INNER-CITY NEWS

THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017 INNER-CITY NEWS July 27, 2016 - August 02, 2016

Financial Justice FocusCedar at 2016 NAACP Convention East Rock Getsa Key Behind Hill Campaign New Haven, Bridgeport

INNER-CITYNEWS Volume 27 . No. 2233

Volume 21 No. 2194

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First Black

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

Examining East Rock as a Walkable Community at New Haven Museum New Haven, Conn. (May 2017) – What makes an area truly livable?

According to New Haven resident and writer Phil Langdon, it needs to be a walkable community—meaning that a resident can walk (or bike) from home to a variety of useful destinations, such as cafes, grocery stores, laundries, churches, schools, and parks in a few minutes. On Wednesday, June 7, 2017, at 5:30 p.m., Langdon will give an illustrated lecture drawn from the East Rock, New Haven chapter of his book, “Within Walking Distance: Creating Livable Communities for All,” published by Island Press. The free event is followed by a book signing.

Langdon’s book examines six places across the country that are relatively walkable communities— meaning that within in a few minutes a resident can walk (or bike) from home to a variety of useful destinations. In the chapter on the

East Rock neighborhood, Langdon discusses how that section of town incorporated sociologist Ray Oldenburg’s concept of “third places” and New Urbanism’s ideas about the benefits of having a mix of uses and a convenient network of streets, sidewalks, and public spaces.

Langdon notes that in the latter half of the 1990s, several individuals formed a group called Upper Orange Street Neighbors, aimed at making the Orange Street corridor more attractive; helping merchants on Orange Street become more successful; stabilizing the residential section between Orange and State Streets; and creating a series of outdoor patios where people could gather. The first merchants to act on the patio idea, with some financial help from the city, were Lulu de Carrone at Lulu’s coffeehouse, Romeo Simeone at Romeo & Cesare’s, P&M Orange Street Market and the Orange Street Liquor Shop. Langdon says

the patios have proven enormously popular, bringing a new level of sociability to East Rock, and especially the Orange Street corridor. He adds that there have also been other achievements, such as the reopening of the old pharmacy at Orange and Cottage Streets under a new name, East Rock Pharmacy, with vigorous

new owners.

Langdon, who has lived in the area for 34 years, interviewed many people about the changes that have come to Orange Street and East Rock, and photographed much of what’s been accomplished.

Langdon was senior editor at New Urban News and is a freelance jour-

nalist. His articles have been published in The Atlantic, American Heritage, Planning, Urban Land, Planning Commissioners Journal, Preservation, Governing, The American Enterprise, Progressive Architecture, Architectural Record, Landscape Architecture, CityLab, and The New York Times.

About the New Haven Museum The New Haven Museum has been collecting, preserving and interpreting the history and heritage of Greater New Haven since its inception as the New Haven Colony Historical Society in 1862. Located in downtown New Haven at 114 Whitney Avenue, the Museum brings more than 375 years of New Haven history to life through its collections, exhibitions, programs and outreach. For more information visit www.newhavenmuseum. org or Facebook.com/NewHavenMuseum or call 203-562-4183

East Rock Gets Behind Cedar Hill Campaign

by THOMAS BREEN NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT

Thanks to support from the rest of East Rock, isolated Cedar Hill will receive $10,000 toward a grassroots beautification effort designed to build community pride and to connect to surrounding areas of the city currently separated by highway overpasses.

That was the result of a decision of the East Rock Community management team at its monthly meeting Monday night at mActivity gym on Niccoll Street. The team voted to allocate the entirety of its annual Neighborhood Public Improvement Program (NPIP) funds towards the project in Cedar Hill, a small set of self-contained streets at the northeastern tip of the East Rock community.

For each of the past three years, the Livable City Initiative (LCI), the city’s anti-blight agency, has made available $10,000 in NPIP funds to each of the city’s community management teams to help them address neighborhood quality-of-life concerns.

An annual exercise in direct democracy and “participatory budgeting,” NPIP encourages local residents to discuss, debate, and vote on how they would most like to spend a small portion of the city’s budget.

Some neighborhoods have decided

THOMAS BREEN PHOTO

Ansley pitches East Rockers.

East Rock CMT co-chair Kevin McCarthy leads the team’s vote on how to spend its annual NPIP funds.

to spend their money on traffic calming measures, others on resources that will help raise awareness for local cultural events.

This year, the East Rock team voted to invest its dollars in Cedar Hill and in the women who are committed to transforming their neighbor-

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hood into a clean, safe, culturally vital community for residents and visitors alike.

(Meanwhile, Newhallville’s team, which is technically part of the same policing district, gets its own $10,000 It is expected to vote Tuesday night to spend it again on an “ambassadors” program, which pays young people in yellow and black uniforms to walk around the neighborhood, picking up trash and greeting people.)

Cedar Hill resident Camille Ansley, joined at the meeting by neighbors Kennya Adams-Martin and Betty Thompson, offered a 45-minute presentation on Monday night that explained why her community could put the $10,000 to good use.

Ansley introduced herself as a mom, a full-time student at the University of New Haven, a full-time employee at Sikorsky Aircraft, a member of the Cedar Hill Block Watch, and a passionate, meticulous community advocate.

“We’re asking you to assist us in reclaiming the Cedar Hill neighborhood,” she told the room. “We have been exposed and aggressively attacked in many ways.”

She said she has counted 61 different pieces of nuisance graffiti in her neighborhood, which includes only eight blocks and 180 homes between Rock Street and Warren Place, near East Rock and the Hamden border.

As she clicked through a prepared slideshow, the team saw pictures of the pervasive negligence and blight that Ansley, Adams-Martin, and Thompson contend against: graffiti tags blanketing street signs and park walls; abandoned mattresses leaning against telephone poles and piles of dumped tires strewn across the park; trash overflowing in a neighbor’s backyard and a drug deal taking place right in front of Ansley’s car.

“This is eroding our community,” she said, pointing to graffiti sprayed over a parking sign. “We have children in our neighborhood and from other neighborhoods who are continuing to see that this is a place where they can graffiti, and they do, because nothing happens to their graffiti. It doesn’t come off.

It stays on, and they see an opportunity.”

“Not only do we have these issues,” she continued, gesturing towards the abandoned mattress.

“But we don’t have quick turnaround on recovery and taking these things away. This lets people think they can do whatever they want and get away with it.”

These images of decay and neglect were simply prelude, however, to the vision that Ansley and Con’t on page 19

THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

Body Cam Plan OK’d; Patience Counseled

by MARKESHIA RICKS NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT

As New Haven police won approval for a plan to outfit all 450plus officers with body cameras, a neighboring town’s chief advised the department to give officer some time to adjust to the new way of policing.

The Board of Alders Monday unanimously approved a resolution that allows the police to submit an application to the state’s Office of Policy & Management for the cost of purchasing the cameras.

The department has decided to purchase the Axon (formerly Taser International) version of the camera, which allows for the recording strictly of what the officer can see, but not more. (Lt. Racheal Cain, who along with Sgt. Rose Dell has led the department’s pilot program, said the department will order the cameras by June 30 to to make the state’s deadline for 100 percent reimbursement. The cost for the cameras and accompanying cloud storage system, originally projected to hit $1.5 million, probably won’t exceed $700,000, Cain said.

Quinnipiac Meadows Alder Gerald Antunes, a retired police captain who chairs the Board of Alders Public Safety Committee, said that costs have dropped in recent years as body cam technology has evolved.

“They wanted to project high [in the original $1.5 million estimate] because it’s something relatively new out and they weren’t sure what the price would be,” Antunes said of the reduced costs. “So rather than lowering it at the beginning, they projected high and lowered it, instead of it being that’s all we’re getting and it’s not enough.”

Departments throughout the country have started using body cams in response to controversies involving police misconduct, as a way of helping to document what really happens on the street.

Other departments that have deployed body cameras have encountered problems dealing with Freedom of Information requests from the public, the press, and attorneys.

Reviewing and redacting sensitive video footage can be time-consuming and demanding on resources, requiring specifically someone who can review the footage. (This story

OFFICER.COM The Axon body camera: NHPD’s choice.

Lt. Cain, Sgt. Dell at Monday’s vote: Working on details.

details problems encountered in Seattle.)

Hamden Police Chief Tom Wydra and his 109 officers have been wearing body cameras for the past four years. He said in an interview Monday that FOI requests for footage come from people of all walks of life including the press, attorneys, and even law students.

The department treats the request for body camera footage just as it would a printed report, he said Wydra said there are times when the department can release video footage that is unredacted, or it can use technology to pixelate the face of a victim or a juvenile. Sometimes the audio has to be redacted too.

“It’s definitely more time consuming than a traditional FOI request,” he said.

The Hamden police department

hasn’t had to add any more staff to handle the request, Wydra said.

Instead he has shifted the roles of some existing staff and used the training division for additional support. Hamden also is using the Axon body camera, and Wydra said that redaction software that accompanies that mode has been a big help.

He said if the department falls behind on answering FOI requests, it’s usually a few days, not months.

“We have talked to some in other departments and they’re months behind,” he said. “We pay very close attention to meeting the needs of folks asking whether it’s the court, the media or the public.”

Lt. Cain said New Haven police, like Hamden, plan to follow the FOI laws and treat video footage the same as all records requests. But

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because of the size of the department, it will likely need between one and four new people on staff to manage such requests and data generally.

“There also been improvements in software that’s used for redaction,” Sgt. Dell added. “As that continues to improve it’s going to cut down on the actual time it takes to redact.”

Prior Views Some police departments have had to grapple with whether to allow officers to review their footage before writing their reports, particularly in cases of alleged use of excessive force. Connecticut’s legislature has taken that question off the table.

Arguments supporting review suggest that it allows for more accurate reporting by the officer; arguments against suggest that officers might be more inclined to align their story with the video.

State law in Connecticut provides a model policy, which departments are required to follow, and gives the officer the opportunity to review the footage prior to writing reports and prior to any meeting with internal affairs, both Cain and Wydra confirmed. Dell said officers also will have access to an app that allows instant replay of footage.

Wydra said that the benefit of that is for the same reason that a department establishes a body camera program in the first place: transparency and accuracy.

Wydra’s big tip to a department like New Haven embarking on a body camera: Give officers a few months to get used to rules for using the cameras before coming

down on them for mistakes.

“We needed to allow a break-in period to allow officers to get familiar with when to put the camera on,” he said. “It doesn’t happen overnight.”

He said in the first few months of Hamden’s program there were definitely instances when officers simply forgot to turn their camera on because, he said, they’re human.

They forget stuff. That was OK in the early months. Four years later, forgetting is not an acceptable excuse.

“You got to give them a break-in period because this is completely new and they need time to learn and remember to use the cameras,” he said. But four years later, “we know that there are [citizen] complaints that would have come to us that did not once we had body cameras.

We also have uncovered certain incidents where the officer didn’t do exactly the right thing. It’s a double edge sword but we’re still proud of it.”

Cain said the details of the department’s general order on body cameras are still being worked out with the union, but the plan is to roll out the departments cameras in phases.

“It’s really not practical that we roll out 455 cameras all within the same period of time,” she said. “We know that there’s going to be a learning curve. The policy we’re writing will give them a little bit of leniency if an officer forgets to turn on their camera.

“They’re going to have to document that they forgot to turn on the camera although there will be —and we can’t say this is positive because we’re still in the process of writing the general order—but possibly a 90-day grace period if they forget. There will be leniency.”

Alder Antunes said he believes that the cameras will help make policing more transparent, particularly as a new civilian review board gets up and running again. If Antunes has any concerns, the retired cop said that it’s that the officer might be more timid in doing their jobs.

He said the officer’s awareness of the camera likely necessitates a pause or a step back, but then again, it also can cause the public to do the same thing.

“I don’t want the officer to be timid and not do the job,” he said. “I don’t want the camera to deter the officer doing his or her job.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

Justice Lubbie Harper Jr. Endowed Scholarship Fund

A Commitment to the Community

New Haven, CT — On May 25, at 6 p.m., the University of New Haven will celebrate the establishment of the Justice Lubbie Harper Jr. Endowed Scholarship Fund. The celebration takes place in the Henry.

C Lee Institute of Forensic Science at 300 Boston Post Road in West Haven, CT. The public is invited.

The Justice Lubbie Harper Jr. Endowed Scholarship Fund will support scholarships for students from the inner city of New Haven, regardless of race gender, major or academic year, who have shown academic promise and a commitment to giving back to the community.

The program will begin with a cocktail reception with Justice Harper’s family and friends, followed by a showing of director Ben Lear’s critically acclaimed documentary “They Call Us Monsters,” which examines the juvenile justice system.

Following the screening, guests will enjoy desert and a special unveiling.

The celebration promises to be an elegant evening. Tax deductible donations can be made in advance or the night of the event. All proceeds will benefit the Justice Lubbie Harper Jr. Endowed Scholarship. Persons interested should RSVP to Jacqueline Koral, associate vice president of philanthropy, University of New Haven, 300 Boston Post Road, West Haven, CT 06516. Telephone number: 203-932-7462.

