INNER-CITY NEWS

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 - August 28, 2018

At Amistad, College Prep Doesn’t ForConvention Summer Financial Justice a Key Focus at 2016Stop NAACP INNER-CITY NEWS July 27, 2016 - August 02, 2016

New Haven, Bridgeport

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Volume 27 . No. 2293 Volume 21 No. 2194

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Malloy Malloy To To Dems: Dems:

New Haven Promise Celebrates

356 New Scholars

Ignore Ignore“Tough “ToughOn OnCrime” Crime”

Guess where Co-Op High Grad and Promise Scholar Frank Boateng is headed?

Post-Death, Henry Green’s

Story Continues

CHRISTINE STUART / CTNEWSJUNKIE FILE PHOTO

State Treasurer Denise Nappier

Color Struck?

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Green in Lead role of Jesus Christ Superstar at Co-op.

America’s Teachers Need More Community, Parental Support

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 - August 28, 2018

New Haven Promise Celebrates 356 New Scholars

by ALLAN APPEL

NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT

Born in New Haven to a family who came here from Mexico, Emily Lira took an AP psych course at Co-Op High School and was hooked. A month from now she’ll be majoring in the subject at University of Connecituct on a full-ride scholarship, the first person in her family ever to go to college.

Cameron Treichel remembers a speaker coming to his middle school classroom and telling him if he does well academically, performs community service, and stays out of trouble, he’d be eligible for a scholarship to help send him to college.

He took all that to heart, especially the community service of which he estimates he tallied one thousand hours while a student at the Sound School. Now he’s headed to UConn, buoyed by a generous financial aid package, as he launches on his journey into computer science.

Those stories and 354 others were at the heart of the eighth annual celebration of New Haven Promise, the program that guarantees significant college financial help for all city public-school students who keep their grades up and do community service. The event unfolded amid the hoots and hollers of a pep rally and formal presentation that drew hundreds to Southern Connecticut State University’s Lyman Auditorium Thursday evening.

According to a fact sheet distributed by Promise, about $3 million will go in total to this class for the coming academic year in Promise awards, and Promise-leveraged other grants and federal aid.

Of course every penny of that translates into not only individual stories such as Treichel’s and Lira’s, but very much family

Emily Lira with her new favorite mascot, the UConn Husky.

Smiling Sound School Promise Scholars Joshua Rodriguez and Johanile Hurtado are headed for UConn and Connecticut College respectively

stories as well.

There’s Yuleimi Ramirez Gutierrez, whose Promise scholarship is enabling her to study science at Gateway. “I was wanting to go to Southern,” she said in the Lyman Auditorium lobby before formal presentation of certificates and awards, “but my parents are in a tough situation financially, so I decided to go to Gateway.” She is the oldest of six children and also will be the first in her family to attend college.

Her colleague from Hillhouse High School, Ahrtez Moore, is able through Promise and other scholarships to attend Southern, where he is looking forward to taking the courses that prepare him to be a nurse.

He characterized the Promise program as “helping motivate me and my mom. It’s like a push over the edge to put your best foot forward.

A New Haven native, Ahrtez wanted a college experience living away from home and preferably outside of Connecticut. He had his eye on Xavier University of Louisiana.

However, Promise scholarship and the additional aid they leverage do not apply at out-of-state institutions. So he set his eyes on Southern, and timing was on his side.

In a first for the program, both Southern and Albertus Magnus College will be providing scholarship assistance for a limited number of Promise scholars this year to defray costs of housing and living expenses. For its first seven years, Promise scholarships have been limited to tuition assistance.

That has made a huge difference for Ahrtez. He’ll now be able to live on campus he’ll be away from home but not too far away from the parental perspective and he said he’s looking forward to his nursing studies, one of the first challenges being

getting “used to the sight of blood.”

After the presentations he said he and his mom will be headed for a celebratory dinner either at Red Lobster or Texas Roadhouse.

In other interesting Promise factoids, the average high school grade point for the 2018 scholar crop was 3.66; a 3.0 is the minimum required.. Wilbur Cross sent the most scholars into the program, with 86. Of all the neighborhoods in the city, Fair Haven produced the most scholars this year.

The program’s annual Legacy Awards — for Promise college graduates who give back to the program and to New Haven — went this year to Jennifer Gonzalez and Zaamir Ali. A Yale graduate, Gonzalez is now bound for Teach For America CT, and UConn graduate Ali did serious collections research while a Promise intern at the Yale University Art Gallery.

The program’s Champion Award went to Sharon Arnold, a Fair Haven School teacher, for her work on that middle school’s “Snowball” college pep rally. The effort is credited with getting Latino kids in middle school focused early on college aspirations.

Two newly established awards — the Ivy and Elm Awards — went to the Yale Library System and to Cynthia Lowman a career counselor at Yale New Haven Hospital respectively. Both were recognized for providing the growing number of paying and learning internship to the Promise scholars while in college.

Expanding the number of internships for scholars while studying in college an effort begun in 2014B continue to be one of the Promise’s ongoing challenges, with a record number of 166 intern placements logged for 2018.

Angel, Royce Find Refuge From Green ODs

by THOMAS BREEN

NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT

Angel remembers going to a Hartford gas station with his friends in 2010 to try out a new legal drug called K2.

Eight years later, as a bad batch of the synthetic cannabinoid has resulted in over 80 overdoses primarily on the New Haven Green over the past two days, Angel said he’s grateful that he didn’t stick with K2.

And he thanked God for helping him overcome other substance addictions that he has struggled with, and for directing him to Narcotics Anonymous, where he is now a regular attendee.

“I could have been one of those people overdosing out there,” he said.

On Thursday afternoon, Angel was one of around 20 people browsing the internet in the basement computer area of the public library’s main branch on Elm Street. Many people who hang out on the Green also hang out in the library’s lower level during the day.

Librarians and patrons on Thursday said that the library has been relatively quiet

over the past two days, even as city police, firefighters, and other emergency responders have attended to dozens of overdose victims just steps away from the library on the Green.

Reference Librarian Jane Connolly noted that one person overdosed on the Temple Street ramp to the library last night. But, besides that incident, she said she had not heard of any other overdose happening in or around the library on Wednesday or Thursday.

Reading through local news coverage of the K2-induced overdoses on Facebook, Angel said that as someone who has struggled with drug addiction, he understands why the overdoses have continued at such a rapid pace.

“It’s sad,” he said. “It’s a shame that when individuals hear that it’s so strong, they want to try it” to chase that stronger high.

Angel said attending Narcotics Anonymous sessions has helped him stay away from drugs. He called on other people seeking hard drugs on the Green to seek out treatment not because any family or

friends want them to, but because of the dangers that they present to themselves.

