statute that determines local building official terms.

That said, the Elicker Administration does not expect any changes to any of those positions.

Buda pointed out that the three City Hall coordinator (or deputy mayor) positions — currently filled by Mike Piscitelli, Mehul Dalal, and Regina Rush-Kittle — are one-time mayoral appointments that do not need reappointment.

And the mayor has stated that he will undertake a national search for a new police chief after the Board of Alders rejected the mayor’s appointment of Acting Police Chief Renee Dominguez for the permanent role.

In an email press release sent out midday Monday, Elicker said he plans to announce later this week new appointments for leadership roles in City Plan, Fair Con’t on page 10

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022

Remembering Chuckey Brown, Who Helped New Haven Find Its Voice

by Lucy Gellman, Editor, The Arts Paper www.newhavenarts.org

You can’t see Charles Brown in the frame, but his voice is the first thing you hear. On the risers, members of the Salt & Pepper Gospel Singers begin to sway, one foot, then the other. Piano rolls beneath them. Then the voice, like a bolt of pure silk: How to-o reach! The masses! Men of ev’ry birth/For an answer! Jesus gave the key!

The sound climbs, smooth and sweet. The choir answers in perfect harmony. Brown begins to belt, and everything but his voice fades away.

In the month that the world has kept turning without him, friends, family, and fellow vocalists have continued to keep his memory alive in fellowship and in song.

Brown was a beloved son of New Haven, triple-threat actor who graced Elm City dance studios and Broadway stages, and the first music director of the Salt & Pepper Gospel Singers. He died unexpectedly at home last month in Landover, Maryland, where he was the vocal director for the five-campus, 10,000-member Zion Church.

The family does not yet know the cause of death. He was 58 years old.

“His whole life was built around the music,” said his mother Mae Gibson Brown, co-founder of the Salt & Pepper Gospel Singers and an associate minister at St. Matthews Free Will Baptist Church, in a recent interview at her Orchard Place home in New Haven. “I have to believe that he was sent here for an assignment, and in some way he had finished his assignment.”

A Rising Star Brown’s path to the arts began when he was just a baby, the youngest child of six in a Winthrop Avenue house that was always filled with music. By the time he was born in November 1963, his mother had been lifting her voice in praise for decades, from a childhood in segregated West Virginia to a move to New Haven in 1954.

Even as a baby, her son made an entrance, at 23 inches and almost 10 pounds.

His mother discovered that music soothed him, and became a language between the two of them. When he cried, Gibson Brown often lifted him to her mouth and sang with her lips on his, so close he could feel the vibration of her voice. “His little eyes would light up” and he would calm down instantly, she remembered. It was the beginning of a life lived in song, often in service to a higher power.

Once he could use his voice, he didn’t stop. Even as a young student at Foote School, “he was different,” Gibson Brown remembered. “He always looked at things different than most children, I think.”

Brown—or Chuckey, as most people knew him—was insatiably curious, from his insistence that Adam and Eve didn’t have belly buttons (“they were not born,

they were created,” he informed his mother when he was four or five) to the way he would puzzle over grammar, rearranging song titles out loud. As soon as he could walk, he was drawn to the school’s piano, on which he happily banged just to hear the sound come out. It wasn’t long before his family had one at home, too.

“His brain has always worked in a different way,” Gibson Brown said. The whole family was musical, and her baby boy happily slipped into the role of pianist when they played at home and visited churches across the city, Brown on keys and his older brother John on guitar. When he was still young, he was short enough that he had to slide his body along the piano bench, touching the pedals with his toes.

He played and sang up until the week that he passed.

Wherever he went in New Haven, it seemed that his outsized and sweet personality often preceded him. At home, he and his older sister Janet (now Janet BrownClayton, the executive director of Highville Charter School) were inseparable. “I gave birth to Chuckey, but you would have thought he was her baby,” Gibson Brown laughed as she spooled through memories earlier this month. In elementary and middle school, the two sat for hours in Janet’s room, their French homework laid out around them as they prattled back and forth in this new, shared secret of a foreign language.

That generosity extended to his peers.

As an eighth grader at the city’s Augusta Lewis Troup School, Brown helped tutor fellow students in math. Marcella Monk Flake, who attended the school during those years with Janet, remembered him during that time as “New Haven’s little brother.” It became part of a friendship with the Brown family and their matriarch, whom Monk Flake fondly calls “Ma Brown,” that would last for over four decades.

In the 1970s, Brown’s star was rising. At 14 or 15 years old, he was directing the choir at St. James Unity Holiness Church, where people would pack the Lawrence Street sanctuary on Sundays just to see him conduct and sing. During the week, he was a student at James Hillhouse High School, where he joined the school’s chorus and then-robust gospel choir, became the school’s first male cheerleader, and stepped up as drum major for All City High School Band. At night, Gibson Brown knew he was home when she heard him his voice rising in song off Whalley Avenue as he turned onto Winthrop.

Dr. Edward Joyner, who was Hillhouse’s assistant principal during the time, remembered Brown as “clearly a phenomenal talent.” Joyner first met Brown years before he graced Hillhouse’s halls and stages, first through his father John and again through several of his older sisters. Before Brown got to Hillhouse in 1977, Joyner had taught his older sister Alyson, and mentored his older sister Janet.

In Brown, he saw an artistic dynamo whose spirit glowed. During his tenure as assistant principal, Joyner “always tried to

Brown in 2017. Contributed Photo. make sure the arts were front and center,” and often scheduled talent shows, class nights, fashion shows and performances for the student body. He remembered working with teachers to schedule a run of The Wiz in which Brown played the scarecrow, helping to carry the show. At another talent show, he offered to duet with Brown on “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday.” Cooley High, the film that made the song famous, was only a few years old.

It was a hit. When Brown crooned the solo from the stage, it became easy to see why his voice was later called “liquid gold” by his colleagues in Maryland. Joyner sang from the pit, so as to stay hidden. After-

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wards, “the kids said: ‘How did he sing both of those parts?’” Joyner remembered with a laugh. He knew that Brown was destined for stages beyond New Haven, and later cheered him on as he landed parts in RENT, Miss Saigon, The Lion King and Starlight Express on and off Broadway.

Because their families are close—“not related by blood but they are closer than that,” he said—Joyner saw Brown and members of his family as recently as last Thanksgiving, as they ate together beneath a large tent in Joyner’s backyard. “I’ll see you at the next holiday,” he remembered saying as he and Brown embraced. It was the last time they saw each other.

“Chuck has a special place in our family’s heart,” he said in a phone call Friday afternoon. “He gave more to the world than he got out of it.”

Outside of the classroom, Brown poured himself into both choral conducting and contemporary, lyrical and African dance.

He was a student at the now-legendary​​ Bowen-Peters School of Dance and, after it opened on Edgewood Avenue in 1980, Dee Dee’s Dance and Fitness Center. Shari Caldwell, who taught with him at Dee Dee’s, remembered how he quickly became known as “the stallion,” for the grace with which he moved.

“He was just beautiful,” she said. “His form was just beautiful, his movement was as beautiful. He was a magnificent dancer, and he was an even better vocalist, singer.”

He and Caldwell both began to train with the dancer Paul Hall, who ran a contemporary dance company in New Haven until his own death in the late 1990s. “They were brothers with different moms,” Caldwell remembered in a phone call last Wednesday. Before he finished high school, Brown accompanied Hall to New York City, where both of them tried out for a summer institute with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. He landed a spot, one of just 15 students selected from over 1200 auditions.

By then, he was already talking about heading to Broadway. In the four years before he did, Brown continued to transform New Haven’s musical landscape. Hall and Brown joined Mikata, the Afro-Caribbean, funk, and Latin-infused brainchild of Richard Hill and ​​Jeff McQuillan, and wrote music for one of the group’s early albums. He directed multiple church choirs around the city, including a 20-member ensemble at Varick Memorial A.M.E Zion in Dixwell.

His cousin Aleta Staton, now director of community engagement at Long Wharf Theatre, remembered being in the group, and knowing that every member was hanging on to his every word. He was exacting but also gentle, more certain of what members were capable of than they sometimes were themselves.

“He looked in my eyes and he whispered, ‘Deliver,’” she remembered of one performance at Varick. “And I did. He got work out of us. There were about 20 of us, and I was very lucky that he let me sing. I learned so much under him.”

Salt & Pepper Gospel Singers: “The Ministry Of The Music”

That time was also the beginning of the Salt & Pepper Gospel Singers. In October 1984, Gibson Brown met Sheila Bonenberger at the Wightwood School in Branford, where she was an educator for 48 years. Bonenberger, who is white, had heard Gibson Brown singing with her children at a potluck. She wanted to learn how to do what she had just heard. Gibson Brown gave her a tentative “Yes.” The next time they gathered, it was at GibCon’t on page 09

JoJo’s Becomes Newest G Cafe THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022

by MAYA MCFADDEN

While cutting the ribbon Friday to his fourth bakery-cafe spot, Andrea Corazzini paid homage to his European roots — with a hot latte.

City officials welcomed G Cafe co‑ owners Corazzini and Christian Festa to the corner of Chapel and Park Streets with a celebratory opening event. The coffee shop previously at the location, JoJo’s, closed during the pandemic.

“I feel like I just delivered a baby,” Corazzini said after cutting the ribbon.

The cafe serves fresh bread and pastries daily. It is open for 8 a.m to 4 p.m during the winter season. Corazzini said as the warm months arrive. the shop will likely extend its hours.

The doughs are fermented for days to offer a more “fresh aroma and flavor.”

The menu includes fresh Italian filone, 100 percent German rye, and Jewish rye breads.

Festa and Corazzini have been bringing the “European experience” of a coffee shop to New Haven. The company already owns a regional bakery in town as well as cafes on Orange Street and at Tweed New Haven Airport.

Corazzini is the head baker for the cafe.

He offered free and fresh loafs of bread

with customer purchases Friday.

He added that the third spot in New Haven makes him feel like a “proud New Havener.”

The final touches for the cafe were in‑ stalled the day before with handmade ceiling lamps made by Kiara Matos, to whom Corazzini is married.

Local architect Fernando Pastor of SeedNH worked with the owners to give the spot some “European flavor.”

The five‑month redesign mission to open up the space with natural wood, lots of light, and vertical patterns began this past August.

The bakery’s back wall is layered with thinly cut vertical boards of natural plywood, inspired by Scandinavian and European design.

Pastor, who is Argentinian, said he and Corazzini connected quickly through their cultures, this made designing easy he said.

The service counter is made up of vertical ceramic tiles imported from Italy to complement the shop’s natural, inviting, and open layout.

Corazzinni’s first G Cafe on Orange Street opened seven years ago. The second location opened this summer at Tweed, helping flyers to smuggle fresh bread and pastries down to Florida,

CORAL ORTIZ PHOTO Friday's ribbon-cutting at new G Cafe at Park and Chapel.

joked city Deputy Economic Development Administrator Carlos Eyzaguirre.

Mayor Justin Elicker encouraged New Haveners to shop locally and support local business. He is a frequent customer at the Orange Street shop, where he often orders a chocolate croissant and coffee with cream.

“I think it’s a testament to the spirt of

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New Haven that we have local businesses investing in the local community and hiring local residents,” Elicker said.

More than half of the 45 total G Cafe staff at all locations are New Haven residents.

Chapel West Special Service District Operations Manager Anthony Giano said he looks forward to the shop cre-

ating more foot traffic in the neighbor‑ hood.

“This is just the beginning of a long-term venture,” Corazzini said.

Corazzini was asked about the recent announcement by Yale University that students may not enter local shops, restaurants, and bars in order to avoid the spread of Covid. He said he is not worried because it will give the shop more space to service all of New Haven.

“Yale is only one part of the city. The city is a lot more than Yale, so it’s OK for us,” Corazzini said.

The “G” in G Cafe originally stood for German, after the bread made at the Whole G Bakery. Now it also stands for “good, great, and grain,” Corazzini said.

One of Corazzini’s favorites for its taste and story is the “45” bread, which has a northern European- inspired taste and is made from 50 percent whole wheat.

He made it while experimenting in the kitchen one day with whole wheat and coarsely milled flour. Once perfecting its size and rectangular shape, he went home to share to good news with his wife on her 45th birthday.

“I was talking about how great the bread was and she was talking about how great 45 was,” he said.

So he decided to name the bread “45.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022

Sisters’ Journey February Survivor of the Month: Marion Harmon

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To God be ALL the Glory for the Great Things He has done, He is doing and He will do I am Marion E. Harmon. I was born in Somers Point, NJ but was raised and lived in Bridgeport, CT all my life. In 1997, at age 47, I had a mammogram and was diagnosed with DCIS breast cancer. I also went into menopause at age 47. I did not have a lump. I am now a 25-year survivor.

I had not had a mammogram for a couple of years because my insurance did not cover the cost fully. After I changed insurance and had coverage, I made an appointment to have it done. I scheduled the appointment in late 1996 for February 1997. I thought about canceling the appointment, because my 25-year-old godson had an aneurysm and had been in the hospital on life support in Virginia since a few days before Christmas. We made an emergency trip to Virginia when it first happened to see him and be there for his grandmother, who had raised him since he was 10. It was during that time that my best girlfriend passed away. So, when we went down, we needed to come right back.