Justice Harper ’65 is an esteemed alumnus of the University of New

Justice Lubbie Harper Jr. Haven and a prominent retired State Supreme Court Justice. Justice Harper grew up in the inner and overcame many challenges. He is giving back to the community where he grew up through the Justice Lubbie Harper Jr. Endowed Scholarship Fund at the University of New Haven. Justice Harper passionately believes in the value of education.

Justice Harper’s life journey serves as a source on inspiration for all students his scholarship will support.

A year ago, the Connecticut Bar Association (CBA), saluted Justice

Harper with its 2016 John Eldred Shields Distinguished Professional Service Award. The award is given to an attorney who has performed outstanding service through or on behalf of the CBA, which has benefitted members of the association, legal profession or the community at large.

Justice Harper graduated from the University of New Haven with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1965.

He was awarded a Masters degree from the University of Connecticut School of Social Work in 1967

and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 1975. In May 2012, he was presented an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the Quinnipiac University School of Law in 2013, and on May 19, 2013, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of New Haven.

Justice Harper is currently the chairman of the Commission on Racial and Ethnic Disparity in the Criminal Justice System, as well as Connecticut’s Representative to the National Consortium on Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Courts.

In 2015, Justice Harper was the recipient of the Sappern Fellowship Award presented by the Yale Sappern Memorial Fund. Also in 2015, the George W. Crawford Black Bar Association presented Harper with its Trailblazer Award. In 2013, Wilbur L. Cross High School dedicated and named its Library Media Center in Justice Harper’s honor. In 2013, Justice Harper named community recipient of Eastern Connecticut State University’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Distinguished Service Award.

In 2011, the Lawyers Collaborative for Diversity, Inc. presented its Edwin Archer Randolph Diversity Award to Justice Harper. In 2010, the Prince Hall Scottish Rite Masons (32nd and 33rd degree) awarded Justice Harper its Silver Eagle Award, the organizations’ highest award for public service. Also in 2010, the New Haven Tap-Off Club inducted Justice Harper into its Hall of Fame.

In 2009, the Connecticut State Conference of NAACP Branches named Justice Harper one of the “100 Most Influential Blacks in Connecticut.”

In May 2008, the New Haven Public School Foundation, Inc. presented Justice Harper with its Annual Alumni Legacy Award. In February 2008, he received the West Haven Black Coalition’s Rev. Dr. Edwin R. Edmonds Humanitarian Award. In 2007, Justice Harper was the recipient of the Distinguished Public Service Award presented by the Delta Phi Chapter of the National Sorority of Phi Delta Kappa, Inc. In May 2006, the Greater New Haven Branch of the NAACP awarded Justice Harper its Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Leadership Award. In February 2006, James Hillhouse High School in New Haven named and awarded an annual leadership award in Justice Harper’s honor.

Justice Harper was the recipient of the Connecticut Chapter of the Men and Women for Justice, Inc. Achievement Award in October 2005, and the Connecticut Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Section First Annual Diversity Award; and the Bridgeport Bar Association Criminal Law Committee Judicial Integrity Award in June 2005.

Justice Harper was inducted into the Inaugural Class of the Wilbur L. Cross High School Hall of Fame in March 2005. Justice Harper was also the recipient of the University of New Haven’s Alumni Association 2003 Distinguished Alumni Award in April 2003.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

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Dr. Tamiko Jackson-McArthur Michelle Turner Smita Shrestha William Spivey Kam Williams Rev. Samuel T. Ross-Lee

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Kelcy G. L. Steele In The House!: Varick’s Newest Pastor Arlene Davis-Rudd Staff writer ICN

It was truly a privilege and honor, beyond measure, for this writer to have recently interviewed the newest pastor at Varick A.M.E. Zion Church, Pastor Kelci Steele. The dynamic Pastor Steele is a native of Rock Hill South Carolina. He wasn’t aware that his newly assigned church happens to sit in the middle of political activity in the Dixwell/Newhallville neighborhood. Noted the articulate Pastor Steele, “I didn’t know it, but learned about it as soon as I arrived here.” After serving his term at The First A.M.E. Zion Church, in Los Angeles, California. Pastor Steele was appointed by Bishop Proctor to Varick Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church. Before accepting the offer, he and his wife prayed over it and made the decision to accept the appointment. As he stated, “I came from the West Coast to the East Coast.

“The church he hailed from was traditional, mostly attended by senior citizens. However, Varick has proven to be both contemporary and traditional, with diverse groups of parishioners at each one of their three Sunday services.

Varick Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church, referred to as “The Freedom Church” is the oldest Black church in the City of New Haven. Next year they will be celebrating their 200th year Anniversary. The newly appointed pastor sounded jubilant as he remarked about the reaching out to him by local non-profits, community leaders, pastors, and elected officials and how vital Varick is to the entire community. He has already had an encouraging and pleasant one-on-one sitdown with our amazing mayor, Toni Harp, who attended services there at Varick on Mother’s Day. A warm welcome was given to her and her family.

Pastor Steele, a staunch believer in education and training for our young people, has rolled up his sleeves, and begun future planning for them. He has traveled to and from Hartford attending meetings of the State Board of Education with our outstanding school superintendent, Dr. Reginald Mayo.

While searching the Web, I learned that Pastor Steele has had the following Pastoral assignments: Morning Star Church, Charlotte, North Carolina; New Loves Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church, Kanapolis, North Carolina.

While in Kanapolis, he served as a Judge in the Cabarrus County Teen Court Center, and was a member of the Board of Director’s for the Dorothy Wall’s Conference and Retreat Center, and Chairman of the Board of Christian Education for the West Central North Carolina Conference of the A.M.E.Zion Church

This dedicated son of Zion, in September of 2013, was appointed by Bishop W. Darin Moore to the A.M.E. Zion Church in Los Angeles, California, the flagship of the Western Episcopal District.

While there and before being appointed to Varick, the young Pastor Steele made a tremendous impact.

“First A.M.E. Zion had been renewed, revived, and resurrected. Membership had greatly increased, renovations were underway, and lives were being changed.

Pastor Steele’s services to the A.M.E.Zion Church has also included the West Central Carolina Conference; the 2012 General Conference, Concord District Treasurer: Chairman of the Concord District Budget Committee; Adviser to the Concord District Lay Council, and Episcopal Leadership Training Board in Piedmont. Our new Pastor, has served with distinction as Treasurer of the Western Episcopal District and Dean of Finance; A.M.E.Zion Church; Treasurer, Board of Bishop’s Preaching Institute Plan-

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ning Team; Board member of the Connectional Council Publication Board; Chair, SWRMC Finance Committee; Chair, SWRMC Conference Studies Examiners; Chair Los Angeles District Finance Committee member; SWRMC Admission and Holy Orders Committees member, According to an earlier interview with the New Haven Register, “Pastor Steele has already made an impact in the African American Community since arriving at Varick Church eight months ago..

Building on a foundation laid by his predecessor, Rev. Eldren Morrison, a childhood friend in South Carolina,” During our special interview, this writer asked Pastor Steele about the programs and projects that had been put in place during Rev. Morrison’s tenure. Pastor Steele responded in this manner, “For right now, we’re in our observation stage, where we are evaluating and observing the programs that were already established under Pastor Morrison to see whether or not we have need for them now, with our con-

gregation.” He added, “We’re still just trying to learn the ends and outs.”

The membership at Varick received our pastor well by sponsoring a warm reception given to him at their last revival that Friday night prior to the services; community leaders, pastors and others were all in attendance wishing our new pastor well, as he begins his new journey, saving souls for Christ, This special event was held downstairs in the Brockington Fellowship Hall.

Pastor Steele has been applauded for attending churches for meetings and special programs, becoming familiar with the neighborhood and the community Meetings with others and clergy will be scheduled, I’m sure, as things continue to progress. He has high hopes.

We learned that Pastor Steele has authored a book, called “The Sound of Revival: Exploring Prophetic Teaching.” Pastor noted that he was inspired when he was inducted into the World Methodist Council Order of the Flame. This Order is made up of exclusive individuals invited from around North America Methodist Churches selected to attend this special event Pastor noted that his book had been written along with other writers he met at the exclusive gathering at St. Simone’s Island. Pastor became Assistant to the Director of World in Evangelism: A Resource Book for Preachers who have a heart for Evangelism in winning souls for Christ. Pastor traveled across the nation preaching several Revivals a year.

Because of his gift in Finance and his experience in banking at the former Wachovia Bank, Pastor Steele has been and continues to be involved in the various Methodist Church Districts and Councils.What is his vision for the future? Pastor Steele declared, “ We have three services on Sunday mornings (7:30, 9:30, and 11:30). All in an aging historical building. I want to see us put in place and reconstruct a new sanctuary, a church that is more community centered. Those are the kind of plans for the future; and this being a church meeting the needs of the Dixwell community is a priority.

New and old members have spoken highly of Pastor Steele, who informed this writer that Varick A.M.E. Zion Chuch is listed in the Historical Registry. We are proud that Varick has served our community for nearly 200 years. From the way things are going with Pastor Kelci Steele at the helm, we are being prepared to serve another 200 years and beyond. We thank God for bringing Pastor Steele to Varick.

Inner-City News extends its best to Pastor and Mrs. Steele as they serve the Christian needs of our community.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

Fasts End As Grads, Protesters Fill Streets

by LUCY GELLMAN

NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT

While Yale students were handed degrees Monday, graduate student teachers two blocks away were handed cups of ginger and butternut soup to end, at least for now, a nationally watched protest fast.

Two separated seas of gowns — one orange, one black — replaced cars on New Haven’s streets, as Yale’s graduation collided with a march and rally to mark the end of the protest fast as well as a continuing labor dispute over graduate student teachers.

The New Haven police assigned about 200 cops to join Yale police in bringing order to the potential chaos on closed-off streets from York Street to Church Street, according to Assistant Chief Otoniel Reyes. Public works, traffic and parking crews, and the fire department all pitched in too.

Yale conferred degrees to 3,618 graduate and undergraduate students at the annual commencement. The students wore black caps and gowns as they paraded down Elm and various side streets, then gathered on Old Campus courtyard.

Meanwhile, up to 1,000 supporters of UNITE HERE Local 33, the new union representing graduate student teachers in eight academic departments, swarmed other streets. They poured in from at least six states to support Local 33’s call for Yale to negotiate a first contract rather than pursue repeated appeals of the new union’s election before the National Labor Relations Board.

Taking turns when health problems loomed, eight Local 33 members have been fasting in succession to bring attention to their quest for contract negotiations. They accuse Yale of delaying negotiations through repeated appeals in the hopes that new NLRB members appointed by President Donald Trump will adopt a more anti-union stance. (Yale officials argue that instead of fasting the union should focus on the NLRB process to work out the disagreement.)

Cops choreographed the two swarms of gowned protesters so they wouldn’t interfere with each other. UNITE HERE organizers coordinated with police and put out the call to supporters not to interfere with the graduation, according to police spokesman Officer David Hartman. But police were aware of other groups posting a call on the web for arrests, so they were prepared for potential unplanned activity. It all ended up going smoothly, with no arrests.

LUCY GELLMAN PHOTO

Protesters end their fast at rally.

PAUL BASS PHOTOS

Union backers wore orange, Yale grads black in Monday’s processions.

Lodging A Protest As graduating students dressed in their caps and gowns and met with family and friends around 7:50 a.m. Monday, some union supporters gathered at New Haven’s Elks Lodge on Dixwell Avenue and at College and Elm Streets, outside of UNITE HERE’s downtown offices.

As marchers poured in, picking up orange protest swag from UNITE HERE organizers, they greeted each other in the grassy lot by the Elks Lodge, then began to assemble in rows of eight that would march down Dixwell Avenue.

Walking to the front with a large banner, Yale graduate student Charles Decker (one of the eight initial fasters; pictured above) spoke of how organizers ensured the protests would not disrupt Yale’s graduation.

“So many of our classmates and students are graduating today,” said Decker. “My wife is graduating today, so if we were disruptive, I think there’d be some trouble at home. It’s a great day of celebration and we want it to be that. But we also want to remind Yale that if they think we’re going away, we’re not.”

Chanting “What do we want?/ Con-

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tracts!/ When do we want them?/ Now!,” “We’re certified!/ Negotiate!,” and “We are the union/ The mighty mighty union,” marchers made their way down Dixwell, filling the avenue with orange.

One of the marchers, Idelier Pettigrew, who spent last year campaigning for Hillary Clinton, is a member of Construction and General Laborers Union “We’re all a union, all together, in this strong, vibrant community,” she said. “We respect Yale and we’re grateful for them in the community, but we also need to be recognized.”

Marcher Mirjaam Parada (pictured) came in from Providence, where she works at the Omni Hotel and belongs to UNITE HERE Local 26. She said she participated in a protest fast herself, three years ago. She said the fast helped workers win higher wages and better hours.

Marchers included members of the national and state chapters of the AFL-CIO, Make the Road Connecticut and New York, United Auto Workers, Teamsters Local 443, Jobs with Justice, Letter Carriers Union, United Steel Workers, Young Workers Group, the Working Families Party, CT Citizens Action, and the Democratic National Convention.

