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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021 INNER-CITY

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New Haven Catches Kamala’s Wave THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021

by THOMAS BREEN

New Haven I ndependent

New Haveners descended on the Hill Friday to catch a passing glimpse of Vice President Kamala Harris—whose afternoon visit spread a wave of pride, hope, and history.

Harris is the country’s first Black, female, and Asian-American vice president.

She spent roughly an hour and a half at the Boys & Girls Club on Columbus Avenue as part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s “Help Is Here” national tour, touting the impact of the recently passed $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.

Although her roundtable discussion about childcare with various state and political figures was closed to the public and almost all of the press, roughly 150 people still made the trek to Howard Avenue and Columbus Avenue.

In interview after interview after interview with the Independent, New Haveners from the Hill, Beaver Hills, City Point, Newhallville, Westville, and elsewhere said that they took the afternoon off to stand in the sun 200 feet away from where Harris sat because of the pride they felt at having the nation’s second-in-command visit the city.

For the Black women who came out to stand at the Columbus-Howard street corner, Harris’s visit was particularly poignant as a marker of the many ceilings the vice president had broken through to achieve her current position of prominence.

“It feels extremely special to be graced with her presence,” said Dannah Facey, an internal medicine doctor who lives in the Hill. “I hope she sees we’re all rooting for her. We know she knows what’s right.”

“I think it’s historic,” said Jamila Thompson, a Hill native who drove down from her current home in North Haven with her four young children: Gene, Dominique, Layla, and Mansil.

At a time of great suffering during the pandemic, which has hit working-class communities of color like the Hill particularly hard, “they need something to give them hope.”

Harris’s visit—along with the American Rescue Plan’s $1.9 trillion in federal aid for childcare, unemployment, direct payments, and more—provided exactly that.

“We feel privileged, honored,” said Kashonda Lawrence (pictured in Superwoman costume), a teacher at the LULAC Head Start childcare program on Cedar Street in the Hill.

When asked what she hopes Harris takes away from her visit to New Haven, and from her visit to a storied after-

school program for youth like the Boys & Girls Club, Lawrence said, “The best thing for her to take away is how important we are to the community, how important childcare is for the community” — especially when so many people have lost their jobs and physical school buildings remained shuttered for months as public school learning took place online.

“It’s kind of stressful for a lot of us teens being remote all the time,” said 16-year-old Beaver Hills resident and Hillhouse High School student Jadyn Brown, who showed up to try to see the vice president with her mom, Angela (both pictured).

Brown said she’s not sure if she’ll be returning to the classroom in person when local high schools make that option available in early April.

If she had a chance to talk with the vice president, Brown said, she would let her know that, even though times have been tough, especially for young people, and especially in New Haven, “A lot of us can adjust. A lot of us did adjust.”

“There’s a lot of diversity in our city,” she said. “It’s great to see all the people here together.”

Local salsa instructor and craft brewer Alisa Bowens said she feels a unique connection to Harris as fellow “firsts of the firsts,” with Harris being the first Black female vice president, and Bowens being the first Black female craft brewer in Connecticut.

“She’s such an inspiration,” Bowens said. If she could have one word with Harris during her New Haven visit?

Bowens said she’d say, “You go, girl.”

Newhallville Community Management Team Chair Kim Harris, traveling alongside Newhallville teens Aneissa Beam and Spirite Watson (all pictured) as part of Harris’s Newhallville Kids TV program, turned to the name of the vice president’s tour when asked how she felt knowing that Kamala Harris was in our city.

“She’s bringing that excitement. Help is here,” Kim Harris said. With all of the aid included in the American Rescue Plan, and especially with U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s successfully championed boost to the child tax credit, “We really have a chance to live better.”

Speaking Jamaican Patois With The VP At least one New Havener got to meet Harris during her Friday afternoon visit.

Georgia Goldburn, executive director of the childcare center Hope for New Haven and a community-wide organizer of childcare providers, got to meet Harris briefly during her stop at the West Haven Child Development Center, which she visited after the roundtable at the Boys & Girls Club in New Haven.

THOMAS BREEN PHOTO Vice President Kamala Harris on her way down Howard Avenue.

New Haveners waiting to catch a glimpse of the first Black, female, Asian-American VP.

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Alongside federal Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, Gov. Ned Lamont, U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, and other state and local officials, Harris toured the childcare facility and visited a classroom with children before giving a speech about the American Rescue Plan’s $50 billion for childcare.

She also met briefly and took pictures with some local childcare providers, like Goldburn.

“I got a chance to speak with her in patois. And she spoke back to me in patois,” Goldburn said with a laugh during a phone interview after the meet-up.

She said she asked the vice president, “Waa gwaan?” which is Jamaican Patois for “What’s going on?” Harris, whose father is Jamaican, responded gamely with, “Waa gwaan.”

“It was really good. I was waiting to criticize her patois game,” Goldburn said. “Honestly, her game was tight.”

“Giant Leaps” For Children & Families When asked about how she felt, as a local childcare provider, to have the vice president of the United States visit New Haven and West Haven specifically to talk about the importance of funding services for young children, Goldburn paused.

“It is a very heavy feeling to participate in this event,” she said. It meant a lot, “as a childcare provider, to hear the people at the highest level of government coming and saying that we matter, and that our efforts, our contributions, should be recognized, should be honored, not just through words, but honored through actions.”

“Just to be in a space where your life’s work is being recognized, to have them saying, ‘thank you,’ and, ‘we want to make sure that we honor you going forward by making investments in you as a professional, in you as an essential infrastructure,’” she added, “that was really wonderful to hear coming out of the mouths of the people at the highest levels of government.”

Goldburn also reflected on how Harris referred to the American Rescue Plan’s $50 billion for childcare as “a beginning step,” saying and “we have to start taking giant leaps rather than incremental steps for children and families.”

“That was really uplifting to hear,” Goldburn said. “We always felt like we were in the shadow of the education system, seen but never heard, and sometimes barely seen. It’s really good to have the opportunity today” to hear someone as high up in U.S. government as Kamala Harris affirm, and promise to support, childcare professionals like herself.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021

150 Vaccinated At First Calvary Clinic

by MAYA MCFADDEN

New Haven I ndependent

One hundred and fifty Newhallville residents got vaccinated Wednesday thanks to another partnership between the city Health Department and a local church.

The city and First Calvary Baptist Church at 609 Dixwell Ave. partnered to bring the pop-up vaccination clinic to residents of Newhallville as the city focuses its vaccine rollout efforts on trusted community sites.

It was the first such pop-up in New Haven’s Newhallville neighborhood. The city has run similar pop-ups in other neighborhoods in order to make sure more people of color get the vaccine.

“Listen To Science” Alfonzo Brown knows firsthand the effects of the Covid virus after he contracted it last March. After getting his first dose of the Moderna vaccine Wednesday, Brown took a sigh of relief.

Before getting his shot, Brown said he has played a waiting game to be eligible for the vaccine since rollout began.

“I had no questions. I know how bad that thing is,” he said about Covid-19. “This is the only way we can keep ourselves and family safe from the pain of Covid.”

Brown said he contracted the virus while working at a Department of Correction halfway house. For two weeks, Brown “had every symptom in the book.”

While quarantining, Brown, who lives with his wife and grandkids, had to stay downstairs to keep his family safe. His grandkids temporarily moved out until he recovered.

Since recovering Brown has lost several family members and friends to the virus.

He hasn’t been able to travel for funerals or be with his family during hard times.

Brown quit working at the halfway house after recovering. “I felt like they weren’t doing enough to keep us safe,” he said.

Once Brown gets his second dose, he hopes to take a trip to South Carolina to visit his family, and then go to Las Vegas to see a close friend get married.

“You’re either a part of the problem or the solution, and the solution is to listen to science,” he said.

25 Clinics, & Counting Wednesday’s site was the Health Department’s 25th neighborhood pop up vaccination clinic.

A total of three pop-ups sites opened Wednesday as a part of the Health Department’s series of neighborhood focused clinics. So far, Health Director Maritza Bond reported, the city has vaccinated 12,000 New Haveners.

First Calvary is one of several churches that have opened their doors to offer a vaccination site that is comfortable and accessible for neighbors, and particularly Black and brown residents, to get vaccinated.

Since the start of the city’s vaccine roll-

Mayor Justin Elicker and Rev. Boise Kimber at the church-turned-clinic.

Public heath nurse Judith Medor gives Harper first Moderna dose.

MAYA MCFADDEN PHOTO Public health nurse Janice Gemmell administers doses Wednesday at First Calvary.

out earlier this year, Bond said they have been focused on offering a plan that is accessible and equitable for all community members.

“We are making it not just about a shot in the arm, but also educating simultaneously so people can have the facts not the myths,” she said.

In addition Bond encouraged residents who are undocumented to get a resident

ID card and to also get vaccinated. “Our vaccine efforts are not about checking and verifying your legal status,” she said.

Community members scheduled appointments with the church and the Health Department in advance of Wednesday’s clinic. First Calvary focused its advertisement for the event on Newhallville residents through social media and the community management team, Rev. Boise

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Kimber said.

New Mother Gets Her First Shot Wednesday’s clinic had 150 appointments from community members like Brown and Theresa Nast.

Nast called the Health Department and was scheduled for an appointment within minutes at First Calvary.

Five weeks ago, Nast gave birth to her firth child, who joined her at the Dixwell

Avenue site. When the vaccine was first introduced months ago, Nast was pregnant. She began consulting with her doctor to make sure the vaccine was safe for the baby and consulted her newborn’s doctor just before getting the vaccine. “I was a little concerned because I’m breast feeding but the doctors told me it was safe,” she said.

Pregnancy during the pandemic wasn’t easy for Nast. She had to go to doctor visits alone and struggled to find childcare all while keeping her kids occupied at home during the days they remained home for remote learning.

Just before heading to her appointment Wednesday, Nast recalled her 9 year old, telling her “This is the first time I wanted to get a shot and I can’t.”

Nast said once vaccinated she hopes to have more of her family visit to meet her newborn for the first time.

Mayor Justin Elicker and Bond visited the clinic Wednesday and thanked residents for stepping up to get vaccinated.

Bond said the city is transitioning to service only New Haven residents for vaccinations. She reported that so far 17 percent of New Haven has been vaccinated.

In September First Calvary stepped up as a learning hub site for youth learning remotely. On Wednesday the learning hub was transformed into a clinic with five stations for nurses to administer vaccinations. Members of the church’s learning hub volunteered their help with welcoming patients in and getting them registered for the clinic.

Bond described faith based organizations and their leaders as trusted sources for the community. “From the beginning we knew it’d be important to engage all stakeholders to get the best rollout plan,” she said Kimber reached out to the Health Department to get a clinic at the church to encourage neighbors to get vaccinated.

“We want to provide that level of comfort where they can feel like this is a safe haven like the church is supposed to be,” he said.

“Just like you take medicine from doctors when you’re sick because it will save your life, take the vaccine if you want to live,” he said.

Just before public heath nurse Judith Medor gave Michael Harper his first vaccine dose she joked with Harper “just think about the lollipop you’ll get after this.”

Harper’s mother use to attend First Calvary and when he saw Kimber’s advertisements for it he scheduled an appointment.

Since the start of the pandemic Harper has kept in contact with family daily with video calls. Like others, Harper plans to get back to traveling once vaccinated.

“I’m ready to get back into my backyard grilling with my family and having cookouts,” he said.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021

New Haveners Line Up For Pizza Bill

by THOMAS BREEN

Penfield Communications Inc

New Haven I ndependent

Pizza is one pie closer to becoming the official state food, as New Haveners pitched state lawmakers on recognizing the local culinary delicacy’s role in fostering community, uplifting small businesses, and satisfying taste buds.

On Friday, the state legislature’s Government Administration and Elections Committee hosted a public hearing on the proposed legislation House Bill No. 5656: An Act Designating Pizza As The State Food. The committee’s virtual public hearing was held online via YouTube.

No one spoke against the bill at the hearing. Now the committee is to vote on the bill, then advance to the full legislature for final votes.

Not surprisingly, the bill was baked and is being served to passage primarily thanks to elected officials and advocates from the delicacy’s birthplace of New Haven.

Co-sponsored by New Haven State Rep. Pat Dillon, New Haven State Sen. Gary Winfield, and Waterbury State Rep. Geraldo Reyes, and initially proposed by New Haven food writer and local historian Colin Caplan, the bill would make pizza the state food to “recognize the contribution of pizza to the state’s cuisine and economy.”

“Pizza in Connecticut is a craft,” Dillon said on Friday during her testimony in support of the bill. “It is high quality. It is small business. And individual pizzerias have their own following. When I was first approached by a friend in New Haven to raise this bill, it was at a low point in the pandemic, and I was excited to think that this was an opportunity to celebrate what is joyful and good in our lives, and also to promote small businesses.”

The public hearing came just hours before Vice President Kamala Harris’s secret service detail picked up 15 pies from Sally’s Apizza in Wooster Square during the veep’s New Haven visit. The vice president also picked up pies from West Haven’s Zuppardi’s Apizza.