We planned to go again in February on the weekend of Presidents’ Day since we would have that Monday off work.

By that time my godson was off life support and doing better. I was undecided about going because of my mammogram appointment.

One day I was walking upstairs in my house and I got the sense that I needed to keep the appointment. I now believe it was God through the Holy Spirit. So, I did not go back to Virginia. My godson made a full recovery and is doing well today.

After I had the mammogram, I was at work when I got a call from my doctor’s office. He told me that they had seen some‑ thing on the mammogram and I needed to see a surgeon right away. I was stunned and became a little excited. I said, “Who should

Marion E. Harmon

I get?” I did not know a surgeon. He said there was a new breast surgeon around, Dr. Leslie Wagenberg, but I could go to Columbia Presbyterian in New York.

He said that if I was his relative that is where he would recommend to go. In my situation, with limited transportation, I said no. I was not going to New York and tried to process what I had been told.

My coworker MaryAnn Harp was sitting at her desk across from me and she overheard everything I said. When I hung up the phone, I began to tell her what had happened. She is also a breast cancer survivor and she began to talk to me and calm me down – one day at a time, one thing at a time.

Next step was to see Dr. Wagenberg. She explained the diagnosis and everything to me in detail so I could understand. I did not have a lump, but I did have micro‑calcifica‑ tions. They were just there, not aggressive.

The cancer was classified as Stage 0 (zero), DCIS (in the ducts, not invasive). She suggested a lumpectomy with radiation – five

days a week for six weeks. I experienced skin breakdown and had to stop for a few days. I was able to go on our family reunion in Atlanta GA and I worked most of the time until my skin began to break down, which was a little painful.

During this time of my Journey, I had the love, prayers and support of my family, church, coworkers, friends and Dr. Wagenberg. My spiritual mentor, Mother, the late Rev. Barbara Spratley, told me to stand on God’s word with a particular scripture.

My scripture was from Psalm 103:1-5, focusing on verse 3: “...And heals ALL your diseases.” My sons were very supportive.

My oldest, Derrick, was always available if I needed him – whether it was something from the store, a ride here or there – and my youngest son Darryll,, the same and treated me to getting my hair styled every two weeks. When you look better, you feel better.

I was doing well, one day at a time, when in 1999 something showed up on the mammogram. I had another lumpectomy. The results were sent to the Army Medical Team in Maryland for a second opinion.

No cancer, but I was put on Tamoxifen for five years. I had side effects from the Tamoxifen.

In 2001, I was diagnosed with endometriosis and had a total hysterectomy; and in 2003, I was diagnosed with pulmonary emboli (more than one blood clot). But GOD brought me through both. The Tamoxifen was stopped after 4½ years.

I have continued with my regular yearly mammograms and over the years I supported and worked with the Witness Project, along with Jean Austin, MaryAnn Harp and then Marilyn Moore. It has now been 25 years since my 1997 diagnosis and 23 since 1999.

I AM GRATEFUL! To God be ALL the Glory, for HE is Great and Greatly To Be Praised!

Unsolved Deaths of Two Black Women, Two Bridgeport Police Detectives Placed on Leave

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

Two Bridgeport, Connecticut, police detectives are now on administrative leave after public attention that spurred attention from the media and brought scrutiny surrounding the deaths of two Black women.

The two Black women, Brenda Lee Rawls, 53, and Lauren Smith-Fields, 23, died on the same day: Dec. 12, 2021, in separate incidents. The Chief Medical Examiner in Bridgeport has not determined a cause of death for Rawls. Rawls was close to her family by text and by phone and informed them she was to visit a male acquaintance. When she was nonresponsive two days later the family became concerned.

Lauren Smith-Fields, was in contact with a man she met on the dating app Bumble. Smith-Fields was found dead in her apartment after that date. That man, who is 37 and white, called 911 on Dec. 12 but it’s unclear if police contacted him

8

Lauren Smith-Fields for questioning in Smith-Fields’ death.

The medical examiner said on January 31 that Smith-Fields’ death was an accident related to “acute intoxication.”

An attorney for Smith-Fields’ family, Darnell Crosland, has indicated that the family intends to sue the city of Bridgeport over what he described as the police

department’s “racially insensitive” handling of Smith-Fields’ case.

In reaction to growing criticism of the lack of investigation on the part of police, Bridgeport Mayor Joseph Ganim extended condolences to the families of Smith-Fields and Rawls in a statement on January 30.

Ganim also said he was planning to work with the police chief to “make appropriate changes here in Bridgeport now for our department’s policies and practices regarding notifying family members of a death.”

The news of the two police detectives being placed on administrative laeve gives an indication that the cases of Rawls and Smith-Fields will receive more attention and scrutiny.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent journalist and the host of the podcast BURKEFILE. She is a political analyst who appears regularly on #RolandMartinUnfiltered. She may be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022

Remembering Chuckey Brown, Who Helped New Haven Find Its Voice

son Brown’s home in Beaver Hills. Bonenberger and two fellow “salts”—that’s what the choir calls white people—listened carefully as Brown taught them the gospel standard “Encourage My Soul.” He ran through each of the parts with precision, exacting as he worked through them in real time. There was no sheet music, no anxious rustling of pages. The group learned the parts aurally—a central tenet of gospel music—and sang. In a single room, something magical happened.

“At the end of that, he looked at us, and we all looked at each other, and we were electrified,” Bonenberger said in a recent interview, sitting across the room from Gibson Brown. “And he said, ‘Let’s do this again.’ I will tell you that I have never known anyone more charismatic and more extraordinary as a musician and as a teacher than Chuck.”

The Salt & Pepper Gospel Singers started small, with just a few members and bookings at a few churches and community festivals across the greater New Haven region. In its early years, Brown became the de facto director, bouncing from the keyboard to the front of the choir at weekly rehearsals and concerts. In early videos he is trim and tall, sometimes airborne as he conducts the group. His whole body moves with the music, as if the song is inside him, crackling hotly from his feet to his head on its way out.

Multiple members saw him as a musical alchemist. Whatever people thought they could do, Bonenberger said, Brown would instantly pull out more. If he was severe— and he could be—it came from a place of trust in something bigger than the choir. As the group grew from five members to 12 to dozens, “I knew that I was in the presence of someone who was a complete musical genius,” she said.

Soon, audiences did too. In December 1986, the Salt & Pepper Gospel Singers competed in the fourth annual New England Choir Festival at the Shubert Theatre and won. They went on to perform at potlucks, churches, theaters, senior centers, schools and prisons for the next three and a half decades, before Covid-19 created an unwelcome hiatus from which they are just coming back. In a recent interview, Bonenberger pulled out a 50-page archive of performances, from the New Haven Green to the Apollo Theater in Harlem.

Sometimes the choir was welcomed with open arms, Bonenberger said. Sometimes it took the audience longer to warm up.

Brown and his mother always gave the choir the same direction: they were there to minister. If they did it from their hearts, nothing else mattered.

Rev. Harlon Dalton, who is still a member today, said he thinks of the group as revolutionary because it represents “racial integration on Black people’s terms.” He first heard the singers perform at a church in 1985. At the time, Dalton “had been unchurched” for roughly two decades, since leaving the home where he grew up as a Baptist. Hearing the singers stirred something deep within him.

“It served as helping me connect all parts of myself,” he said. He would go on to write a book entitled Racial Healing, in which he dedicated space to the choir, and become the missional priest at the Episcopal Church of St. Paul and St. James in Wooster Square. Once he joined—the group performed at his wedding in 1986 and the rest was history—he saw for himself the magnetism with which Brown worked.

“I really watched him develop, pay attention to his craft, and help other people maximize their potential,” Dalton said in a phone call earlier this month. “He knew how to conduct a choir, and how to lead.”

Nowhere, perhaps, was that truer than the prisons in which the group performed, including several that it visited on road trips out of the state. In 1985, the choir had its first performance at Somers Prison in Enfield. A few years later, singers found themselves at York Correctional Institution, the women’s prison in Niantic. Dalton remembered watching Gibson Brown step forward to minister as the group sang.

“The spirit in the room—the small ‘s’ and the capital ‘S’—was almost overwhelming,” he said. “I don’t know if they specifically offered hands, or asked women to come forward. And the guards started to come forward, and Mae just made a gesture, and the guards, they kind of backed off. And Mae continued to put her hands on these women, and we continued singing, and it may have been the most powerful religious experience I have ever had.”

During those years, Brown shared the piano with Ronald “Ronnie” Pollard, who later became the group’s director. Pollard first heard the singers at a family reunion in New Haven in 1985, when there were only about a dozen members. He was living in West Virginia at the time, and soon moved his whole family to Connecticut.

When he applied to join the group in 1987, he didn’t let on that he also knew how to play piano. “I was like, ‘I want to just sing with a group, I just don’t want to have to play,’” he said.

But Pollard’s cousins liked to gossip, and word of his skill got out. After learning that he could play piano, Gibson Brown put both Pollard and Brown on keys; the two sometimes switched in the middle of a piece if the music demanded it. During a performance at Somers Prison in 1989, Brown started at the piano bench, and then stood up and let Pollard take over. It was flawless. Pollard has since directed the group for over 30 years. He sometimes shared the stage with Brown, who returned to conduct a 2017 performance of the Salt & Pepper Gospel Singers at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas.

“In all God’s wisdom and knowledge that everything happens for a reason, I just believe that he placed me in that spot at the right time,” he said. “When I’m playing for the choir, I’m not singing or playing just to try to show off. It’s the ministry of the music. You’re out singing gospel music, which is the good news of Jesus Christ.”

To Broadway, & To Zion

When Brown turned directing the choir over to Pollard in 1989, it was to pursue his own dreams as C.C. Brown on Broadway. In 1993, he went to Las Vegas to preform Starlight Express on roller skates. He moved back to New York, where in 1995 he landed the role of John in a touring cast of Miss Saigon. The following year, he landed the role of Tom Collins in the first national tour of RENT. In fuzzy, technicolor videos of him performing, he is transcendent, his voice lifting up the whole show like the whole stage belongs to him.

When the show opened at Boston’s Shubert Theatre in November 1996, Hartford Courant reporter Malcolm Johnson went to see it, and praised Brown’s solo in the reprise of “I’ll Cover You.” Brown “rocks the house,” Johnson wrote. It was a work whose gospel core seemed like it was made specifically for him. Brown himself talked about delighting in the role, in which his character meets and falls for the gender-bending Angel Dumott Schunard.

“RENT is about the power of love to right wrong and the power of friends who stick together,” Brown told Chicago Tribune reporter Sid Smith when the show traveled to the Windy City in 1997. “Don’t tell me it can’t change people’s minds or their lives.”

Actor Evan D’Angeles became the first Filipino Angel during those years, when he joined the touring cast of RENT in 1998.

As part of the Broadway cast of Miss Saigon in the early 1990s, he knew who Brown was—including “the richness of his baritone” that he had cultivated in New Haven’s churches and schools. D’Angeles was struck by how deeply Brown understood Collins, whose capacity for sorrow was outdone only by his ability to love.

On the road, Brown “was the poppa figure” of the bunch, D’Angeles said in a phone call Sunday night. On stage, he was a force. D’Angeles, for whom the role was his first stage kiss, remembered how Brown could envelop him at the end of “I’ll Cover You,” that bouncy, pop-flecked number in which Tom and Angel declare their love for each other. His whole body shook when Brown performed the reprise to “I’ll Cover You,” sung at Angel’s funeral after she has died of complications from AIDS. “It was a pleasure to fall in love with him every day,” he said. “It was an honor to fall in love with him daily. Every time … he just had this knowing about that character.

He was so generous onstage, and there was so much of him in that character.”

“It was always such a privilege to bear the torch of Jonathan’s [Larson] legacy,” he added. Brown carried that into every show.

After RENT, Brown went on to play Mufasa in The Lion King. In 2000, he took over for Billy Porter as John in the Broadway cast of Miss Saigon. But he never stayed away from his family for long—and they never stayed far away from him.

After several years on Broadway, Brown returned to New Haven for a short time, then moved out to Maryland 13 years ago.

9

Before he left the city, Staton remembered bringing him in to work with her students at the Educational Center for the Arts (ECA) on Audubon Street, where she was teaching. By then, the two had grown very close, including a period during which Brown lived with her.

When he walked into the school and began to sing with his mother and siblings Janet and John, “those kids were sitting there with their jaws open,” she remembered. Staton later “begged him” to return from Maryland for performances of Black Nativity, which she directed for four years starting in 2013. He always did, reprising the role of the Angel Gabriel with cast members from his family, members of the Monk family, and the historic Vernon Jones singers.

When he performed, there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

“He took a voice with him I don’t think I’ll ever see again,” Staton said. She last saw him a few years ago, when she was visiting Maryland.

In Maryland, Brown became the vocal music director for all five branches of Zion Church and a founding member of Restored Vocal Band, which had plans to visit New Haven this year. Each week, he designed the music program that welcomed Zion’s 10,000 parishioners and kept them coming back. In the weeks before his death, he had just finished two major projects including “A Miracle On Z Street,” a church-wide Christmas extravaganza held outdoors at Six Flags America.