The marchers also included graduate students from Duke, Columbia, and Princeton. One of them, Heba Gowayed of Princeton, said she knows graduate students who are living in professors’ attics and working odd jobs on top of their teaching loads to make ends meet. As an advocate for refugee rights in New Haven, she called for collective bargaining rights.

“If we don’t have a way to represent ourselves, we’re going to be left out of the discussion,” she said.

Groups of orange-clad marchers merged at York and Broadway.

There, top Downtown cop Sgt. Sean Maher and Officer Anthony Ryken directed several officers at a blockade separating the marchers from Elm Street, where a formal procession of graduating students and professors was scheduled for 10 a.m.

“Union power in the ivory tower!” protesters chanted. ““I believe/I believe that/ I believe that we will win!”

As marchers turned from Broadway onto York, a few students and parents looked on, some pulling out their phones to snap a picture or start a video of the event. One parent, Tanya Metrano, had travelled to New Haven to watch her son Anthony received his PhD degree in chemistry.

Standing at the curb, she rolled her eyes and raised her arms.

“My son thinks everyone should have freedom of speech. But on graduation? This is ridiculous,” Metrano said. “Really? They don’t get the right to graduate?”

Students do get the right to graduate, maintained New Haven State Rep. Robyn Porter as she held a position with state Comptroller (and gubernatorial hopeful) Kevin Lembo and State Reps. Toni Walker and Matt Lesser toward the front of the line.

But graduate students should also get the right to bargain collectively, she argued. “I’m disappointed in Yale,” she said.

Souped Up As protesters reached Temple and Wall Street, a few peeled off, taking off their orange shirts and caps to reveal doctoral robes beneath. The protesters cheered them on, clapping with congratulations. Then they turned onto Elm, where Yale’s formal procession was about to begin.

As drums and tubas sounded from across Elm Street, close to Sterling Library, protesters broke into “We shall not be moved,” singing as the first faces of the procession flooded Elm Street, and headed down College towards Phelps Gate.

As students and professors rounded the bend at Elm and College, some cheered on the protesters. Several parents who had lined the street followed suit, throwing their fists in the air. And in return, Local 33 members and supporters took a break from singing, and broke into applause. ”Wooooo!” yelled Local 33 Co-Chair Robin Canavan, cupping her hands around her mouth to carry the sound.

“Woooo! Congratulations!”

As the procession ended, marchers headed toward their final destination: a large white tent on Church Street in front of City Hall, decorated with a large orange and white archway of balloons at the entrance.

Members of UNITE HERE poured steamy, orange cups of butternut squash and ginger soup from ball jars, handing them to the fasters with plastic spoons on the stage.

The fast was “a profoundly spiritual tool to reclaim the university’s moral high ground,” said Father Clete Kiley, founder of a group called PriestLabor Initiative, who consulted with the fasters.

“We have a history of fighting with Yale since 1941,” UNITE HERE Local 35 and Central Labor Council President Bob Proto declared at the rally, “and we’re not going away.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

GOP Plans To Show Up

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NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT

Stop the presses: Republicans will run for office in New Haven this fall.

At least one office. Or two. Maybe even four. Somewhere in town.

We just don’t know where yet.

That word comes from two men working mightily to revive brightblue New Haven’s Grand Old Party, which last elected a mayor in 1951; has elected zero members to the city’s 30-member Board of Alders or to its state legislative seats; and hasn’t run even sacrificial candidates for most positions in recent years.

GOP Town Chairman Jonathan Wharton has revived the party since taking over last year, holding fundraisers, serving on city commissions, developing a platform that differs from the Democratic Party consensus on immigration policy and governnment transparency. Now he and local party secretary Tyler Kuhn, a 25-year-old who works in the Knights of Columbus legal department, are busy recruiting candidates to run for at least some Board of Alders seats in this fall’s general elections.

“We’re in rebuilding mode. We’ve got a lot of excitement going on in the local field. If we can concentrate our resources on one, two, three, four five races. That’s how you start rebuliding a party,” Kuhn, a Dartmouth graduate who grew up in Cleveland, said during an appearance with Wharton on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven” program.

They said they have some identified potential candidates and are now making sure those folks have time to commit to a campaign. “Anybody who’s going to run has to be truly and fully on board and fully committed to this race,” Kuhn said.

The party is targeting races downtown and in the Westville, East Rock, and Morris Cove neighborhoods, he said.

Wharton, who teaches political science at Southern Connecticut State

University, said the party hopes to announce members of an alder slate at a party fundraiser planned for June 29 at City Point Kitchen. (Click here to read about the event there last year.) The party has raised thousands of dollars at fundraisers this past year, Wharton said, with interest from Republicans outside the city as well as within New Haven.

As of the beginning of May, New Haven had 45,532 registered Democratic voters, 2,785 registered Republicans, 18,359 registered unaffiliated voters, and 595 registered with other parties, according to the registrar of voters office.

Kuhn is serving on New Haven’s Board of Ethics. Wharton sits on the City Plan Commission, where has has spoken up against a proposal from members of the Board of Alders to create a new “high impact” special exception zoning category that would add a new layer of approval to any university development projects. In the “Dateline” interview, Wharton argued that city needs to make it easier, not more cumbersome, to build here. And he attributed the proposal’s intent to the agenda of the alder majority backed by Yale’s UNITE HERE union locals.

“It’s another example of how they like to delay things here in town. They love to choke anything that’s possible here,” Wharton argued. “Any cause ... they will use as leverage. They love to have a chokehold on what can be done and what can’t be done. They’re too effective. They’re too powerful.

They clearly have a way of preventing things from getting done and politicizing causes very effectively. Unfortunately that’s dominating the Board of Alders.”

The proposal’s proponents argue that it would make development more democratic, requiring Yale in particular to spell out the community benefits of development projects, as well as impacts on parking, mass transit, local hiring, and open space.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

Hushed Bartlett Raise Sparks School Board Action

by CHRISTOPHER PEAK NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT

The Board of Education spent a little time discussing books and reading at its meeting Monday night and a lot more time arguing about who’s playing politics with district funds.

Amid allegations that a city official’s salary was paid in part with school money, Daisy Gonzalez, the board’s president, asked the superintendent, Reggie Mayo, to commence an investigation into who had approved the allocation.

To assert their control over other fiscal matters, board members also requested more information about part-time hires, outside consultants and contract renewals that may have slipped by without their approval.

Then, in a surprise twist, Mayo accused an unnamed board member of pressuring school staff to pick certain contractors in the open bidding process.

On Monday morning, the New Haven Register reported that Jason Bartlett, the city’s director of youth services, got a $20,000 raise for acting as the mayor’s liaison to the school board, despite a vote by the Board of Alders against the salary increase. (At the time, Stephen Librandi, the city’s human resources chief, told the Independent that the salary increase, from $85,000 to $105,000, did not require outside approval because it fell within approved job

CHRISTOPHER PEAK PHOTO

Board member Che Dawson and Superintendent Reggie Mayo at Monday night’s board meeting.

categories.) Instead, Bartlett’s raise was budgeted through an unusual arrangement: Mayor Toni Harp and then-Superintendent Garth Harries agreed that the Board of Education would cover the extra cost. (At the time, Harp indicated that the raise was intended to compensate for the extra time Bartlett spent attending subcommittee meetings and overseeing her signature Youth Stat intervention.) Alders said the arrangement may violate the charter, which states, “No person shall receive

compensation … for more than one position in the city government.”

Carlos Torre said the expenditure did not make sense. “I don’t know how he could have done a job for a position that does not exist. There’s no position as liaison to the board.

That never existed, has not existed and could not exist,” he said. “This is not some small thing about slipping through the cracks or contracts we were not informed about.”

In a letter sent Monday, Gonzalez instructed Mayo to “conduct an

immediate investigation” to determine if Bartlett did in fact receive a paycheck from the school board or if other funds were diverted to the city’s coffers without prior board approval. Gonzalez also asked for Mayo to identify the “board action or executive decision” that justified the payments, if any transactions did occur.

“You should also consult the board if you see the need for additional resources to ensure that we establish the truth in these and related matters,” Gonzalez wrote. “Please keep me apprised of your progress in your investigation, and of any barriers you might face in getting the facts.”

At the board meeting, Darnell Goldson asked Gonzalez to expand the investigation’s scope to include a list of all hires and contractors for which the board had not been notified. And he also asked for a deadline to be added.

Mayo replied that he wasn’t sure what Goldson wanted to see. “Most of the contracts that I know of are on the action item agenda” — a list that the board approves in bulk at each meeting — “that has gone through Finance & Operations Committee, so I can’t understand that,” he said.

Goldson answered, “You just said ‘most,’ not ‘all.’”

Later in the meeting, Mayo accused a board member of asking staff to hand out contracts to selected applicants. “I’d like to make a policy

that while I’m superintendent that they refrain from doing such. If they want something, they should come to me,” he said.

Goldson attempted to clarify what Mayo had just implied. “Are you suggesting on the record that someone tried to coerce a school employee to give out a contract?”

Mayo answered, “I thought I just made that clear.” Despite pressure from Mayo, the superintendent refused to call out a specific name.

Gonzalez suggested they continue the discussion in executive session at the next meeting.

In an email, Goldson said he was “baffled” by the exchange with Mayo and believed the accusation was directed at him. Mayo declined to elaborate on his accusation.

On May 2, a series of emails among Goldson, Gonzalez and school board Chief Administrative Officer Will Clark, and then a discussion at the board, ensued about whether contracts have been renewed without bidding. Goldson said Monday he’s been repeatedly asking for documents about part-time hires and contractors. “What I suspect we will find are literally dozens of people working who were never approved by the BOE, or even notified about,” Goldson said. “It’s all very frustrating, but I won’t be deterred or sidetracked by this or any other distracting issue [Mayo] may raise,” Goldson said.

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5/19/17 12:08 PM

Leaner City Budget Advances THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

by MARKESHIA RICKS NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT

Mayor Toni Harp’s proposed new city budget shrank by more than $13.2 million Wednesday night, and may shrink more by the time it gets final approval.

The Board of Alders Finance Committee voted to approve the new version of the general operating budget the the fiscal year that starts July 1, now set at $541.3 million, after reviewing cuts made in the wake of consultations between the Harp and administration and leading alders.

The two sides agreed that it no longer made sense to pass a budget that counts on $31 million in increased state aid for the coming year, since the governor has announced deep cuts in planned aid for all cities (except Hartford, which faces bankruptcy) in the wake of a projected $5 billion twoyear state deficit.

City Budget Director Joe Clerkin detailed the $13 million in

MARKESHIA RICKS PHOTO

Board President Tyisha Walker: tennis tourney brings jobs.

trimmed proposed spending to the alders before the Finance Committee voted Tuesday night. Alders agreed that by the time the full board votes on the budget in the first week of June, more cuts may well be necessary based on the uncertainty at the state Capitol.

New Haven’s revised budget for

2017-18 assumes a savings of $9.2 million through restructuring city debts with lower interest rates and factoring in expected premiums and refunds collected on bond sales; $5 million on the city’s debt service with any new debt it incurs; a $1 million reduction in a planned increase in money set

aside for the city’s medical selfinsurance funds; a $1 million reduction in transportation funding for the Board of Education; a $1.7 million savings on non-personnel costs through an annual program of examining department-by-department spending; and a savings $350,000 by further not filling vacant positions.

Clerkin said the original budget had not assumed any savings when it came to the city’s debt, but the revised budget assumes that the city will obtain a better interest rate when it markets its bonds.

The budget also assumes revenue adjustments that would keep the car tax at 37 mills instead of dropping to 32 mills. The real estate and personal property mill rate would remain 38.68. The budget doesn’t completely give up on obtaining increased state aid; it still assumes about $21 million based on the current number in Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s revised proposed budget.

That number assumes that some

form of a tax will be instituted for real estate owned by not-for-profit hospitals.

Budget Director Clerkin assured alders Wednesday night that this will not be the final revision.

“When we submitted the budget back in March it was premised with us receiving a great deal of aid from the state,” he said. “I think what we’ve done in this package is to realize that we are still going to need significant resources from the state and from our voluntary partners, but we reduced that now significantly.”

Westville Alder Adam Marchand commended the administration for “sharpening the pencil” and making”good faith efforts” to adjust the budget in a substantial way, though he did question the wisdom of reducing funding that would go toward paying for medical benefits—and\ area of the city’s budget that is chronically

• An 85 percent reduction in fire department overtime.

• Six consecutive years of lower crime rates.

• Higher enrollment and attendance in public schools.

• Higher graduation rates and test scores.

• Expulsions reduced from an average high of 85 to just 10 this year so far.

• More than 2,000 market rate housing units in development and an 8 percent increase in the grand list.

• Free public wifi on the Green and energy-saving LED lights in city buildings and on city streets.

• A greener city because of the commitment to alternative transportation.