The bill has also sparked a bit of a regional debate as to which state is indeed home to the most satisfying and historic pizza culture.

On Friday, Caplan testified that New Haven—and Connecticut at large—takes the cake. As it were.

“The whole idea is to support the community of families we have here as well as the amazing economy produced by pizzerias,” he said. “The pizza business is an amazing testament to this town and this whole state.”

Caplan said Connecticut has the highest rated pizzas, the oldest pizzerias, the largest number of pizzerias per capita, and the most independently owned pizzerias of any state int he country.

“Connecticut has its own word for pizza: apizza,” pronounced “ah-beetz.”

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Contributing Writers COURTNEY LUCIANA PHOTO Colin Caplan and Kevin Gagliard display Pepe’s’ trademark clam pizza.

He said New Haven can also boast being the birthplace of the pizza box, the pizza vending machine, the home pizza making set, and the white clam pizza.

“New Haven-style pizza is internationally recognized,” he said. The documentary Pizza: A Love Story focuses exclusively on New Haven. Whenever presidents or vice presidents come to New Haven, they almost always stop in New Haven for a pie.

“It’s something that connects us, not divides us,” he said. “It was brought by Italians, now it’s eaten by every ethnicity, culture, race.”

WNPR radio show host Chef Plum also weighed in in support of the bill.

(When asked by Killingly State Sen. Mae Flexer to testify under his real name, Plum, a bit perturbed and perplexed, said that that is is his real name. “Just Chef Plum, even in my wedding vows. Good luck looking that one up!”)

“New York State has its state muffin: the apple muffin,” he said. “Delaware has a state pie: the peach pie. Oklahoma has a state steak: the ribeye. Missouri has a state dessert: the ice cream cone.”

Connecticut has two state songs, he continued, but no state food.

“Pizza belongs to the people of Connecticut. Real apizza lives here, and it’s time to bring it home officially.”

And in written testimony submitted to the committee, Mayor Justin Elicker also backed the state pizza bill effort.

“Family-owned pizza restaurants are at the heart of our city, and their contributions to our community and economy go far beyond the flavor and excellence of their specialty dish,” he wrote. “During a time when it is difficult to feel a sense of

community, the uniquely delicious qualities of New Haven pizza brings us together, even when we’re physically apart.”

The committee state legislators who spoke up on Friday threw their support behind the New Haven-backed pizza bill.

“New Haven pizza is a treasure,” Stamford State Rep. Matt Blumenthal (pictured) said, “and I believe without equal.”

Flexer agreed. “This has been a very dark time for all of us,” she said. “This bill has given me a smile all year.”

$10K Grants Available For Local Black Biz

David Asbery / Tanisha Asbery Jerry Craft / Cartoons / Barbara Fair Dr. Tamiko Jackson-McArthur Michelle Turner / Smita Shrestha William Spivey / Kam Williams Rev. Samuel T. Ross-Lee

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Paul Bass www.newhavenindependent.org

Memberships National Association of Black Journalist National Newspapers Publishers Association Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce Greater New Haven Business & Professional Greater New England Minority Supplier Development Council, Inc.

Local Black-owned businesses can now apply for up to $10,000 in aid through the Economic Justice Fund run by the Connecticut Community Outreach Revitalization Program (ConnCORP).

ConnCORP is the same organization that is looking to redevelop Dixwell Plaza into a mixed-use hub of apartments, stores, and cultural venues.

They first launched their Economic Justice Fund last summer to raise and distribute $600,000 to families in Newhallville and Dixwell.

On Monday afternoon, ConnCORP sent out an email press release announcing an expanded grant program for local Blackowned businesses that have been open for at least two years.

“The goal of the fund is to create a cadre of Black businesses that are economically

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resilient to withstand economic recessions as well as being wealth and wage generators for their owners, employees, and the community at large,” the press release reads.

The first 10 businesses accepted in the first round of grant funding will receive up to $10,000, depending on need.

They’ll also be eligible for up to $15,000 from CTNext in technical assistance in the form of marketing, financial/accounting, new product development, legal, web design, and communications and public relations consulting. The New Haven Innovation Collaborative (NHIC) is supporting the effort with a $200,000 CTNext matching grant.

And they’ll be able to take part in ConnCORP’s Economic Impact Lab.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021

Survivors Rally For HOPE On Partner Violence

by EMILY HAYS

New Haven I ndependent

Robyn Porter didn’t fully realize that she was in a dangerous relationship until her friend pointed that fact out for her.

On Monday, a domestic violence prevention rally on the Green highlighted just how big of a role friends and family can play in helping their loved ones free themselves from threatening partners.

Roughly 40 people showed up to the downtown event, organized by local healthcare providers and counselors from the HOPE Family Justice Center as a call to action to end domestic violence homicide in the wake of a recent spike in intimate partner violence in New Haven.

“It was hard for me to hear, because I had to accept that I was in trouble,” Porter said on Monday about her own past experience with domestic violence. “I started telling a few people. I want us to be those few people.”

Porter, who represents parts of Newhallville and Hamden in the state House of Representatives, spoke at an event calling for an end to the kind of domestic violence New Haven saw in the recent deaths of Alessia Mesquita and Dwaneia Alexandria Turner.

About one in four women and one in 10 men have faced sexual assault, physical abuse, stalking or another form of intimate partner violence over the course of their lifetimes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Mothers & Others For Justice had a strong showing at the rally.

As a member of the Connecticut General Assembly, Porter has helped pass laws to protect victims of domestic violence.

At Monday’s rally to end domestic violence, she spoke not as a legislator, but as a domestic violence survivor.

She told her roughly 40-person audience about sneaking out of her home to call her friends, because her abuser had control over her phone. One of her friends, a survivor of domestic violence herself, recognized the late-night calls from phone

booths as a sign of intimate partner violence and said so.

The conversation prompted Porter to recognize her situation and make a safety plan for how she would leave the relationship. She felt deep shame and fear but was able to tell a few people about what she was experiencing.

She encouraged those listening to her speech to reach out to their friends and family—as well as their legislators to learn how they can support further legal

changes.

“There’s a lot more to do. I’m so tired of these vigils,” Porter said.

More Severe Crises The Covid-19 pandemic has made already dangerous situations of domestic violence more dangerous.

The calls to the New Haven Police Department related to domestic violence are more severe than before the pandemic, Acting Chief Renee Dominguez said on Monday. Situations of physical abuse

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EQUIT Y Photo Credit: Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen

OPPORTUNIT Y

have sometimes escalated to choking or other threats to the victim’s life by the time the police department gets called in.

Dominguez told the audience at the rally that this is because victims are more socially isolated during the pandemic. There is no one noticing that the victim has not showed up to work or has not brought their child to school. This is why community members and friends like Porter’s can play such a crucial role, Dominguez said.

Economic independence is another key way to prevent domestic violence. Survivors can have a hard time leaving their relationship if they don’t know where to go or are having trouble finding stable housing. Elm City Communities CEO Karen DuBois-Walton reminded survivors that they can jump to the top of the housing authority’s waitlist. Once receiving a housing voucher or a unit, they can also transfer to another location if they do not feel safe where they are.

The housing authority processes about 150 applications a year from those experiencing domestic violence, DuBois-Walton said.

Like DuBois-Walton and Dominguez, most speakers at the rally focused on the prevalence of domestic violence and the resources available to survivors.

Yale New Haven Hospital emergency physician Karen Jubanyik spoke about how intimate partner violence can affect those in heterosexual and same sex rela-

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021

Gig Economy Study Bill Advances

by THOMAS BREEN

New Haven I ndependent

State lawmakers advanced a bill that would study—but not take any immediate action on—whether or not Uber and Lyft drivers and other gig economy “independent contractors” should be classified instead as employees.

That proposed legislation is House Bill No. 6343: An Act Concerning A Study Of Gig Workers.

On Thursday afternoon, state legislators on the Labor and Public Employees Committee, including New Haven State Rep. and Committee Co-Chair Robyn Porter, voted 9-3 to move a substitute version of the bill out of committee and towards the full state House of Representatives for further debate and a potential future vote. The committee meeting was livestreamed on YouTube.

The proposed bill, which is co-sponsored by Porter, would require the state labor commissioner to conduct a study of gig workers in the state, “including, but not limited to, internet-based food delivery drivers and ridesharing service providers.”

No later than Jan. 1, 2022, the commissioner shall then report to the state legislature’s labor committee on the results of the study and on any recommendations for legislation that would “prevent companies from improperly classifying such workers as independent contractors instead of employees.”

Local labor-organizing rideshare drivers have stepped up their advocacy as of late for the state legislature to find a way to make companies like Uber and Lyft provide their drivers with “protections and basic benefits” like minimum pay, worker’s compensation, sick and vacation time, overtime, retirement, and auto insurance and maintenance support.

During Wednesday’s committee deliberations, Danbury State Sen. and Committee Co-Chair Julie Kushner (pictured) endorsed the study bill as a necessary first step towards crafting, proposing, debating, and voting on a gig economy worker classification bill next session.

“This is an evolving workplace issue and the traditional relationships don’t necessarily exist,” she said. “We need to make sure that as a legislature and as a state, that we are transforming and looking forward to how we regulate those relationships so that there are workers rights and so that workers are protected as they would be in a more traditional work setting.”

The study bill that made it out of committee represents a significant shift from an earlier version of HB 6343, which initially set out to reclassify gig economy independent contractors as employees, rather than just study the issue.

A separate bill that remains in committee, Senate Bill 1000, would leave rideshare drivers as independent contractors,

THOMAS BREEN PRE-PANDEMIC PHOTO Labor Committee Co-Chairs Julie Kushner and Robyn Porter, in support of gig economy study bill.

but would guarantee their right to form unions and bargain collectively, even at an industry-wide level. That bill has split organized labor, drivers, and big tech “We’ve done a lot of work, particularly on the drivers piece of the gig economy, this session,” Kushner added on Thursday. “I think we’ve had very productive discussions with how we might best move forward. ... There’s still work to be done on it.”

Sampson: “I Am Fearful Of This Committee” Wolcott State Sen. Rob Sampson pushed back on the study version of the bill that ultimately made it out of committee.

“I am fearful of this committee and what it might do with information that is achieved through such a study,” he said.

“I believe in freedom, and I believe that’s what benefits these employees and their employers the most.”

“They are entering into a business arrangement of their own free will,” he said about gig economy workers.

He called on the labor committee to stay out of regulating such workplace relationships, and to “let capitalism and free trade and commerce occur, out of respect for our constituents, which are free citizens who we work for.”

Yale Law Clinic Dropped From Bill While the version of the bill that made it to the committee on Thursday had already been changed to call for a study

rather than for more immediate worker reclassification, the version that made it out of committee notched another textual change.

The committee bill initially required the state labor commissioner to work with Yale Law School’s Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic to conduct the study and formulate recommendations.

The version that made it out of committee dropped Yale Law School’s clinic from the bill, and instead orders the labor commissioner to work with, as Kushner put it, “the chairs of the labor committee, with workers, and with other stakeholders.”

“I think the effort is there to make it clear that it needs to have numerous voices at the table.”

Trumbull State Rep. Dave Rutigliano praised the committee decision to drop the Yale law clinic by name.

“I’m glad it’s not some elitist group from Yale solely” that will be working with the labor commissioner on the study and recommendations, he said.

Rutigliano wound up being the only Republican on the committee to support the study bill.

“I am totally sympathetic for the workers. They want to come and go as they please,” he said. “But I’m also cognizant of these giant employers not paying into the system that the rest of us are paying

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into.”

Because rideshare drivers and other gig economy workers are classified as independent contractors who work on demand, they are not covered by minimum wage laws or many other state and federal workplace protections, like unemployment insurance.

Greenwich State Rep. Harry Arora, who ultimately voted against the study bill, lamented that the proposed legislation does not explicitly require Republican lawmakers to be a part of the study.

“It just makes me sad that you would say just the chairs, and not minority opinion,” he said. “We’re going to bring some opinion in there which would help.”

“The goal is to get this done and get it done right and get something productive out of it,” Kushner replied. She said she’s open to discussing the proposed legislation and, if it passes, the ultimate study results and recommendations with Republican members of the committee.

“I do not think at this moment we should change the structure of the bill as is,” she concluded.”

Although the bill had not yet been changed from a reclassification bill to a study bill at the time of its Feb. 18 public hearing, testimony submitted in favor and against such an action offers a preview of arguments to come if Connecticut lawmakers do look to require that gig economy workers be treated as employees.

“Ridesharing services such as Uber and Lyft are among the most egregious employers who intentionally misclassify their employees,” Connecticut AFL-CIO President Sal Luciano wrote in favor of the earlier version of the bill.

“The gig economy has been criticized for using technology to evade worker protections such as rights to minimum wages and paid leave and healthcare in order to shift costs onto workers. While in traditional industries, workers may enjoy the benefits of trade unions, healthcare provisions, minimum wage, contract termination and working hours rights, employees within the GIG economy are often paid as independent contractors. While companies like Uber and Lyft make profits these workers often make poverty level wages.

Gaps in federal and state laws have left these workers without meaningful protections.”