“There’s hope,” he said. “But you have to be selfish.”

Sitting next to Angel at the same desk of computers, Royce Anderson said that he does not struggle with any drug addiction.

But, he said, the recent waves of overdoses on the Green have affected his life too, because the managers of the halfway house that he lives at on Howe Street ordered him and his 20 housemates to leave work or wherever they were Wednesday afternoon and return to the home.

“They revoked our passes,” he said, noting that residents at the Howe Street home are usually allowed to leave the home for work or to look for work during the day.

He said he was at a training program at the Job Corps Recruitment Office on Ella T. Grasso Boulevard Wednesday afternoon when he got a call from the halfway house, ordering him to return.

He said he was able to get out of the house on Thursday to go to a dentist appointment, and that he swung by the library

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THOMAS BREEN PHOTO

on Thursday.

Angel and Royce Anderson at the main branch of the public library

on his way back to Howe Street.

“It’s really not fair,” he said. He said his supervisors said they didn’t want residents away from the house Wednesday and Thursday because they are concerned that residents with histories of substance abuse

will find their way to the Green.

“I don’t really care what happens,” he said about the overdoses playing out on the Green. He said he just wants to stay clean, finish his three months at the halfway house, and then move on with his life.

Stand Up For Your Rights THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 - August 28, 2018

by SUE CROSS Dear Friends, Today, the Institute for Nonprofit News joins journalists across the country in asking you, the public, to stand up for your rights to free speech and an open government.

Today, the Institute for Nonprofit News joins journalists across the country in asking you, the public, to stand up for your rights to free speech and an open government.

This started as a campaign by the Boston Globe to ask the President of the United States to knock off attacking the news media. But the President’s attacks on the press aren’t ultimately about the press.

“The press” is just journalists who work as your eyes and ears in places you can’t be.

The press is the people you send into rooms to witness what your government is doing and tell you about it.

Dictators and tyrants don’t want you in the room. Dictators throughout the course of history have tried to limit what their peo-

ple know or create confusion about what is true. By sowing confusion or getting you to limit your information sources, dictators reap power and control.

Don’t be confused.

In the U.S., we are not a dictatorship. We are a democracy. A free, fact-based press was built right into the foundations of that when the First Amendment was adopted in 1791: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Today, verbal and even physical attacks on media, police-state tactics and government secrecy are spreading with impunity throughout the country. In Denver and Milwaukee, police recently detained and harrassed nonprofit reporters and prevented them from doing their jobs. In Wausau, Wisconsin, officials routinely keep public documents out of the public’s hands—your hands. The same happens in East Lansing, San Diego, Oregon — and on and on. We hear reports month in month out, from the 170 nonprofit news media that are part of INN. Attacks on nonprofit media are particularly cannibalistic. Nonprofit newsrooms are dedicated to public service. Their report-

ers and editors are public servants, with a mindset cops might find surprisingly close to their own. “Protect and serve” pretty well describes the motivations of most watchdog reporters.

It’s important to know that these attacks aren’t just launched against a national press, a liberal or conservative press, a commercial press.

They are against anyone who works to bring you fair, fact-based, objective accounts so that you have reliable information and can act on your constitutional rights — so that you can voice your stories, cast your votes, be informed, live freely and well.

Criticism of media is fine, and needed.

But it’s different when government officials systematically tear down the free press because they don’t like the facts it reports. Then they are working to limit your ability to know what your government is doing.

Thirteen years after we adopted the First Amendment, Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Tyler, “No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investi-

gation of their actions.”

We’re not going to shut up. We’re going to keep reporting so that you can read what you want, make your own judgments, and question a government that works for you.

That’s the basis of our freedom, our economy, our way of life.

So don’t be faked out by claims of fake news. It’s out there, no doubt. But so are many more reliable news sources dedicated to reason and truth. Dozens of public service newsrooms that commit to high ethical standards are listed in the INN member directory. Or commit to your local newspaper, radio newscast, television broadcaster. If you think an outlet’s coverage is off-base, reach out and question it, contribute news and commentary, point out a mistake when they make one. Reporters and editors want to hear from you.

The “news media” isn’t some monolithic thing. It’s a voice of your community, and you can be part of it. We hope you will.

Because a free press doesn’t belong to the President. It belongs to you.

Sue Cross is executive director and CEO, Institute for Nonprofit News. INN is a network of more than 170 independent news media, including the New Haven Independent. All are nonprofit, nonpartisan, and dedicated to strengthening the sources of trusted news for thousands of communities.

ANALYSIS | How Eva Bermudez Zimmerman Lost - And Won

by Susan Bigelow

Eva Bermudez Zimmerman, an activist and organizer running her first statewide campaign, should never have been able to give longtime Democratic powerhouse Susan Bysiewicz a run for her money. But she managed to win 40 percent of delegates at the convention despite having jumped into the race only days earlier, and in this week’s primary she grabbed about the same percentage (38 percent) of the vote.

There’s a message there, if Democratic leaders are willing to hear it.

Zimmerman’s candidacy was born out of the deep sense of frustration that people of color have felt about how stiflingly white the party’s top candidates have been. The final straw was the sudden announcement on the eve of the party convention that Ned Lamont, who had been signaling that he might pick a person of color for his running mate, had selected former Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz instead.

Things moved quickly after that. Zimmerman, who had discussed the possibility of becoming Lamont’s running mate before he chose Bysiewicz, officially entered the race, setting up both a contentious floor fight and, after Zimmerman captured the necessary 15 percent of the delegates, a primary. If she had won, Zimmerman would have been the first Hispanic statewide nominee. In a state like ours with such a rich

Puerto Rican heritage, it’s baffling to realize that hasn’t happened already.

That same frustration gave rise to the candidacy of Jahana Hayes in the 5th Congressional District. Hayes, a former National Teacher of the Year, had the backing of Sen. Chris Murphy and came out of her own primary with a resounding win over former Simsbury First Selectwoman Mary Glassman.

So why did Hayes win while Zimmerman lost? Is it fair to compare these two races because they both featured insurgent women of color who lost at their respective party conventions?

Probably not — especially because the dynamics of the conventions and subsequent primaries were so different.

Lamont presented his choice of Bysiewicz, who up until that point had been running her own gubernatorial campaign, as a necessary move to unify the party. Bysiewicz entered the convention as a longtime Democratic heavyweight with plenty of supporters statewide, while Zimmerman was almost completely unknown. Glassman was somewhat more well known than Hayes, but the two were on a much more equal footing.