Keith Battle, founder and senior pastor at the church, remembered Brown for his honesty and ability to keep friends accountable. He saw Brown as personifying Proverbs 27:6: “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.” At a homegoing service last month, he praised Brown for the kind of gentle, sometimes side-splittingly funny and sometimes wounding frankness with which he lived his life.

“He was always gonna tell you the truth,” he said. “He was always gonna be up front with you. And that’s what Charles would do … he showed up as a friend. Even when he knew your flaws or your family’s flaws, it didn’t change his love or support for you one iota. He was a great friend.”

It was at Zion that Brown reconnected with Caldwell in 2018, after she had gotten married and moved to Maryland. From where she was sitting at the back of the church during services a few years ago, she couldn’t see Brown. But she could hear him. She started to jump up and down, trying to get a glimpse of the friend she loved so much. After the service, she tracked down a friend of his who got him on the phone.

When Brown found out that she was there after the service—she remembered him screaming her name joyously into the phone—he turned his car around and headed right back to the church. The two embraced and sat in the lobby catching up.

The last time she saw him was during one

of Gibson Brown’s visits to Maryland.

“He was whole,” she said. “He was whole. There were things that were missing when he was younger, and he filled those beautifully.”

“Serving Something Bigger Than Himself”

Brown was that kind of friend—an uncle, godfather, and father figure—to dozens of people he met in Maryland, and to New Haven friends with whom he stayed in touch. Years ago, he became an adoptive father to William Charles Brown, a son who now lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. At a memorial service at Zion last month, Restored member Jeffrey Hill remembered Brown as not only a friend and spiritual guide, but a loving confidant who showed up in his moments of greatest need.

When Hill’s father died a few years ago, Brown was the first person he thought to call. When Brown walked in, Hill was lying on the floor beside his father’s body.

Brown laid down with him. He later became the beloved godfather to Hill’s sixyear-old son William, whom he referred to as “Uncle Charles.” When the two were together—whether in song or in fellowship, or both at the same time—they were unstoppable. Members of Restored referred to Brown as “fire,” because “he could just set the stage ablaze.”

“Every time he touched the mic, he was blessin’ lives,” Hill said. “I know the same God that Charles worshiped is the same God that Charles saw when he opened his eyes Friday morning ... If we continue to live the life that Charles lived, if we continue to serve the God that Charles served, if we continue to do and act and treat people the way that Charles acted and treated people—we gon’ see him again.”

In the wake of his death, Gibson Brown said she has heard from dozens of people her son touched. One of Brown’s fellow choir members at Zion Church told her that he had shown up at the hospital when her own sister was dying, and she couldn’t get there fast enough. Josh Davies, speaking at his Maryland homegoing, told a story of how Brown had set the phone down after a conversation, and started singing. He didn’t realize that his colleague was still on the other line. Davies listened to him sing for three minutes, stunned and delighted.

“He was serving something bigger than himself,” he said.

Brown was buried at Evergreen Cemetery last month, after services at both Zion Church and at ​​St. Matthews Free Will Baptist Church on Dixwell Avenue.

“He was phenomenal,” she said. “We need to be careful how we handle what God loans us. Because one day, He’s gonna come back to get it. And I have to remember that He only loaned Chuck to me.

And so when He was ready, He came back and got it.”

Sheila Bonenberger and Mae Gibson B

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022

Neighbors Petition to Stop Methadone Clinic

by LAURA GLESBY

New Haven Independent

Four hundred and fifty people have signed their names in opposition to a methadone clinic’s planned move to Newhallville, with organizers just getting started.

They spread the word about the petition at Tuesday’s Newhallville Community Management Team meeting over Zoom.

The group of Newhallville residents began mobilizing after the APT Foundation bought the former Elm City Prep building at 794 Dixwell Ave. in late December without notifying the neighborhood’s interim alder at the time, Oscar Havyarimana, or other community members.

In the new space, the APT Foundation intends to operate administrative offices, primary health care services, and a small methadone clinic. The organization anticipates that about 400 patients will relocate to Newhallville from the foundation’s location at Long Wharf. Lynn Madden, the president and CEO of the APT Foundation, said she attempted to call former Ward 20 Alder Delphine Clyburn, whose contact information remained on the city’s website despite her resignation months earlier, ahead of the sale. When Clyburn’s voicemail was full, Madden did

ZOOM Kim Harris and Barbara Vereen speak out against the APT Foundation's planned move to Newhallville.

not reach out further.

Neighbors found out about the sale through an article in the Independent in early January. A group of Newhallville residents, as well as residents in Hamden’s adjacent neighborhood of Newhall, formed an organization known as Newhallville-Hamden Strong. The group has been circulating a petition both online and in paper form in businesses along Dixwell Avenue.

According to Barbara Vereen, one of the petition’s coordinators, about 450 people have signed the petition so far. The group

is aiming for 3,000 signatures.

At Tuesday’s meeting, activists echoed arguments from those living near the Long Wharf location, saying that the APT Foundation has not adequately managed unwanted or illegal behavior outside its doors in the Hill.

“We know that APT foundation has not been a good neighbor to surrounding areas” in the Hill,” said Jeanette Sykes, who runs the Perfect Blend youth program.

“We realize it will continue over with us.”

In an introduction to the petition, activists wrote that as a majority-Black neighbor-

hood, Newhallville/Newhall (as the area is known just over the Hamden border) is already under-resourced and overburdened with the ramifications of institutional racism: “Our mission in Newhallville/Hamden is to continue building a community of love, respect, safety, opportunity and quality of life with healthy families, neighborhood associations, strong schools, successful businesses, and places of worship. We are already fighting against the structural racism that confronts us every time we leave our homes, which has further been exacerbated by

“LEAP Year” Dinner-Convos Loom, Some In Person, Some Zoomed

by STAFF

New Haven Independent

The following was submitted by LEAP: It’s not every day that you have the chance to share a meal with the Dean of Yale’s School of Management or rub elbows with a CNN host and best-selling author. The opportunity to cross paths with the production designer of Hollywood’s most complex cinematic universe arises maybe once in a blue moon. Leadership, Education, and Athletics in Partnership’s (LEAP) annual LEAP Year Event (LYE) promises those opportunities and more for New Haveners and supporters across the globe.

LEAP’s annual fundraiser will return on Thursday, February 24th. This event brings community members and stakeholders together to celebrate and support the organization’s outstanding work providing free after-school and summer programs to over 1,000 young people from low-income neighborhoods in New Haven every year. During this year’s event, attendees will have the opportunity to engage in conversations with LEAP’s esteemed Guests of Honor, experts, and influencers in their respective fields.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, LYE will feature options for in-person and virtual participation for the event. Interested attendees will have the opportunity to choose from 12 in-person dinner parties and seven (7) virtual Zoom conversations, with the option to get dinner from New

LEAP co-founder Anne Calabresi, LEAP alumna Yvonne Temple, LEAP co-founder Roz Meyer, and LEAP alumna Tomi Veale.

Haven restaurants.

The idea for this unique fundraiser was the brainchild of Louise Endel, a visionary who in 1995 reimagined the way New Haveners gather to support their community. Louise dreamed of an event where guests split into several small, intimate groups to fellowship over fantastic food and engaging discussions. Each year, the event gets bigger and better, attracting marquee names in education, politics, arts and media. In its 27th year, Louise’s innovative event concept serves as LEAP’s

most successful fundraiser. The proceeds help the organization be a safe haven for New Haven’s African American and Latino youth.

This year’s event will kick off with a virtual reception, which will serve as an opportunity for attendees to hear from LEAP staff and counselors about the exciting plans for the year. During the reception, LEAP will honor Sydney Perry and Alder Jeanette Morrison for their invaluable contributions to LEAP and the New Haven community.

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Following the reception, attendees will enjoy a dinner party hosted by LEAP supporters throughout Greater New Haven and virtually. Each dinner will feature a discussion led by one of LYE’s acclaimed Guests of Honor. Featured guests include Rosa DeLauro, US Congresswoman and House Appropriations Chair, and Sue Chan, production designer for the history-making 2021 Marvel film ShangChi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

Regardless of your interests and passions, you are sure to find a unique, oneof-a-kind conversation that piques your curiosity. To explore the complete list of dinners, Guests of Honor, and discussion topics, visit LEAP’s website, Last year’s event was an overwhelming success, helping LEAP raise $280,000, which enabled them to help all our young people experience the boundless possibilities New Haven has to offer. Support of the LYE represents an investment in children, teens, and families and helps create a safer, more vibrant New Haven.

By attending the LEAP Year Event, you get to have a memorable evening with old neighbors and new friends — all while supporting a good cause! There are three ticket levels for the event. Tickets to attend the reception and a dinner of your choice are $150. Tickets to participate in the reception without dinner are $95.

First-time attendees can join for just $75 (dinner not included). The deadline to purchase tickets is Sunday, February 20th.

the disproportionate impact of COVID deaths, school closures, digital divides, unemployment, crime and gun violence.”

“No one’s saying that we’re anti-medicine,” remarked Sean Reeves, one of the petition’s organizers. “That’s not the case.

The problem is, we’re a residential, tightknit community, and I don’t believe that the space would service the community well at any given point.”

Neighbors expressed outrage at the lack of communication or outreach from the APT Foundation leading up to the building sale.

“I’m just really frustrated with the fact this happened with a lot of disrespect,” said Management Team Chair Kim Harris. “We are not going to take that anymore. We are going to be treated with dignity.”

Con’t on page 05

Shakeup At

Rent, and Labor Relations.

And a city personnel report released by the city’s Human Resources department Monday afternoon states that both Johnson’s and Peet’s last day in their respective jobs will be Feb. 4. Click here to read that full personnel report.

Woods: Zoning Reform Topped 3-Year Tenure Castro and Johnson declined to comment about their pending departures from City Hall. Woods told the Independent Monday morning she has been proud “to have the opportunity serve the city during this time.”

She first took over the City Plan Department in 2019 during Mayor Harp’s last year in office.

“I have absolute love and dedication for the city. It’s a really exciting time, and I feel like a turning point for the city right now, in terms of really putting it on a course for inclusive development, and also to take on the challenges of climate change adaptation.”

Woods pointed to the adoption of significant zoning reforms around inclusionary zoning and accessory dwelling units.

“These are only a small piece in the need for a comprehensive plan around affordable housing in the city,” she said. Nevertheless, her department and the City Plan Commission conducted years’ worth of research and hosted meeting after meeting on these zoning updates before the Board of Alders ultimately approved both.

“I’m extremely proud of my staff,” Woods continued. “They’re incredibly hardworking, competent, professional public servants.

“I hope going forward that the City Plan Department really is positioned to take on both the comprehensive plan, which is due in 2025, and also a full zoning overhaul.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022

City Shifts Saliva-Test Operation

by CORAL ORTIZ

New Haven Independent

A new PCR saliva-based test has made its way to New Haven.

Beginning Thursday, the rebooted saliva testing will be provided via drive-through and walk-up at 60 Sargent Drive from 8 a.m.- noon and the New Haven Green from 3 – 6 p.m. every day except for Friday. This saliva-based PCR testing for Covid-19 comes from a collaboration between Yale School of Public Health, Yale Pathology, the City of New Haven, and the State of Connecticut. Saliva Direct, a private company started by Yale faculty, is replacing Wren Laboratories as operator of the two sites.

This news came at a press conference Thursday at the Long Wharf testing site, after which officials tried the ser‑ vice themselves.

Lt. Governor Susan Bysiewicz emphasized the importance of this saliva-based testing site as the Omicron variant continues spreading in the state. “We are on a downward spiral, but we’re not out of the woods yet,” Bysiewicz said.

Officials claimed the new arrangement will offer reliable results, will increase testing and lab capacity while costing less.

The walk-up testing sites require no appointments for and no out-of-pocket

CORAL ORTIZ PHOTO Anne Wyllie, a microbiologist who helped create the saliva testing, at Thursday's press conference.

cost. Officials said to expect results to be emailed within 24 – 48 hours, if not sooner.

Mayor Justin Elicker said the new service demonstrates what “collaboration between this city and university can look like.”

“What excites me most is the absence of a line” at the facility right now, along with how the facility can expand capacity for the city, he said.

February Is Black History Month! 2022 Theme: “Black Health and Wellness” By www.history.com

Black History Month is an annual celebration of achievements by African Americans and a time for recognizing their central role in U.S. history. Also known as African American History Month, the event grew out of “Negro History Week,” the brainchild of noted historian Carter G. Woodson and other prominent African Americans. Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. Other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating Black history.

The story of Black History Month begins in 1915, half a century after the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States.

That September, the Harvard-trained historian Carter G. Woodson and the prominent minister Jesse E. Moorland founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), an organization dedicated to researching and promoting achievements by Black Americans and other peoples of African descent.

Known today as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), the group sponsored a national Negro History week in 1926, choosing the second week of February to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham

THE SCSU MULTICULTURAL CENTER PRESENTS

MLK Day Commemoration

SouthernCT.edu

“Critical Race Theory: What It Is and What It Isn’t” Wednesday, February 2, 2022 1:00 p.m.

ADANTI STUDENT CENTER BALLROOM

If you are disturbed by how often race is used as a divisive political tool and would you like to know more about how to engage in “race talks” positively, please join us for this program.