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) District 1199, which represents roughly 26,000 healthcare workers in Connecticut, agreed.

“As times change and large corporations figure out ways around the labor laws we have fought for in America, we have to change as well,” their written testimony reads in support of an earlier version of the bill. “This bill is a start. This bill would make sure that workers are keeping more in their paychecks, as well as extending DOL and basic NLRB protections to them.”

Big tech companies like Uber and DoorDash, meanwhile, warned that classifying their drivers as employees would throw off the flexibility that many of their workers find appealing.

“HB 6343, if passed, would force thousands of single parents, college students, retirees, and those whose traditional employment has been eliminated due to COVID-19 to seek roles that may not be available, take too long to secure, or fail to afford them the flexibility they want, during the worst economic crisis in decades,” Uber Technologies Public Policy Manager Hayley Prim wrote in opposition to the earlier version of the bill.

“Accessible and flexible work opportunities can provide immediate and sustainable earning opportunities and also act as a short, medium, or long term economic bridge to traditional employment, education, or other goals.”

DoorDash Head of Government Relations (U.S. East) David London agreed.

“Attempting to reclassify gig workers as employees is not the solution,” he wrote.

“As independent contractors, Dashers and other gig workers in Connecticut currently enjoy the flexibility to easily earn supplemental income by working a handful of hours whenever and wherever they want, in a way that accommodates their existing work, family, school, and other obligations.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021

Opinion: Want To Stop Violence? Address Poverty First

by DAVE JOHN CRUZ-BUSTAMANTE New Haven I ndependent

(Opinion) As bodies continue to drop on the streets of New Haven, Connecticut as a result of gun violence, residents, community advocates, the police department, and local politicians scramble desperately to find a short-term band aid to apply to a heavily bleeding wound in the community.

A quick solution to give to neighborhoods heavy with grief, sorrow, and fear: more police and stricter prison punishments.

While police charts on homicide rates and gun violence continue to draw the fretful attention of the media and residents, our system of local politics overlooks the deep-seated roots of crime: poverty.

Increasing the amount of police officers will not decrease crime. It merely increases the amount of noise from the sirens after the fact.

True safety is silent; safety is not derived from armed reactionaries, it is derived from functioning infrastructure, accessible healthcare, stable and healthy climate, funded schools, rehabilitative social services, and interconnected communities.

We can observe this in American suburbs.

Rarely do you hear the deafening sirens of police vehicles in the quiet, calm streets of the outskirts of the city.

This “true” and silent safety observed in the suburbs is not a coincidence. The

United States has a long, dark history of denying funding to core governmental services and institutions on the basis of race and class, that continues to this day.

The U.S. also has a long history of fighting against “radical” abolition: abolition of slavery, redlining, segregation, and instead implementing inadequate reforms, mass-producing and distributing nationalistic, “feel-good” propaganda that waters down its horrors, or outright not addressing misdeeds.

Money is power. Cutting a community off from funding, critical services, and necessities is like cutting the jugular vein of a body: they die. The rumbling stomach of the child, the frail body of the unsheltered, and the unheard cries of the addict breeds violence. State violence as a response to need will not silence their rumblings, cries, and pleads. It merely moves them out of the way, out of sight, out of mind, to be heard, instead by the prison inmate or by the graveyard.

The police are used for perpetuating the systems of colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, racism, and white supremacy in our society. They were used for “capturing” enslaved people, union-busting during the Industrial Revolution, enforcing segregation during Jim Crow, brutalizing and intimidating queer and trans people, hosing down Civil Rights activists (some of whom are still alive), playing star actors in the theater that is the “War on Drugs,” and profiling and imprisoning people of

color and the underclass who are surviving on the bare minimum.

How do we expect a group of supposed “public servants” to “protect” us, when they have a criminal history that is as long as American history? What is life if one is constantly surveilled? What does it say about our society if one is constantly spat on and looked down upon, with no hope of escape, help, or “redemption” promised by the nation that we are told are supposed to serve us, when we recite the Pledge of Allegiance?

In the short term, what the oppressed neighborhoods of New Haven need is money with deliberate spending into new preventative services, affordable and quality housing, effective and open education and schools, and youth programs.

Let us end the obsession with wanting to know an individual’s reasons for committing crime and the respectability politics when it comes to human lives.

The bottom line is that a) poverty causes violence of all kinds, and b) we can end it.

This message is directed towards the establishment: Mayor Elicker, Governor Lamont, President Biden, Democrats and Republicans, Alderpeople and the Congress.

In the long term, we need the demands for the abolition of police, prisons, and the abolition of the system that forces one to choose between wage slavery and death; inequality and oppression for one for the profits and luxury of others, to triumph.

THOMAS BREEN PHOTO

Cruz-Bustamante at a November 2020 rally on the Green.

True equality is not found in becoming the oppressor, but in liberating and humanizing all, and abolishing the hierarchy that creates the “oppressor” and the “oppressed,” true meaning is not found in the weekly paycheck, but in community, and true safety is not only found in the silence of the gun, but in the absence of the sirens.

This message can only be rung true and

carried out in the eyes, ears, and hands of the worker, the organizer, the oppressed, and The People.

Dave John Cruz-Bustamante is a freshman at Wilbur Cross High School, a coordinator and community organizer at Sunrise Movement New Haven, and the operations apprentice at Citywide Youth Coalition.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021

Med Students Rally Against Anti-Asian Hate

by MAYA MCFADDEN New Haven I ndependent

Nearly 60 Yale School of Medicine (YSM) students and faculty gathered in the city’s medical district Monday to denounce local and national hate against the Asian community.

YSM members gathered in front of Sterling Hall of Medicine on Cedar Street to speak out about their first-hand experiences with racism, and to stand together against hate and xenophobia.

In response to this month’s murders of six Asian women in Atlanta, members of Yale’s Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association (APAMSA) and South Asian Medically-oriented Student Association (SAMoSA) partnered to host the solidarity gathering.

Attendees spoke out about dealing with patient hate and being exposed to antiAsian slurs locally.

“The hate isn’t far away like so many

people think. It’s here at home too,” said Deputy Dean for Diversity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer Darin Latimore.

The crowd held signs up reading “We Belong Here” and “Stop Asian Hate.”

Latimore said the Monday gathering was to organize the community against white supremacy. “America will never reach its full potential if the hate against any people of color continues,” he said.

Third year psychiatry student Nichole Roxas, 30, is the daughter of Filipino immigrants.

Roxas volunteered to speak at the event Monday. At the megaphone, she recalled being a freshman in high school and seeing a group of white students bullying an Asian student. Roxas supported the bullied student and realized the importance of solidarity and sisterhood, she said.

“Channel your rage into protecting

MAYA MCFADDEN PHOTO At Monday’s med school rally against anti-Asian hate.

each other,” Roxas said.

Roxas shared a Tagalog chant from the People Power Revolution to overthrow dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

“Tama na! Sobra na!” she said. “Stop it! It’s too much! Enough is enough!”

Roxas honored her and other minority ancestors who “sacrificed so much for me and gave me so much love that it is my duty to labor in love too,” she said.

She finished her thoughts at the megaphone with the Tagalog saying “Utang na loob,” meaning, “Debt of the heart.”

Third year YSM student James Zhu recently completed his clinical clerkship. Zhu recalled experiencing a lack of support from his colleagues at times that he had to deal with prejudice and hate.

“I know it’s our job to take care of our patients,” he said, “but it’s so important to take care of our own.”

Hate Wave Prompts New Asian Coalition

by EMILY HAYS

New Haven I ndependent

In the first days after a gunman killed six Asian women in Atlanta, Christine Kim was afraid to take her children out in public.

Then Kim and friend Jennifer Heikkila Diaz decided to start the change they wanted to see — with a new coalition for Asian New Haveners.

“We are not a monolith. We are immigrants from the largest continent in the world. We speak different languages.

We are young and old, wealthy, middle class and poor,” Kim said. “Those differences do not protect us.”

The organization is so new it does not have a name yet. The goal is to organize Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) in New Haven to amplify their voices and increase their power as a community. The specific form the organization will take and the issues it will focus on are undecided. Kim hopes that young activists and elderly New Haveners will set that direction.

Kim announced the new organization at a press conference she organized Thursday afternoon with Mayor Justin Elicker in response to the shootings in Atlanta that left eight dead.

The killings, alongside recent attacks against Asian elders, have highlighted a 150 percent rise in reported anti-Asian violence in the last year.

Black, Hispanic, Jewish, Muslim and white faith leaders spoke at the press conference to denounce hate. All

Christine Kim: We are not a monolith, but we need the protection of a pan-Asian movement.

Ketkeo Rajachack: I want my restaurant to build bridges.

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echoed the sentiment that no one is free until all are free.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong spoke about the oversexualization of Asian women, and the stereotype of Asian Americans as meek.

“One of the most damaging things about stereotypes about Asian Americans is how unsafe they make us,” Tong said.

The press conference took place outside the Laotian restaurant Pho Ketkeo, the site of vandalism a year ago that left owner Ketkeo Rajachack afraid of antiAsian violence. Three months later, she was mugged and beaten up in the Temple Street Garage.

Neither of the cases has been resolved.

There was no video evidence of who vandalized the cars. Police are still working on identifying who beat up Rajachack in the garage, based on camera footage, according to downtown top cop Lt. Sean Maher.

Rajachack didn’t want to talk about any of that on Thursday. She is afraid that talking about the incidents too much might prompt her to be targeted again.

The restaurant’s former manager, Samson Sou, translated Rajachack’s Lao into English at the press conference.

“She started this restaurant to bridge communities. We are not so different,” Sou said. “She hopes you continue to support us and get to know us.”

Education is one intervention that

does seem to work, according to Steve Ginsburg, regional director of the AntiDefamation League (ADL).

It helps for children to learn as early as possible to appreciate difference. Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven CEO Judith Alperin lauded recent requirements to teach African-American and Latinx history statewide, along with lessons about the Holocaust and genocide. The next step would be to back those efforts with state dollars, she said.

Ginsburg also sees social media as a key place for change, to prevent people from getting sucked into false information and conspiracy theories. ADL is also working on making online harassment and stalking crimes. AAPIs have seen the largest rise in reported online harassment, alongside an increase in incidents against LGBTQ and AfricanAmerican people.

The rhetoric from elected leaders make a difference too, Ginsburg said.

Xenophobic language that former President Donald Trump and others used to connect Asians to Covid-19 seems to be one of the causes of the rise.

“We knew as soon as he uttered ‘China virus’ that the violence was going to come,” Alperin said.

Earlier this week, Caroline Tanbee Smith and Margaret Lee of Collab discussed the response to Asian-American violence, in an interview on WNHH FM. Click on the above video to watch it.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021

Vigil Keeps Alive Alessia’s Memory

by MAYA MCFADDEN

New Haven I ndependent

Sixty loved ones of domestic-violence homicide victim Alessia Mesquita gathered Thursday evening to mourn the death of the 28-year old daughter, mother, and sister.

Friends and family joined together at the corner of Lenox and Clifton Street, where Mesquita was shot dead on Monday allegedly by her boyfriend, who had a history of violence and domestic abuse. She left behind a year-old daughter, Alaia, who remained in the car when Mesquita’s alleged killer fled from the scene (police later found her uninjured); and a son named Joseph.

Mesquita’s mother, Sandy Mesquita, heard the gunshots that took her daughter’s life from her Lexington Avenue home. She organized Thursday night’s vigil to call attention to domestic violence. Mesquita’s killing was one of two domestic-violence homicides in six days in New Haven; it has raised awareness of a recent rise in domestic violence and calls to action. An “End To Domestic Violence Homicide” event is scheduled to take place Monday on the New Haven Green beginning at 3 p.m.

Sandy Mesquita told the crowd Thursday night she is thankful her daughter is no longer in pain or suffering through her abusive relationship. Sandy urged family members and friends to never give up on their loved ones in abusive relationships. The community paraded a theme of purple on the street to represent Alessia’s favorite color and domestic violence awareness. Some wore pins and T-shirts with Alessia’s face on them.

A Final Sleepover Thursday’s gathering showed the impact Alessia had on dozens.

Xiomairaliz Ayala, 27, said she met Alessia at Wilbur Cross High School.

Alessia and Ayala were a part of a small friend group that stuck together throughout high school.

Growing up, Ayala had a strict curfew and recalled Alessia always being there to walk her home before eight o’clock hit.

The two would often have sleepovers and always spent Christmas together. Ayala described her best friend as “big hearted.”

At one point Alessia and Ayala lived together in Fair Haven. While Ayala was pregnant, Alessia provided support during her entire pregnancy. “Her favorite thing to always say was, ‘You and your hormones!’” she said.

Three days before Alessia’s death, Alessia reached out to Ayala asking to have a sleepover like in the old days.

Before this, the two hadn’t hung out in a while due to Alessia’s relationship problems with her abusive boyfriend, Ayala said. “I always said to her, ‘I miss my friend,’ because the relationship was hurting her so much that she got distanced from me,” she said. “She use to be so happy but lately she was down and depressed.”