The two offices they were running for are very different beasts, as well. A member of Congress would never be called on to take over the operations of a state on a moment’s notice like a lieutenant governor,

John P. Thomas Publisher / CEO

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Editor-in-Chief Liaison, Corporate Affairs Babz@penfieldcomm.com

Advertising/Sales Team Trenda Lucky Keith Jackson Delores Alleyne John Thomas, III

Editorial Team Staff Writers

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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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Christine Stuart www.CTNewsJunkie.com Paul Bass New Haven Independent www.newhavenindependent.org

Memberships

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CHRISTINE STUART / CTNEWSJUNKIE

Eva Bermudez Zimmerman, left, and Jahana Hayes, at the 5th Congressional District convention in May.

which meant that the question of experience mattered a lot less for Hayes than it did for Zimmerman.

Hayes also had a powerful backer in Murphy, a compelling and remarkable life story, high-profile endorsements, and the attention of the media. In fact, Hayes’ introduction to the world were through images of her hugging former President Obama as part of the 2016 Teacher of the Year award ceremony. Zimmerman had the

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backing of several high-profile legislators like Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven, but no one on the level of Murphy, who is arguably the most powerful politician in Connecticut now.

That may be the key difference. Zimmerman was a direct challenge to the party establishment. Hayes had Murphy, who is the party establishment, in her corner.

The Inner-City Newspaper is published weekly

by Penfield Communications, Inc. from offices located at 50 Fitch Street, 2nd Floor, New Haven, CT 06515. 203-387-0354 phone; 203-3872684 fax. Subscriptions:$260 per year (does not include sales tax for the in State subscriptions). Send name, address, zip code with payment. Postmaster, send address changes to 50 Fitch Street, New Haven, CT 06515. Display ad deadline Friday prior to insertion date at 5:00pm Advertisers are responsible for checking ads for error in publication. Penfield Communications, Inc d.b.a., “The Inner-City Newspaper” , shall not be liable for failure to publish an ad or for typographical errors or errors in publication, except to the extent of the cost of the space in which actual error appeared in the first insertion. The Publisher reserves the right to refuse advertising for any reason and to alter advertising copy or graphics deemed unacceptable for publication. The entire contents of The Inner-City Newspaper are copyright 2012, Penfield Communications, Inc. and no portion may be reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 - August 28, 2018

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What Really Happened On The Green THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 - August 28, 2018

by PAUL BASS

NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT

“Bridgeport K2” — a particularly potent variety from a formula hatched in a Pfizer pharmaceutical lab had returned to town. Zombie-like, smokers were collapsing, vomiting, going to the hospital, then stumbling back downtown ... to repeat the routine.

For a day or two, the New Haven Green became a scene out of the Night of the Living Dead.

It was clear something unusual, something new at least in its scope, was happening. Firefighters, cops, medics worked feverishly to save lives as people throughout the nation and beyond watched.

But it wasn’t clear what exactly had happened, why exactly crews ferried victims to the hospital from the New Haven Green more than 100 times last Wednesday and Thursday.

A clearer picture now emerges, drawn from interviews with medical workers, cops, users, and others involved in the frantic events of the past week. They want New Haven to know what really happened. Not to point fingers at those who with limited information at the time scrambled to save lives. But to help the city figure out how to prevent or to handle future episodes. Because the challenge has only begun.

Oblivion For $2 The first three bodies dropped on the Green shortly before the polls closed Tuesday night for a statewide primary election. Those three overdoses wasn’t news: The fire department and AMR ambulance service will handle as many as 20 drug overdoses stretched out across any given day in New Haven The calls came more frequently Wednesday morning, all but a few from the Green.

People were losing consciousness, falling on benches or the ground, vomiting. Eyes were rolling in the back of their heads.

They were often incoherent. By a little after noon, the number had reached 22.

As word spread, the governor offered to help. The state sent extra supplies of Narcan, which is sprayed into the nostrils of opiate overdose victims to revive them.

But Narcan wasn’t reviving the victims.

As cops and firefighters worked with AMR medics to transport the smokers, some of them aggressively resistant when they partly came to, they gleaned that the victims had been smoking K2. Known somewhat misleadingly as “synthetic marijuana,” K2 sells for as little as $2 to $5 for a small bag.

I don’t need to go the hospital, numerous victims insisted some, it would turn out correctly, others not. At that point, first responders had no way to know.

“We had overdoses where people died” in the past (such as this 2016 episode), noted Lt. Karl Jacobsen, who heads the police department’s narcotics and intelligence unit. “I think that creates a situation where they feel they have to transport.”

Roger Weeks, who said he continued smoking K2 after the hospital released him: “It’s like Russian Roulette.”

PAUL BASS PHOTOS

Medics loading a K2 user into an ambulance for one of 72 trips to the hospital last Wednesday.

Also known as “potpourri” and “spice,” chemical make-up varies, in effect creatK2 has been around in various forms for ing a “new” drug with regularity, it’s more years in cities like New Haven. It used to expensive for a company to test for it, and sell in convenience stores as packaged it often takes longer to receive results. flora (grass clippings, for instance) mixed The police had responded in recent with the psychoactive chemicals. It takes months to a couple of episodes of concenmany forms, as its manufacturers alter trated collapses like this from K2, but on chemical ingredients to stay ahead of feda much smaller scale, according to Assiseral bans. Usually it contains chemicals tant Chief Herb Johnson. The word on the that produce reactions to the same parts of street was that those batches came from the brain marijuana does, but at 75 to 100 Bridgeport or Philadelphia. times the impact.

But K2 doesn’t usually cause dozens of The drug has become popular for sevpeople within hours to drop in a public eral reasons, according to Phil Costello, a place. So officials struggled to figure out Hill Health Center nurse practitioner. As why Wednesday was different. a street outreach worker to the homeless, At least one victim did respond to a higher he checks up on the users on the Green dose of Narcan administered intravenousdays times a week, offers medical help, ly at Yale-New Haven Hospital. So they hears them out, tries to steer them toward theorized that maybe someone had laced treatment if they’re amenable. The drug is the K2 with fentanyl; within hours a state cheap, Costello noted. The $2-$5 single Republican legislative leader was calling mini-pouch with a batch like last week’s for stiffer criminal policies against fencan last for repeated highs, because it tanyl use as a response. takes only one hit to zonk out. Also, K2 At the hospital, according to Sandy Borarely shows up in drug tests, he said. gucki, Yale-New Haven’s emergency ser“People on parole feel it’s a drug they vices director, a couple of victims “were can get away with taking.” Because the intubated, admitted to ICU for respiratory

6

depression.” Some of them were treated for tachycardia and hypertension, some for vomiting. “Most were observed for variable lengths of time to confirm they remained clinically stable once resuscitated, and then discharged from the” emergency department, she said.