KEYNOTE ADDRESS: RETIRED CONNECTICUT SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE ANGELA C. ROBINSON 11

Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. The event inspired schools and communities nationwide to organize local celebrations, establish history clubs and host performances and lectures.

In the decades that followed, mayors of cities across the country began issuing yearly proclamations recognizing “Negro History Week.” By the late 1960s, thanks in part to the civil rights movement and

a growing awareness of Black identity, “Negro History Week” had evolved into Black History Month on many college campuses.

President Gerald Ford officially rec‑ ognized Black History Month in 1976, calling upon the public to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” Today, Black History Month is a time to honor the contributions and legacy of African Americans across U.S. history and society—from activists and civil rights pioneers such as Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Rosa Parks to leaders in industry, politics, science, culture and more.

Since 1976, every American president has designated February as Black History Month and endorsed a specific theme.

The Black History Month 2022 theme, “Black Health and Wellness,” explores “the legacy of not only Black scholars and medical practitioners in Western medicine, but also other ways of knowing (e.g., birthworkers, doulas, midwives, naturopaths, herbalists, etc.) throughout the African Diaspora. The 2022 theme considers activities, rituals and initiatives that Black communities have done to be well.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022

In the early 1700s, Onesimus shared a revolutionary way to prevent smallpox.

How an Enslaved African Man in Boston Helped Save Generations from Smallpox

by Erin Blakemore, history.com

The news was terrifying to colonists in Massachusetts: Smallpox had made it to Boston and was spreading rapidly. The first victims, passengers on a ship from the Caribbean, were shut up in a house identified only by a red flag that read “God have mercy on this house.” Meanwhile, hundreds of residents of the bustling colonial town had started to flee for their lives, terrified of what might happen if they exposed themselves to the frequently deadly disease.

They had reason to fear. The virus was extremely contagious, spreading like wildfire in large epidemics. Smallpox patients experienced fever, fatigue and a crusty rash that could leave disfiguring scars. In up to 30 percent of cases, it killed.

But the smallpox epidemic of 1721 was different than any that came before it. As sickness swept through the city, killing hundreds in a time before modern medical treatment or a robust understanding of infectious disease, an enslaved man known only as Onesimus suggested a potential way to keep people from getting sick. Intrigued by Onesimus’ idea, a brave doctor and an outspoken minister undertook a bold experiment to try to stop smallpox in its tracks.

Smallpox was one of the era’s deadliest afflictions. “Few diseases at this time were as universal or fatal,” notes historian Susan Pryor. The colonists saw its effects not just among their own countrymen, but among the Native Americans to whom they introduced the disease. Smallpox destroyed Native communities that, with no immunity, were unable to fight off the virus.

Smallpox also entered the colonies on

slave ships, transmitted by enslaved people who, in packed and unsanitary quarters, passed the disease along to one another and, eventually, to colonists at their destinations. One of those destinations was Massachusetts, which was a center of the early slave trade. The first enslaved people had arrived in Massachusetts in 1638, and by 1700, about 1,000 enslaved people lived in the colony, most in Boston.

In 1706, an enslaved West African man was purchased for the prominent Puritan minister Cotton Mather by his congregation. Mather gave him the name Onesimus, after an enslaved man in the Bible whose name meant “useful.” Mather, who had been a powerful figure in the Salem Witch Trials, believed that owners of enslaved people had a duty to convert enslaved people to Christianity and educate them. But like other white men of his era, he also looked down on what he called the “Devilish rites” of Africans and worried that enslaved people might openly rebel.

Mather didn’t trust Onesimus: He wrote about having to watch him carefully due

to what he thought was “thievish” behavior, and recorded in his diary that he was “wicked” and “useless.” But in 1716, Onesimus told him something he did believe: That he knew how to prevent smallpox.

Onesimus, who “is a pretty intelligent fellow,” Mather wrote, told him he had had smallpox—and then hadn’t. Onesimus said that he “had undergone an operation, which had given him something of the smallpox and would forever preserve him from it...and whoever had the courage to use it was forever free of the fear of contagion.”

The operation Onesimus referred to consisted of rubbing pus from an infected person into an open wound on the arm.

This was done in a controlled manner and under the supervision of a physician so the symptoms would be milder but still confer immunity. Once the infected material was introduced into the body, the person who underwent the procedure was inoculated against smallpox. It wasn’t a

vaccination, which involves exposure to a less dangerous virus to provoke immunity, but it did activate the recipient’s immune response and protected against the disease most of the time.

Mather was fascinated. He verified Onesimus’ story with that of other enslaved people, and learned that the practice had been used in Turkey and China. He became an evangelist for inoculation—also known as variolation—and spread the word throughout Massachusetts and elsewhere in the hopes it would help prevent smallpox.

But Mather hadn’t bargained on how unpopular the idea would be. The same prejudices that caused him to distrust his servant made other white colonists reluctant to undergo a medical procedure developed by or for Black people. Mather “was vilified,” historian Ted Widmer told WGBH. “A local newspaper, called The New England Courant, ridiculed him. An explosive device was thrown through his windows with an angry note. There was an ugly racial element to the anger.” Religion also contributed: Other preachers ar-

gued that it was against God’s will to expose his creatures to dangerous diseases.

But in 1721, Mather and Zabdiel Boylston, the only physician in Boston who supported the technique, got their chance to test the power of inoculation.

That year, a smallpox epidemic spread from a ship to the population of Boston, sickening about half of the city’s residents. Boylston sprang into action, inoculating his son and his enslaved workers against the disease. Then, he began inoculating other Bostonians. Of the 242 people he inoculated, only six died—one in 40, as opposed to one in seven deaths among the population of Boston who didn’t undergo the procedure.

The smallpox epidemic wiped out 844 people in Boston, over 14 percent of the population. But it had yielded hope for future epidemics. It also helped set the stage for vaccination. In 1796, Edward Jenner developed an effective vaccine that used cowpox to provoke smallpox immunity.

It worked. Eventually, smallpox vaccination became mandatory in Massachusetts.

Did Onesimus live to see the success of the technique he introduced to Mather? It isn’t clear. Nothing is known of his later life other than that he partially purchased his freedom. To do so, writes historian Steven J. Niven, he gave Mather money to purchase another enslaved person. What is clear is that the knowledge he passed on saved hundreds of lives—and led to the eventual eradication of smallpox.

In 1980, the World Health Organization declared smallpox entirely eradicated due to the spread of immunization worldwide.

It remains the only infectious disease to have been entirely wiped out.

by Erin Blakemore, history.com Updated: Apr 8, 2021 Original: Feb 1, 2019

Reflections on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

by Amanda Skinner, President & Chief Executive Officer Planned Parenthood Southern of Southern New England, Inc.

I believe that when we die, our energy remains and continues to have an impact through the lives we have touched. I see this in the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s as it grows in power and impact all around me, in my life, in my community, in our society – and most profoundly and presently in my work.

My mother grew up in a family where women weren’t able to make their own choices about who to marry, how many children to have, or where to live. As a result, she wanted me to have the freedom to create a life of my own choosing.

Despite her feminism, or maybe because of it, for much of my life, I understood a

whitewashed version of Dr. King’s legacy. It was set firmly in his message of love, but was also limited by that. Within the frame of understanding I held, it was easy to allow myself to believe that by being kind, by not holding overt individual prejudice I was doing enough.

Of course we should judge a person by the content of their character. Of course only light can drive out darkness.

In my adulthood I have come into a fuller understanding of the “strong, demanding love” that Dr. King was truly calling for. In 1967, in a speech called “Where do we go from here?” he said, “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting every-

thing that stands against love.”

Yes. I see more clearly now the kind of accountability and commitment Dr. King was saying is needed to create meaningful and lasting change. As I reflect on and celebrate his life this year, I am also reflecting on the 49th anniversary of Roe v. Wade – an anniversary that may be the last.

I work in the movement for sexual and reproductive health and rights. That work calls on me to reckon with the intersections of race, identity, power, justice, and well-being for our patients, our team, and the communities we serve.

Dr. King understood these intersections clearly. His support for the right of each individual to control their own reproductive lives is perhaps not well-known but

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it is a position he held steadfastly. Indeed, he said that having the knowledge, information, and access to care to plan one’s own family “enriches life and guarantees the right to exist in freedom and dignity.”

Dr. King’s words and his call to action are with me every day. In my work, our vision is a just society where sexual and reproductive rights are basic human rights, where health care is equitable and accessible to all, and where each person lives their healthiest life. For this vision to become a reality, we must address past wrongs and work with our partners in the movement for reproductive freedom to correct what stands in the way of achieving health equity for all – we must show up with a strong and demanding love that implements the demands of justice.

Black History of Health: Hank Gathers THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022

by Jasmine Browley, BlackDoctor.org

I’m the most doctor-tested man alive.”

Eric Wilson “Hank” Gathers Jr. was an American college basketball player for the Loyola Marymount Lions in the West Coast Conference. As a junior in 1989, he became the second player in NCAA Division I history to lead the nation in scoring and rebounding in the same season.

This was particularly impressive since he was diagnosed with a very serious heart condition, Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM) that required him to regularly take medication to manage.

“I feel great. I’m in the best shape of my life. My mom’s out here, and I’m looking forward to some good home cooking.”

Gathers said at a Loyola Marymount game. He also informed a different reporter that his medication by this point was “almost down to nothing.” It was later discovered that he reportedly hadn’t taken his meds that day at all. His doctors prescribed him a drug called Inderal, or propranolol. Gathers was reported to have minimized the dose because he felt sluggish while exercising. The drug belongs to a class called beta-blockers, which are often prescribed for cardiomyopathy, and sluggishness is a well-known side effect.

This decision, unfortunately, cost the promising then 23-year-old athletic star his life. During the 1990 game, he collapsed on the court and never woke up.

This left the country shaken, especially since little was known about the condition at the time.

What is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy?

According to the American Heart Association, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is most often caused by abnormal genes in the heart muscle. These genes cause the walls of the heart chamber (left ventricle) to contract harder and become thicker than normal.

The thickened walls become stiff. This reduces the amount of blood taken in and pumped out to the body with each heartbeat.

What are the warning signs?

The American Heart Association lists the following symptoms: • Chest pain, especially with physical exertion • Shortness of breath, especially with physical exertion • Fatigue • Arrhythmias (abnormal heart rhythms) • Dizziness • Lightheadedness • Fainting (syncope) • Swelling in the ankles, feet, legs, abdomen and veins in the neck This is a chronic disease that can get worse over time and can lead to poorer function and quality of life, long-term complications and more financial and social burden.

People with HCM often need to make

lifestyle changes, such as limiting their activity, to adjust for their disease.

As HCM progresses, it can cause other health problems. People with HCM are at higher risk for developing atrial fibrillation, which can lead to blood clots, stroke

and other heart-related complications.

HCM may also lead to heart failure. It can also lead to sudden cardiac arrest, but this is rare.

HCM has been cited as the most common reason for sudden cardiac death in young people and athletes under the age of 35.

What are the treatments?

Typically medications or surgical procedures are prescribed by physicians to patients.

Beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers and diuretics offer limited and varying relief of symptoms. They may help with function but may also have adverse side effects.

Additionally, surgical procedures are recommended for particularly serious cases. The American Heart Association cites the following surgeries to help treat the condition: Septal myectomy – Septal myectomy is open-heart surgery. It’s considered for people with obstructive HCM and severe symptoms. This surgery is generally reserved for younger patients and for people whose medications aren’t working well. A surgeon removes part of the thickened septum that’s bulging into the left ventricle. This improves blood flow within the heart and out to the body.

Alcohol septal ablation (nonsurgical procedure) – In this procedure, ethanol (a type of alcohol) is injected through a tube

into the small artery that supplies blood to the area of heart muscle thickened by HCM. The alcohol causes these cells to die. The thickened tissue shrinks to a more normal size. The risks and complications of heart surgery increase with age.

For this reason, ablation may be referred to myectomy in older patients with other medical conditions.

Surgically implanted devices – Surgeons can implant several types of devices to help the heart work better, including: • Implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) – An ICD helps maintain a normal heartbeat by sending an electric shock to the heart if an irregular heartbeat is detected. This reduces the risk of sudden cardiac death.

• Pacemaker – This small device uses electrical pulses to prompt the heart to beat at a normal rate.

• Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) device – This device coordinates contractions between the heart’s left and right ventricles.

Heart transplant – In HCM patients with advanced, end-stage disease, a heart transplant may be considered. In this procedure, a person’s diseased heart is replaced with a healthy donor heart.

Unfortunately, cardiomyopathy cut Hank’s life short, but due to medical advancement throughout the years, others don’t have to meet the same fate.

All throughout the year, we celebrate Black Joy. Its beauty. Its brilliance. Its variety. Its tenacity. Its resilience.

Its ability to thrive despite everything.

The power of Black Joy truly knows no bounds... it’s A Joy Supreme.

Celebrate A Joy Supreme with us at aarp.org/nearyou

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022

Fashion Icon & Groundbreaking Vogue Editor, Andre’ Leon Talley, Passes Away at 73

by Tarshua Carter Williamson, BlackDoctor.org

The fashion world is once again mourning one of its greatest heroes. Fashion icon, Andre’ Talley, the former longtime creative director for Vogue, has died at age 73, according to a statement on his official Instagram account.