“All of this signals bright reliable prospects for a safe well-educated population going forward with a vibrant local economy to sustain families businesses and greater prosperity for the years ahead,” Harp said.

“In the best interest of these families and businesses, in the best interest of all who depend on a vibrant city and it’s bright future, and in the best

interest of all of those who will inherit the New Haven that we leave behind, I believe another term for all of us is in order.”

State Sen. Marty Looney noted that this year marks 30 years ago that Harp started her career in public service, first as a member of what was then the Board of Aldermen. That first foray into politics would eventually take her to the state capitol, where she chaired the public health committee and eventually the most powerful committee in the state legislature, appropriations.

“She was in the very beginning a thoughtful advocate,” Looney said.

“Someone looking for creative solutions, looking for policy changes that could be made, and nontraditional ways to get to critical results for people who look to government for assistance.”

Looney said that when Harp was in the Senate, “she distinguished herself as someone who was in many ways the great moral conscience of the Senate, and she still continues to do that as a mayor who believes that

Con’t on page 16

Harp Launches Quest For Third Term

by MARKESHIA RICKS NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT

Mayor Toni Harp kicked off her campaign on the Democratic ticket for a third two-year term with celebration, pride and quite a bit of dancing.

Flanked by a drill team and their drums, Harp gathered with more than 200 people — a who’s-who of state and local politics — outside the Sound School Friday to let it be known that she would like another two years at the helm of the city.

“As mayor of New Haven, as your mayor, I stand before you tonight a candidate for another term,” she said to enthusiastic cheers. “I do so proudly because I’m eager to extend the progress we’ve made these past three and a half years. I do so enthusiastically based on the record that we have to boast about.”

And that record, for Harp, includes: • Three consecutive balanced budgets, a modest rainy day fund and an improved credit rating for the city.

• No tax increase for the past two fiscal years and the elimination of $14 million in debt.

MARKESHIA RICKS PHOTOS

Harp made her case for a third term Friday.

Former State Treasurer Henry “Hank” Parker and former State Rep. Jan Parker.

10

Con’t on page 16

THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

Trump Shot The Sheriff, But He Did Not Shoot The Deputy

by William Spivey, ICN Contributing Writer and Noted Blogger Trump metaphorically shot the Sheriff (FBI Director James Comey) but he didn’t shoot the Deputy (Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein) who appointed Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate Trump and all matters Russia.

Ironically it was only weeks after he appointed Rosenstein Deputy AG, after firing Sally Yates for allegedly refusing to implement his unconstitutional Muslim Ban. More likely because she was pressuring the administration to do something about Mike Flynn who was literally selling out to Turkey and Russia while assuming the role of National Security Advisor.

Trump is facing challenges to his very existence as President. Despite Republican control of both Houses of Congress and a reluctance of either leader (Ryan or McConnell) to perform their Constitutional role of being a check and balance to the President. The pressure to investigate Trump is picking up steam and the media is battering him with new reports of potentially criminal behavior on a daily basis.

The alternate title to this story is, “I Fought the Law and the Law Won!” Trump made enemies of the intelligence community and they’re kicking his ass. He attacked judges and they’re stopping his agenda. He and Jeff Sessions have reminded African-Americans what the hell they have to lose. Hispanics have learned they’re all being considered “bad hombres” as they see raids and checkpoints throughout their communities, affecting everyone brown without regard to legal status. Log Cabin Republicans have realized that Trump’s promises were no dif-

ferent than Republican leaders who came before. Women have risen up in numbers never before seen. Their march exceeded the size of the inauguration itself. In a way, Trump has become the great uniter he promised during the campaign because increasingly everyone is coming to hate him.

Trump’s response to being investigated has become increasingly, “Woe is me!” After a whole day of radio silence he tweeted, “This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!” At a commencement address at the Coast Guard academy. He said, “No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly.” He should be sure to bring that up to Lincoln or Kennedy the next time they play golf together with Frederick Douglass.

There’s probably something inherently wrong with enjoying the elongated suffering of the President of the United States. Watching him

lie and squirm as literally the whole world turns against him. Except apparently Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate who could actually remove him. Leaked conversations show some actually believe Trump is being paid by Putin and still they back him. One Republican possibly hoping Trump be removed is Mike Pence who’s started gathering money to fund Republican candidates which is literally trying to buy favor.

Who knows what’s next on the roller coaster of events that is the Trump Presidency. It’s rumored that Sean Spicer will be removed from his role of communicating for the White House on camera because he isn’t properly getting across the President’s message. I hate to tell him but the messenger is the least of his concerns. Spicer, Bannon and Huckabee-Sanders were overheard screaming at each other in the White House. Trump is turning on son-inlaw Jared Kushner. No doubt Flynn,

Manafort and others are cutting deals with the Feds as we speak to get lighter sentences for rolling on Trump.

This would all be fascinating and better than any movie, were Trump and his lackeys not implementing changes to policy including increasing sentencing for drug offenses (reigniting mass incarceration) making drastic cuts to social programs and robbing from the poor to give to the rich. Knowing it’s wrong of me to desire his slow and painful removal.

I say let’s do the damn thing right now. His pain will be from forever being known as America’s biggest loser. #YouAreFired William Spivey is a regular contributor to the Inner-City News where he writes about politics and popular culture. He also blogs at www.enigmainblack.com where he explores poetry, religion, politics and all manner of things socially relevant.

Twitter wspiv001 email spiveywilliamf@gmail.com

Type 2 Diabetes: The Disease You Can Actually ‘Reverse’

by Felicia Vance, BDO Staff Writer

Many hear the term “reverse diabetes” and either get confused, angry or happy. “The term ‘diabetes reversal’ is used when people can go off medication but still must engage in a lifestyle program in order to stay off,” says Ann Albright, PhD, RD. She’s the director of diabetes translation at the CDC. “It also signifies those who improved to the point where their blood sugar level was no longer in the diabetes range.”

There are many benefits to finding ways to reverse type 2 diabetes. A big one is its expense. According to the American Diabetes Association, the combined cost of medical care and lost productivity due to diabetes in the United States exceeded $174 billion in 2007.

People with diabetes pay 2.3 times as much for health care as non-diabetics, and $1 in every $10 spent for health care is attributable to diabetes.

Sadly, even though type 2 diabetes was once considered an adult

disease, so many children now receive this diagnosis. Unfortunately, it is now being known as an ‘African American disease’ since so many of us suffer from it.

But don’t lose hope!

The latest science reveals that fine-tuning many long-held health habits may lead to even better results of “reversing” the disease.

Here’s the top 4 tips to do it:

1. Eat fruits and vegetables.

They can reduce your diabetes risk and protect your heart. Make sure it’s a balance (70% veggies, 30% fruit) and don’t eat too many fruits that are high in sugar. In a new study, people who ate at least 12 types each week had a lower diabetes risk than those who ate a less diverse mix—regardless of overall quantity. Mix arugula

12

with your romaine, snack on fruit salad, pile new veggies onto your sandwich.

2. Lose weight—even just a little—for better blood sugar control. Don’t worry if it’s taking a while to slim down. In a 2012 review paper, Sheri Colberg-Ochs, PhD, noted that exercise alone improved the ability of previously sedentary, middle-aged adults

to metabolize sugars, regardless of whether they lost any weight.

Their total cholesterol dropped too.

3. Get enough hours of sleep. Research links too little shut-eye to increased diabetes risk. Make it a good night’s sleep—sleep quality may matter as much to your health as the number of hours of slumber you log. Research shows that poor sleep affects your body’s ability to properly metabolize sugar and disrupts the hormones that regulate your appetite, which can lead to weight gain and increase your diabetes risk.

4. Skip the rice. White rice may be a popular diet staple, but that doesn’t make it nutritious. A recent Harvard study found the greater a person’s white rice intake, the higher his or her risk for developing type 2 diabetes. Compared with its brown rice counterpart, white rice has lower levels of fiber, magnesium, and vitamins.

In addition, white rice is considered a high glycemic food, which means it’s digested quickly and can lead to blood sugar spikes.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

Black Boys Coping with the Trauma of Watching Black People Die

Mubarakah Ibrahim, Contributor, Huffington Post. Unapologetically Muslim American, Serial Entrepreneur, Health Advocate, Blogger at FitMuslimah.com In a house where there is no cable television we often find our news through trending topics on Facebook.

After we read post after post about the video release, my husband, 15-yearold son, 17-year-old daughter and I sat on the couch leaning towards my laptop and watched the video. And just like a scene from a “cops and robbers” movie, we watched the police officer drive up to the “bad guy” with a gun, jump out the car and shoot him. Except this was not a movie, and the “bad guy” was 12-year-old Tamir Rice, the gun was a fake gun and he, like thousands of boys for generations before him may have been playing a pretend version of “cops and robbers”. But his version didn’t end in him getting the bad guy before he was called in for dinner. Tamir Rice’s shooting affected us differently because of his age. The idea that there is no age in which black boys are safe to even play in a park was particularly a hard blow.

Immediately recognizing the impact watching this can have, I looked at my son’s body language and in retrospect it was almost like a dance of tragedy: his face dropped, followed by his head then his shoulders slumped and he walked away, almost swaying his body as his head shook left to right.

This has been a dance repeated over and and over again in my house, now theater. My African-American theater that stages the bodies of black men and boys. The backstage that hosts black women who worry daily for them.

And over and over we all participate in this dance as a procession of unarmed black men and boys are killed in America. One after another, carried across the stage view of our TVs and

16 year old Ihsan Abdussabur

computers.

Last week Jayson Negron, a young man my son’s age was killed in Bridgeport CT, just 40 minutes away from our city and the dance began again. The conviction or exoneration of the officer that shot him does not change the initial trauma of the news of the death. You can’t un-see the video of his body laying on the street handcuffed and bleeding with a white police officer standing over him. The recent circulation of a video of a young black girl being hung by white teens has begun a debate of its authenticity but the argument of it being real or fake is inconsequential to the trauma it causes when someone views it. You cannot un-see those images and once they are seen, your brain processes them in irreversible ways that causes mental and physiological damage.

I am acutely aware of the effect that visual images have on the minds and brains of black people in America. The brainwashing that occurs rarely seeing yourself reflected in the joy displayed in TV ads and in magazines. The siphon that drains hope, drop by drop, when seeing different shades of your melanin as criminals, vixens and perpetrators. We made a conscious decision four years ago get rid of cable TV for this reason. But the internet has all but undone the good that came from removing the constant stream of bad news on repeat. In some ways the internet has streamlined and visualized the worse of those images, with no filter - and it has been traumatic.

Recently my now 16-year-old son recognized this and wrote a Facebook post to express both his frustration and his need for self-care.

And it read in part…

of Hugo Chavez used the new resources to reduce poverty and extend health care and education.

When oil prices plummeted again, Venezuela descended back into misery.

The country is deeply polarized politically. The rapacious elite families that ran the country for decades never accepted the Chavez “Bolivarian Revolution,” and organized mass protests and attempted a coup. The impoverished rallied to Chavez, but his successor, Nicholas Maduro, has neither his political skills nor his good fortune on oil prices. In bitterly contested elections, the opposition captured the national assembly in 2016. Maduro has used the Supreme Court to

overturn the assembly’s legislation while postponing state elections.

Opposition demonstrations have grown larger and more violent.

But before the U.S. reaches for the hammer once more, it should think again. Venezuela is our neighbor. It has a highly literate and urbanized people. Bordering Colombia, it has some of the greatest biodiversity in the world. Its forests are a global treasure, threatened by deforestation. In its current miseries, it is an increasing source of the drug traffic from Colombia.

We should care about Venezuela’s agonies as a good neighbor. Given our history in the hemisphere, pro-

“...Facebook needs a better filter, I’m scrolling passed people getting shot on Facebook live, people committing suicide, and girl now a girl getting hanged by the KKK; and in the caption it says people “hope” authorities take notice.

People are (normalizing) suicide through memes 60 percent of the time, 39 percent of the time something is disturbing or crazy offensive, and 1 percent of the time something is actually funny. I know comedy goes in ways of how you see things and your perspective, and some people might get offended, but I’m sure people can agree school shooter, and suicide memes aren’t funny once you realize lives were lost and will be lost because of it. ...after seeing a girl get hanged by some white guy with the confederate flag behind him, and her struggling to survive while it’s recorded is f*cking enough. That video was beyond awful and it’s proof that everything over 398 years have (an effect) today. I don’t know why anyone is getting hanged in 2017, it could even be a white person and I would have the same reaction.

Maybe called an N word, maybe even put in the hospital for being black, but hanged...no. ...I just want to say to anyone who cares, think about what’s acceptable on social media cause now stuff is out of hand. I’m gonna delete this app for a few weeks or a few months or maybe forever. So if anyone messages me or tags me in anything I won’t see it.

Con’t on page 17

Venezuela needs helping hand, not a hammer blow

by Jesse Jackson

If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The United States has a big hammer: the military, plus the intelligence community’s covert intervention forces. So we are dropping bombs from drones in seven countries.

Donald Trump goes to Saudi Arabia peddling arms and urging military cooperation. When North Korea acts up, he dispatches an aircraft

carrier flotilla as a “show of force.”