Patients were reviving within 15 to 90 minutes. Many simply walked out, back to the Green, lit up again and collapsed again.

“Like A PCP High” Roger Weeks said he was one of those return patients.

“That’s just what I do. That’s my drug of choice,” he said while sitting on a bench on the upper Green, where K2 users tend to congregate (as opposed to clusters of alcoholics and opioid users, who tend to occupy areas of the lower Green nearer to bus stops).

Weeks, who’s 55, said he started smoking pot regularly at 13. In recent years he found he liked K2 better. It’s cheaper than marijuana. And while it attacks similar parts of the brain, it produces a different kind of high.

“It’s like a PCP high,” Weeks said. “And LSD a little bit, because you have hallucinations. It’s an acquired thing; the more you do it, the more you like it.”

“Sometimes you get a freak batch, a couple of times a year.,” Weeks noted. “I OD’d. It’s like Russian Roulette.”

Why did he return to the Green for more from the hospital? “I didn’t feel it was that serious,” he said. “The addiction draws you back.”

While first responders hustled victims to the hospital, cops gleaned from some of them the names of the distributors of what was clearly a bad batch of K2, whatever was in it. The cops recognized the alleged distributors’ names. They’d arrested these guys before for dealing K2.

By late afternoon, with the help of the probation department, they arrested one of the men near the Green. A second arrest followed.

Cops swarmed the Green, joined by late afternoon by regional and national TV news crews filing live reports. And yet ... somehow people were still obtaining and smoking K2 without being noticed, and collapsing.

The cops had forwarded a sample of recovered K2 to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. The DEA reported back by late afternoon that it contained no traces of fentanyl.

Now people were as confused than ever.

Outreach workers form Hill Health Center came on the scene to help. By evening they realized that not all of these people needed to go to the hospital, said Phil Costello.

K2, especially this kind of batch, can indeed potentially kill people, especially if they have heart problems, high blood pressure, or other health woes, Costello said. Also, some of them use other drugs as well, which in combination with a par-

ticularly potent dose of K2 can potentially lead to death. So those people do need to go to the hospital.

But others simply need to lie still for the half hour or hour and a half until it wears off, he said.

So when the collapses continued on the Green Thursday, albeit at a slower pace, Hill Health set up a M*A*S*H*-style triage center on the Green. Costello and others checked victims to make sure that they were breathing, that their blood pressure wasn’t dangerously high, and led some of them to cots where doctors could monitor them through recovery. But the scene on the Green was still chaotic enough that the Hill Health crew couldn’t make it to each collapse before the victims ended up on a stretcher in an ambulance.

At a City Hall press conference, Police Chief Anthony Campbell announced that it appeared that one of the two arrested alleged dealers of the bad-batch K2 was giving out samples free — in order, Campbell said, to hook new customers.

By Friday afternoon, the overdoses linked to this “Bridgeport” batch of K2 had apparently ended. Police annoucned a third arrest of a man suspected of being involved in the distribution.

Officials also finally learned from the DEA what ingredient made this K2 batch so devastating: AMB-FUBINACA. It has been found in K2 that produced similar mass collapses in other cities, as well.

Pfizer researchers developed the drug in 2009, one of several hatched in labs in the search for synthetic pain relieving drugs that could mimic the effect cannabis has on the brain. Like other similar drugs, it was never taken to market by its manufacturers. (After someone died from a trial of another synthetic cannabinoid, manufacturers may have grown skittish.) Because Pfizer trademarked AMB-FUBINACA, anyone could access its formula. Anyone including an illicit chemist in, say, Mexico or China, who may have K2 to distribute to a middleman in say, Bridgeport.

In any case, once AMB-FUBINACA found its way to K2, K2 became at least 50 times more potent. As New Haven learned last week.

Health professionals debated whether “overdose” was in fact the right word for what happened to the K2 smokers, or whether “poisonings” would more accurately describe it.

Whatever the correct term, by the weekend, New Haven officials had a tally: first responders transported about victims of the K2 batch to the hospital about 120 times over three days.

Here’s the kicker: Because so many had repeat visits, the total number of victims who made those trips was 47, Lt. Jacobson reported on Sunday. “When we interviewed the victims, most stated they were transported more than once, one even six times.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 - August 28, 2018

School Layoffs Tabled; Uncertainty Reigns

by CHRISTOPHER PEAK NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT

With the start of the school year just two weeks ago, nearly three-dozen educators have been temporarily spared from layoffs, while cuts might now fall on others unknown others.

School board members meeting Monday night tabled the 33 planned layoffs and 28 transfers for full-time certified employees.

They said they need more time to look at other ways they might close the rest of this year’s $19.34 million budget deficit without letting go of so many classroom teachers, school counselors and library media specialists.

The Board of Education unanimously cast that vote at a meeting at Celentano School after hearing almost an hour of impassioned pleas from parents, recent graduates, union leaders, retirees, the employees themselves and, perhaps most memorably, from the two non-voting student representatives.

Darnell Goldson, the board’s president, said he plans to call a special meeting soon, when the board will make its final staffing decisions in order to have everyone in place before the first day of school on Thursday, Aug. 30.

Many educators came out Monday night to support their colleagues, especially from the guidance department.

Superintendent of Schools Carol Birks had proposed eliminating one-third of the school counselors, saying she’d hire more social workers to cover elementary and middle schools schools while prioritizing counselors for the high schools. Overall, the district would have had a staffing ratio of one counselor for about every 525 students, more than double what experts recommend.

During public comment, school counselors said that they’re already stretched to the limit at current staffing levels. They said that social workers, who already have big caseloads of legally required work with special education students, couldn’t pick up much slack. And they said that thinking elementary school students did not add to their caseload was unrealistic.

“I can say to you that one of me isn’t enough,” said Mia Breuler, Edgewood Magnet School’s counselor. “We are spread so thin that the concept that you will reshuffle us and have us spread even thinner is just a recipe for failure. Our urban district needs more, not less. We wonder why our kids aren’t succeeding: the social-emotional needs of our community are huge.”

Splitting their time between even more students in multiple buildings, several counselors added, would inevitably mean they were missing when students needed to talk.

“Dr Birks, you’re quoted as saying, ‘You cannot not have a fourth-grade teacher.’

The same is true for a full-time counselor in every building,” said Maria Nuterangelo, a counselor at Augusta Lewis Troup School. “With the issues in the country, the

CHRISTOPHER PEAK PHOTO

Hazel Pappas, among 100 showing up to protest layoffs.

ESUMS’s Jill Kelly, Daniel Hunt, Kirsten Hopes-McFadden.