Talley was a pioneer in the fashion industry, a Black man in a world mostly dominated by White men and women.

In 2017, at an event at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Talley described the challenges of promoting diversity on the glossy pages of fashion magazines.

“I worked behind the scenes. I did it in dulcet tones, and I was persistent and tenacious…I always assumed a very quiet role. I didn’t scream and yell and shout…

That was the best strategy, because that was the world I moved in. After all, it was Vogue, darling,” he shared on the Tamron Hall Show.

Talley was born in Washington DC but at only two months old, his parents brought him to Durham, North Carolina, where he was raised by his grandmother, Bennie Francis Davis, whom he called Mama.

Talley often described John F. Kennedy’s wife, Jackie Kennedy, as the “first influencer” of the modern world.

“I was obsessed with her pillbox hat, and her little snippet of fur at the collar, and her fur-edged boots, as well as the muff she carried to keep her hands warm during the freezing-cold January day,” Talley wrote.

In 1974, Talley arrived in New York and

found himself loving the beautiful intersection of fashion and art, working and mingling with the who’s who of art and fashion including people like Halston, Karl Lagerfeld and Andy Warhol.

After working in Paris with Women’s Wear Daily, Talley joined Vogue in 1983 as news director. He was promoted to creative director in 1988 and later served as editor-at-large. Except for a period with W magazine in Paris, he remained a fixture at Vogue for nearly four decades.

At 6-foot-6 and with a booming voice, Talley was a towering figure in every sense. He was often seen sitting in the front row of elite fashion shows alongside editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, and his influence over fashion continued long after his departure from Vogue in 2013.

“To my twelve-year-old self, raised in the segregated South, the idea of a Black man playing any kind of role in [the fashion] world seemed an impossibility,” he wrote. “To think of where I’ve come from, where we’ve come from, in my lifetime, and where we are today, is amazing.”

The magazine that propelled Talley’s stardom into the next level, Vouge, first acknowledged his death in an obituary published late Wednesday morning, which lauded Talley’s incredible career and included a tribute from fashion icon, Anna Wintour herself.

“The loss of André is felt by so many of us today: the designers he enthusiastically cheered on every season, and who loved him for it; the generations he inspired to work in the industry, seeing a figure who broke boundaries while never forgetting

(Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SCAD) (Andre Talley and Anna Wintour / Photo by Evan Agostini/Getty Images)

where he started from; those who knew fashion, and Vogue, simply because of him; and, not forgetting, the multitude of colleagues over the years who were consistently buoyed by every new discovery of André’s, which he would discuss loudly, and volubly—no one could make people more excited about the most seemingly insignificant fashion details than him.

Even his stream of colorful faxes and emails were a highly anticipated event, something we all looked forward to,” said

President Biden Confirms he Will Select A Black Woman for the U.S. Supreme Court

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

With the retirement of Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, 83, the oldest serving member of the nation’s highest court, President Biden has a unique opportunity to make a historic pick. On January 27, President Biden confirmed who he would select for the high court.

“The person I nominate to replace Justice Breyer will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience, and integrity. And they will be the first Black woman nominated to the United States Supreme Court,” the President’s twitter account proclaimed in virtually the same words he used standing five feet from retiring Associate Justice Stephen Breyer in the White House.

At the White House before Breyer spoke, the President said, “I have made no decision except one. The person I will nominate will be a person of extraordinary qualifications, character, experience and integrity and that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the

United States Supreme Court. It’s long overdue in my opinion. I made that commitment during my campaign for President and I will keep that commitment.”

On February 25, 2020, as Biden’s campaign for the presidency was in serious trouble, he said during a debate that “I’m

looking forward to making sure there’s a Black woman on the Supreme Court, to make sure we in fact get every representation.”

With that promise confirmed and history about to be made, many are focused on who that historic selection will be.

The names widely mentioned to replace Associate Justice Breyer are Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Justice Leondra Kruger, 45, a justice on the California Supreme Court since 2014, and J. Michelle Childs, 55, who is on the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina.

President Biden has set the timetable for historic Supreme Court selection for February.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent journalist and the host of the podcast BURKEFILE. She is a political analyst who appears regularly on #RolandMartinUnfiltered. She may be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke

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Anna Wintour. “Yet it’s the loss of André as my colleague and friend that I think of now; it’s immeasurable. He was magnificent and erudite and wickedly funny— mercurial, too. Like many decades-long relationships, there were complicated moments, but all I want to remember today, all I care about, is the brilliant and compassionate man who was a generous and loving friend to me and to my family for many, many years, and who we will all miss so much.”

Talley appeared as a judge on “Ameri-

ca’s Next Top Model” and was the subject of a documentary The Gospel According to André, which was released in 2017, and was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in honor of his contribution to the fashion industry.

On April 22, 2021, he described the French recognition as the “best day of my life” in an Instagram post.

“To be in the august and impeccable body of Chevaliers: Diana Vreeland, Tina Turner, James Baldwin, Rudolph Nureyev and for a black man educated in public schools in Durham, North Carolina, I thank my French teacher, the late Cynthia P. Smith, who wrapped me in French: the language, the culture, style, history and literature,” he wrote.

Talley’s published work includes “A.L.T: A Memoir” as well as illustrated books including “Little Black Dress,” and “Oscar de la Renta, His Legendary World of Style.”

He received his MA in French studies from Brown and served on the board of trustees for the Savannah College of Art and Design for 20 years.

Last year, Talley touched on the significance of Vogue’s cover featuring poet Amanda Gorman to the Black community and wider fashion world, describing it “a first for so many levels.”

“We are continuing to climb hills, hills of healing, hills of forgiving, and climbing hills and mountains of overcoming all adversity, systemic racism and inequity,” he wrote in an Instagram post.

State Expands Searchable List of Unclaimed Property

by Hugh McQuaid

An upgrade to a state governmentmaintained list of dormant assets like unclaimed checks and forgotten bank accounts will allow Connecticut residents to search for inactive property of any value, State Treasurer Shawn Wooden announced Tuesday.

Any Connecticut resident who has forgotten to cash an insurance check or lost track of a savings account for more than three years has likely had those assets turned over to the state. While unclaimed, those assets make millions in revenue for Connecticut each year.

The treasurer’s office maintains a searchable database of that property, called the CTBiglist, which residents can use to identify their unclaimed assets but until recently, the search would only reveal property valued at $50 or more. According to Wooden’s office, residents can now search for property of any value that has an associated name and address.

“Connecticut residents can now look up their unclaimed property of any value at one cent or greater on CTBigList.com and check the status of their claims online,” Wooden said in a Tuesday press release marking National Unclaimed Property

Day. The change follows a CT Mirror story in early January, reporting that the state had collected more than $40 million in unclaimed property which was valued at less than $50 and therefore impossible to find on the CTBiglist site. The treasurer’s office charged the Mirror $200 for a data request with information more than five years old.

According to Tuesday’s press release, the treasurer’s office was able to expand the functionality of the online system to show property of any value using “new cloud-based technology.”

Wooden announced other upgrades to the system including expanding a “fast-track” program which allows residents whose property is valued at up to $1,000 to claim the assets in a matter of days. In July, that limit will expand to claims worth up to $2,500.

Another initiative eliminates the requirement that residents have their applications notarized in order to claim their property.

“Ever since we upgraded our unclaimed property systems to paperless a year ago, it’s been a goal of mine to eliminate the burdensome step of having someone secure a notarization to file their claim,” Wooden said.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022

Former Miss USA, Cheslie Kryst, Passes Away at 30

by T R Causay, BlackDoctor.org

A woman who jumped to her death from a New York City high-rise apartment building has been identified as former Miss USA Cheslie Kryst. The beautiful pageant winner was also a correspondent for the entertainment news program “Extra.” She was only 30 years old.

Police said Kryst jumped from a Manhattan apartment building and was pronounced dead at the scene Sunday morning. Her family confirmed her death in a statement.

According to police, Kryst’s body was found at approximately 7 a.m. Sunday in front of the Orion building, a high-rise on West 42nd Street in midtown Manhattan.

“In devastation and great sorrow, we share the passing of our beloved Cheslie,” the statement said. “Her great light was one that inspired others around the world with her beauty and strength. She cared, she loved, she laughed and she shined.

Cheslie embodied love and served others, whether through her work as an attorney fighting for social justice, as Miss USA and as a host on EXTRA. But most importantly, as a daughter, sister, friend, mentor and colleague — we know her impact will live on.”

In a statement Sunday, the nationally syndicated program “Extra” called her “not just a vital part of our show, she was a beloved part of our Extra family and touched the entire staff. Our deepest condolences to all her family and friends.”

We first reported on Kryst as a part of the ‘Black Girl Magic’ phenomenon that happened in 2019 when, for the first time ever, three Black women simultaneously held titles from America’s biggest pageants.

Cheslie, Kaliegh Garris, and Nia Franklin were named Miss USA, Miss Teen

Miss USA Cheslie Kryst smiles while onstage at the 2019 Miss Universe Pageant at Tyler Perry Studios on December 08, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images) USA, and Miss America, respectively.

Kryst even appeared on GMA to highlight the achievement.

It was a celebratory time for Black women in pageants and seemed as though Kryst and the others were riding the wave of stardom and destined for great things.

Besides working in law, Kryst operated a blog on fashion, White Collar Glam, for women’s workwear and volunteered for Dress for Success, a national women’s empowerment program that provides support, professional attire and development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.

Carli Batson, the reigning Miss North Carolina wrote on social media that “Cheslie’s spirit, selflessness and ability

to love boundlessly will never be forgotten. Cheslie has always been such an inspiration to me and so many others. I am still in disbelief. North Carolina holds Cheslie’s friends and family in our hearts tonight & forever.”

Kryst posted a picture of herself on social media Sunday morning with the caption: “May this day bring you rest and peace.”

Mental health experts say this is a reminder that we should check in on our loved ones.

“I think in the past suicide — or suicidal behavior — was just thought of as a white thing,” said Dr. Sheftall, a principal investigator at the Center for Suicide Prevention and Research at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

“And that’s not the case.”

For more than a decade, suicide rates have been increasing in Black children and adolescents, and a 2021 study says the sharpest rise occurred among young girls The study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, found that just over 1,800 Black children died by suicide between 2003 and 2017, and while most of the deaths were among boys, especially those ages 15 to 17, the gender gap is narrowing. The suicide rate of the girls increased an average of 6.6 percent each year — more than twice the increase for boys, the study said. Nearly 40 percent of the girls were 12 to 14 years old, indicating that this age group may need additional attention or different types of interventions.

While we still do not know the full story behind this tragedy, reports are coming in that Kryst left a note leaving all of her possessions to her mother.

Black Star Network Announces Launch of New Shows

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

The Black Star Network, the only Black owned broadcast network with a daily digital show in the world, is announcing several new shows that will all be up and running in February.

Black Star Network was launched by veteran journalist Roland Martin on September 2, 2021. Watching the content on the network is free on the Black Star Network app or a desktop computer with a simple email signup and registration at https://www.blackstarnetwork.com/. The Black Star Network can also be viewed on AppleTV, Roku, AmazonFire, YouTube and Facebook.

In addition to Roland Martin Unfiltered, the premiere news show on the network, Black Star will now feature several new shows. They are an interview show hosted by Martin called “Rollin’ with Roland, “Get Wealthy” hosted financial

guru Deborah Owens, “The Black Table” hosted by Dr. Greg Carr who is the Chair of Howard University’s Afro-American Studies Department, a daily show called “The Culture” hosted by Farajii Muhammad and “Fulfilled” hosted by Dr. Jacquie Hood Martin.

The new shows mark a dramatic expansion of new content for Black Star. More new shows will be featured in 2022 as Black Star builds out and gains more audience in the U.S. and around the world.

Martin will be traveling to Liberia in Feb-

ruary for the 200th anniversary of Americans to the country.

On January 7, Martin announced the completion of new broadcast studios a block from The White House in Washington, D.C. The new studios include a news desk with an anchor desk, tributes to Black media over 150 years, space for a studio audience, a kitchen area that may feature cooking segments and a sit-down one-on-one interview space.

The new Black Star broadcast studio space features work by Black artists and was built by Black artists and set designers. Eventually Black Star will feature streaming content 24 hours a day and seven days a week.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent journalist and the host of the podcast BURKEFILE. She is a political analyst who appears regularly on #RolandMartinUnfiltered. She may be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke

15

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022

Pfizer Asks FDA to Approve Its Vaccine for Children Under 5

by Jessica Daniels, BlackDoctor.org

A Thirst for Celebration The month of February has long shined a light on Black history as we honor and celebrate the achievements and culture of African Americans. At the RWA, we advocate for dialogue and action that drive progress and remove racial, cultural, ethnic, social and gender barriers and bias. During Black History Month, let us all take time to look through the lens of history at the events and people, like Dr. King, that shaped who we are as a nation.

Pfizer Inc. announced Tuesday that it has asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to authorize its two-dose COVID vaccine for emergency use in children under 5 while it continues to research the power of a third shot in these youngest Americans.