When Syria’s government is accused of using chemical weapons, he unleashes a barrage of cruise missiles.

Now as Venezuela descends toward chaos, much of the hemisphere fears the United States will reach for its covert hammer to help get rid of a regime it doesn’t like.

The people in Venezuela are suffering horribly in the midst of a deepening recession. A recent study reported that nearly three-fourths of the people have lost weight amid a spreading food shortage. In 2016 inflation soared to 800 percent while the economy lost nearly 20 percent of its GDP. More than 40 percent of the population lives

in extreme poverty. Violent death is now a daily feature of a country with one of the highest homicide rates in the world. Shortages of food and medicine are growing, hospitals are increasingly dysfunctional, and prisons are scarred by riots and massacres. Violent mass protests and rising state repression threaten to spiral out of control.

The causes of this are many. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. Oil constitutes about 90 percent of Venezuela’s exports and is vital for a country that imports many necessities. When oil prices plummeted in the 1990s, Venezuelans suffered. When oil prices recovered in 2000, the popularly elected populist government

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Con’t on page 18

Rising Star The Making of Barack Obama

THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

by David J. Garrow Book Review by Kam Williams “Barack Obama’s speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention instantly catapulted him into the national spotlight and led to his election four years later as America’s first AfricanAmerican president. In this penetrating biography, David J. Garrow delivers an epic work about the life of Barack Obama, creating a rich tapestry of a life little understood, until now...

In Rising Star, Garrow has created a vivid portrait that reveals not only the people and forces that shaped the future president but also the ways in which he used those influences to serve his larger aspirations. This is a gripping read about a young man born into uncommon family circumstances, whose faith in his own talents came faceto-face with fantastic ambitions and a desire to do good in the world.”

-- Excerpted from the Bookjacket For some reason, presidential biographies by Pulitzer Prize-winners tend to be rather lengthy. Consider David McCullough’s on John Adams (752 pages) and Harry Truman (1120 pages), Doris Kearns Goodwin’s on Abe Lincoln (1,341 pages) and FDR (760 pages), and Robert Caro’s continuing series on LBJ (3,180 pages and counting).

Now, another Pulitzer Prizewinner, David J. Garrow, has published an epic opus of 1,472 pages on the life of Barack Obama, focusing on the years prior to the presidency. And it’s a safe bet that Garrow just might eventually write a sequel about about POTUS 44’s time in the

White House, too.

Any Obama fan is likely to find this in-depth portrait fascinating, as it is filled with plenty of little-known factoids and anecdotes about him. For example, it chronicles a childhood spent mostly on Hawaii where he was basically raised by his maternal grandparents in the absence of both his mother and father.

Garrow also documents “Barry’s” use of marijuana in high school and of cocaine in college, when he started preferring “Barack.” And the author reveals the identity of the woman Obama lived with for a couple of years during his stint in Chi-

cago as a grassroots organizer.

We also learn that Obama not only worked with a lot of Bible-thumping sisters during his initial stint in the Windy City, but that he was already planning to become president of the United States way back then.

And there’s the blow-by-blow of his strained relationship with Genevieve Cook, the rudderless white woman he dated during his tenure in New York City.

Everything you always wanted to know about Barack Obama but were afraid to ask, and then some!

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017 Con’t from page 10

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Leaner City Budget

underfunded.

With little wiggle room and only further uncertainty on the horizon, alders deliberated over a handful of amendments that didn’t ultimately impact the Harp administration’s new spending plan.

Alders Anna Festa of East Rock and Alphonse Paolillo Jr. of the Annex pushed to remove an additional $100,000 that the revised proposed city budget would give the Connecticut Open tennis tournament. The money would bump up the city’s contribution to that annual tournament to $200,000.

Festa and Paolillo argued that the money could be put to better used somewhere else in the budget.

“This is bad timing,” Festa, who put forth and amendment to remove the additional funding, said.

But Alders Jeanette Morrison of Dixwell and Tyisha Walker of West River argued that in addition to providing a boost to restaurants and hotels in the city, the tournament provides additional shortterm jobs during its two-week run and programming in the neighborhoods. Walker said she wants to see economic impact stats from the tournament before deciding to remove the money.

Festa’s amendment failed in a 5 to 4 vote. Hill Alder Dave Reyes abstained.

Alders agreed to the following policy amendments offered by Paolillo before voting the budget out of committee, which : • Sequester any funds above $1 million for both the fire and police department budgets so that both chiefs have to come back to the Finance Committee and explain why they need to spend more.

• Remove a proposed increase in what the city’s anti-blight agency, Livable City Initiative, can charge for the residential licensing and inspection of properties. Alders seek a separate public hearing on the need for the increase.

• Establish that when the chief of police is out of town, the assistant chief in charge of patrol is in charge of the department.

• Require that any request for an increase in executive management salaries — such as for mayoral aide Jason Bartlett — be brought back to the Board of Alders for approval.

Con’t from page 10

Harp

Launches

government can do good.” He said that’s something needed in a time when there are elected officials, particularly Republicans, “who in effect hate government” ... “and they are in effect looking to undermine the institutions they serve.”

“Toni Harp has been a voice against all that as someone who believes that government has a role in our society and it is one that can do some great good when it is well motivated and also well managed,” Looney said.

Democratic Town Chair Vinnie Mauro said the mayor “has done an amazing job.”

“She’s getting another two years after this,” he said. “It’s going to be a long campaign cycle a lot of door knocking, a lot of voter contact. That is what this city has done for years, and it does it better than anybody else, and this year we’re going to do it for the board and for this mayor.”

Eleventh graders Arianna Rivera of Co-Op High and Rigby Conyers of Hillhouse High praised the mayor’s commitment to the city’s youth.

Both had opportunities to participate in the Urban Debate League, train with Yale University’s debate team coach and participate in other programs that helped them pursue a passion.

“Thanks to Mayor Harp we finally found a space in our life where we could be inspired and feel safe and secure,” Conyers said. “Mayor Harp has done everything she could to ensure that the youth of New Haven were taken care of. Without her support, many of us would have been lost youth with nowhere to go.”

Rivera called her a feminist exemplar.

“I believe Mayor Harp should be re-elected because she is an inspiration,” she said. “I was never politically active until she ran and actually won. Not only is she the first female mayor, which alone is inspiring, but she is African-American, a race looked down upon for so long.

Women are constantly being told that they can do nothing that men can do. But the mayor has given us reason to believe otherwise.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

Atlanta 12-Year-Old Wins MasterChef Junior! Black Boys Con’t from page

by Aria Ellise, BDO Special Contributor

MasterChef Junior, the hugely popular youth cooking competition show, crowned a new champion Thursday night, and she’s a 12-year-old student at Atlanta.

Jasmine Stewart, a sixth-grader, took home the MasterChef trophy as well as a $100,000 grand prize.

“This is the biggest moment of my entire life. Who would ever think a little girl from Milton, Georgia would ever win “MasterChef Junior?” said an elated Jasmine, moments after winning the final round of the competition, which aired Thursday evening on Fox in a two-hour-long finale.

Jasmine, who is a sixth-grader at the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta went in with high hopes.

The show, now in it’s fifth season, is hosted by Gordon Ramsay, British star chef of “Hell’s Kitchen” and Christina Tosi, renowned pastry chef.

“Some of the highlights of the show was winning of course,” Jasmine told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an interview.

“But I did love it when I got an apron. I never thought I would even make it on the show, let alone be getting an apron and get to wear it.”

“Whether she’s baking flawless French macaroons or putting together stunning sushi, Jasmine’s culinary skill and sophisticated palate make her talented well beyond her years,” said Tosi.

After winning the first challenge — baking a flawless molten lava cake — Jasmine got to decide the choice of meat for contestants in the next challenge. Jasmine opted for a more challenging rack of… …lamb over beef and pork. She made a Mediterranean lamb dish with herb couscous, olive puree and pickled bell peppers. Ramsay called the lamb “breathtaking.”

Jasmine’s final task of the competition was to prepare a three-course meal. This time, re-

Coping

nowned chef Wolfgang Puck and Martha Stewart helped judge the dishes.

While Jasmine’s made a scallop and white fish appetizer and lobster tail entree received high marks, it was her dessert — the sticky rum cake with pineapple chips — that helped secure her victory. Tosi said she could open a pastry shop and just sell the sticky rum cake, it was that good.

But this win almost didn’t happen. When Jasmine first went out for the show, she made her way from ‘Top 40’ to ‘Top 20’ to ‘Top 12’ before being eliminated. But it was her second time around that applied everything she learned from the first go round.

She described the biggest lesson learned was “not second guessing myself and staying confident in what I was doing.”

That confidence shined through when she challenged herself and took a risk of cooking chicken oysters.

“I never thought I would have to cook those, but I went for it,” said Stewart, who told herself that while it was a challenge, she could do it.

According to Stewart, she also strived to improve what “mainly tripped me up during the challenges,” and that is time management. “[MasterChef Jr.] has been a great life experience and lesson.

I am focused on having to go for it and I use that moment to push yourself further.

“When I was filming the show you are in the moment, so things that you say are natural,” she said.

Stewart recalled wishing she could maybe change “things I said or faces that I made.”

“When Michelle Obama was one of the guest judges. I said… … ‘OMG RIP Me,’ which I wouldgo back and change, but [the show is] on the spot, so you just go with it.

Here’s a recipe for a winning rum cake like Jasmine’s:

chopped walnuts 1 (520 g) package yellow cake mix (You just use the cake mix as is, do not add other ingredients listed on cake box.)

1 (92 g) package vanilla instant pudding mix 4 eggs 1⁄2 cup cold water 1⁄2 cup cooking oil 1⁄2 cup dark rum or rum Glaze 1⁄2 cup butter 1⁄4 cup water 1 cup sugar 1⁄2 cup dark rum or rum Directions: Sprinkle nuts over bottom of greased 10 inch tube pan or 12 cup bundt pan.

Stir together cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, water, oil and rum.

Pour batter over nuts.

Bake at 325 in oven for 1 hour.

Cool 10 minutes in pan.

Invert onto serving plate and prick top.

Ingredients: cup chopped pecans or 1 cup

—-Glaze—Melt butter in saucepan.

17

Stir in water and sugar.

Boil 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat.

Stir in rum.

Brush glaze evenly over top and sides of cake.

Allow cake to absorb glaze.

Repeat until glaze is used up.

Justise Mayberry, 11, of Sugar Hill was also among the final four in the final cooking showdown of this culinary competition.

Justise, a sixth-grader at Lanier Middle School in Gwinnett County, also pointed to influences from her family.

“I was surrounded by it with my dad cooking all the time. Him being in the kitchen, that was the center of our house. That’s where we would hang out. I would always hang around him when he cooked, and it just kind of taught me to enjoy that and get used to it, and it’s something I enjoy now,” she told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

I just can’t help to see a girl holding her neck as she’s raised from a rope around her neck from every corner in my own house.

May everyone have peace, and happiness to the oppressed and to the oppressors, to the confused and the informed, and to the killed and even to the people who initiated the violence.

Much love, bye.”

Reading this as his mother gave me both immense sadness and comfort. I felt helpless knowing that there is little I can do to protect my child from his own melanin, how American society looks at my son walking down the street, how his employment application will be viewed, or his guilt will be determined. Despite our effort to give our children a two parent household, fill the shelves with hundreds of books, emphasize education, facilitate ethnically diverse social circles, provide an upper middle class socioeconomic environment, pray with them, sit down to family dinners and be present in their daily lives, we still cannot protect them from being black, and the guilt assumed because of their abundance of melanin.

But I am comforted by the fact, that I raised a thoughtful, introspective child who’s conscious enough to know that self-care is critical to his survival. And that a method of self-care is choosing his environment, including his internet environment. Trying to strike a balance between staying informed and staying sane is a struggle we have all had in the last few years, and my son showed me that self-care is not just possible but necessary. His decision to take a break from Facebook was a radical act of self-care.

My husband and I have four children between the ages of 16 and 23 and have made intentional effort to maintain an open line of communication about current issues with them. We talk openly and honestly about what’s happening, why, and allow them to express their concerns, fears and ways they are coping with it all. We try to always leave time in the conversation to discuss solutions both as a society and on a personal level.

As parents deeply concerned about the America we are creating for our future grandchildren, who will be black in America no matter who our children choose to marry, we impress on our young people that they should think about how they will impact the world and look for ways they can make the world a better place. But that starts with taking care of your own physical, mental and spiritual wellness. You can not give from an empty cup.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

Best-Selling Novel, “Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made,” Celebrates 20th Anniversary in Grand Style New York Times Best-Selling Authors, Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant, Will Lead All-Star Anniversary Performance in Chicago on June 3, 2017. —

New York, NY — In celebration of the 20th anniversary of the novel, Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made by New York Times bestselling authors, Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant, the Go On Girl!