Superintendent Carol Birks looks over a petition with 500 signatures.

school shootings and this political climate, new and complicated issues, and the closing of the alternative schools, this is the worst time to eliminate counselors from the district. Many times we’re the first responders to many crisis situations and student issues.”

Others came out to support library media specialists.

Robert Gibson, a retired teacher who spent seven years as Hillhouse High School’s librarian, said that people don’t

understand that library media specialists do more than “just pass out books.”

As certified educators, they couldn’t be replaced by part-timers or local library branches.

“Library media specialists are teachers.

They instruct students in research. They guide them to resources to learn with our literacy coaches. If we’re going to tell students that they need to read to succeed, then they need to have libraries with professionally trained library media special-

7

ists,” he said. “You can’t just put anybody in the room.”

The most poignant testimony of the night came after public comment ended, when the board’s two student reps rose to speak about the impact their own teachers had.

Makayla Dawkins, a rising senior at Hillhouse, said her high school’s counselor had been there as she confronted her father’s incarceration and her mother’s death. A counselor showed up to her mother’s funeral and helped her feel comfortable in school.

“Students across the district have lost: a place of peace to do work, a place to be helped with college applications,” Dawkins said. “They sat and listened to my graduation plans, how I want to go to Yale. They helped when I was coping with tragic events, including my mom’s death, and they comfort us when we cry. Guidance counselors always do more than we ask.

“This isn’t equity. This is a disservice to the students,” she added. “Just to realize that these people are gone hurts me. I already lost my mom, and now I’m losing the people who were there for me through that time.”

Nico Rivera, a rising junior at Metropolitan Business Academy, also said his counselor, his librarian and his other teachers had all been there when he felt alone, after his brother was incarcerated, his father was deployed and his grandmother was sick.

“This is my community. These are my people, who are all hurt,” he said. “They helped me through every step.” Goldson thanked everyone for sharing their concerns, but he asked where the crowd had been earlier in the year, when the Board of Alders voted to flat-fund the schools, zeroing out Mayor Toni Harp’s request for a $5 million increase.

“Dr. Birks is not the enemy; this board is not the enemy. The enemy are those folks up at the state, in the suburbs, and in the federal government who refuse to consider education as important for urban kids. We have tough decisions we have to make, and we’re going to eventually make them,” he said to the packed room. “We need you to be there in the future. We really do.”

Looking For Money Elsewhere The executive board for the New Haven Federation of Teachers met recently to brainstorm alternatives that could keep prevent layoffs of their members, said Tom Burns, a school counselor and union vice-president. He asked for the board to give them this week to present a formal package of solutions.

Dave Cicarella, the union’s president, suggested that some of those savings need to come from the administration. He said the plan in place since April had been to reduce 135 teachers and 25 administrators.

But while 110 teaching positions have been eliminated so far, only 14 administrative positions have been eliminated.

“Is that plan going to be changed?” he asked. With multiple administrative hires happening that night, he added, “This does start to sound like the same-old, same-old, where everybody sacrifices except those at the top.”

Cicarella asked for the teachers, counselors and librarians to be reinstated. He said that would give everyone time to “evaluate the work of everyone in the district, from the top right down to each and every position.” He said this would give “accurate, first-hand information to base such important decisions, not rely on what other districts say they do and anecdotal input from a handful of principals and supervisors.”

NHPS Advocates, a watchdog group of public-school parents and teachers, also sent out a nine-point alternative that transferred most of the cuts to administrators, instructional coaches and itinerant teachers. Their aim overall, the group said, was to “eliminate duplication of services, deprioritize services not essential to the instructional core, and, above all, prioritize direct support to children in their schools.”

By the Independent’s estimate, their plan could theoretically save up to $6.35 million, although some of that would be lessened by employees with higher salaries “bumping” newer ones out of jobs.

The bulk of the savings that NHPS Advocates suggested would be achieved by slashing one-third of central office operational spending and by furloughing all employees for at least two days.

The biggest cuts they proposed include eliminating all “teachers, social workers, and coaches” from within central office, except for those who provide “direct services” to special education students; eliminating the Office of Family and Community’s non-grant-funded positions, putting the responsibility for engagement on school-based staff “without a supervising bureaucracy”; and halving the Office of Talent to let “human resources staff, content supervisors, and principals” take over the job of recruiting, onboarding, and evaluating teachers.

On top of eliminating those positions, NHPS Advocates suggested furloughing all employees for two days and all sixfigure employees for an additional three days. “Ask more of those who earn more and protect those who earn the least,” they said.

Furloughs require approval by the unions’ membership. Cicarella has said that he’s open to putting furlough days to a vote by the teachers only if it could prevent layoffs.

The group asked Birks to also appoint a Budget Task Force that could bring together a range of stakeholders to present recommendations for closing next year’s deficit without impacting students.

Superintendent Carol Birks said she’d be meeting with her internal team this week to see if they can come up with another proposal. “We still have a long way to go,” she said. “We have to mitigate the budget.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 - August 28, 2018

At Amistad, College Prep Doesn’t Stop For Summer

by CHRISTOPHER PEAK NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT

After two months constructing the set for the production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Edgerton Park, Carlos Torres said with unabashed pride, that he became “a huge theater nerd.”

Through Achievement First Amistad High School’s summer internship program, which paired him with Elm Shakespeare Co., Torres learned to use obscure power tools, scanned iambic pentameter, splotched paint onto half of his wardrobe and found a passion for working behind the scenes in theater.

“Ever since I had these internships, I realized I may not know a skill but I can learn it,” said Torres, a recent Amistad grad who’s starting at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania this month. “Some teens with a big task would get an adult to do it, but I’ve grown up pretty fast.”

Each summer, hundreds of students from Amistad, a charter high school on Dixwell Avenue, report for gigs at workplaces throughout New Haven and Bridgeport.

For 30 hours minimum, spaced out across several weeks, they staff the chambers of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, the classrooms of New Haven Reads or the admissions office at Albertus Magnus College, among many others.

The program fits into the charter network Achievement First’s goal of readying students for college and careers, said Lauren Cohen, the associate director of summer programming.

Over the summer, teens start to figure out what interests them and develop the professional skills that could land them in that career field, she said. Then, once they’re back in class, students compete to keep their grades up so they’ll have first pick of next year’s internships (or the even more coveted college classes), she added.

“The goal is really to have students learn something,” Cohen said, “whether it’s

about their areas of interests and possible careers or different skills like independence, leadership and self-advocacy.”

Amistad students earn summer opportunities based on their grades, Cohen said.

At the end of the first quarter, roughly 70 top-performing students are selected for fully paid summer courses at universities around the country. Known as “precollege,” these are the envy of the student body that can earn you “bragging rights,” said Joseph Jackson, a current student.