If the FDA grants the request, the twoshot regimen would become the first approved for use in children this young; older children are already eligible for the vaccine. In December, Pfizer suffered a setback when it announced that two doses of the vaccine, which are one-tenth the amount of an adult dose, did not produce a sufficient immune response in children aged 2 to 4. The company has already started testing a third dose for this age group.

“As hospitalizations of children under 5 due to COVID-19 have soared, our mutual goal with the FDA is to prepare for future variant surges and provide parents with an option to help protect their children from this virus,” Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla, said in a company statement announcing the move.

“Ultimately, we believe that three doses of the vaccine will be needed for children 6 months through 4 years of age to achieve high levels of protection against current and potential future variants,” Bourla added. “If two doses are authorized, parents will have the opportunity to begin a COVID-19 vaccination series for their children while awaiting potential authorization of a third dose.”

It is a strategy federal regulators have encouraged as they have been eager to review Pfizer’s data in hopes of authorizing shots for young children as early as the end of February, multiple people familiar with the discussions told the Washington Post. If Pfizer waits for data on three doses, the request would not be submitted until late March.

“We know that two doses isn’t enough, and we get that,” one of the people familiar with the situation told the Post. “The idea is, let’s go ahead and start the review of two doses. If the data holds up in the submission, you could start kids on their primary baseline months earlier than if you don’t do anything until the third-dose data comes in.”

Last Friday, Pfizer briefed federal health officials on updated trial data on the shots, an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the Post.

Those attending the briefing included Dr. Anthony Fauci; David Kessler, chief science officer for the government’s COVID-19 response; a representative from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and other officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Post reported.

The session included a “robust conversation” that three doses were likely to be much more powerful than just two shots, the administration official said. “But to get to three, you have to get two shots

16

first. … There’s interest in seeing this move forward,” the official told the Post.

In that vein, an FDA advisory panel will weigh the two-dose regime on Feb. 15.

Addressing concerns But at least one panel member voiced concerns about the highly unusual “rolling authorization.”

Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, suggested that regulators could be short-circuiting the normal process without a clear rationale.

“It doesn’t make sense we would approve a two-dose vaccine on the assumption the third dose would make up for deficiencies of the two doses,” he told The New York Times.

The deficiencies were significant: One person familiar with the data, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Times that children aged 2 to 4 who were given two shots were infected at a rate 57 percent lower than the children who were not, and those between the ages of 6 months to 2 years old who got shots were infected at a rate 50 percent lower than those who were not. There were fewer than 100 cases of symptomatic infection — a small fraction of the participants overall — and the margins of error were wide, the person noted.

FDA panel member Dr. H. Cody Meissner, chief of the pediatric infectious diseases division at Tufts Children’s Hospital in Boston, said he was willing to weigh the “rolling authorization” strategy but he worried that rare side effects might be missed in the small-scale trials conducted so far.

What’s next?

The panel’s decision “will partly depend on what are the rates of hospitalization and severe disease in this age group, and

what our sense is in terms of potential harm” should the two-dose regimen be authorized, Meissner added.

But Acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock and Dr. Peter Marks, who oversees the agency’s vaccines office, said Tuesday that it was important to act quickly given the surge in Omicron cases and the likelihood that other variants will follow.

“The need for a safe and effective vaccine for our youngest children is significant, particularly given the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, the notable rise in the number of hospitalizations in young children with severe disease and the possibility that future variants could cause severe disease in those who are unvaccinated,” Marks said in an agency statement.

As the Omicron variant has spread, there has been a steep increase in pediatric cases of the virus, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which gathers state-level data. Even though most young children tend to do well combating the virus, some can get very ill.

AAP President Dr. Moira Szilagyi said in a statement on Tuesday that she was encouraged that “we may be one step closer” to shots for the youngest children.

Last month, “we reported the highest number of COVID-19 cases among children since the pandemic’s onset. More than 3.5 million new cases in children were reported in January 2022 alone,” she told the Times.

If the two-dose regimen is authorized, not every parent is going to race to their pediatrician’s office for shots, according to a new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation: Only 3 in 10 parents of children under 5 said they plan to get their children vaccinated as soon as shots become available.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022 Con’t on page 02

Love Flows

said McCarter, who routinely picks up kids and drives them to church or to their school in the church van when other transportation isn’t available. “They can talk to us about something that happened at school. We let them know we’re there for them.”

There was also a vision board party, which had the kids cutting out pictures from magazines and gluing them on poster board to depict where they picture themselves in the future. “A lot of these kids see basketball, basketball, basketball, as their ticket,” said McCarter, a basketball star at Hillhouse and Gateway.

McCarter, a graduate of Gateway College and Southern Connecticut State University. currently heads Gateway’s athletic department and men’s basketball team.

He tells kids, “Education is important, just in case, but that doesn’t have to mean college. There are other options, like trade school.”

About an hour into the Academy, the groups split up, with the older kids heading to the basement for lunch and then viewing “The Shack.”

“When I was growing up in the Beardsley Project in Bridgeport, there were activities to bring kids together,” said Youth Director Hila Testman, amid the warm aroma of pizza in the brightly lit space.

“Now it’s hard, with violence in each corner of the city. So the idea is to bring them together, teach them to love themselves first so they can know how to love someone else.”

At a nearby table, Jerseigh Brabham nodded. “I like coming because we learn about God, and we learn you can talk to him when you have troubles,” she said.

“It’s just like having a normal conversation with anybody else.”

Upstairs, near the back of the church, Academy Assistant Director Robin Burke was reading aloud the story of Daniel in the Lion’s Den to the younger group of kids.

Observing the action from one of the plush purple seats was Patricia Frazier, among the evangelists at the church.

She’s been coming to the Saturday Academy since it started in 2011.

“I have a granddaughter here,” she said, pointing out a little girl with beads in her hair, as Burke showed an image of King Darius on her iPhone. “It warms my heart to hear her tell me the stories of what she’s learned, so I know she’s retaining what she’s being taught, and she hasn’t even started school yet.”

Mary Jones, a long-time volunteer, had a similar take.

“I wish my grandkids could come but they’re staying home because of the pandemic, so I’m learning to be able to go back to teach them,” she said.

“We know Pastor Washington’s vision, and that’s why we don’t mind helping and following,” she said. “Children are her heart.

“You can just feel the love in here.”

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022

Black Billionaire Robert F. Smith’s Nonprofit Partners With Prudential Financial to Help HBCU Students

By BlackNews.com

According to the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund, more than 75 percent of students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are considered low-income, relying heavily on Pell Grants to meet their college expenses.

However, a growing body of research confirms that for many of these students, those grants are not enough.

Their financial instability is also often compounded by unforeseen emergency expenses that when left unaddressed, threaten to derail their college careers altogether. Add to that, in order to secure financial support many of these students are often required to sign complex promissory notes that could indebt them well into their adult lives, yet many lack the fundamental financial literacy needed to make informed financial decisions. A new partnership between Black billionaire Robert F. Smith’s nonprofit Student Freedom Initiative and Prudential Financial is sending help their way, both literally and figuratively.

They’re launching the Handling Everyday Life Problems for Students (a.k.a HELPS) program during the spring 2022 academic year at participating HBCUs. Prudential is providing $1.8 million in microgrants to HBCU students in an effort to accelerate economic mobility and close the financial divide, furthering Student Freedom Initiative and Prudential’s shared commitment to helping close the racial wealth gap. Prudential will also provide paid internships and pro bono services to help improve financial literacy

Head Coach Mike Tomlin, Pittsburgh Steelers among HBCU students and their families.

“Student Freedom Initiative applauds the leadership of Prudential Financial and their support for our shared mission of eliminating barriers of access for underserved communities,” says chairman Smith, who founded the nonprofit in 2020, shortly after he famously snagged headlines by paying off the educational debt for the entire 2019 graduating class of Atlanta’s historically Black Morehouse College. “By enabling the launch of the HELPS Program, a vital component of our work is to address the holistic needs of HBCU students and families, Prudential’s gift will provide long-needed and

often overlooked aid and support persistence of those most vulnerable in our community.”

Student Freedom Initiative Executive Director Mark A. Brown says the HELPS program will help empower financially vulnerable students and equip them with the resources they need to address unexpected, one-time expenses, which research has shown disproportionately adversely impacts Black students.

“One HBCU president told us about a student who was unable to fully participate on camera for class – as required – due to a damaged computer, which ultimately impacted that student’s grades,”

remembers Brown, an alum of Alabama HBCU, Tuskegee University. “Another president described always having to keep petty cash in their office to help students, including once giving a student $300 to cover an unexpected expense.

That student later told the president that they likely would not have graduated without that $300. So, the work that we’re doing through this partnership is impactful and helping to contribute to the longterm success of these talented and deserving students.”

Launching as a three-year pilot program with an initial cohort of HBCUs, the HELPS Program is also supplementing HBCU-provided resources. Students who qualify will receive supplemental funds to address emergent financial issues that present a risk to the student’s ability to matriculate, including issues that may cause immediate risk to a student’s health, life, property, or environment, requiring immediate attention.

And the support doesn’t end there. Prudential is also making good on its commitment to building a fully inclusive workforce within its own ranks, providing paid internships via the internX.org platform, which pairs highly qualified, rising sophomores through seniors across all majors with companies seeking diverse talent.

There are more than 220 companies, more than 14,000 students, and 1,300+ Course Learning Management Systems on the internX.org platform. Additionally, Prudential will collaborate with Student Freedom Initiative and the participating institutions to prepare and conduct culturally inclusive, financial literacy education

New stamp to honor pioneering Black-Native American sculptress Edmonia Lewis

by Special to the AFRO

By AFRO Staff, Afro.com A new stamp honoring Edmonia Lewis, a pioneering African-American and Native American sculptor who surmounted racial and gender barriers to earn international acclaim, will begin circulation Jan. 26, according to the U.S. Postal Service.

The USPS will honor Lewis as “first African American and Native American sculptor to earn international recognition” during a first-day-of-issue ceremony at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., which is free and open to the public.

“It’s impossible to overstate her significance and that’s becoming more and more clear as we see she really was something new under the sun,” Marilyn Richardson, a Massachusetts-based art consultant who spent decades tracking down and authenticating Lewis’ artworks around the world, told the New York Post. “We’ve never seen a woman of color who also identified as native both in her descent and in her work.”

Lewis was born in 1844 to an African American father and Chippewa (Ojibwa)

Indian mother in Greenbush, New York.

Orphaned at an early age, Lewis was reared with her mother’s tribe, where her life revolved around fishing, swimming, and making and selling crafts. With help from her older brother – who reportedly had struck it rich in the California gold rush – Lewis left New York in 1859 and enrolled at Ohio’s Oberlin College, a liberal, pro-abolition institution. Even there, however, Lewis could not escape the specter of racism. Accused of poisoning two White classmates, she was badly beaten by a White mob. And, while the charges were dropped due to lack of evidence, she continued to face hostility and had to flee the school.

Lewis fled to Boston where she established herself as a professional artist, studying with a local sculptor and creating portraits of abolitionist heroes. Despite her modest success, Lewis chafed under the restriction of being a “colored girl” in the United States. In 1865, she relocated to Rome, joining a welcoming community of expatriate artists and began to work in marble. Adopting a neoclassical style, Lewis built a successful career, creating complexed art inspired by her

Photos; sculptures reflecting Indigenous People

Roman Catholic beliefs, classical mythology, African-American history and her Native American ancestry.

And, as with other successful Blacks, Lewis’ achievements came with extra effort: “Sculptors usually hired local

18

workmen to carve their final pieces, but Lewis did all her own stonework out of fear that if she didn’t, her work would not be accepted as original,” according to the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Despite her unprecedented success, Lewis died in relative obscurity in 1907 in London. And, with her death, interest in and recognition of her works also died.

But that was to be expected, historians say.

“Women back then and people of color were basically forgotten if they had no way to have their legacy carried forward,” Bobbie Reno, a town historian in East Greenbush, N.Y., who has been advocating for Lewis’ recognition, told the Post.

“I had never heard of her, and then when I started to dig into her life everything about her just blew me away,” she said.

“She lived in two cultures and didn’t let any obstacles stop her from doing what she did.”

The Edmonia Lewis stamp is the 45th in the Black Heritage series. The stamp art is a casein-paint portrait based on a photograph of Lewis by Augustus Marshall made in Boston between 1864 and 1871.

It will be issued in panes of 20.

and training for students.

“At Prudential, we’ve spent decades working to close the financial divide, in part through partnerships that address systemic barriers to economic, social, and racial equity,” says Sarah Keh, vice president, Inclusive Solutions, at Prudential Financial. “As part of our multi-pronged strategy to support HBCUs, our partnership with Student Freedom Initiative will help us scale solutions so that more Black students will remain in college and ultimately graduate, putting them on a path to financial security.”

To learn more, visit StudentFreedomInitiative.org. Brown is available for interviews about the HELPS program and to share insights on the student debt crisis disproportionately affecting students of color.

About Student Freedom Initiative A single-purpose nonprofit organization, Student Freedom Initiative provides a catalyst for freedom in professional and life choices for students attending Minority Serving Institutions (“MSIs”) by increasing their social and economic mobility using a student-centric, evidence-based, holistic, and collaborative approach.