Book Club (www.goongirl.org) will host an all-star performance of the beloved novel at their 25th Annual Author Awards Weekend at the Loews Chicago O’Hare Hotel on Saturday, June 3, 2017 at 8:00 p.m. The performance will feature award-winning actors, Regina Taylor, Nambi E. Kelly, and Craig Boyd, along with a panel discussion on the state of women and girls of color in Hollywood and media led by Dr. Margena A. Christian of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“It seems impossible that 20 years have passed since Pat, Gayle and Marcus began Tryin’ to Sleep in those beds,” shared author, Donna Grant. “In that time, we have received tens of thousands of letters and emails from all over the world where readers have shared the sometimes funny, often profoundly personal ways that the characters’ struggles, successes, heartbreaks, flame outs and ultimately their unceasing love for each other, have touched their lives.”

Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made was published in 1997 by St. Martin’s Press and was the largest selling work of African American hard cover fiction for that year. The novel spent 15 consecutive months on the ESSENCE Bestseller List, 8 months as #1 and maintains a 5-star rating on Amazon.com. Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made has received numerous awards including-Honor Award Fiction, Black Caucus of the American Library Association, 1997 Book of the Year-Fiction by the African American Booksellers Conference of the American Booksellers Association, and the Best New Author 1997 Go On Girl. The novel sold over 600,000 copies with worldwide sales of over $7 million and still sells to this day.

The 20th Anniversary Celebration of Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made will be an evening of beautiful and poignant dramatic performances that will bring to

Books by Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant

life the beloved novel and other titles by Deberry and Grant. The performance will be led by awardwinning actors of television, stage, and film and include – Regina Taylor (I’LL FLY AWAY, COURAGE UNDER FIRE, CHILDREN OF THE DUST, CLOCKERS), Nambi E. Kelly (TWO TRAINS RUNNING, SEVEN GUITARS, THE BEAST, CITY OF ANGELS), Craig Boyd (STANDUP TRAGEDY, CIDER HOUSE RULES, LET ME LIVE), and Savannah Rivers (DREAMGIRLS, HARD KNOCK LIFE, EMPIRE).

The celebration will also serve as a platform to promote conversation and thought surrounding the ongoing lack of substantial roles in Hollywood for women and girls of color. Led by media scholar and journalist, Dr. Margena A. Chris-

tian of the University of Illinois at Chicago, a panel discussion with the authors and other thought leaders, Geena Davis Institute for Gender in Media and Mayor Franklin Deese, will complement the evening. A reception and book signing will follow the performance. Proceeds from the performance will go to Go On Girl!

Book Club, The Geena Davis Institute for Gender in Media, and CURLS Girls Rule the World. The event is being sponsored by Boyd Entertainment Group, D3 Entertainment Group, and CURLS. “Now, we are truly amazed and humbled that a new generation of readers still find themselves and their friends reflected in the stories of life, family and friendship we tell in Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made, as well as in our other

18

books,” explained author, Virginia DeBerry.” “And, through more than 35 years of friendship, we are tickled to have shared this and so much more with each other.”

For more information and to purchase tickets for the 20th Anniversary Celebration of Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made, please visit www.goongirl.org/awardsweekend/join-us.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS: VIRGINIA DEBERRY & DONNA GRANT Virginia DeBerry was formerly the Vice-President of BB/LW, an agency for plus size and petite models as well as a spokeswoman for Hanes hosiery. She currently lives in New Jersey. Donna Grant, a Brooklyn native, currently lives in the borough with her husband.

Before becoming a novelist, she spent more than a decade as a plus-sized model. DeBerry and Grant have co-authored seven novels including – Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made (Merit Award/Fiction, Black Caucus of the American Library Association), Far From the Tree (New York Times Bestseller), Better Than I Know Myself (Open Book Award, Essence Bestseller, Best African American Fiction 2004 Borders and Waldenbooks) and Gotta Keep on Tryin’ — turning a 25-year friendship into the most successful and enduring writing collaboration in fiction.

Con’t from page 14

hammer

viding assistance to the country’s people is tricky. The U.S. is widely seen as an adversary of the government, eager to destabilize it. U.S. efforts to mobilize the Organization of American States to isolate Venezuela are seen as part of that effort.

Ralph Gonsalves, prime minister of St. Vincent and Grenadines, an island nation in the Southern Caribbean, recently wrote to the heads of the 14 Caribbean nations to warn of “insidious developments” by “a small group of powerful nations” to “achieve regime change in Venezuela by using the OAS as a weapon of destruction.” In the bitter struggle between the Venezuelan government and the opposition, the U.S. is viewed as siding with the opposition.

The U.S. should not employ the hammer of military or covert intervention but rather creative diplomacy and humanitarian assistance.

We should be building a multilateral effort to deliver food and medicine to Venezuelans in a time of need. We should join in urging the government to hold the postponed state elections and encourage leaders in the hemisphere to mediate some kind of a negotiated resolution between the parties.

Venezuela under Chavez was part of the “Latin America Spring,” a reaction to the failure of U.S.- and IMF-dictated economic policies that generated greater inequality and deepening poverty. Now that spring has faltered — partly from the Great Recession, the fall in the price of oil, incapacity and bitter political division. The U.S. made itself the adversary of the Latin America Spring from its earliest days. But we have no model to impose on the rest of the hemisphere, and we should not seek to tilt the scales in the political struggles within the countries.

These are our neighbors. We do have a stake in limiting the violence, in supporting democratic processes and in aiding the people in the midst of economic turmoil.

The long history of military and covert intervention into the hemisphere has increasingly isolated the U.S. from its neighbors. Now, in Venezuela, we can begin to find a better way by not intervening on one side or the other but by standing with our neighbors in a time of

THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

Con’t from page 2

Gets Behind

her neighbors have for what Cedar Hill could be.

“There’s a new development on State Street with a beautiful mural that says, ‘Welcome to New Haven,’” she said with a sly smile, referring to the artwork on the side of the Corsair apartment complex.

“And when I saw that, I thought, ‘That’s not where people enter New Haven. They just passed through Cedar Hill!’ So I want a mural in our neighborhood that says, ‘Welcome to New Haven. Cedar Hill.’”

After doing her own research online and speaking with some of the artists involved in the Under 91 Project on Humphrey Street, Ansley has put together a proposed budget that would direct a good chunk of the NPIP funds towards creating an expansive series of graffiti murals to line the concrete walls underneath the I-91 overpass on State Street near Exit 5.

“Art to me brings and instills a better community,” she said as she visualized the mural for her audience. She argued that money put towards buying paint, brushes, primer, and an artist’s time would add up to so much more than the sum of its constituent parts. If she could get community input on the design and painting of the mural, and if she could get a mural that celebrates New Haven in general and Cedar Hill in particular, then kids in her neighborhood would feel a stake in the community, and would work that much harder to keep it clean, safe, and their own.

The overpass graffiti mural is the centerpiece of an ambitious 29-point wish list that includes 16 new street signs, bus vouchers for volunteer park cleaners, speed-cautioning posters and sandwich boards for every block, new plant barrels, and a neighborhood birdhouse library.

Recognizing that the $10,000 of NPIP would likely not cover everything on her wish list, she told the team that she is committed to setting up a GoFundMe page with a fundraising goal of $50,000 to cover the rest.

With rounds of applause and a decisive vote in her favor, the community management team encouraged her to keep dreaming big, and to start putting those big dreams into action.

House Votes to Limit Powers of First Black Librarian of Congress

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Contributor

In a vote of 378 to 48, the House passed legislation to take power away from the current Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden.

The legislation, H.R. 1695, was authored by House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and ranking member John Conyers (D-Mich.), would limit the powers of the librarian. It is expected to pass the Senate and be signed into law by President Trump.

The bill makes the head of the Copyright Office, the Register of Copyrights, a presidential appointment that would have to be confirmed by the Senate, rather than an appointment by the Librarian of Congress, as it has been since 1870.

The bill also limits the position of Register of Copyrights to a ten-year term.

The bill text reads, “This bill amends federal copyright law to require the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint a Register of Copyrights from a list of at least three individuals…” and, “The bill limits the term of office for the Register of Copyrights to 10 years, but the individual may be reappointed subject to the same requirements established in this bill.

The President may remove the Register of Copyrights from office and must notify both chambers of Congress of any such removal.”

According to the Library Journal, as President Obama considered his choice to fill the Librarian of Congress position in 2015, the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate passed a bill to limit the term of that position to ten years. “After [the bill] was approved in the House of Representatives,” President Obama signed it into law on November 5, 2015.

The previous Librarian of Congress, James Billington, served in the position for 28 years.

President Barack Obama appointed Hayden the 14th Librarian of Congress on February 24, 2016. She is the first African American to hold the position, as well as the first woman to be the Librarian of Congress, in the agency’s history. On March 23, legislation was introduced to block Hayden from appointing the next Register of Copyrights. That legislation passed the House on April 26.

Supporters of the bill argued that the legislation would help to modernize the Copyright Office and make it more accountable to Con-

gress. Attempts to contact the office of Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) for details on why he authored H.R. 1695, were not answered.

“This bill serves no purpose other than to take power away from the Librarian of Congress and give it to powerful lobbyists, who will have a major say in who runs the Copyright Office,” wrote Michael Masnick on TechDirt.com on April 26. “It’s a bad bill, and it’s a gift to Hollywood.”

The entertainment industry pushed hard for the passage of H.R. 1695.

It’s likely that the selection of the Librarian of Congress will be the focus of attention of the power of the entertainment lobby moving forward now that senators will play a role in confirmation.

The bill to limit Hayden’s power arrives six months after she removed Maria Pallante from the position of Register of Copyrights in October 2016. Many in the entertainment industry were said to be unhappy with Pallante’s removal.

“The Library of Congress, through the Registrar of Copyrights, plays a referee or umpire role in this complex new game; librarians, because they curate and compile content, have traditionally been protectors of copyright and works of authors and artists and balanced public and cultural interests in the free flow and use of that content,” Christopher Chambers, a professor of media studies at Georgetown University told NBC BLK. “Big money is at stake and the industry wants someone, who will see its side, rather

19

than the public interest in what the Constitution says is the ‘promotion of useful Arts.’”

Chambers continued: “It is no secret that the industry lobbies and donates hard, regarding Democrats and Republicans alike. And many of them are African American lawmakers, like Rep. Conyers. This basically surrenders congressional power over intellectual property right there in the Constitution, to the Executive Branch, hence President Trump.”

Chambers said that means that President Donald Trump would, in essence, run the Copyright Office.

There were only 13 Congressional Black Caucus members out of 46 voting in the House, who voted to maintain the powers of the Librarian of Congress.

Those members were: Reps. Alma Adams (D-N.C.), Joyce Beatty (DOhio), Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.), G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), Don McEachin (D-Va.), Don Payne (D-N.J.), Cedric Richmond (D-La.), Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), Bobby Scott (D-Va.), Bennie Thompson (DMiss.) and Bonnie Watson-Coleman (D-N.J.). All the other voting CBC members favored modifying the position to take power away from the Librarian of Congress.

All the other voting CBC members favored modifying the position to take power away, including Conyers and Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Anthony Brown (D-Md.) who hail from Hayden’s home state of Maryland. According to the United

States Census Bureau, Blacks account for more than 30 percent of Maryland’s population.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) voted against taking power away from the position Carla Hayden now holds.

In a statement after the legislation passed yesterday, House Judiciary Committee Bob Goodlatte wrote, “the Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act is one product of the House Judiciary Committee’s multi-year comprehensive review of our copyright laws.”

The statement continued: “While this legislation represents an important first step in the Committee’s efforts to update our nation’s copyright laws, we remain committed to working with all members and stakeholders to take additional steps to ensure the U.S Copyright Office is modernized so that it functions efficiently and effectively for all Americans.”

From 1993 to 2016, Hayden was CEO of Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Md. Hayden was also President of the American Library Association from 2003 to 2004.

Lauren Victoria Burke is a speaker, writer and political analyst. She appears on “NewsOne Now” with Roland Martin every Monday. Lauren is also a frequent contributor to the NNPA Newswire and BlackPressUSA.com. Connect with Lauren by email at LBurke007@gmail.com and on Twitter at @LVBurke.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated. – FA

THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

Ruben Studdard Digs Deep for Soulful Sam Cooke Classic

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Contributor

If anyone’s been asking whatever happened to Ruben Studdard, they probably haven’t been paying too much attention.

In the 13 years since he brightened the world of pop music with his American Idol-winning romantic balladry, Studdard has warmed the hearts of his huge fan base with five albums and has toured with the various artists like Peabo Bryson, Melissa Manchester, CeCe Winans and David Foster.

And he’s done a whole lot more, including the just completed and powerful new version of Sam Cooke’s classic, “A Change is Gonna Come.”

Studdard, 38, said that he initially wanted to sing the song for a civil rights event in Birmingham, Ala. “It was a big event and Dr. Henry Panion III was producing and conducting the orchestra and it turned into a PBS special during Black History Month,” Studdard said.

Studdard added that Panion, his mentor, asked if he’d sing and the former Idol champ didn’t hesitate.

“I’ve always been a fan of that song and the importance of the material inclined me to do it,” said Studdard.