MAYA MCFADDEN PHOTOS Candles and flowers decorate corner of Lenox and Clifton at Thursday vigil; Mesquita’s death has raised awareness of a rise in domestic violence and spurred calls for action.

The two had the sleepover Friday night, talking and giving each other advice about their problems. “I’m so grateful I got to see her. She’s my sister from another mother,” Ayala said.

Before the two departed Saturday morning, Ayala recalled, Alessia told her that “being out the house was a relief.”

Their last moments were spent making a promise to each other that they would spend more time together this summer.

“We were so excited, we had plans to make up for lost time,” she said.

On Sunday, Ayala said she and Alessia talked about her “dealing with her relationship.”

“She was serious this time. She wanted out so bad. She said she was going to deal with it Monday,” Ayala said.

On Monday morning, Ayala received the homicide news from Alessia’s sister via text.

Janie Rivera, 28 was friends with Alessia and Ayala in high school. Though Rivera and Alessia hadn’t recently spoken due to her own personal issues she described their relationship as “unconditional love.”

When in high school, Alessia “would make me watch scary movies then be scared all night cuddling with me,” Rivera recalled.

Rivera’s home was often the friend group’s hangout spot after school. Alessia was goofy, loved to talk, and tell stories, Rivera said. The friends would gather together and yell “story time” and Alessia would begin telling them stories.

“She made an impact on all our lives. We won’t ever forget her,” Rivera said.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021

300 Check Out Vaccine At Wilson Branch Library

by MAYA MCFADDEN

The Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center this week expanded its vaccination efforts to the Wilson Branch Library in the Hill, where it was able to administer shots to 300 more people Tuesday in the continuing quest to beat Covid-19 amid a surge in cases.

Hill Health previously operated a temporary mobile vaccination clinic out of a trailer parked at its 428 Columbus Ave. headquarters. The partnership with Cornell Scott and the library branch at 303 Washington Ave. kicked off with a vaccination fair this past Saturday. The clinic operates by appointment only, Monday through Friday 8 a.m until 4:30 p.m.

Around 1,000 vaccinations have taken place at the new spot in the first three days.

The mobile clinic was limited in space and appointment availability, said Chief Medical Officer of Medical Services Mark Silvestri. As vaccine demand increases, Cornell Scott has doubled its number of vaccine appointments in the library’s lower level.

If you are 45+, you can call Cornell ScottHill Health Center at 203-503-3000 for an appointment.

Since the beginning stages of vaccine rollout, Cornell Scott has focused on providing an accessible neighborhood vaccine clinic for residents said Silvestri.

Currently the library offers limited servic-

MAYA MCFADDEN PHOTO Irene Roesler gets her vaccination shot Tuesday at the new Hill

library branch clinic. es from its upper level. Silvestri said he is looking forward to the library’s reopening to attract more neighbors to the clinic.

Irene Roesler was struggling to get a vaccine appointment before finally successfully getting her first shot Tuesday. “I tried three times before, and now this is my fourth,” she said.

Roesler is a heathcare worker at a nursing home and group home. Her 76 year-old father, who lives with her, got vaccinated and ensured her it was a safe

process. “I was not hesitant. I trust it will help us,” she said.

Cornell Scott also has a vaccination location at 226 Dixwell Ave. and in the gym of the Hamden Board of Education Building at 60 Putnam Ave. Cornell Scott is working to provide vaccine credibility through its partnerships and a series of informational panels with health care professionals.

One of many reasons Silvestri has heard some residents hesitate because they’re

unfamiliar with the vaccine. He said that is common when a new vaccine rolls out.

To combat community hesitancy, Cornell Scott plans to continue its educations efforts surrounding the vaccine with public and medical professionals and to offer neighborhood walk-in clinics in the near future. “It will make for one less step for the community,” said Silvestri.

On Wednesday the clinic serviced about 37 patients per hour.

Like other health centers, Cornell Scott has been partnering with senior homes, churches, homeless shelters, and funeral homes to bring the vaccine to the community.

Silvestri reported that 60 percent of Cornell Scott’s vaccinations have been administered to racial minorities. Of that number, 80 percent are minorities on Medicaid or fall in the area of high social vulnerability, Silvestri said.

Of the 1,000 vaccinations at the library in three days, about 800 appointments have been for residents’ first dose, Silvestri said.

Anthony Pacheco, 52, who lives in East Haven, got vaccinated to keep the community safe, he said. “We got to do what’s right.”

Pacheco has planned a trip to Florida in June.

Pacheco got his second dose Tuesday and said the entire process from getting the appointment to dealing with symptoms was easy and smooth.

Con’t from page

Rally For

tionships and those from every economic and racial background. Her own family member was abused by a partner with a law degree, and no one else in the family realized.

Hope From Tragedy HOPE Family Justice Center manager Paola Serrecchia organized the rally after the two back-to-back murders of New Haven women in situations of domestic violence.

She hoped to bring more attention to intimate partner violence to end the shame survivors feel and to encourage those surrounding them to believe them.

Serrecchia embodied that message herself in a conversation with a survivor after the rally. The survivor, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of her abusers finding her, talked about one perpetrator torching her car and apartment 15 years ago. She eventually fled the state after being unable to place a restraining order against someone with no formal familial tie to her. She recently learned that this law has changed to better help people in situations like hers.

This year, another one of the survivor’s exes stalked her and tried to hit her car.

She spoke about being terrified but getting no help from either West Haven or New Haven police.

Serrecchia listened and asked the survivor to follow up with her, so they could get a full timeline of events.

“We have to change the laws,” Serrecchia said, nodding.

One law Serrecchia wants to change is to make emotional coercion a crime. Perpetrators often gaslight their victims, making them doubt their reality and lower their self-esteem—before escalating to physical abuse. Catching verbal and emotional abuse is a way to end an already significant trauma and prevent physical violence before it happens.

Some in the audience had experienced partner violence themselves. Some had seen it among coworkers or as children.

Mothers & Others for Justice executive team member Tarsha Calloway is in the latter category. She saw domestic violence while babysitting for other families as a youth. The adults would tell the children to leave the room, that it was time for the adults to talk. She could hear the physical and verbal abuse going on, but no one ever spoke with her about it. So she started to believe that abuse was normal.

She wished one of the adults had just promised to talk about it later, and she is glad she can be a better role model for her children now.

Calloway passed Alessia Mesquita’s funeral on the way to the rally. She fell silent as she watched the ceremony, struck by how beautiful it was and how the person at the center was no longer alive to witness it.

“I was glad that I was coming here. After seeing that, I could put words into action,” Calloway said.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021

Veep Visit Marks Milestone For Rosa

by THOMAS BREEN

New Haven I ndependent

Vice President Kamala Harris’s visit to New Haven on Friday was about more than just the recently passed $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.

It was also a clear recognition and honoring of the woman who played an outsized role in making that federal pandemic relief bill a reality: the city’s longtime congresswoman, Rosa DeLauro.

Harris visited the Boys & Girls Club on Columbus Avenue in the Hill and the West Haven Child Development Center Friday afternoon as part of the BidenHarris Administration’s “Help Is Here” campaign to tout the new administration’s early legislative feat.

As the new chair of the House Appropriations Committee and as a decades’ long proponent of an expanded child tax credit, DeLauro successfully included in the final legislation various provisions that significantly boost direct financial aid for children and families.

Those include increasing the child tax credit, from $2,000 per child to $3,600 per child under age 6, and $3,000 for other children under age 18; making the benefit fully refundable, so that low-income families who do not file taxes are eligible for the first time; and sending out credit amounts as advance payments starting on July 1.

The American Rescue Plan also includes, among many other pots of money, more than $50 billion in childcare relief funding, in the form of expanded Child Care and Development Block grants and a separate stabilization fund for childcare providers.

During a Friday afternoon press conference at the corner of Columbus Avenue and Howard Avenue outside of Roberto Clemente Academy, U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal recognized DeLauro as uniquely responsible for those child-centered portions of the American Rescue Plan, and for inspiring Vice President Harris’s visit to DeLauro’s home city.

“I don’t think there’s any secret as to why we’re getting a little bit of extra attention,” Murphy said with a smile. “It’s pretty good to have the Appropriations Chairwoman be from New Haven.”

Blumenthal agreed. “This day is a real milestone. It’s historic. We’re welcoming the vice president and celebrating the American Rescue Act. But we’re also celebrating the triumph of an idea: the child tax credit. An idea that Rosa DeLauro has championed as a voice and a vote through years and years, and now brought to this point where it will lift out of poverty half the children” in this country.

“That is a historic accomplishment. And it shows that government can work.”

During her time at the mic, DeLauro focused less on her legislative work that almost certainly inspired Harris to visit

At the presser, before VP Harris arrived in New Haven.

THOMAS BREEN PHOTO Rosa DeLauro at Friday’s press conference in the Hill.

Sens. Murphy (center) and Blumenthal, praising New Haven’s Congresswoman.

New Haven, and more on the material impact that the American Rescue Plan will have on poor, working-class, and middleclass Americans.

She zeroed in on the $50 billion to stabilize the childcare industry.

“Women have been the victims,” DeLauro said. “They’re not opting out of the workforce. They’re being pushed out of the workforce” during the Covid-19 pandemic. “Five million women lost their jobs. The major reason is lack of childcare.”

While the expanded child tax credit included in the American Rescue Plan is only in place for one year, DeLauro said she’s committed to trying to make this expanded benefit a permanent one.

Harris’s visit came on the same day that

Plan.

Vice President Harris herself singled out the congresswoman during a speech she gave at the West Haven Child Development Center.

I want to talk about Rosa DeLauro for a second.

So you mentioned our meeting in the Oval Office with the President when we were crafting the American Rescue Plan.

And there was a handful of members of the House that were a part of that meeting—and for the various components of the American Rescue Plan, they were there because of their longstanding leadership.

And I think Connecticut knows, and I don’t have to tell you, what a jewel you have in Rosa DeLauro.

Gov. Ned Lamont announced that the state would be spending $210 million in recent federal funding to the state on early childhood programs. Those include a two-year, $50 million investment to pay for childcare through Connecticut’s Care 4 Kids program and $120 million for “operational stabilization” grants for childcare businesses hit hard by the pandemic.

DeLauro credited Harris’s visit to New Haven as “recognizing the State of Connecticut, a recognition that [Harris and President Biden] know what is happening here, what we are doing.”

“Please Tell Rosa I Love Her” Murphy and Blumenthal weren’t the only national politicians praising DeLauro on Friday for her influential role in crafting parts of the American Rescue

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She has been singularly and tirelessly— singularly, with a lot of people because also no one says “no” to her—been fighting for this—been fighting for it.

I was in the Oval Office with the President this morning before I came here, and he said—as I was walking out, I said, “I’m heading to Connecticut.” He said, “Please tell Rosa I love her.”

That’s what he said. He said, “Please tell her I love her.”

And—and so in front of all the friends, I just want to publicly thank you for all that you do.

You tirelessly challenge our country and its leaders to see our children and to understand that when we lift them up, we lift up the entire country.

Filmmaker Finds The “Soul!”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021

by BRIAN SLATTERY

New Haven I ndependent

On Thursday night, a filmmaker and two professors screened a new documentary about Soul! — the pioneering PBS show focusing on Black culture that ran from 1968 to 1973 — and found, in its celebration of Black artists and message of revolutionary uplift, serious parallels with our current moment. The screening and discussion were sponsored by the Schwarzman Center and the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale.

The documentary, called Mr. Soul! (available through PBS’s Independent Lens) tells the story of the show Soul! by focusing on its producer and host, Ellis Haizlip. Haizlip, who before producing the show had embedded himself in New York City’s Black Arts scene, wanted to create a platform and direct outlet for Black culture, for Black people. He accomplished much more than that.

In the show’s five-year run, he gave a stage to Al Green, Patti LaBelle, Earth, Wind and Fire, Muhammad Ali, Sidney Poitier, Cicely Tyson, James Baldwin, Nikki Giovanni, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Billy Preston, Bill Withers, Sonia Sanchez, Wilson Pickett, Kool & the Gang, Toni Morrison, and Roberta Flack. He also had on Amiri Baraka, the Last Poets, Kathleen Cleaver, Betty Shabazz, and Louis Farrakhan, at a time when White culture considered them dangerous. Controversial and unflinching, in hindsight Soul! is an in-depth portrait of Black culture at a time when it was host to an incredible number of artists doing potent work that asserted their voices as individual human beings while responding to the chaos of the time.

The documentary Mr. Soul, directed by Meliisa Haizlip (who is Ellis’s niece), intersperses clips from the show with insightful thoughts from a range of commenters who highlight the role Ellis Haizlip played in creating such an astonishing television program. The clips are treasures in themselves.

We see the Last Poets and Amiri Baraka in excoriating performances. A young Al Green charms his audience. Stevie Wonder blows the roof off. Nikki Giovanni interviews James Baldwin in a two-hour, deep conversation.