Over the rest of the school year, another 300 students are matched with internships.

Each quarter, they have a chance to qualify as long as they don’t fail a class or get in trouble. The rest do enrichment programs or remedial classes.

Achievement First sends a higher proportion of students to college than the rest of the state, keeping pace with wealthy suburbs. In 2015-16, the most recent year data’s available statewide, 83 percent of Amistad’s graduating seniors enrolled in college within a year. Of those, 92 percent continued to a second year.

By comparison, statewide, 72 percent went to college, 86 percent of whom persisted to a second year. And among New Haven’s traditional public schools, 65 percent went to college, 74 percent of whom persisted.

(Both systems serve a large proportion of what the state calls “high-needs students,” but they fall into very different categories.

That year, across all grades, Amistad’s students were 27 percent more likely to be from poor families that qualified for free lunch, while New Haven’s students were 43 percent more likely to be learning English and 136 percent more likely to need special education accommodations.)

To find the right match, students fill out a survey that asks about their interests, like what they do for fun and what they might want to study in college, along with goals for themselves, like improving time man-

agement or interacting with new people.

Along with the faculty who teach a college-readiness course called “Foundations for Leadership,” Cohen tries to figure out what would be the best fit for each student.

Sometimes, it’s straightforward, like pairing a student interested in criminal justice with a judge, but more often they require some creativity, like pairing a student interested in management with the Board of Alders’ legislative staff to see how rules are made, she said.

The jobs aren’t always right, but even those experiences can be lessons, Cohen said. They can teach patience and teamwork or, more simply, they can give a better sense of the type of work they enjoy, she said. “Figuring out what you don’t want to do is really valuable,” Cohen said.

All the internships coordinated by Amistad are unpaid. Depending on economic circumstances, some students find work on their own, often through programs like the city-run Youth at Work or the nonprofit Leadership Education and Athletics in Partnership. Several also eventually take a paid position after the internship ends, as Torres with Elm Shakespeare Co. On his own, Jackson, a rising senior, connected with the Student Conservation Association to meet the summer requirement. For four weeks, he maintained trails and bridges in three of New Jersey’s state parks.

Among the group students from primarily rural backgrounds, he was the only black kid. He said he had to adjust to their vegetarian cooking, and he had deal with the fallout from his trampling on mushrooms.

“It was literally just us. No other groups were around, so I had to figure out how to take other people’s values even if they seemed so far-fatched,” said Jackson. “I still don’t care about mushrooms, but I acknowledge that other people do.”

At one point, a sapling he’d been chopping down fell the wrong way and pinned

CHRISTOPHER PEAK PHOTO Amistad Academy’s

Isaiah Germain, Joseph Jackson and Car-

him to the ground. “I didn’t have my phone, and there was no one there to save me. I figured, I’m either going to die here or I’m going to figure something out,” he recalled.

“At that point, I’d experienced poison ivy and I was covered in bug bits. I’d already gone through it. I hacked at the little branches.” Then, he continued, “I spent a whole 20 minutes cutting the trunk into smaller pieces until I could move from under it.”

Since then, Jackson’s been much more conscious about recycling. He told his mom they should start composting, and he’s thinking about going pescatarian. He got a job as a docent at the Yale Peabody Museum and he’s planning to focus one of his final research papers on carbon emissions.

Jackson said that some friends believed that the summer programs fit with Amis-

tad’s reputation as a “school that works their kids too hard,” extending the rigor into the summer. But he said he disagreed, finding that the internships were the payoff for all the hard work he’d put in all year.

“Summer vacation isn’t always a relaxing thing to waste time and money,” Jackson said.

Torres said that he’d heard similar derision from his buddies. But without the internships, he said “I’d literally be doing nothing, putting off my summer homework until the last week.”

Isaiah Germain, a rising junior who helped out with City Hall’s legislative services this summer, felt the same way. “I don’t want to sit around,” he said. “I’m being productive, pursuing a career so I can get a job in the future.”

los Torres, back from summer programs.

Market Appreciates Connecticut’s New Found Fiscal Discipline

by Christine Stuart

ing will provide debt service savings of $29.6 million over the next nine years.

The 2018 Series E and F Bonds were offered to individual investors on a priority basis during a one-day retail order period on Tuesday, August 14. Total orders received on these bonds were $364.6 million – the highest amount on record for general obligation bonds during Nappier’s tenure– edging the prior record of $364.3 million received in November 2008.

A total of $1.25 billion of orders were received from retail and institutional investors for the 2018 Series E and F Bonds.

A total of $778 million in orders were received for the $250 million of 2018 Series A Taxable Bonds. Because orders exceeded bonds available in some maturities, the state was able to reduce interest rates on the bonds in the final pricing. The overall interest cost was 3.63 percent on the $400 million 20-year tax-exempt bonds and 3.75 percent on the $250 million 10-year tax-

CT. NEWS JUNKIE

HARTFORD, CT — Connecticut’s new found fiscal discipline and increased rainy day fund revitalized interest from bondholders when Connecticut sold $889.2 million in general obligation bonds last week.

“While we have a ways to go, the municipal finance marketplace has taken notice that Connecticut’s fiscal position has turned a corner,” State Treasurer Denise Nappier said.

This is the second bond sale since the General Assembly made adjustments to the budget on May 9. The adjustments included a bond covenant that locks in the spending, bonding, and volatility caps.

The bond sales included $400 million 2018 Series E Bonds to retire Bond Anticipation Notes issued in December 2017, $239.2 million 2018 Series F Refunding Bonds, and $250 million 2018 Series A (Taxable) Bonds issued for new projects. The refund-

CHRISTINE STUART / CTNEWSJUNKIE FILE PHOTO

State Treasurer Denise Nappier

8

able new money bonds.

“This bond pricing indicates that the market recognizes the state is now demonstrating its commitment to right its ship by exercising discipline in the management of its fiscal affairs,” Nappier said.

The $250 million of taxable new money bonds will be used for construction of the Innovation Partnership Building at the UConn Technology Park in Mansfield; renovation and construction of housing units in various towns across the state; economic development assistance under the First Five program; and funding the Small Business Express Program and the Bioscience Innovation Fund.

Ahead of the sale, each of the four credit rating agencies reaffirmed their credit ratings and outlooks for Connecticut, which are: Moody’s “A1” with a stable outlook; Standard & Poor’s “A” with a stable outlook; Fitch “A+” with a stable outlook; and Con’t on page

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 - August 28, 2018

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 - August 28, 2018

Post-Death, Henry Green’s Story Continues

by DAVID SEPULVEDA NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT

A bullet that pierced Henry Harris Green IV, aka Renegade, on a Newhallville street eight years ago, and remained lodged in his body is now evidence in an investigation into his recent death.