Initially focused on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Student Freedom Initiative enables mobility through four transformational components: (1) Income-Contingent Alternative to Parent Plus and Private Loans, (2) Internships, (3) Tutoring/Mentorships/Other Services, and (4) Targeted HBCU Capacity Building. Student Freedom Initiative collaborates with community-based organizations, businesses, and governmental entities through public-private partnerships to make sustainable, systemic changes to support the entire HBCU ecosystem.

To date, Student Freedom Initiative has received generous contributions from our anchor donors Robert F. Smith, Fund II Foundation, and Cisco Systems, and many others who have provided financial and/or in-kind services. The program has also been acknowledged and supported by the Business Roundtable’s Racial Equity & Justice Subcommittee on Education. To learn more, visit StudentFreedomInitiative.org or find us on Twitter @ StudentFreedom.

About Prudential Financial Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE: PRU), a global financial services leader and premier active global investment manager with more than $1.5 trillion in assets under management as of September 30, 2021, has operations in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Prudential’s diverse and talented employees help make lives better by creating financial opportunities for more people. Prudential’s iconic Rock symbol has stood for strength, stability, expertise, and innovation for more than a century. For more information, please visit news.prudential. com.

To arrange an interview, please contact Media Maven LLC at mediamavenllc@ gmail.com or 404-832-5302.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February , 2022 - February 08, 2022 INNER-CITY NEWS July 27, 02 2016 - August 02, 2016

DRIVER CDL CLASS A

C.J. Fucci, Inc., a Heavy/Highway general contractor, is looking to hire a skilled Carpenter Foreman. Prefer candidate to be familiar with ConnDOT procedures, bridge, and road construction work. Must communicate effectively with clients, be well organized and safety conscious, and must be able to read plans. This is hands‑on field leadership position. Top compensation and benefits are available. Full time position.

VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE AA/EOE M/F/Disability/Vet. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and encourage qualified woman and minorities to apply. Email resume to lreopell@cjfucci.com

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Full Time – All Shifts Top Pay-Full Benefits EOE Please apply in person: 1425 Honeyspot Rd. Ext. Stratford, CT 06615

HOME INC, on behalf of Columbus House and the New Haven Housing Authority, is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this develC.J. Fucci, Heavy/Highway experienced opment locatedInc., at 108aFrank Street, Newgeneral Haven.contractor, Maximumseeks income limitationsConapstruction Superintendentwill based of our from New 9AM Haven, offibeginning ces. QualifiMonday ed candidates ply. Pre-applications be out available TOCT 5PM Ju;y will25, have at least years’when experience working as a superintendent on heavy highway/ 2016 and 10 ending sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) have bridge, andINC. siteApplications projects valued at mailied $1M to upon $10M. beenconcrete, received demolition, at the officesand of civil HOME will be re-A four-year engineering or construction management degree or equivalent experience, quest by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours. Completed preextensive knowledge of construction, effective management techniques and superior applications must be returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange Street, Third interpersonal and communication skills are required. Bridge, and CT DOT experience Floor, New Haven, CT 06510. is preferred. Night/weekend work may be required. Applicants must submit project his-

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tory with resume. AA/EOE M/F/Disability/Vet. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and encourage qualified woman and minorities to apply. Please submit your resume and project history to lreopell@cjfucci.com

NOTICIA

MECHANIC TRACTOR TRAILER

VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES

ELECTRIC UTILITY ELECTRICIAN

HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos Electric utility seeking a highly skilled maintenance electrician with extensive substamáximos.

Lasis pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 tionjulio, experience to cuando maintain andrecibido repair suficientes transmission and distribution class switchgear, 2016 hasta se han pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) bus-work, lightning arrestors, protective relays, insulators, switches en las oficinas de HOME INC. Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas por power correo transforma petición ers,llamando data circuits, controls and other related components.

Must be a high school/trade a HOME INC al 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirse school and have INC 4 years’ experience in thetercer maintenance operation of eleca lasgraduate oficinas de HOME en 171 Orange Street, piso, Newand Haven , CT 06510 . tric utility substations and/or utility grade protection and control systems. Completion of a recognized four (4) year maintenance electrician apprenticeship program may substitute for the experience requirement. Two (2) years of college-level education or advanced training in related field may substitute for two (2) years of the experience requirement. Must possess a valid motor vehicle operator’s license issued by the State of Connecticut and be able to obtain with 6 months of hire a valid Protective Switching and Tagging Procedure certification from CONVEX or other approved agency. Wage rate: $37.78 to $41.67 hourly plus an excellent fringe benefit package. Closing date Fairmont AveResources, Town of Wallwill be February 28, 2022. 242-258 Apply: Department of Human ingford, 45 2BR South Townhouse, Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492. will be mailed 1.5 BA, 3BR, 1Applications level , 1BA upon request for the Department of Human Resources or may be downloaded from All new apartments, new appliances, new carpet, close to I-91 /&Fax: I-95(203) the Department of Human Resources Web Page.

Phone: (203) 294-2080 highways, near bus stop & shopping center 294-2084. EOE

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

The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport CT. Unified Deacon’s Association is pleased to offer a Deacon’s Request for Proposal (RFP) Physical Needs Assessment St. New Haven, CT Solicitation Number: 203-MD-22-S

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

The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport d/b/a Park City Communities is currently seeking proposals from qualified consultants to conduct a Physical Needs Assessment (PNA), inspections of PCC’s development portfolio, in accordance with applicable regulations issued by the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban DevelSealed bids are invited by the Housing Authority of the Town of Seymour opment (HUD). A complete set of RFP documents will be available on January 31, untilTo3:00 pma on Tuesday, August 2,you 2016 its office at 28 Smith Street, 2022. obtain copy of the solicitation mustatsend your request to bids@parkSeymour, CT 06483 for Concrete Sidewalk Repairs and Replacement at the citycommunities.org, please reference the solicitation number and title on the subject line.

A Pre-proposal conference call will be held on February 15, 2022 @ 10:00 Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour. a.m.

Although attendance is not mandatory, submitting a proposal without attending the pre-proposal conference may not be in the best interest of the Offeror. Additional A pre-bid conference willonly be held at the Housing Authority Office Smith questions should be emailed to bids@parkcitycommunities.org no28 later than Street Seymour, CT at 10:00 am, on Wednesday, July 20, 2016.

February 23, 2022 @ 3:00 p.m. Answers to all the questions will be posted on PCC’s Website: www.parkcitycommunities.org. Proposals shall be emailed, mailed, or hand delivered March 3, 2022 @ 3:00 p.m., Ms.Seymour CarolineHousing Sanchez,Authority Chief ProcureBiddingbydocuments are available fromtothe Ofment Officer, 150 Highland Ave, Bridgeport, CT 06604, or bids@parkcitycommuni‑ fice, 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579. ties.org. Late proposals will not be accepted.

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY

The Housing Authority reserves the right to accept or reject any or all bids, to reduce the scope of the project to reflect available funding, and to waive any

Full Time, Benefits, Top Pay Apply:Pace, 1425 Honeyspot

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Account Clerk-Payroll: The Town of East Haven is currently accepting applications to participate in the examination for Account Clerk-Payroll. The current vacancy is in the Finance Department of the Board of Education but this list may be used to fill other Account Clerk positions within the Town of East Haven. The starting salary is $54,325/year, 40 hours per week. Applications are available by calling 203-468-3375 or online at https:// www.townofeasthavenct.org/civil-service-commission/pages/job-notices-and-tests and must be returned Invitation to Bid: by mail to the Civil Service Offi 250 Main Street, East Haven CT 06512 by February 11, 2022. The Notice 2nd ce, Town of East Haven is committed to building a workforce of diverse individuals. Minorities, Females, SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE Handicapped and Veterans are encouraged to apply.

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Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential disabled and Casework, non-disabled veteran-owned businesses. $69,017 - $83,893/yr.

Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection.

We are committed to the principles and practices of Equal Employment Required testing, Opportunities, Civil Rights, Diversity and Inclusion and the This contract is subject to state set-aside and contract compliance requirements. registration info, and apply implementation of policies, codes, and regulations that will foster online: www.bristolct.gov growth, promote advancement, and provide opportunities Bid Extended, Due Date: August 5, 2016 for all subcontractors and vendors.

DEADLINE: 02-25-22 Anticipated Start: August 15, 2016 EOE Project documents available via ftp link below: For additional information, or to be added to our bid list, http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage

please send your qualifications to the following contact: SENIOR ADMINITRATIVE Fax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com

ASSISTANT

HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran, S/W/MBEStacey & Section 3 Certified Businesses Vincent, Contracts & Diversity Manager Haynes Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 svincent@duccielectrical.com AA/EEO EMPLOYER

Full-time position Go to www.portlandct.org for details 20

If you are interested in becoming part of our workforce, please contact: Catherine Best, Corporate Compliance Officer cbest@duccielectrical.com www.duccielectrical.com

INNER-CITY NEWS July 27,022016 - August 02, 2016 THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February , 2022 - February 08, 2022

Listing: Accounting NOTICE

Accounting Department has an immediate opening in Accounts Payable for an AP Operations Specialist. This full time position in a fast-paced office requires good computer and organizational skills, attention to detail, and multi-tasking.

VALENTINA PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE Benefi ts include MACRI health, RENTAL dental &HOUSING LTD insurance, plus 401(k). Send resume to: Human Resource Dept., P O Box 388, Guilford CT 06437 or email at HRDept@ eastriverenergy.com. you. House and the New Haven Housing Authority, HOME INC, on behalfThank of Columbus

is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this devel********An Affi Opportunity Employer********** opment located at rmative 108 FrankAction/Equal Street, New Haven.

Maximum income limitations apply. Pre-applications will be available from 9AM TO 5PM beginning Monday Ju;y Multi discipline Real estate firm is seeking a Senior manager to oversee property man‑ 25, 2016 and ending when sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) have agement department which includes a portfolio of 4M sf. Minimum 7 years of real been received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be mailied upon reestate experience, position includes overseeing staff, maintaining client relationships, quest by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours. Completed precapital budgets and working on new development projects. Competitive salary & benefitapplications package. must be returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange Street, Third Floor, New Haven, CT 06510.

NOTICIA

Excellent benefits, 401k. Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

Please submit resumes to openjobs.group@fusco.com.

Phone calls will not be accepted.

VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES

HOME INC,Cleaner en nombre de la Columbus Houseand y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está Heavy Duties Responsibilities

Fusco Management Company forde qualifi ed Heavy Cleaner. aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudiosisy looking apartamentos un dormitorio en este desarrollo One year andSe good communication ubicado encustodial la calle 109experience Frank Street,required New Haven. aplican limitaciones de skills. ingresos máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 Cleans ces, cellcuando block,sehallways, stairways, windows and doors.

Will pick up 100) trash julio, offi 2016 hasta han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente around and Las maintain cleanliness of enviadas restrooms elevators.

Will en lasexterior oficinasof debuildings HOME INC. pre-solicitudes serán porand correo a petición change lighta HOME bulbs and small maintenance as directed by deberán Building Superllamando INC other al 203-562-4663 durante esastasks horas.Pre-solicitudes remitirse intendent.

Mayde open or close building as needed. a las oficinas HOME INC en 171 Orange Street, Vacuums, tercer piso,spot Newcleans Haven and , CTshampoos 06510 . carpets, and furniture using commercial type vacuum cleaners and shampooing equipment. Makes small repairs to bathroom fixtures, may snake drains to remove blockages.

May order stock. Move furniture, equipment, or fixtures as required. Operates pressure washing equipment as needed. May shovel and remove snow and ice from sidewalks, entryways, and roofs.

NEW HAVEN

Medical and dental benefits, 401k. Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. Please submit resumes to openjobs.group@fusco.com. Phone calls will not 242-258 Fairmont Ave be accepted.

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

Building Superintendent

All new apartments, new appliances, new carpet, close to I-91 & I-95 highways, near bus stop & shopping center Pet under 40lb allowed. Interested parties contact Maria @ 860-985-8258

Fusco Management Company, LLC is seeking a hands-on individual who is capable of performing minor repairs and duties as well as supervising maintenance operations of Unified Deacon’s is pleased to offer Deacon’scommunicate verbally and via email theCT.facilities.

Must Association be computer literate andashould Certificate Program. This is a 10 month program designed to assist in the intellectual formation of Candidates to incoworkers, vendors and tenants.

Works with co-workers improve facilities. response to the Church’s Ministry needs. The cost is $125.

Classes starttoSaturday, August 20, 2016Oper1:303:30 Contact: Chairman, Deacon Joe J.mechanical Davis, M.S., B.S.and electrical equipment, performs miscelates and maintains sophisticated (203) 996-4517 Host, General Bishop Elijah Davis, D.D. Pastor of Pitts Chapel U.F.W.B. Church 64 Brewster laneous repair work as needed, performs cleaning and other related duties as required.

St. New Haven, CT

Qualifications:

A combination of experience, education, and/or training which substantially demonstrates the following knowledge, skills and abilities.