But under Haizlip’s sharp, careful direction — earlier this week, she won an NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Writing in a Documentary for her work on Mr. Soul! — the documentary is also able to give us a portrait of Ellis Haizlip while he was producing the show. What emerges is a man of ferocious intellect, sly wit, and uncompromising vision. As an openly gay man at a time when it was very difficult to be so, he also had a particular experience of racism, and a particular place in Black culture, that gave him the ability to see clearly what many could not. He was a seriously forward-thinking person keen on doing more than simply running a television show. He wanted to create Black-run institutions that would, in the short run, make

it easier for the community around him to have a greater voice in the arts and in politics, and in the long run, make it easier for the generations after him to realize their own ambitions and address the wrenching problems of social justice and oppression that formed the day-to-day context of his life.

The discussion that followed the film featured Melissa Haizlip and Yale professors Thomas Allen Harris and Daphne A. Brooks; Harris appeared in Mr. Soul as a commentator.

Brooks began by asking Haizlip about her connections to New Haven, where she grew up. “It was an interesting opportunity to go to Yale after having been a townie,” Haizlip said. “My family has a really long history” in the area. Her maternal grandfather was the Rev. Julian A. Taylor, who founded the Baptist church in Ansonia; today there’s a scholarship for high school students to attend college established in his honor. He lived at 670 Prospect St. in New Haven. Haizlip lived in that house as a child, then moved to 459 Prospect, next to Yale Divinity School.

“I was very much part of the New Haven community,” Haizlip said. She went to Wilbur Cross and took classes in Yale as a junior and senior in high school. “It was really eye-opening for me,” she said. She applied to Yale and got in, and found that her life revolved around Yale’s AfricanAmerican Cultural Center. “It really did shape me,” she said.

Haizlip and Harris met years ago through Ellis Haizlip himself, who died in 1991. Ellis was doing programming at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture,

and “I was documenting all of that,” Harris said. Echoing a sentiment expressed several times in Mr. Soul!, Harris added, “Ellis was a nurturer.”

Brooks asked how Mr. Soul! was put together. A few episodes of Soul! are up on YouTube and the first season is available on Shout Factory TV, on the internet, but otherwise, the 130 episodes of Soul! are currently unavailable to the public, despite is ever-deepening cultural resonance.

“We knew we had an important time period that hadn’t been unearthed,” Haizlip said. But in structuring her own film, she realized there were three stories to tell — first, of the show itself; second, of Ellis Haizlip; and third, of the world in which Soul! was made. The story of the show “was easy,” she said, more of a problem of an embarrassment of riches. For the story of her uncle, she said, “I wanted to just drop in on the five years of Soul!” and “see how his consciousness imprints on the show.”

For the cultural context in which the show was made — the volatile political climate and tense race relations — “we cut an entire sequence, an hour and a half long,” Haizlip said.

To make it all into a feature-length film, the filmmaker and her team had to be “wise with our editorial choices,” Haizlip said.

“Everything had to earn its way into the film.” In the end, they made the film by focusing on the material they had that served all three stories. All told, it took a decade, eight of which were spent gaining access to the show.

Part of the mission of the documentary was to seek to make the original TV show available to the public. It was, after all, in-

12

tended for that. “One of Ellis’s legacies was to create this program on public broadcasting,” Haizlip said. Which brought Brooks to her next question: What was the meaning of such public-facing art?

“The thing about Soul! — when we see it now, we can recognize ... it was highly controversial and unorthodox for its time,” Haizlip said. “You can appreciate how intentional Ellis Haizlip’s curation was.” The show “opened doors and raised awareness … about the plurality of Black identity” — and that there were many opinions and conflicts within the Black community, even as all faced oppression together. Soul! was “a space that revered everyone as a brother and a sister, in a cultural and intimate way.”

It was for “the Black gaze,” and “on the heels of the civil rights movement,” it made the argument that “the Black current didn’t end, wouldn’t stop,” and “that brought together community across the diaspora.”

“So much of what Ellis was able to do comes out of the murders” — of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Fred Hampton, to name a few, Harris said. “There was this moment that in many ways echoes the George Floyd moment.” Then and now, he said, “you have these doors that are opening, and a lot of African-Americans are getting into certain positions.” Ellis Haizlip “was able to pry that door open,” and as he did, he was “bringing in this community” and “synthesizing meaning as he was doing it.”

“That moment of renaissance was so powerful,” Harris said. But he emphasized that it was just a moment. Even as Soul! dug ever deeper into Black culture, “other forces were building,” culminating in a

backlash against it under the Nixon administration, which eventually defunded it. Mr. Soul! includes an excerpt from one of Nixon’s taped meetings where it seems all too clear that Soul! was singled out for cancellation.

“We have moments to make certain changes, and then we have these other moments,” Harris said. “After Soul! It was difficult…. There was mourning, but also possibility for hope. Seeds were planted.”

“The film and the show modeled for us these radical forms of intimacy, communal intimacy,” Brooks said. “It could be possible to stage these intensely focused conversations about Blackness with each other, in a public space,” but still with a certain level of privacy.

Ellis Haizlip “understood the plurality and didn’t demand anyone choose a side,” Haizlip “He was inviting everyone together.

It really was expansive. I loved that about Ellis, what an inclusionist he was, but also an Afrofuturist…. Just that generosity and forward thinking,” in the midst of societal “chaos.”

“Ellis Haizlip is a model for all of us to restore our own soul,” she continued, and “appreciate the expansiveness of our culture.”

“I hope that we continue through this film to think about his pathbreaking contribution as a public intellectual, as a creative, as a grassroots activist,” Brooks said, noting that Ellis Haizlip’s identity as a Black, queer television producer allowed him to “think about the margins from the center” and “to see our world differently and more beautifully and expansively.”

“Our next generation of revolutionaries have all these social media platforms that are crucial to collective conversations,” Brooks continued. She hoped that perhaps another institution would arise to hold “these national cultural intellectual conversations about the meaning and worth of Black art and politics.”

That echoed a question from one of the dozens of people who attended the screening and discussion: Should someone bring back a modern version of the program in 2021? What would it look like? Is it something we need?

“Absolutely,” Harris said, though he also noted that the cultural landscape had changed. In looking at the star-studded lineup Soul! had, “I think a lot of those people were available to Ellis” because there was no alternative, Harris said. That has changed; more Black artists have acccess to wider audiences than was possible in the early 1970s, for a variety of reasons, from cultural shifts to changes in technology. A modern-day Soul!, he suggested, “would be very different.”

On Soul!, “a lot of these people were very young and there was this innocence,” Harris said. “I don’t know that young people have this innocence.” But that was as much a reason for hope, to believe in opportunities. “Young people are creating these other ways,” he said, to deliver their messages.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021

The Catholic Church Played Major Role in Slavery

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Contributor

“When the missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the missionaries had the Bible. They taught us how to pray with our eyes closed.

When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible.” — Jomo Kenyatta, First President of Kenya, Africa Washington, D.C.- September 4, 2018 – The Catholic Church played a vital role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, according to historians and several published thesiis on the topic.

The trans-Atlantic slave trade was introduced by the coming of the Europeans who came with the Bible in the same manner that Arab raiders and traders from the Middle East and North Africa introduced Islam through the Trans-Saharan slave trade, according to AfricaW.com, a premiere informational website available throughout the continent.

“In fact, the Church was the backbone of the slave trade,” the authors wrote.

“In other words, most of the slave traders and slave ship captains were very ‘good’ Christians.”

For example, Sir John Hawkins, the first slave-ship captain to bring African slaves to the Americas, was a religious man who insisted that his crew “serve God daily” and “love one another.”

His ship, ironically called “The Good Ship Jesus,” left the shores of his native England for Africa in October 1562. Some historians argue that if churches had used their power, the Atlantic slave trade might have never occurred.

By the same logic, others argue that the Catholic church and Catholic missionaries could have also helped to prevent the colonization and brutality of colonialism in Africa. However, according to a 2015 Global Black History report, the Catholic church did not oppose the institution of slavery until the practice had already become infamous in most parts of the world.

In most cases, the churches and church leaders did not condemn slavery until the 17th century.

The five major countries that dominated slavery and the slave trade in the New World were either Catholic, or still retained strong Catholic influences including: Spain, Portugal, France, and England, and the Netherlands.

“Persons who considered themselves to be Christian played a major role in upholding and justifying the enslavement of Africans,” said Dr. Jonathan

Chism, an assistant professor of history at the University of HoustonDowntown.

“Many European ‘Christian’ slavers perceived the Africans they encountered as irreligious and uncivilized persons. They justified slavery by rationalizing that they were Christianizing and civilizing their African captors. They were driven by missionary motives and impulses,” Chism said.

Further, many Anglo-Christians defended slavery using the Bible. For example, white Christian apologists for slavery argued that the curse of Ham in Genesis Chapter 9 and verses 20 to 25 provided a biblical rationale for the enslavement of Blacks, Chism said.

In this passage, Noah cursed Canaan

and his descendants arguing that Ham would be “the lowest of slaves among his brothers” because he saw the nakedness of his father. A further understanding of the passage also revealed that while some have attempted to justify their prejudice by claiming that God cursed the black race, no such curse is recorded in the Bible.

That oft-cited verse says nothing whatsoever about skin color.

Also, it should be noted that Black race evidently descended from a brother of Canaan named Cush. Canaan’s descendants were evidently light-skinned – not black. “Truly nothing in the biblical account identifies Ham, the descendant of Canaan, with Africans. Yet, Christian apologists

14

determined that Africans were the descents of Ham,” Chism said.

Nevertheless, at the beginning the sixteenth century, the racial interpretation of Noah’s curse became commonplace, he said.

In 2016, Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. offered a public apology after acknowledging that 188 years prior, Jesuit priests sold 272 slaves to save the school from financial ruin.

This is how The New York Times first reported the story: The human cargo was loaded on ships at a bustling wharf in the nation’s capital, destined for the plantations of the Deep South. Some slaves pleaded for rosaries as they were rounded up, praying

for deliverance.But on that day, in the fall of 1838, no one was spared: not the 2-month-old baby and her mother, not the field hands, not the shoemaker and not Cornelius Hawkins, who was about 13 years old when he was forced onboard.

Their panic and desperation would be mostly forgotten for more than a century. But this was no ordinary slave sale. The enslaved African-Americans had belonged to the nation’s most prominent Jesuit priests. And they were sold, along with scores of others, to help secure the future of the premier Catholic institution of higher learning at the time, known today as Georgetown University.

“The Society of Jesus, who helped to establish Georgetown University and whose leaders enslaved and mercilessly sold your ancestors, stands before you to say that we have greatly sinned,” Rev. Timothy Kesicki, S.J., president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, said during a Liturgy of Remembrance, Contrition, and Hope.

“We pray with you today because we have greatly sinned and because we are profoundly sorry.”

During the early republic, Catholics celebrated the new Constitution for its guarantee of religious liberty while simply accepting its guarantee of slaveholding, according to Blackthen. com.

Internal church politics mattered too.

When the Jesuit order was suppressed in 1773, the plantation system of the order in Maryland was seen as a protection for their identity and solidarity.

The universal church taught that slavery enjoyed the sanction of Scripture and natural law. Throughout the antebellum period, many churches in the South committed to sharing their version of the Christian faith with Blacks.

They believed that their version of Christianity would help them to be “good slaves” and not challenge the slave system, Chism said.

“Yet, it is important to note that African Americans made Christianity their own, and Black Christians such as Nat Turner employed Christian thought and biblical texts to resist the slave system. Furthermore, Black and white abolitionist Christians played a major role in overturning the system of slavery,” he said.

The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) has launched a global news feature series on the history, contemporary realities and implications of the transatlantic slave trade.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021

Thinking about the vaccine?

We put our best minds on it to ensure its safety.

At Yale New Haven Health, we’re not only proud to offer this long-awaited COVID-19 vaccine to the general public, we’re proud to have led the way worldwide with Yale School of Medicine when it comes to ensuring its safety and efficacy. Learn more about the vaccine and how, when, and where to get yours at ynhhs.org/covidvaccine.

15

“I was Just Thinking?”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021

Dr. Harry Robinson Jr. African American Museum - Is that Possible?

By Norma Adams-Wade Founding Member of the National Association of Black Journalist Texas Metro News Columnist When has a person worked hard enough, given enough life blood, and effectively stayed the course long enough to have a building named in his or her honor – and that while they still are living? If you have an answer, I have a person. And with my arms folded and foot tapping, I could say “I’m waiting.” That said, let me put forth this argument in favor of naming the African American Museum at Fair Park in honor of its founder and former CEO, Dr. Harry Robinson Jr., who still is very much alive. There’s a lot of history behind this argument that I cannot claim.

As a journalist, I am echoing what I hear in the wind and just can’t keep to myself.

For my part, I long have admired the work that Dr. Robinson put into the museum since he started it 47 years ago at the old/ no-longer-in-existence Bishop College campus in Dallas in 1974. The campus is now Paul Quinn College. One man. One mission. One undying determination that nothing would sideline his almost obsessive vision to elevate to the highest the African American story in Texas and these United States.

Remarkably, Dr. Robinson actually pulled it off. Historian Dr. W. Marvin Dulaney described the museum’s journey when he wrote its history in the Texas State Historical Association’s Handbook of Texas.