Panion has been lauded for his work with a who’s who in music, including Stevie Wonder, Kirk Franklin, Chaka Khan, the Winans, Aretha Franklin, Tramaine Hawkins, and American Idol Winners Carrie Un-

whatever happened to

Ruben Studdard,

derwood and Studdard.

“Ruben really does shine and I think it’s a great joy working with him,” said Panion, whose works are programmed throughout the United States by many of the country’s major orchestras, including the Atlanta Symphony, Cincinnati Pops, Cleveland Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Houston Symphony, and the National Symphony.

Panion continued: “He really does love music. I work in classical and in

jazz and pop, so many when they become popular it has little to do with their musicianship, but how many times can you turn on a national show and you wonder, where in the world did they find this person?”

Studdard has always been a student of music and there’s talk of him doing a Christmas Album of Luther Vandross songs, Panion added.

Studdard also continues to work on producing a children’s show called, “Uncle Ruben’s House,” that he hopes will debut in the fall.

“It’s a labor of love just having to

learn the techniques and how to communicate with kids from two to eight; it’s really phenomenal,” Studdard said. “My mom is an educator, she was like a child whisperer and that market has been silent for years.

So, we’ll make songs specifically to teach children manners, math, and science and the guy I’m working with is really big on STEM education and trying to incorporate that into our music to help children in different ways.”

Another album also should debut soon, Studdard said.

For now, however, he’s pushing the release of “A Change is Gonna Come,” which came on the heels of former President Barack Obama’s final days in office, when he designated Birmingham Civil Rights District as a national monument.

“Sam Cooke’s original became an anthem to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s,” Panion said. “We believe that Ruben’s new version is right on time. Everybody could use a little soul and inspiration.”

The single is currently available on iTunes and GooglePlay.

Layoffs Latest Blow to Storied Part of Black Culture Ebony Magazine,by Vance Brinkley Special to the AFRO

At one point during its 71-year run, Ebony was one of the most recognized publications known for covering news and culture for African Americans.

From its annual 100 Influential Blacks of America, to legendary covers of elite Black artists such as Mary J. Blidge, Denzel Washington and –recently– Russell Westbrook the magazine created a legacy that many publications haven’t been able to match.

It made a normal visit to a magazine rack special as an African American, because each issue featured a successful public figure known within the Black community. Although Ebony captures your eye with its cover, the magazine had the talent to back it up with pieces from several cultural shifting writers in the industry including Danyel Smith and Jamilah Lemieux, opening up a dialogue for conversations within entertainment

and culture from a Black perspective that may have not been covered or even brought up from a different publication.

Although this magazine has had such an impressive history in entertainment and culture, these last few years may have been the roughest for Ebony. On May 5, The Chicago Tribune reported that Ebony will be laying off almost a third

of its staff based in Chicago and moving to Los Angeles. The announcement follows a trail of missteps taken ever since Texas-based firm Clear Vision Group bought Ebony and Jet magazines from Johnson Publishing in June 2016. These include making Jet an online only publication and news of freelance writers not being compensated for their work.

20

As ugly as the fallout at Ebony has been for both former staff and freelance writers, long-time readers were stunned by the news, especially on Twitter. The news released a few days after #EbonyOwes was trending on Twitter; a thread made by several writers who have contributed to Ebony following a story in The Root about missed payments.

Freelance writer AJ Springer was one of the writers who said he was not paid

by Ebony for work done in 2016. After continuously fighting to get paid for his contributions, the layoffs seem like a yet another obstacle for him and fellow writers. “[I felt] hopeless. Lol. Like it’s slim to none chance of getting paid,” Springer told the AFRO via email. “I grew up reading Ebony so it was an honor to write for them. In Trump’s America, it should be more important than ever.”

Though #EbonyOwes made Ebony’s mistakes viral, it wasn’t the only problem the publication faces. According to

recent reports, the publication has suffered from a difficult transition into the digital age. According to the Pew Research Center, Ebony’s numbers have declined over the past three years from its original 1.2 million circulation.

However, the move to LA may soon turn Ebony into more of a digital entity than a publication. It was also announced last week that California agency William Morris Endeavor have signed up Jet and Ebony with a goal of helping the publication expand its digital outlook. Only time can tell if the agreement between WME and Clear Vision Group will help the publication stay afloat or drown in its regrets.

With so many changes happening to Ebony, some readers are skeptical about the future of the publication. “They might be on the verge of closing,” said Springer. “I hope they can get it together. The culture needs them. Print is still important and they’re an institution with a legacy.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

21

THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

Sixteen States and the District of Columbia Turn in ESSA Plans

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA/ESSA Contributor

Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have submitted plans for implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) for the spring peer review window, the U.S. Department of Education said this month.

While other states continue to work on submitting their plans, officials in Georgia said they’re prepared to complete the process early next month and are excited about the goals outlined under ESSA, which was one of former President Barack Obama’s top priorities.

“ESSA allows us to be flexible with how we spend funds,” said Georgia State Schools Superintendent Richard Woods. “This will help school systems draw down on the money that they’ve been given and it allows a more personalized approach to education.”

Woods has organized several committees in his district to ensure the success of ESSA, including an accountability committee that will look at Georgia’s platform, the College and Career Ready Performance Index, and help make refinements to the model by taking what he called a responsible approach to accountability and finding a way to represent school performance in a

public-friendly manner.

“First and foremost, the difference between ESSA and the previous No Child Left Behind law, is really a reflection of the federal government providing states with the flexibility to address things at the local level,” Woods said.

“Our proper role is to help school systems at the local levels and focus on the children. The result should be less cumbersome and burdensome for districts and schools, while still providing an accurate assessment of student achievement and school quality.”

The District of Columbia, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware and Illinois were among those who turned in their plans early to the federal government.

Later, Nevada, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, North Dakota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Tennessee and Oregon submitted their proposals by the spring deadline, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said that the announcement about the ESSA state plans that were submitted for the spring deadline and the fact that they were ready for peer review was “a big win for ESSA implementation.”

The Education Department worked with states to ensure their plans included all statutorily re-

quired components laid out in the Department’s template, DeVos said.

“I commend officials from these states for their efforts to ensure their plans were ready for the peer-review process, and for their continued work to improve education for all students,” she said.

Experts and stakeholders will now examine the submitted plans to ensure they comply with the standards established in ESSA. Of the states that have turned in plans, Nevada is believed to have one of the more progressive programs.

The Silver State lists at the top of its goals the development and support of “great school leaders,”

Saint Aedan School

using data to inform decisions impacting Nevada schools. The district’s ESSA plan aims to take advantage of the return of authority and flexibility to set policies they believe make sense.

“It’s in their hands now,” Nevada Superintendent of Public Instruction Steve Canavero said of turning into the government the state’s ESSA plans.

“We believe that a focal point to our plan is really the important goal of equity and insuring that all students deserve an opportunity. This only enhances our commitment,” Canavero said. “I propose using ESSA as a catalyst for improvement and an opportunity to rally the state behind the

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singular goal of becoming the fastest improving state in the nation.”

To achieve that goal, Nevada’s plan proposes to continue its “Zoom” program for English learners that leads to improved student achievement and the expansion of advanced coursework such as Advanced Placement which has led to the state being the fastest improving in the nation for scores of three or higher.

Nevada’s Zoom program counts as an on-line elementary school classroom with lessons in geography, biology, language arts, and early childhood activities; the program is the result of extensive research by state officials into intensive efforts to help ELL students.

Gov. Brian Sandoval identified English Language Learner (ELL) programs as one of his top priorities and included money for those programs in his budget.

The governor’s 2017 legislative agenda calls for expanding existing Zoom funding by $42 million.

“Now that we’ve seen data and the plan is there, now it’s our obligation,” Canavero said. “The governor has instituted help resources and, in our state, we have urban poverty and rural White poverty that is within the urban core. Now, we have additional dollars to help provide the needed resources for success.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

SBE/MBE CONTRACTOR OPPORTUNITY - NORWALK Construction Resources, Inc., an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer, seeks certified MBE/WBE/SBE Subcontractors and/or suppliers and local business enterprises to bid applicable sections of work/equipment/supplies for the following construction project: New construction of new 2-story classroom building for the Side By Side Charter School (11,691 sf) at 10 Chestnut Street, Norwalk, CT. Bids Due: Tuesday, June 6, 2017 by noon. Walk-Thru: Monday, May 22, 2017 at 10:00 a.m. SBE/MBE participation is strongly encouraged. Set-Aside goal of 25/10%. DAS Prequalification required for bids over $500,000. SBE/MBE are required to have current certification by the State of CT DAS. Electronic Plans and specifications can be obtained at no charge by contacting John Reilly at (203) 692-5803 or (860) 678-0663 or by email to johnpreilly@corebuilds.com.

Secretary I: The Town of East Haven is currently conducting an examination for the position of Secretary I, Grade Level 9. Qualified candidates must possess a High School Diploma or GED and two (2) years of experience with secretarial and office operations or any equivalent combination of experience and training. The current opening is in the Board of Education. The hourly rate for this position is $17.23 per hour.

Account Clerk:

The Town of East Haven is currently accepting applications to participate in the examination for Account Clerk II, Grade Level 11. Starting salary is $42,466/year (7/1/17). Candidate must possess a High School Diploma or equivalent and a minimum of 2 years’ experience in a responsible position requiring accurate arithmetic computations. Prior experience working with payroll preferred.

The application for both positions is available at http://www.townofeasthavenct.org/ civil-service-commission/pages/job-notices-and-tests or The Civil Service Office, 250 Main Street, East Haven CT and the deadline to apply is June 13, 2017. The Town of East Haven is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Minorities, Females, Veterans and Handicapped are encouraged to apply.

OFFICE ACCOUNTING HEAVY AND HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION COMPANY Immediate opening for organized, self motivated, multitask person.

Skills & Duties required: Microsoft Word, EXCEL a must/ Timberline Software a plus Classify-Scan documents to Timberline files Manage Subcontractor Service Agreements, Certificates of Insurance & W-9 requests Assist with: Certified Payroll reports & Lien Wavers Bond Filings on delinquent AR accounts Municipal Bids Contract documents Monthly, quarterly federal/ various state tax reporting Other duties as required Equal Opportunity Employer Minority and female candidates encouraged to apply

2BR Bristol, CT $950-$990 Zbikowski Park Neighborhood now taking applications for newly rehabbed 2BR apartment.

Available immediately. Income restrictions apply. Equal Housing Opportunity. Contact Beatrice Nieves at (860) 585-2042 or at bnieves@bristolhousing.org

Apply at Garrity Asphalt Reclaiming 22 Peters Rd Bloomfield, CT 06002 Phone: 860-243-2300 Fax: 860-243-3100 Send resumes & salary requirements to : Email: garrity.careers@garrityasphalt.com

Assistant Building Official – Town of Manchester $62,434.71 - $75,071.06 CLOSING DATE: Friday, May 26, 2017 Call HR Recruitment Line at (860) 647-3170 for info or view website: www.townofmanchester.org.

Construction oriented company seeking full-time Accounting/Administrative Assistant to answer phones, schedule sales appts, filing, typing & other general office duties. Will also have accounting responsibilities-data entry, sales order billing, and processing A/P transactions, supporting our overthe-counter sales person, the controller & CFO. Min 5 yrs. Related experience, excellent written & verbal skills, ability to multitask, knowledge of basic accounting principles, excellent computer skills (5+ yrs. Experience) with Excel & Word, accounting software knowledge a plus. $31,200 annual salary-negotiable based on experience & qualifications. AA/EOE Email resume to mmunzner@atlasoutdoor.com

Custodian Maintenance workers needed for the Wallingford Public Schools to work the 2:00 P.M. to 10 P.M. shift. Hourly rate: $18.44 to $22.80 hourly plus shift differential. Requires some experience in building maintenance work. The closing date for applications is May 24, 2017 or the date we receive the fiftieth (50) application whichever occurs first. Apply: Personnel Department, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492, (203) 294-2080. EOE.

VNA Community Healthcare is searching for Certified Home Health Aides (HHA). Must have 6 months – one year of experience as a HHA. Several opportunities for full and part-time flexible schedules. Submit resume and cover letter to jobs@ vna-commh.org. Visit our website www.connecticuthomecare.org for other opportunities. EOE/M/F

Welder-Exp F/T welder for structural steel misc metals shop Send resume : gwf@snet.net

KMK Insulation Inc.

1907 Hartford Turnpike North Haven, CT 06473

Mechanical Insulator

Insulation Company offering good pay and benefits.

Please forward resume via REGULAR MAIL only.

This company is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer

Class A CDL Driver

with 3 years min. exp. HAZMAT Endorsed. (Tractor/Triaxle/Roll-off) Some overnights may be required. FAX resumes to RED Technologies, at 860.342-1042; Email: HR@redtechllc.com Mail or in person: 173 Pickering Street, Portland, CT 06480.

RED Technologies, LLC is An EOE.