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY

bidsand arepractices invited of byinstalling, the Housing Authority of theand Town of Seymour 1.Sealed Principles operating, maintaining repairing building equipment systems until 3:00andpm on Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at its office at 28 Smith Street, 2. Operation maintenance and repair of various pumps, motors, air conditioning equipSeymour, CT 06483 for Concrete Sidewalk Repairs and Replacement at the ment, boilers, blowers, control valves and switches, and instruments related to HVAC, Smithfield Gardens and to the digital controlAssisted system. Living Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour.

3.

Ability to trouble shoot and repair lighting, plumbing, fire protection, security systems and energy management foundAuthority in an officeOffice building A pre-bid conference will besystems held atnormally the Housing 28environ‑ Smith ment.

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

4. Identify Hazardous materials encountered in the work environment and knowledge of their treatment. are available the Seymour Housing 5.Bidding Should documents be able to promote safety infrom the workplace and be vigilant Authority concerning Ofvisitorfice, safety.

28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579.

Medical and dental benefits, 401k. Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative

The Housing Authority reserves the right to accept or reject any or all bids, to reduce the scope of the project to reflect available funding, and to waive any informalities in the bidding, if such actions are in the best interest of the

CITY OF MILFORD

Seeking qualified condidates to fill numerous vacancies to in‑ clude, Deputy Assessor, Mechanic Sewer Line, Public Health Nurse and more. For information and detailed application instructions, visit www.ci.milford.ct.us Click on SERVICES, JOBS and JOB TITLE.

POLICE OFFICER City of Bristol $69,017 - $83,893/yr.

Required testing, registration info, and apply online: www.bristolct.gov DEADLINE: 02-25-22 EOE

DRIVER CDL CLASS A Full Time – All Shifts Top

Pay-Full Benefits

EOE Please apply in person: 1425 Honeyspot Rd. Ext. Stratford, CT 06615

TOWN OF EAST HAVEN PURCHASING AGENT

The Town of East Haven seeks a qualified candidate to serve in the position of Purchasing Agent. This is a highly responsible position involving purchasing and directing the purInvitationchasing to Bid: functions of the municipality. Qualified candidates should possess a bachelor’s de‑ gree in business administration or related field preferably including or supplemented with 2nd Notice special course work in purchasing/municipal bid processes and materials management plus five (5) years’ of progressively responsible purchasing work or an equivalent combination of education and qualifying experience. Must have valid class 3 Connecticut Driver’s LiOld Saybrook, CT cense. The salary for this position is $62,541/year, 35 hours per week and the Town offers (4 Buildings,an17excellent Units) benefit package. Please send cover letter and resume with references to: Town of East Haven, Tax Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage RateMichelle Project Benivegna, Human Resource Department, 250 Main Street, East Haven, CT 06512 or MBenivegna@townofeasthavenct.org. Resumes will be accepted until the position is filled. The Town of East Haven is committed to building a work force New Construction, Wood Framed, Housing, Demolition,Minorities, Site-work,females, Cast- handicapped and veterans are encouraged to of Selective diverse individuals. in-place Concrete, Asphaltapply.

Shingles, Vinyl Siding, The Town of East Haven is an equal opportunity employer.

SENIOR ADMINITRATIVE SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE

ASSISTANT

Full-time position Go to www.portlandct.org for details

Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Casework, QSR STEEL Mechanical, CORPORATION Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection.

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

Office of Policy and Management Bid Extended, Due Date: August 5, 2016 Steel Fabricators, Erectors & Welders Top pay for top performers.

HealthStart: August Anticipated 15, 2016 The State of Connecticut, Office of Policy and Management is recruiting for a Benefits, 401K,Project Vacation Pay. Leadership Associate documents available via ftp link below: (target class Budget Analyst) and a Procurement Policy Development Coordinator. http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage Email Resume: Rose@qsrsteel.com Hartford, CT Further information regarding the duties, eligibility requirements and application in-

APPLY NOW!

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION/EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

structions are available at:

Fax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com https://www.jobapscloud.com/CT/sup/bulpreview. asp?R1=220116&R2=5989VR&R3=001 HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran, S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified Businesses Haynes Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 and AA/EEO EMPLOYER https://www.jobapscloud.com/CT/sup/bulpreview.

MECHANIC TRACTOR TRAILER

Full Time, Benefits, Top Pay Apply:Pace, 1425 Honeyspot

Rd. Ext., Stratford, CT EOE

21

asp?R1=220116&R2=1581MP&R3=001

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

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February , 2022 - February 08, 2022 INNER-CITY NEWS July 27,02 2016 - August 02, 2016

Construction

Garrity Asphalt Reclaiming, Inc seeks:

Construction Equipment Mechanic preferably experienced in Seeking to employ experienced individuals in the labor, Reclaiming and Road Milling Equipment. We offer factory foreman, operator and teamster trades for a heavy outside training on equipment we operate. Location: Bloomfield CT work statewide. Reliable personal transportation and a valWe offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits id drivers license required. To apply please call (860) 621Contact: Tom Dunay VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE 1720 or send resume to: Personnel Department, P.O. Box 368, Cheshire, CT06410.

Phone: 860- 243-2300 HOME INC, on behalf of Columbus House and the New Haven Housing Authority, Email: tom.dunay@garrityasphalt.com is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom this develAffiatrmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer M/F/V Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to applyapartments Drug Free Workforce opment located at 108 Frank Street, New Haven.

Maximum income limitations apAffirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer ply. Pre-applications will be available from 9AM TO 5PM beginning Monday Ju;y 25, 2016 and ending when sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) have been received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be mailied upon reGarrity Asphalt Incduring seeks: CT Fence quest by calling HOMEReclaiming, INC at 203-562-4663 those hours.Large Completed pre- Company looking for an individual for our Reclaimer Operators and Milling Operators with current licensing PVCStreet, Fence Third Production Shop. Experience preferred but will applications must be returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange and clean driving record, be willing to travel throughout the Northtrain the right person. Must be familiar with carpentry hand Floor, New Haven, CT 06510. east & NY. We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits & power tools and be able to read a CAD drawing and tape measure. Use of CNC Router machine a plus but not required, will train the right person. This is an in-shop production poContact: Rick Tousignant Phone: 860- 243-2300 sition. Duties include building fence panels, posts, gates and Email: rick.touMust have a valid CT driver’s license & be able to obtain VALENTINAsignant@garrityasphalt.com MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDESmore.

DISPONIBLES a Drivers Medical Card. Must be able to pass a physical and Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply drug test. Please email resume to pboucher@atlasoutdoor.com.

Affirmative Action/deEqual Opportunity HOME INC, en nombre la Columbus House y Employer de la New Haven Housing Authority, está AA/EOE-MF aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 Tractor Trailer Driver for Heavy & Highway Construction Equipjulio,Must 2016have hastaacuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes ment.

CDL License, clean driving record, capable of (aproximadamente 100) en las oficinas HOME INC. Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas porSeeking correo atopetición operating heavyde equipment; be willing to travel throughout the employ experienced individuals in the labor, foreman, llamando HOME INC alexcellent 203-562-4663 horas.Pre-solicitudes deberánand remitirse Northeast &aNY. We offer hourlydurante rate &esas excellent benefits operator teamster trades for a heavy outside work statewide. a las oficinas de HOME INC en 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, New Haven , CT personal 06510 . transportation and a valid drivers license reReliable

NOTICE

PVC FENCE PRODUCTION

NOTICIA

Union Company seeks:

Construction

Information Technology Police Network Administrator Seeking a highly responsible manager to direct the information technology function of the Wallingford Police Department. Work involves administering LAN/WAN computer networks and planning, scheduling and coordinating the installation of related hardware and software in offices, fleet vehicles and remote sites. The position requires a bache‑ lor’s degree in computer science or a related field, plus 5 years of progressively respon‑ sible experience in all phases of information technology processing of which 3 years must be in the administration of LAN/WAN systems and maintenance in a Windows Server environment, including 2 years of web design and development, or an equivalent combination of education and qualifying experience. Must possess and maintain a valid CT driver’s license. Must obtain COLLECT/NCIC system certification from the State of Connecticut within one year of hire. Salary: $82,968 to $106,151 annually plus an excellent fringe benefit package. Application materials may be obtained at the Depart‑ ment of Human Resources, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492 or may be downloaded from the Department of Human Resources Web Page.

Phone #: (203) 294-2080, Fax #: (203) 294-2084. Applications and resumes can be emailed to: wlfdhr@wallingfordct.gov by the closing date of February 22, 2022 or the date the 50th application is received, whichever occurs first. EOE.

The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport Request for Proposal (RFP) Summary Process Counsel Solicitation Number: 204-LG-22-S

The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport d/b/a Park City Communities is currently seeking proposals from attorneys/law firms to conduct Summary Process (Evic‑ tions) for properties administered by Park City Communities. A complete set of RFP quired. To apply please call (860) 621-1720 or send resume to: documents will be available on January 31, 2022. To obtain a copy of the solicitation you must send your request to bids@parkcitycommunities.org, please reference soliciPersonnel Department, P.O. Box 368, Cheshire, CT06410. tation number and title on the subject line. A Pre-Proposal conference call will be held Email: dana.briere@garrityasphalt.com on February 15, 2022, at 11:00 a.m. Although attendance is not mandatory submitting a Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer M/F/V proposal without attending the pre-proposal conference may not be in the best interest Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer Drug Free Workforce of the Offeror. Additional questions should be emailed only to bids@parkcitycommuniInvitationties.org to Bid: no later than February 23, 2022 at 3:00 p.m. Answers to all the questions will be posted on PCC’s Website: www.parkcitycommunities.org Proposals shall be emailed, 242-258 Fairmont Ave State of Connecticut 2nd Notice mailed, or hand delivered by March 03, 2022, at 3:00 p.m., to Ms. Caroline Sanchez, Office of Policy 2BR Townhouse, 1.5 BA, 3BR, 1 level , 1BA Chief Procurement Officer, 150 Highland Ave. Bridgeport, CT 06604, or bids@parkci‑ and Management tycommunities.org.

Late proposals will not be accepted.

All new apartments, new appliances, new carpet, close to I-91 & I-95 Old Saybrook, CT

Contact Dana at 860-243-2300

NEW HAVEN

SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE

highways, near bus stop & shopping center Pet under 40lb allowed. Interested parties contact Maria @ 860-985-8258

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

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY Sealed bids are invited by the Housing Authority of the Town of Seymour until 3:00 pm on Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at its office at 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 for Concrete Sidewalk Repairs and Replacement at the Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour.

A pre-bid conference will be held at the Housing Authority Office 28 Smith Street Seymour, CT at 10:00 am, on Wednesday, July 20, 2016.

Bidding documents are available from the Seymour Housing Authority Office, 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579.

The Housing Authority reserves the right to accept or reject any or all bids, to reduce the scope of the project to reflect available funding, and to waive any

The State of Connecticut, Office(4ofBuildings, 17 Units) Multi discipline Real estate firm is seeking a Senior manager to oversee property manPolicy and Management is recruiting Tax Exempt & Not Prevailing Wagedepartment Rate Project agement which includes a portfolio of 4M sf. Minimum 7 years of real estate for a Staff Attorney 1 (confidential) experience, position includes overseeing staff, maintaining client relationships, capital position. budgets and working on new development projects. Competitive salary & benefit pack-

New Construction, Wood Framed, Housing, Selective Demolition, Site-work, Castage.

Further information regarding the duties, eligibility requirements and application in-place Concrete, Asphalt Shingles, Vinyl Siding, Excellent benefits, 401k. Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. instructions are available at:

Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Please submit resumes toCasework, openjobs.group@fusco.com. Phone calls will not be accepted.

https://www.jobapscloud.com/ Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection.

CT/sup/bulpreview.asp?R1 =211124&R2=1637CR&R3=001 This contract is subject to state set-aside and contract compliance requirements.

Director of Housing Choice Voucher Program

The State of Connecticut is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer The Housing Authority of the City of Bristol is seeking an energetic individual who has and strongly encouragesBid the Extended, applications Due Date: August 5, 2016 at least three (3) years’ experience as an HCV Program Manager or Supervisor. Knowlof women, minorities, and persons August 2016 of 15, HUD‑related regulations required. Must be able to work flexible hours. Must with disabilities.Anticipated Start: edge

have aviavalid CT below: Driver’s License; this position requires occasional in-state travel. This Project documents available ftp link is a full‑time position with excellent benefits; salary is commensurate with experience. http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage Interested candidates should mail a resume and professional references by Monday, POLICE OFFICER February 14, 2022 to: Fax orCity Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com of Bristol HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran, S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified BusinessesThe Housing Authority of the City of Bristol, 164 Signe Lambertsen, HR Manager,

Construction Company, 32 Progress Seymour, CT 06483 $69,017Haynes - $83,893/yr.

Jerome Ave, Avenue, Bristol, CT 06010 If submitting the required documentation electroniRequired testing, AA/EEO EMPLOYER cally, send to Slambertsen@bristolhousing.org using “RESUME – Director of Housing Choice Voucher Program” in the subject line. registration info, and apply online: www.bristolct.gov The Bristol Housing Authority of the City of Bristol is an equal opportunity employer.

DEADLINE: 02-25-22 All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.

EOE

22

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022

23

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 02, 2022 - February 08, 2022

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