Call it one more chapter in a compelling story about a young man who embraced life against great odds while injecting humanity into the communal conversation about gun violence.

Green, a celebrated actor and motivational speaker whose turned-around life became the subject of a documentary, died of medical complications at age 26, in a Washington, D. C. hospital on July 22.

A month after his death, the story continues.

That life will be remembered and celebrated this Thursday beginning at 11 a.m. at Vertical Church, 225 Meloy Rd., in West Haven. All are welcomed to attend. Green’s family has launched this GoFundMe page to help defray medical and funeral-related expenses.

And family members and friends opened up in recent interviews about the deep impact Green made on New Haven in his short yet rich life.

Meanwhile, Assistant Police Chief Herb Johnson confirmed that the police are taking a second look at the 2009 shooting that caused the injuries that eventually led to Green’s death last month. (Johnson declined to discuss specifics of the pending investigation.)

The bullet that almost killed Green back then never left his body. When his body was cremated, police preserved the bullet, to be used in a revived potential homicide investigation, according to the family.

The bullet eventually killed him, but not before Green figured out how to turn his personal tragedy into an inspirational tale of embracing life.

“God Punched Me In The Stomach” Green’s miraculous recovery from the shooting, owing in part to a rare intestinal transplant that tested medical ingenuity and resolve, was only the beginning of an odyssey of recovery and setbacks. His medical journey was followed by loved ones, friends, and a diverse and broad community, who were shocked by the tragedy of his shooting, but buoyed by Green’s determination to make good use of his second chance at life.

Green was an honors student at Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School. He acted in plays, including in Shakespeare in the Park at Edgerton Park.

According to Robert Esposito, Green’s theater teacher at Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School, Green as an actor and student was an all-time standout: “Henry touched so many lives in such a profound way. He had physical height but also there was the height of his charisma.

I’ve never had a student like him —intellectual and with street smarts.”

Esposito said that Green’s attendance at a five-week program away from New Ha-

COURTESY OF ROBERT ESPOSITO Green in some of his stage roles.

ven at the Center for Creative Youth was a turning point. “It was a period where he had to decide if he was going to be a gang leader or an artist… ‘In order to be a lead in a play, you also have to be a leader,’” he recalled telling Green.

“Henry will always be remembered as a bright-eyed, idealistic, intelligent man — a model of a Renaissance man who could talk to anybody… With a high EQ [emotional intelligence], had Henry been a therapist, he would be $500 per hour. He could intuit and sense what people were feeling.”

Esposito also noted that Green deserved every role he ever played in high school and there were many, including Jesus in the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. That performance earned high praise from New Haven Advocate theater critic Christopher Arnott, even as the reviewer found serious issues with the professional, touring presentation of the same play, staged simultaneously at Shubert Theater, only a block away from Co-op.

“I’d never heard Henry speak angrily or disrespect someone, or be gossipy. Henry was a Christian that acted like Christ he lived the spirit of who Christ was,” said Esposito.

Back home in Newhallville, Green also hung out with gang members. “In the

project nobody wants you to sing a musical number,” he recalled in a video interview about his shooting (above). “Nobody cares. ... Getting on the city bus, I’m on the ugly cracked sidewalk, I had no power left. I went form being a king to being a peasant real fast. ‘Henry Green’ held no weight on the street. The only thing I could do that made me feel any security or safety if people were as afraid of me as I was afraid of them.”

Here’s how he described his shooting in the video interview: “The day that I was shot, I was coming home from work. I was with one of my boys, a nice kid. I meet him, coming off the bus, as we usually do. As we were walking toward my house on Shelton Avenue, there are four kids. They have the ski masks, the hoodies. You know they’re robbing people. If they select you, if you become a target, you’re getting beat, or shot, or stabbed.

“I start walking, trying to keep my cool. I start walking faster. I tell my boy, ‘Listen, you need to run.’ My boy takes off.

“These kids, they walk up to me. A small kid, he had to be between 14 and 16, whips out this 9, point blank. ‘Yo, give me me everything you got.’ He puts the gun right on my stomach.

“I had no power. I had no security. It

10

made my mad. I did not want to give him anything. I barely had anything. Neither one of us got no money; we live on the same street probably.

“I crossed my arm. ‘I’m not giving you nothing.’

“This kid keeps egging me on. I look inside his face; this kid is fighting for that sense of security I’m trying to hold onto.

I look into his eyes; he’s a scared little kid. He wants to be important like these guys behind him. In his eyes I could see he was begging, ‘Please give me this sense of power. I need this. I don’t have anything else. I need to take this from you, or I’m leaving you with nothing.’

“People don’t kill for sneakers. People don’t kill for change. People don’t kill for a girl. They kill to have power.

“Next thing I know he shot me. Boom!

Boom boom boom! It blew my ears out.

These kids run; they take off. I stumble to the ground. It felt like God punched me in the stomach. Like God snuffed me.

It hurt. I lay myself down. I feel myself bleeding.Warm liquid was running down my leg. So I take out my phone. I call 911 myself. Nobody in New Haven really calls the cops when someone shoots somebody else. I lay on the sidewalk, bleeding out on Shelton Avenue, like so many other people have.”

A 2nd Shot At Life The first hours after the shooting were tenuous for Green, at best.

“Henry was transfused with 42 units of blood — seven times the normal body capacity,” according to mom Linda Marks’ calculation. “He actually died that night; doctors were able to bring him back and save his life, but the iIliac artery, which supplies the small intestine, was destroyed in the shooting and eventually the small intestine died too.”

Specific medical information gleaned from doctors was especially helpful to Marks in her spiritual interventions for her son over the course of his long battle: “I would know how to direct my prayers,” tailoring prayers to specific medical needs.

“It was an impossible situation and people were praying all over the world. Henry’s pastor at the time, Pastor Todd [Foster], placed prayer requests for Henry on an international prayer list,” she said.

When Green awoke later on in the hospital, needing a machine to breathe, he decided he had to forgive his shooter, he said. “Because I had to forgive myself.”

Green’s medical fortunes took a turn for the better while living precariously without a small intestine when a donor intestine became available for transplant.

Green immediately made the trip went to Washington, D.C., where he stayed for six months as doctors monitored his progress in the wake of the unusual, if not rare transplant procedure. It would be the first of many trips Green would make over the ensuing years as he worked to keep up with the medical demands of living with the transplanted organ.

With the first transplant operation behind

him, Green began to heal. He could often be found at the gym where his regiment of weight training would strengthen and transform his musculature, but also exercise his will to exceed medical expectations.