24

THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

***HELP WANTED***

DEEP RIVER HOUSING AUTHORITY OPENING WAITING LIST FOR SENIOR/DISABLED

Total Fence LLC currently has an opening for a fence/guardrail installer. We offer competitive wages, medical, and a Simple IRA plan. Must have 5 years minimum fence/guardrail installation experience and a valid CT Driver’s License.

Applicant must be fluent in English.

Please apply in person to:

TOTAL FENCE LLC 525 ELLA GRASSO BOULEVARD NEW HAVEN, CT 06519

The Deep River Housing Authority will open it’s waiting list for Senior/Disabled Housing on June 1st, 2017.

This list will remain open until July 31st, 2017. To request an application, please call 860-526-5119. Applications will be accepted by mail (must be postmarked by 7/31/17) Housing is available to anyone over 62 or handicapped/disabled that meet the income guidelines. Monthly rates are based on income with a minimum base rent requirement of $697.

***No phone calls*** Total Fence LLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer

Deep River Housing 60 Main Street Deep River, CT 06417

***HELP WANTED***

J & S General Contractors LLC currently has an opening for a fence/ guardrail installer. We offer competitive wages, medical, and a Simple IRA plan. Must have 5 years minimum fence/guardrail installation experience and a valid CT Driver’s License. Applicant must be fluent in English.

Please apply in person to: J & S GENERAL CONTRACTORS LLC 525 ELLA GRASSO BOULEVARD NEW HAVEN, CT 06519

The Housing Authority of the City of Norwalk, CT is requesting proposals from experienced firms for Internet, Internet Voice Bundle and Hosted Voice service or equivalent. Request for Proposal (RFP) documents can be viewed and printed at www.norwalkha.org under the business tab, RFPs/RFQs. Norwalk Housing Authority is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Curtis O. Law, Executive Director

***No phone calls*** J & S General Contractors LLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer

LEGAL NOTICE The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven (ECC/HANH) is proposing to amend its Low Income Public Housing Admission and Continued Occupancy Policy (ACOP) and Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Administrative Plan.

The proposed revisions to the ACOP and the Administrative Plan are available as of June 6, 2017 online at www.elmcitycommunities.com or at ECC/HANH’s main office at 360 Orange Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06511. You are invited to provide written comments addressed to ECC/HANH, Attn: Maza Rey, P.O. Box 1912, New Haven, CT 06509-1912. ECC/HANH will hold a public hearing to review comments and recommendations. The hearing will be held on Monday, June 5, 2017 at 4:00 p.m. in the Board of Commissioners Conference room at the Housing Authority of the City of New Haven, 360 Orange Street, New Haven, CT 06511. Any individual requiring a reasonable accommodation to participate in the hearing may call the Reasonable Accommodation Coordinator at (203) 498-8800 ext. 1507 or at the TDD Number, (203) 497-8434.

AVISO LEGAL La Autoridad de Vivienda de la Ciudad de New Haven propone hacer cambios al plan de Admisión del programa de Sección Ocho y a la Póliza de Continuo de Ocupación (ACOP) del programa de Vivienda Pública y al Plan de Administración del Programa de Sección 8.

Las revisiones propuestas están disponibles el 6 de junio en línea en www.elmcitycommunities.com o en la oficina principal de ECC/ HANH en el 360 Orange Street, New Haven, Connecticut, 06511. Los invitamos a que proporcionen comentarios escritos a ECC/HANH a la atención de: Maza Rey, P.O. Box 1912, New Haven, CT, 06509-1912. ECC/ HANH tendrá una audición pública para revisar comentarios y recomendaciones. La audición se llevara a cabo el Lunes, 5 de junio del 2017 a las 4:00 p.m. en la sala de reuniones de los Miembros de la Comisión localizada en el edificio de la Autoridad de Vivienda de la ciudatrd de New Haven, 360 Orange Street, New Haven, Connecticut, 06511. Cualquier individuo que requiere una Acomodación Razonable para tomar parte en la audición puede llamar a la Coordinadora de Acomodación Razonable al (203) 498-8800 ext. 1507 o al número de TDD (203) 497-8434.

25

THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport Invitation for Bid (IFB) Trumbull Gardens 18 Vacant Unit Renovation Solicitation Number: 076-PD-17-S

The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport d/b/a Park City Communities (PCC) is requesting sealed bids for the 18 Vacant Unit Renovation at Trumbull Gardens. A complete set of the plans and technical specifications will be available on May 22, 2017. To obtain a copy of the solicitation you must send your request to bids@parkcitycommunities.org, please reference solicitation number and title on the subject line. A MANDATORY pre-bid conference will be held at 150 Highland Ave, Bridgeport, CT 06604 on June 6, 2017 @ 10:00 a.m. Although attendance is not mandatory, submitting a bid for the project without attending conference is not in the best interest of the Offeror. Additional questions should be emailed only to bids@parkcitycommunities.org no later than June 13, 2017 @ 2:00 p.m. Answers to all the questions will be posted on PCC’s Website: www.parkcitycommunities.org. All bids must be received by mailed or hand delivered by June 20, 2017 @ 2:00 PM, to Ms. Caroline Sanchez, Contract Specialist, 150 Highland Ave, Bridgeport, CT 06604, at which time and place all bids will be publicly opened and read aloud. No bids will be accepted after the designated time.

The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport Request for Proposal (RFP) General Counsel Solicitation Number: 083-EO-17-S

The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport (HACB) d/b/a Park City Communities (PCC) seeks proposals from attorneys/law firms for the provision of a full cadre of legal services. Respondent(s) must have graduated from an accredited law school and be a member of the Connecticut Bar. A complete set of RFP documents will be available on May 22, 2017. To obtain a copy of the solicitation you must send your request to bids@parkcitycommunities.org, please reference solicitation number and title on the subject line. A Pre-Proposal Conference will be held at PCC’s Administrative Offices at 150 Highland Ave, Bridgeport, CT 06604 on June 1, 2017 at 10 a.m.

All interested parties are strongly encouraged to attend the conference. Although not mandatory, all applicants are encouraged to attend to better understand the PCC’s requirements under this RFP. Additional questions should be emailed only to bids@ parkcitycommunities.org no later than June 9, 2017 @ 3:00 p.m. Answers to all the questions will be posted on PCC’s Website: www.parkcitycommunities.org. Proposals shall be mailed or hand delivered by June 16, 2017 at 3:00 p.m. to Ms. Caroline Sanchez, Contract Specialist, 150 Highland Ave, Bridgeport, CT 06604. Late proposals will not be accepted.

The Housing Authority of the City of Norwalk, CT is requesting qualifications from

experienced firms for Internet, Internet Voice Bundle and Hosted Voice service. RFQ documents can be viewed and printed at www.norwalkha.org under the business tab, RFPs/ RFQs. Norwalk Housing Authority is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Curtis O. Law, Executive Director The GUILFORD HOUSING AUTHORITY

is currently accepting applications for COUPLES ONLY for its one bedroom apartments At Guilford Court and Boston Terrace in Guilford CT. Applicants must be age 62 and over or on 100% social security or Federal Disability and over the age of 18. Applications may be obtained by calling the application line at 203-453-6262, ext. 107. An information packet will also be provided with the application. Applications will be accepted until June 30th , 2017. Credit, Police and Landlord checks are procured by the authority. Smoke Free Housing.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY HOUSING

VNA Community Healthcare is searching for Certified Home Health Aides (HHA). Must have 6 months – one year of experience as a HHA. Several opportunities for full and parttime flexible schedules. Submit resume and cover letter to jobs@vna-commh.org. Visit our website www.connecticuthomecare.org for other opportunities. EOE/M/F

ELM CITY COMMUNITIES Invitation for Bids

McConaughy Terrace Furnace and Hot Water Heaters Replacement The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven d/b/a Elm City Communities is currently seeking Bids for McConaughy Terrace Furnace and Hot Water Heaters Replacement. A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from Elm City’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/ gateway beginning on Monday, May 8, 2017 at 3:00PM.

Watershed Caretaker

Request for Proposals (RFP) Group Health Insurance Benefit Solicitation Number: 084-HR-17-S

Patrols & performs general care & upkeep of the Town’s potable (drinking) water reservoirs, watershed lands and properties. Responds to emergency calls & performs scheduled overtime patrol work. Hourly rate: $23.69 - $28.68. Some knowledge of State of CT public health regulations relating to dams, water supply and watershed maintenance and the ability to operate simplified mechanical equipment is required. Must possess & maintain a valid State of CT Motor Vehicle License. H.S. diploma or GED plus 2 yrs. experience in related fields such as landscaping, grounds maintenance etc. The closing date for applications is June 2, 2017 or the date we receive the 50th application whichever occurs first. Apply: Personnel Department, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492, (203) 294-2080. EOE.

The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport (HACB) d/b/a Park City Communities (PCC) seeks proposals from qualified Health Insurance Agencies. A complete set of RFP documents will be available on May 22, 2017. To obtain a copy of the solicitation you must send your request to bids@parkcitycommunities.org, please reference solicitation number and title on the subject line. A Pre-Proposal Conference will be held at PCC’s Administrative Offices at 150 Highland Ave, Bridgeport, CT 06604 on June 7, 2017 at 10 a.m. All interested parties are strongly encouraged to attend the conference. Although not mandatory, all applicants are encouraged to attend to better understand the PCC’s requirements under this RFP. Additional questions should be emailed only to bids@parkcitycommunities.org no later than June 9, 2017 @ 3:00 p.m. Answers to all the questions will be posted on PCC’s Website: www. parkcitycommunities.org. Proposals shall be mailed or hand delivered by June 16, 2017 at 3:00 p.m. to Ms. Caroline Sanchez, Contract Specialist, 150 Highland Ave, Bridgeport, CT 06604. Late proposals will not be accepted.

is seeking qualifications from photographers, videographers, journalists and graphic production professionals to create documentary materials related to a major urban redevelopment project. The Washington Village / South Norwalk Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (CNI) is a $150 million-dollar housing and neighborhood revitalization strategy being implemented with federal, state, municipal and private investments. The transformative nature of this collaboration provides a unique and extraordinary opportunity to tell a story and share the lessons learned over a 4 to 5-year period. It is also an opportunity to engage local residents including children in documenting this transformation. This Request for Qualifications is directed to firms, collaborations, partnerships or individuals with the pre-requisite skills to produce professional quality video productions, photo journals, graphic illustrations and journalistic copy to document this historical transformation. A complete copy of the Request for Qualifications can be viewed and printed at www.norwalkha.org under the Business tab, RFPs/RFQs or the project website: www.norwalkcni.org Norwalk Housing Authority is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Curtis O. Law, Executive Director

The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport

Mechanical Insulator Insulation Company offering good pay and benefits.

Please forward resume to P.O. Box 475, North Haven, CT 06473 This company is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer

The City of Norwalk Housing Authority

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT - Portland Administrative Assistant for reception, phones, filing, and corporate staff support. Working knowledge of Haz. Waste Regs., Manifests, AP & billing. OSHA certification a +. Forward resumes to RED Technologies, LLC Fax 860-218-2433; or Email to HR@redtechllc.com RED Technologies, LLC is an EOE.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

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GatewayCT.edu • (203) 285-2010 • 20 Church Street, New Haven, CT 27

THE INNER-CITY NEWS May 24, 2017 - May 30, 2017

Always have the home field advantage There’s more to stream to any screen with XFINITY X1. Enjoy live TV, sports, thousands of XFINITY On Demand TV shows and movies, even your personal DVR library — all on the go with the XFINITY Stream app. Plus, XFINITY Internet delivers fast in-home WiFi with the most coverage for your home and access to millions of hotspots nationwide. No matter the score, you’re always up with X1.

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Offer ends 6/21/17, and is limited to new residential customers. Restrictions apply. Not available in all areas. Requires subscription to Starter XF Triple Play with Digital Starter TV, Performance Pro Internet and XFINITY Voice Unlimited services.

Early termination fee applies if all XFINITY services are cancelled during the agreement term. Equipment, installation, taxes and fees, including regulatory recovery fees, Broadcast TV Fee (up to $7.00/mo.), Regional Sports Network Fee (up to $5.00/mo.) and other applicable charges extra and subject to change during and after the promo. After promo, or if any service is cancelled or downgraded, regular charges apply (subject to change). Service limited to a single outlet.

May not be combined with other offers. TV: Limited Basic service subscription required to receive other levels of service. On Demand selections subject to charge indicated at time of purchase. Internet: Actual speeds vary and are not guaranteed. Requires XFINITY service. WiFi claim based on March 2016 study by Allion Test Labs, Inc. of router performance period. Money-back guarantee applies to one month’s recurring service charge and standard installation charges up to $500. Voice: $29.95 activation fee applies. If there is a power outage or network issue, calling, including calls to 911, may be unavailable. Visa® prepaid card offer requires minimum term agreement. Cards issued by Citibank, N.A. pursuant to a license from Visa® U.S.A. Inc. and managed by Citi Prepaid Services. Cards will not have cash access and can be used everywhere Visa® debit cards are accepted. Money-back guarantee applies to one month’s recurring service charge and standard installation charges up to $500. © 2017 Comcast.

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