Dr. Dulaney is now the museum’s deputy director and chief operating officer. Dr. Robinson Jr., who will be 80 come September 16, is a New Orleans-born library science and history major who earned degrees from Southern University, Atlanta University and the University of Illinois.

He has moved away from day-today operations and is now the museum’s chief fundraising officer.

In the Handbook, Delaney described how Dr. Robinson persevered over nearly two decades, moving the museum from a 30-ft x 30-ft room in Bishop College’s Zale Library, to the library’s basement, to borrowed spaces in various buildings around Dallas, to finally experiences the triumphant entry into the newly-built 38,000 square-foot, nearly $5 million architectural showplace at 3536 Grand Ave., behind the gates and inside Dallas’ landmark Fair Park. The museum’s journey, with Dr. Robinson ever at the helm, reads like a movie plot. It presents pathos, stifling challenges, seeming hopelessness, the rallying of foot soldiers, then jubilant conquest with fanfare on entry day, November 13, 1993. I was there reporting.

The museum is known as the only one of its kind in the Southwest. To learn about exhibits, lectures and activities, visit www.aamdallas.org. I read recently about plans to unveil in August, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a bust of Marcus Garvey, 81 years after the Jamaica-born key proponent of the Pan-African/Black nationalist movement died in 1940 at age 52. Dr. Robinson came to my mind. So, I was just thinking… Why cannot Dallas people right now begin plans to honor for his mighty works Dr. Robinson -- our own deserving, local treasure of a man -while he can smell the flowers and know that they are his?

Dallas-born educator, historian, and minister, Dr. LaTrese Adkins, expressed disappointment remembering that her attempt to jumpstart a grassroots movement to raise funds and honor Dr. Rob-

inson did not catch fire in the summer of 2019. She had attempted to honor the museum founder – a historian and researcher whom she admires -- with either a museum endowment, a bust, or most-hopedfor: the museum being renamed the Dr. Harry Robinson Jr. African American Museum. Countering the argument that buildings and such are named for an individual after they die, it has been pointed out that there are buildings where that assumed rule did not apply.

Ann Williams Way in Dallas was named for Dallas Black Dance Theatre founder Ann Williams and the Wright Museum in Detroit honors its founder, physician Charles H. Wright. Both honorees were alive when they received the honors. Former Democratic St. Rep. Helen Giddings summed up the sentiments of several leaders who said in 2019 that Dr. Robin-

16

son Jr. deserves a tangible remembrance.

“I don’t know of anybody who disagrees that the African American Museum is there today because of Dr. Harry Robinson Jr. and his vision,” Giddings said then.

Dr. Adkins said she knew the task would be daunting, particularly in the waning economy at that time. But she firmly resolves that city and museum officials should take the lead in honoring Dr. Robinson, beyond a mere bust -- “an insufficient memento that can be taken up and stored once his contemporaries have left this world,” she affirmed. “Efforts to acknowledge Dr. Robinson’s exemplary servant-leadership through means that can speak to past, present, and future was and is as appropriate as it is long overdue,” Dr. Adkins said. “Here is our community’s chance to give flowers while he

yet lives.”

For his part, the ever-modest Dr. Robinson dismissed the idea and instead named financial backers that he said he believes deserve the honor more. I personally disagree. If he were a more demanding personality, he maybe would advocate more demonstratively for his own legacy. But, alas, he prefers to stay in the background and perhaps let his achievements speak for themselves. So, someone else should step forward and lead this charge anew.

Will you do it?

Norma Adams-Wade is a veteran, awardwinning, Journalist, a graduate of UTAustin and, Dallas native. She is also one of the founders of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and was inducted into the NABJ Hall of Fame.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021

Study Suggests Drinking Caffeinated Coffee May Reduce Heart Failure

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent “While smoking, age and high blood pressure are among the most well-known heart disease risk factors, unidentified risk factors for heart disease remain,” says David P. Kao, M.D., senior author of the study, assistant professor of cardiology and medical director at the Colorado Center for Personalized Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora, Colorado.

According to “Circulation: Heart Failure,” published on Feb. 9 in the American Heart Association Journal, dietary information from three large, well-known heart disease studies suggests drinking one or more cups of caffeinated coffee may reduce the risk of heart failure.

Coronary artery disease, heart failure and stroke are among the top causes of death from heart disease in the U.S. “The risks and benefits of drinking coffee have been topics of ongoing scientific interest due to the popularity and frequency of consumption worldwide,” added Linda Van Horn, Ph.D., R.D., professor and Chief of the Department of Preventive Medicine’s Nutrition Division at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, and member of

the American Heart Association’s Nutrition Committee.

“Studies reporting associations with outcomes remain relatively limited due to inconsistencies in diet assessment and analytical methodologies, as well as inherent problems with self-reported dietary intake,” said Dr. Van Horn.

Dr. Kao and his colleagues used machine learning through the American Heart Association’s Precision Medicine Platform to examine data from the original cohort of the Framingham Heart Study and referenced it against data from both the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study and the Cardiovascular Health Study to help confirm their findings.

Each study included at least 10 years of follow-up, and, collectively, the studies provided information on more than 21,000 U.S. adult participants.

To analyze the outcomes of drinking caffeinated coffee, researchers categorized consumption as 0 cups per day, 1 cup per day, 2 cups per day and at least 3 cups per day.

Across the three studies, coffee consumption was self-reported, and no standard unit of measure were available.

The analysis revealed: In all three studies, people who reported

drinking one or more cups of caffeinated coffee had an associated decreased longterm heart failure risk.

In the Framingham Heart and the Cardiovascular Health studies, the risk of heart failure over the course of decades decreased by 5-to-12 percent per cup per day of coffee, compared with no coffee consumption.

In the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study, the risk of heart failure did not change between 0 to 1 cup per day of coffee. However, it was about 30 percent lower in people who drank at least 2 cups a day.

Importantly, drinking decaffeinated coffee appeared to have an opposite effect on heart failure risk – significantly increasing the risk of heart failure in the Framingham Heart Study.

However, in the Cardiovascular Health Study, there was no increase or decrease in risk of heart failure associated with drinking decaffeinated coffee.

According to findings released, when the researchers examined this further, they found caffeine consumption from any source appeared to be associated with decreased heart failure risk, and caffeine was at least part of the reason for the apparent benefit from drinking more coffee.

“The association between caffeine and

heart failure risk reduction was surprising. Coffee and caffeine are often considered by the general population to be ‘bad’ for the heart because people associate them with palpitations, high blood pressure, etc.,” Dr. Kao. “The consistent relationship between increasing caffeine consumption and decreasing heart failure risk turns that as-

sumption on its head. However, there is not yet enough clear evidence to recommend increasing coffee consumption to decrease risk of heart disease with the same strength and certainty as stopping smoking, losing weight or exercising.”

To view the full study, visit https://www. ahajournals.org/journal/circheartfailure.

“Getting vaccinated protects you, your family, and your community.”

Dr. Reginald J. Eadie, President and CEO Trinity Health Of New England

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COMING 2 AMERICA THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021

‘At The Movies’ Movie Review

By Michael Hernandez Entertainment Reporter & Texas Metro News Columnist It’s been 30 years in the making but finally one of the most eagerly anticipated sequels in movie history is available on Prime Video (free to its subscribers), COMING 2 AMERICA. The movie is set in present day Zamunda and we catch up with Prince Akeem (Eddie Murphy), his queen (Shari Headley) and his family of three daughters who are well-versed in the culture of their native land. At the start of the movie King Jaffe Joffer is on his deathbed and reveals a long held secret to his son; he has a son and an heir to the throne of Zamunda living in the United States.

After the king holds a big final celebration for himself, which features some big name talent (I won’t ruin the surprise), he dies and Akeem and Semmi, with Arsenio Hall back in his role as the prince’s best friend, head to Queens to find his son and the rightful heir to the crown of Zamunda. Once in Queens they are reunited with all of the old crew from the original 1988 film. With the help of the men at the barber shop Akeem ventures out to find his son. He finds him outside of Madison Square Garden scalping tickets to the New York Knicks game, and tells him that he is his father. The young Prince Lavelle, played by Jermaine Fowler, is skeptical

and brings him home where he finds his mother Mary (Leslie Jones) and his Uncle Reem, played by Tracy Morgan.

After Semmi spills a briefcase, filled with thousands of dollars and gold, Lavelle and his mother Mary decide to accept Akeem’s invitation to move to Zamunda and experience the life of royalty.

Back in Zamunda, Akeem has problems that he has to deal with. General Izzi, portrayed by Wesley Snipes, is still angry because his sister, who still jumps on one foot, wasn’t chosen by Akeem to be his wife. Izzi, who discovers Akeem has a “bastard son,” devises a plan to match up his daughter, the incredibly sexy Bopoto, played by Teyanna Taylor, with the young prince, to create an alliance with his neighboring country and Zamunda.

Of course Murphy and Hall reprise the characters they played in the original movie and in the sequel the story also involves a strong supporting cast who are more involved in the storyline, rather than

relying so heavily on Akeem and Semmi to move along the story.The story has a younger feel to it with the help of all of the younger generation in the film, which was a wise move because the story has so much more energy than if it was just

about a bunch of 50-yearold characters.

In my opinion, COMING 2 AMERICA is a better movie than the original. It’s the excellent big cast of new actors that gives it that something extra. It may be because the film was so eagerly anticipated but I

loved it. COMING 2 AMERICA is hilarious and in no way disappoints.

The film is rated PG with a run time of 1 hour and 50 minutes. On my “Hollywood Popcorn Scale” I rate this movie a JUMBO! You can only see it on Prime Video.

“From Marva with Love” Dr. Kang has a secret

By Marva J. Sneed BlogTalkRadio.com/Cheryl’s World Host of“From Marva with Love”Texas Metro News

On From Marva with Love, Dr. Sharka’Kang Zoolo Kang. Who is a Shaman, a healer, an herbalist and naturalist; naturopathic doctor talked about healthy living. He was born into a family of healers and naturopathic doctors in Cameroon in 1982 and has spent decades studying the plants and herbs of North, South and Central America, Africa, Indian, China, and world medicine. Dr. Kang started as a child, healing animals, mixing herbs.

He said he is blessed with the gift of telepathic clairvoyance to see visions. He is so special and a gift to mankind. Dr. Kang came to the United States, a self-educated man, diagnosed with asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity.

After unsuccessful treatments with conventional doctors and traditional western medicine, he gave up everything and embarked on a 30-day fasting and spiritual journey. It was on this journey that he said the spirit of his ancestors (grandfather) began to remind him how to heal himself and go back to nature.

MS: Dr. Kang, tell us a little background about yourself and Grandpa’s Secret?

Dr. K: Yes, as you say I’m a Shaman, a healer, a doctor of natural medicine. I have developed over 2,000 and something formulas. I have written five books, I have three inventions that I’m working on now.

I’ve just developed another formula. I’m working on a natural male birth control.

MS: So you have developed over 2,000 formulas, do they address all types of ill-

Marva J. Sneed

18

nesses?

Dr. K: They address a lot of different illnesses. We have to understand that there is one cause of illness and it is inflammation mucus. When you have a lot of mucus concentrated in your prostate, you’re told you have prostate issues.

When you have a lot of mucus in your lungs you may have bronchitis or they have asthma. So it’s depending on where the mucus is concentrated. It’s not rocket science. Look at nature, take a baby cat or rat most of these animals, they don’t have the problems that we are having. So most animals do not die of disease they die of natural old age.

Every animal has a specific diet. So you ask most human beings what is the right food for humans, I’ve never heard anyone who actually answered that question. If we don’t know what food is right

for the human body then we are bound to get what you call disease and that simply means the body is not at ease.

My grandfather was a Shaman and people came from all over the world and he was able to help them with things just by observing nature. One thing he advised me of was that I should grow old and not become an educated fool. He said nature is your best teacher. Just observe nature.

Whatever problems you have in the human body nature can fix it. Grandfather would talk about drought. “You see that bald person over there they are experiencing drought in their body.”

Tune into “From Marva with Love” Fridays from 11 am-1 pm. on BlogTalkRadio.com and Texas Metro News Facebook page.“From Marva with Love” BlogTalkRadio.com/ Cheryl’s World Texas Metro News email: marvasneed@myimessenger.com

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021 INNER-CITY NEWS July 27, 2016 - August 02, 2016

Garrity Asphalt Reclaiming, Inc seeks:

Listing: Commercial Driver

Construction Equipment Mechanic preferably experienced in Reclaiming and Road Milling Equipment. We offer factory Immediate opening for a Class A part time driver for a petroleum training on equipment we operate. Location: Bloomfield CT and asphalt company for deliveries for nights and weekends.

We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits Previous experience required. Competitive wage, 401(k). Send VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE Contact: Tom Dunay resume to: Manager, P. O. Box 388, Guilford, CT 06437.

Phone: 243-2300 HOME INC, on behalf of860Columbus House and the New Haven HousingHR Authority,

NOTICE

is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this develEmail: tom.dunay@garrityasphalt.com ********An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer********** opment& located at 108 Frank Street, Haven. Maximum Women Minority Applicants are New encouraged to apply income limitations apply.Affi Pre-applications willEqual be available from 9AM TO 5PM beginning Monday Ju;y rmative Action/ Opportunity Employer

Listing: Dispatcher

25, 2016 and ending when sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) have been received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be mailied upon request by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours. Completed preGarrity Asphalt Reclaiming, Incoffices seeks: applications must be returned to HOME INC’s at 171 Orange Street,fast Third Extremely paced petroleum company needs a full time Reclaimer Operators Floor, New Haven,and CTMilling 06510.Operators with current licensing (which includes on call and weekend coverage) detail orientand clean driving record, be willing to travel throughout the Northed experienced Dispatcher. A strong logistics background east & NY. We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits

NOTICIA

and a minimum of one year previous petroleum experience required. Send resume to:

Contact: Rick Tousignant Phone: 860- 243-2300 VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES Email: rick.touHR Manager, P.O. Box 388, Guilford, CT. 06437

signant@garrityasphalt.com HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply ********An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer********** aceptando pre-solicitudes estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo Affirmative Action/ para Equal Opportunity Employer

ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 julio, 2016 hasta cuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) en lasTrailer oficinasDriver de HOME INC. & Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas correo Materials a petición LLC, a quarry and paving contractor, has posiTractor for Heavy Highway Construction Equip- por Galasso llamando HOME INCLicense, al 203-562-4663 duranterecord, esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán ment.

Must ahave a CDL clean driving capable of tions openremitirse for the upcoming construction season. We are seeking a las oficinas de equipment; HOME INCbe enwilling 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, , CT 06510 operating heavy to travel throughout theNew Haven candidates for 1) .Quality Control (experienced preferred), 2) Office Northeast & NY. We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits Clerks, 3) Truck/Scalehouse Dispatcher (experience and computer knowledge preferred) and 4) Equipment Operators and Laborers and a Grading Foreman. NO PHONE CALLS. Please mail resume and cover letter to “Hiring Manager”, Galasso Materials LLC, PO Box 1776, East Granby, 06026.

HELP WANTED:

Union Company seeks:

Contact Dana at 860-243-2300

Email: dana.briere@garrityasphalt.com Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer 242-258 Fairmont Ave

NEW HAVEN

360 Management Group Co. está aceptando solicitudes a partir del 5 de abril del 2021 para su Lista de espera del grupo IV (Fairmont Heights & Ruoppolo Manor) Ubicados en vecindarios revitalizados, nuestros apartamentos cuentan con eficiencia, 1 y 2 habitaciones, todas con un cómodo acceso al transporte, excelentes escuelas y comodidades. Las características de la comunidad incluyen mantenimiento de emergencia las 24 horas, actividades para residentes y servicios de apoyo. Las familias que califican para la asistencia de la Sección 8 no pagarán más del 30% de sus ingresos anuales ajustados en alquiler.

Dirección: Fairmont Heights 480 Ferry Street. New Haven, CT Ruoppolo Manor 70-72 Fairmont Ave. New Haven, CT

REQUERIMIENTOS: Las ganancias del hogar deben ser de entre el 0 y el 60% del ingreso medio del área (AMI) al momento en el que el nombre del solicitante sea seleccionado en la lista de espera. Consulte la tabla a continuación para conocer los requisitos específicos de ingresos y composición familiar.

La posición en la lista de espera se basará en la fecha y la hora en que se reciba la solicitud para brindar acceso justo se harán adaptaciones para las solicitudes recibidas por correo o entregada en mano. Las solicitudes recibidas por correo o entregada en mano serán marcadas con la fecha y la hora que se reciban.

La lista de espera se actualizará según sea necesario para garantizar que todos los solicitantes y la información del solicitante esté actualizada y sea oportuna. Para actualizar su solicitud en línea, siga las instrucciones a continuación:

# de personas en el hogar

Maximo

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

$43,140

$49,260

$55,440

$61,560

$66,540

$71,460

$76,380

ALL APPLICANTS WILL BE CONSIDERED FOR EMPLOYMENT WITHOUT ATTENTION TO RACE, COLOR, RELIGION, SEX, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, GENnd DER IDENTITY, NATIONAL ORIGIN, VETERAN OR DISABILITY STATUS.

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

Town of East Haven

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 Director of Recreation and Athletic Complex: The salary for this

position is $72,607 per year, 30 hours per week flex time. Please send resume to: Michelle Assistant Director Administration & Management, 250 CT. UnifiedBenivegna, Deacon’s Association is pleased to offer aof Deacon’s Certificate Program. This is a 10 month program designed to assist in the intellectual formation of Candidates Main Street, East Haven, CT 06512 or email mbenivegna@townofeasthavenct. in response to the Church’s Ministry needs. The cost is $125. Classes start Saturday, August 20, 2016 1:30Deacon Joe J. Davis, M.S., B.S. org3:30byContact: AprilChairman, 12, 2021.

(203) 996-4517 Host, General Bishop Elijah Davis, D.D. Pastor of Pitts Chapel U.F.W.B. Church 64 Brewster Assessment Clerk/Computer Operator: The hourly rate for this position is 28.72/ St. New Haven, CT hour, 19 ½ hours per week. Applications are available at https://www.townofeasthavenct.org/civil-service-commission/pages/job-notices-and-tests and must be returned to The Civil Service Commission, 250 Main Street, East Haven CT 06512 by April 12, 2021.

The Town of East Haven is committed to building a work force of diverse indiSealedMinorities, bids are invited byhandicapped the Housingand Authority theencouraged Town of Seymour viduals. females, veteransofare to apply. until 3:00 pm on Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at its office at 28 Smith Street, The Town of East Haven is an equal opportunity employer.

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY

Seymour, CT 06483 for Concrete Sidewalk Repairs and Replacement at the Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour.

EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY

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

two (2) energetic individuals who have experience maintaining properties. Skills in the areas of building repair incl. plumbing, electricity, HVAC, carpentry and mechanical Biddingrepair documents available theisSeymour Housing Authority Ofequipment helpful.are Wage for this from position determined by the Bargaining Unit Contract. benefits.

Send resume and references

by April 10, 2021 to Mitzy fice, 28Excellent Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579.

Rowe, Chief Executive Officer, Bristol Housing Authority, 164 Jerome Avenue, Bristol, CT 06010. The Bristol Housing Authority is an equal opportunity employer.

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 Housing Authority.

Invitation to Aplicaciones Bid: se pueden someter o actualizadas: 2 Notice• En línea a https://ecc.myhousing.com/

Si requiere una acomodación razonable y quiere recibir una aplicación por SAYEBROOKE•correo VILLAGE por favor llamar al 475-355-7289 o envié una petición por escrito

Town of Bloomfield

Old Saybrook, CTatención: Waitlist Coordinator, Elm City Communities, PO BOX 1912, con

Haven CT 06509 Maintainer II - Driver (4 Buildings, 17New Units)

Exemptted & Not Prevailing Wage Rate Project Full-time,Tax benefi $27.94 hourly Si usted necesita acomodación razonable para completar su aplicación llame al

New Construction, Wood Framed, Housing, Selective Demolition, Site-work, CastPre-employment drug testing.

203-498-8800 ext. 1507 For details and how to apply go to Asphalt Shingles, Vinyl Siding, in-place Concrete, www.bloomfi solicitudes estarán disponibles Flooring, Painting,eldct.org Division 10 Specialties,Las Appliances, Residential Casework,el 5 de abril del 2021. La lista de espera AA/EOE permanecerá abierta.

Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection.

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

Town of Bloomfield

Bid Extended, Due Date: August 5, 2016 State of Connecticut Zoning Enforcement Officer Anticipated Full-time, benefi ted Start: August 15, 2016 Office of Policy and Management Project documents available via ftp link below: $38.03 hourly http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage

The State of Connecticut, Office of Policy and Management is recruiting for a Pre-employment drug testing.

Chief Administrative Officer and an Executive Secretary position.

For details and how to apply go to www.

Faxbloomfi or Email eldct.org Questions &AA/EOE Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372Further dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com information regarding the duties, eligibility requirements and

QSR

HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran, S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified Businessesinstructions are available at: application Haynes Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 https://www.jobapscloud.com/CT/sup/bulpreview.asp?R1= STEEL CORPORATION AA/EEO EMPLOYER 210317&R2=0447MP&R3=001

APPLY NOW!

Steel Fabricators, Erectors & Welders Top pay for top performers. Health Benefits, 401K, Vacation Pay. Email Resume: Rose@qsrsteel.com Hartford, CT AFFIRMATIVE ACTION/EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

20

and https://www.jobapscloud.com/CT/sup/bulpreview.asp?R1= 200317&R2=3594SE&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.

THEINNER-CITY INNER-CITY NEWS March , 2021 - April 2021 NEWS -July 27, 31 2016 - August 02,06, 2016

NOTICE WE ARE TAKING APPLICATIONS/RESUMES FOR THE

FOLLOWING POSTIONS IN OUR PORLTAND, CT LOCATION:

CDL Drivers – Class &B VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE-AAPPLICATIONS AVAILABLE

Senior Project Manager – Environmental Division Compliance Manager HOME INC, on behalf of Columbus House and the New Haven Housing Authority, Technical Services Representative is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this develData Entry Clerk opment located at 108 Frank Street, New Haven. Maximum income limitations apDiesel Mechanic ply. Pre-applications will be available from 9AM TO 5PM beginning Monday Ju;y Human Resources Assistant 25, 2016 andsubmit ending when sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) have Please questions/inquiries and resumes to HR@redtechllc.com

been received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be mailied upon request by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours. Completed preis accepting applications for applications must be returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange Street, Third Floor, New Haven, 06510. low income StateCT Elderly/Disabled housing. Annual income limit is

Coventry Housing Authority

$54,950 (one person) & 62,800 (two people). Interested parties may pick up an application at the NOTICIA Coventry Housing Authority, 1630 Main St., Coventry, CT, or have one mailed. Completed applications must VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES be postmarked or hand delivered no later than April 30th.

For more information call 860-742-5518.

HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 julio, 2016 hasta cuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) en South las oficinas de HOME INC. Council Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas por correo is a petición The Central Regional of Governments (“SCRCOG”) seeking llamando afrom HOME INC al horas.Pre-solicitudes proposals qualifi ed203-562-4663 consultantsdurante with esas expertise in planning,deberán zoningremitirse regulaa lasevaluation oficinas de HOME INC en 171 Orange Street, tercerhousing piso, New Haven ,and CT 06510 . tions, and implementation of affordable policies, develop-

Request for Proposals

ment of affordable housing plans to assist in the creation of a SCRCOG Regional Affordable Housing Plan with unique sections pertaining to each municipality in the South Central Region. The Plan must be in compliance with the statutory requirements set forth in the General Statutes of the State of Connecticut Section 8-30j. Disadvantaged Business Enterprise firms are strongly encouraged to respond as a prime contractor or to play a significant role within a consultant team.

NEW HAVEN

242-258 Fairmont Ave Responses are due by April 21, 2021 (3:00 p.m. local time). The full RFP docTownhouse, 1.5beBA, 3BR, 1 level , 1BA ument and2BR any potential updates can viewed at SCRCOG’s website: www. scrcog.org. you wouldnew likeappliances, to request anew copycarpet, of the close RFP, to please All new If apartments, I-91 contact & I-95 Eugene Livshits, Senior Regionalnear Planner via e-mail: elivshits@scrcog.org highways, bus stop & shopping center

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

LEGAL NOTICE

SCRCOG’s Regional Purchasing Consortium is accepting sealed Request for Qualifications for: 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

RFQ #021-01: ON-CALL ENGINEERING SERVICES

St. New Haven, CT

The South Central Regional Council of Governments (“SCRCOG”) will be accepting sealed Qualifications for On-Call Engineering. SCRCOG is seeking engineering firms to provide “On-Call” services to all fifteen municipalities in the region. Disciplines include, but are not limited to, architecture, civil, electrical, environmental, geotechnical, mechanical, structural, water Authority and wastewater. minorSealed bids are invited survey, by the and Housing of theDisadvantaged, Town of Seymour ity, small, andpm women-owned to respond. until 3:00 on Tuesday,business Augustenterprises 2, 2016 atareitsencouraged office at 28 Smith Street,

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY

Seymour, CTrequest 06483for forqualifi Concrete andcanReplacement The complete cationSidewalk (“RFQ”) Repairs document be obtained at onthe the Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour.

SCRCOG website, www.scrcog.org/purchasing/.

RFQs shall be submitted will in thebemanner ed to theAuthority SCRCOG Office Regional A pre-bid conference held atspecifi the Housing 28PurchasSmith ing Consortium, 127 Washington Avenue, 4th Floor West, North Haven, CT 06473 Street Seymour, CT at 10:00 am, on Wednesday, July 20, 2016. until 12:00 P.M. local, eastern standard time on Thursday, April 15, 2021.

For questions concerning RFQ, contact Cirioli, Municipal Manager Bidding documents arethisavailable fromAndy the Seymour HousingServices Authority Ofat purchasing@scrcog.org.SCRCOG is an fice, 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579.

Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

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

DELIVERY PERSON

NEEDED

Part Time Delivery Needed One/Two Day a Week,

Must Have your Own Vehicle If Interested call

(203) 387-0354

Town of Bloomfield Finance Director Full Time - Benefited $96,755 to $149,345 Pre-employment drug testing.

For more details, visit our website – www.bloomfieldct.org

QSR STEEL CORPORATION

APPLY NOW!

Steel Fabricators, Erectors & Welders Top pay for top performers. Health Benefits, 401K, Vacation Pay. Email Resume: Rose@qsrsteel.com Hartford, CT AFFIRMATIVE ACTION/EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

The 360 Management Group Co. is accepting applications as of

April 5, 2021 for its RAD Group IV (Fairmont Heights & Ruoppolo Manor) waitlist Located in revitalized neighborhoods, our newly renovated apartments feature efficiency, 1 and 2 bedrooms all with convenient access to public transportation and great schools and amenities. Community features include 24-hour emergency maintenance, resident activities, and supportive services. Families who qualify for Section 8 assistance will pay no more than 30% of their adjusted annual income for rent.

Locations: Ruoppolo Manor 480 Ferry Street. New Haven, CT Fairmont Heights 70-72 Fairmont Ave. New Haven, CT

REQUIREMENTS: Earnings must be between 0-60% of the Area Median Income (AMI) at the time the applicant is drawn from the waitlist. Please see the table below for specific income and household requirements. Placement on the waitlist will be based on the date and time the application is received with accommodations made for applications received by mail or hand delivery to give fair access. Applications will be date and time stamped as they are received.

The waiting list will be updated as needed to ensure that all applicants and applicant information is current and timely. To update your online application please follow the instructions below:

# of people in household Maximum

1 $43,140

2 $49,260

3 $55,440

4 $61,560

5 $66,540

6 $71,460

7 $76,380

Invitation to Bid: Applications can be submitted or updated: 2nd Notice

FIREFIGHTER Online at https://ecc.myhousing.com/ SAYEBROOKE• VILLAGE If you require a reasonable accommodation and would like to receive an • City of Bristol Old Saybrook, CT application by mail, please call 475-355-7289 or (4 Buildings, 17 Units) send a written request to Attention: Waitlist Coordinator, Elm City

Communities, PO Box 1912, New Haven, CT 06509 $53,964/yr.

Tax Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage Rate Project

Requires valid CPAT Cert issued on or afterWood JuneFramed, 1, 2020, New Construction, Housing, Selective Demolition, Site-work, CastIf you need a reasonable written & oralin-place tests. Concrete, RegistraAsphalt Shingles, Vinyl Siding, accommodation to complete the application call 203-498-8800 ext. 1507 tion Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Flooring, Painting, Casework, informationMechanical, & apply online: Electrical, PlumbingApplications and Fire Protection. will be available April 5, 2021. The waitlist will www.bristolct.gov This contract is subject to state set-aside and contract compliance requirements. remain open.

DEADLINE: May 2021 Due Date: August 5, 2016 Bid1,Extended, EOE Anticipated Start: August 15, 2016 Project documents available via ftp link below: Fullhttp://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage Time - Benefited

THE GLENDOWER GROUP

Invitation for Bids Fax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com Architectural Design for 34 Level Street HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran, S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified Businesses

$160,000 to $180,000

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Haynes Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483

The Glendower Group is currently seeking Proposals for Architectural Design www.mrigov.com/career AA/EEO for 34 Level Street. A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from Cover letter and resume in confidence as EMPLOYER PDF attachment to: Glendower’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblerecruitment@mrigov.com stonesystems.com/gateway beginning on DEADLINE: 9 AM EST; Monday, April 12, 2021.

Monday, March 8, 2021 at 3:00PM.

21

THEINNER-CITY INNER-CITY NEWS NEWS -July March 31, 2021 - April 2021 27, 2016 - August 02,06, 2016

ELM CITY COMMUNITIES

QSR STEEL CORPORATION

Essex Townhouse Fencing Improvements and Basement Abatement

Steel Fabricators, Erectors & Welders Top pay for top performers. Health Benefits, 401K, Vacation Pay.

NOTICE

Invitation for Bids

VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE

Elm City Communities is currently seeking bids for Essex Townhouse fencing improveHOME on behalf of Columbus Housecopy and the New Haven Housing Authority, ments andINC, basement abatement.

A complete of the requirement may be obtained is accepting for studio and one-bedroom at this develfrom Elm Citypre-applications Communities’ Vendor Collaboration Portal apartments https://newhavenhousing. opment located at 108 Frank Street, New Haven.

Maximum income limitations apcobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on

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 Monday, March 29, 2021 at 3:00PM. been received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be mailied upon request by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours. Completed preapplications must be returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange Street, Third Floor, New Haven, CT 06510.

ELM CITY COMMUNITIES Invitation for Bids NOTICIA

Landscaping Services at McConaughy Terrace VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES

Elm City Communities is currently seeking bids for landscaping services at McConaughy complete of theHouse requirement may be obtained Elm está City HOMETerrace.

INC, enAnombre de lacopy Columbus y de la New Haven Housing from Authority, Communities’ Vendor Collaboration https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesysaceptando pre-solicitudes para estudiosPortal y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo tems.com/gateway beginning onStreet, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos ubicado en la calle 109 Frank

máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 Monday, Marchsuficientes 29, 2021 at 3:00PM. julio, 2016 hasta cuando se han recibido pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) en las oficinas de HOME INC. Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas por correo a petición llamando a HOME INC al 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirse a las oficinas de HOME INC en 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, New Haven , CT 06510 .

360 MANAGEMENT GROUP COMPANY Request for Proposals

Legal Services for Nonpayment Summary Process 360 Management Group is currently seeking proposals for legal services for nonpayment summary process. A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from 360 Management’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on

NEW HAVEN

242-258 Fairmont Ave 2BR Townhouse, 1.529, BA, 3BR, 1 level , 1BA Monday, March 2021 at 3:00PM.

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

ELM CITY COMMUNITIES Invitation for Bids

Robert T. Wolfe Building Upgrade

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. Elm City Communities is currently bids forofRobert T. Wolfe (203) 996-4517 Host, General Bishop Elijahseeking Davis, D.D. Pastor Pitts Chapel U.F.W.B.Building Church 64Upgrade.

Brewster

A St. complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from Elm City Communities’ New Haven, CT Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on

SEYMOUR AUTHORITY Monday, HOUSING March 29, 2021 at 3:00PM. Sealed bids are invited by the Housing Authority of the Town of Seymour until 3:00 pm on Tuesday, FOOD August SERVICE 2, 2016 at its office at 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 for Concrete Sidewalk Repairs and Replacement at the ELEMENTARY CAFÉ MANAGER- Wallingford Board of Education-Food Service Division is seeking a qualifi ed individual to coordinate activities of the other Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour. food-

service employees within the facility. Position requires a High School Diploma or G.E.D. In addition, must have experience in food service and a sanitation certification from an A pre-bid conference will be held at the Housing Authority Officepreferred.

28 Smith approved Department of Education source.

School food service experience Supervisory experienceCT alsoat preferred.

Wages (hourly)July plus20, an excellent Street Seymour, 10:00 am, on $16.78 Wednesday, 2016. fringe benefit package. Applications may be obtained at the Department of Human Resources, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492. Forms will be mailed upon Bidding are of available from theorSeymour Housing Authority Ofrequest fromdocuments the Department Human Resources may be downloaded from the Department of Human Resources Web Page.

The closing date will be the date the 50th application fice, 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579. or resume is received or April 7, 2021 whichever occurs first. EOE

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

APPLY NOW!

Email Resume: Rose@qsrsteel.com Hartford, CT AFFIRMATIVE ACTION/EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

DELIVERY PERSON

NEEDED

Part Time Delivery Needed One/Two Day a Week,

Must Have your Own Vehicle If Interested call

(203) 387-0354

CITY OF MILFORD

Seeking qualified condidates to fill numerous vacancies to include, Benefits & Pension Coordinator and more. For information and detailed application instructions, visit www.ci.milford.ct.us Click on SERVICES, JOBS and JOB TITLE.

THE GLENDOWER GROUP Invitation for Bids Architectural Design for 34 Level Street The Glendower Group is currently seeking Proposals for Architectural Design for 34 Level Street. A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from Glendower’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on

Monday, March 8, 2021 at 3:00PM.

360 MANAGEMENT GROUP Invitation for Bid Twinbrook-Ribicoff Landscaping 360 Management Group is currently seeking Bids for Twinbrook-Ribicoff Landscaping. A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from 360 Management’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on

Monday, March 15, 2021 at 3:00PM.

Town of Bloomfield

Tribus Construction is seeking MBE contractors for the Market $23.40/hourly (benefited) Square Apartments renovation project in Newington CT. Tribus is seeking contractors in the following trades: laborers, painters, Pre-employment drug testing. AA/EOE. Invitation steel, to Bid: masonry, and HVAC. Please send all inquiries to dmitchFor Details go to www.bloomfieldct.gov 2nd Notice ell@tribusconstruction.com or call 203-286-5814.

Custodian

CITY OF MILFORD Old Saybrook, CT 360 MANAGEMENT GROUP SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE

Seeking qualified condidates to fill 17 Units) (4 Buildings, numerous vacancies to include, Tax Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage Rate Project Deputy Assessor, Mechanic Sewer Invitation for Bid Line, Public Health Nurse and New Construction, Wood Framed, Housing, Selective Demolition, Site-work, CastLandscaping Services more. For information and detailed in-place Concrete, Asphalt Shingles, Vinyl Siding, application instructions, visit www. 360 Management Group is currently seeking bids for landscaping services. A complete Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Casework, copy of the requirement may be obtained from 360 Management’s Vendor Collaboraci.milford.ct.us Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection. tion Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on Click on SERVICES, JOBS and This contract is subject to state set-aside and contract compliance requirements.

JOB TITLE. Monday, March 22, 2021 at 3:00PM.

Bid Extended, Due Date: August 5, 2016

FIREFIGHTER Anticipated Start: August 15, 2016 New Mansfield Elementary School - Mansfield, CT documents available via ftp link below: City ofProject Bristol

O&G Industries is looking for DAS-certified minorities (must be pre-qualified http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage

$53,964/yr.

by DAS if work is over $500,000) to bid the above-referenced project as a subRequires valid CPAT Cert contractordawnlang@haynesconstruction.com or supplier of material. Project will bid to the Town of Mansfield on Fax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 issued or after 1, 2020, 13,& 2021.

Aside Requirements: 25% SBE Subcontractors &/or SupHCCon encourages theJune participation of all Veteran,April S/W/MBE Section 3 Set Certified Businesses pliers; 6.25% MBE Subcontractors &/or Suppliers. Mansfield based certified written & oral tests.

Registration Haynes Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 businesses are encouraged to participate. information & apply online: AA/EEO EMPLOYER

www.bristolct.gov

DEADLINE: May 1, 2021 EOE

22

Please e-mail Mark Carroll markcarroll@ogind.com for more information and to gain access to the plans.

O&G is an Affirmative Action Equal Opportunity Employer seeking all subcontractors/suppliers/vendors - MBE/WBE/SBE/DBE/Veterans/Disabled.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021

We all have

DREAMS. Let Job Corps help you achieve yours.

Now enrolling!

Tuition-free career training High school diploma programs College credit opportunities Housing, meals and medical care provided

For more information, visit jobcorps.gov or call (800) 733-JOBS [5627] New Haven County - Jesselica Rodriguez – Rodriguez.Jesselica@JobCorps.org !"#$%&'(")*+,$*-+#".&/$*0(1,)2*3*4&//2*0(,,&"*5*Conner.Kelly@JobCorps.org Waterbury and Surrounding Areas – Abdul Shabazz – Shabazz.Abdul@JobCorps.org

CAREERS BEGIN HERE

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

23

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 31, 2021 - April 06, 2021

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

Offer requires enrollment in both automatic payments and paperless billing. Must enroll within 30 days of placing the order. Without enrollment, the monthly service charge automatically increases by $10. The automatic payment and paperless billing discount is for a period of 24 months and will appear on the bill within 30 days of enrolling. If either automatic payments or paperless billing are subsequently cancelled during the 24-month term, or services are reduced to Xfinity TV Limited Basic service only, the $10 monthly discount will be removed automatically. Offer ends 6/20/21. Restrictions apply. Not available in all areas.

New residential customers only. Limited to Performance Internet. Equipment, installation, taxes and fees extra, and subject to change. After promo. period, regular rates apply. Comcast’s current monthly charge for Performance Internet is $80.95/mo. (subject to change). Service limited to a single outlet. May not be combined with other offers. Actual speeds vary and are not guaranteed. For factors affecting speed, visit xfinity. com/networkmanagement. Xfinity xFi and xFi Advanced Security are available to Xfinity Internet customers with a compatible Xfinity Gateway. xFi Advanced Security activation requires Xfinity app login. Call for restrictions and complete details. NPA234445-0001 NED AAQ1 GIGV7

139855_NPA234445-0001 Gigs of Love 9.25x10.5 V7.indd 1

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