Meanwhile, Green was working for New Haven’s Connecticut Center for Arts and Technology (ConnCAT) and its stated mission to “inspire, motivate, and prepare youth and adults for educational and career advancement, through after-school arts, and job training programming.” At ConnCAT, Green was a spoken word instructor teaching high school and middle school students the art of creating hip hop beats, freestyling and some studio production techniques.

In addition to mentoring students at ConnCAT, Green found time to work with the Department of Children and Families (DCF). Alongside probation officers Green, using his own life experience as exhibit A, spoke with gang members and youthful offenders in an effort to help turn their lives around. Part of Green’s outreach and engagement also included a stint talking with Veterans who were experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Green and family members and friends formed a motivational group, dubbing the initiative “Worldwide” as early as 2011.

Providing workshops that emphasized hip hop-centric lyrics and music, the group reached young audiences in churches and schools with positive messages of empowerment.

In an original spoken word piece entitled “Confliction,” presented at the Boys and Girls Club of New Haven and several other venues in 2016, Green and his brother, Solomon, provided an autobiographical glimpse into coping with the psychological intricacies of street life and the politics of turf boundaries that often place not-sodissimilar individuals at odds with one another.

Several years after Green’s initial recovery from the shooting, Green was approached by fllmmaker Stephen Dest with his idea of doing a film.

At first unsure, Green later came to realize that, like much of the community work he was already doing, the film stood to help others. The original concept for the film was for a drama with a cast of actors, but ultimately evolved into documentary format and an unusual cinematic device in which the weight of the film rests primarily on Green’s immense talent as storyteller. Green commands viewer focus throughout the film — frame, by frame, loosing the demons of his past, exposing his innermost fears and concerns.

Dest said that doing the film had been therapeutic for Green, giving him a “sense of comfort and closure.”

The film may also have therapeutic and social value for viewers seeking answers to the violence plaguing communities nationally. In local screenings, it has already Con’t on page 16

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 - August 28, 2018 Con’t from page 06

What Really Happened

According to Mayor Toni Harp, the first responders managed to reach all the victims within two minutes of their collapses.

Return To “Normal” On Monday, officials returned to the Green, ushering around Donald Trump’s visiting drug czar, who had come to town to consult about last week’s incident.

Mayor Harp spoke of a plan to have Hill Health Center open a drop-in center near the Green where overdose victims not needing hospitalization could rest and recover amid some medical supervision as well as access to drug treatment and recovery programs.

Phil Costello, meanwhile, was on his regular rounds checking up on homeless people and drug users on the Green. He was accompanied by Dr. Emily PintoTaylor, a Yale medical resident shadowing Costello for a two-week homeless medicine elective.

“You doing OK?” Costello asked people by name, who responded affectionately in return. “Anything I can help you with?”

Costello, who’s 55, used to work as an engineer for the Barnes Group. He made a mid-career switch in order to help people mroe direclty. Now he’s on a mission to convince society to treat drug abuse as a disease rather than a crime. To convince users to enter treatment. And to convince everyone that K2 is serious business.

It’s called “synthetic mairjuana.” But it’s nothing like pot, he said. It has far more devastating effects on people. It’s addictive. “I’m not saying to use either drug,” he said. “But I don’t want people to use K2: It’s far more dangeorus.” And legalizing marijuana won’t help, he argued, because that’ll just jack up the price. K2 will remain cheaper.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said of last week’s zombie mini-pocalypse on the Green. “We need more info on it.

How many people are doing K2 in their houses and we don’t see them collapse?

We see the people down here because it’s visible.”

At the far eastern edge of the Green, across from Yale’s Phelps Hall, a man familiar to Costello from his rounds lay slumped over the edge of a bench. Costello roused him enough to get a response to “You OK?” The man said he was OK, and drooped back off to oblivion.

Costello checked his breathing. He decided the man didn’t need to go to the hospital.“If that was the Bridgeport [batch], he probably would have fallen right off the bench,” Costello observed. “It would be hard to rouse him. He probably would have had convulsions.”

“You guys watch him?” he asked two others on the bench.

Donald Trump’s drug czar had driven off.

Costello walked off, too, to check on other users.

The Green was back to normal.

Con’t from page 04

How Eva Bermudez Zimmerman Lost - And Won

That may be the key difference. Zimmerman was a direct challenge to the party estab-

lishment. Hayes had Murphy, who is the party establishment, in her corner.

Given all of that, the fact that Zimmerman managed to do as well as she did is very indicative of how hungry a lot of Democrats are for a gubernatorial ticket that isn’t just two white faces. Make no mistake, Zimmerman’s run was meant to be a wake-up call. Just because she lost by 20 percentage points doesn’t mean that Democrats should feel free to ignore it, either.

Obviously Democrats need to pay attention to people of color, who are the absolute bedrock of the party, if they ever want to win elections.

But Democrats need to take this seriously for another reason. For that, let’s go to the map.

Here I’ve mapped out the level of support for Zimmerman in each town. She only won a handful of towns, but she did very well in quite a few others, exceeding 40 percent. I expected to see a map showing strong support in the cities and lukewarm support everywhere else.

But that’s not what I see.

Yes, there’s strength in the cities Zimmerman won New Haven, Bridgeport, and Waterbury. But she also won rapidly diversifying Windham (Willimantic) and rural Eastford, and pulled over 40 percent in such disparate places as New London, Cornwall, Wethersfield, Sherman, Hartland, and East Hartford.

This is a map I’ve never seen before.

Usually there are patterns to voting, different coalitions and interest groups have certain kinds of geographies. But this is new. This is people of color in cities and inner-ring suburbs, but it’s also affluent and/or well-educated rural and suburban whites, especially those in progressive enclaves like West Hartford and the towns surrounding the University of Connecticut.

If I had to guess, this is a coalition deeply interested in racial justice and real equality who are appalled by Trump and the ghastly

march of white supremacy. This coalition could become the driving force in Democratic politics, and the party’s leaders would be foolish to ignore its potential.

So yes, Zimmerman lost the election. But she may have won something much more valuable in the long run.

Con’t from page 08

Market Appreciates

Kroll “AA-” with a negative outlook.

In its rating report, Kroll analysts said the bipartisan budget adopted in May “continues to be structurally imbalanced.” It goes onto point out Connecticut’s economy has not recovered as quickly as the region or the nation.

“Between 2010 and June 2018, total State employment grew 5.36 percent, as compared to 10.81 percent for the region and 11.86 percent for the U.S.” S&P Global analyst David Hitchcock pointed out that Connecticut made improvements in its fiscal discipline with spending, borrowing, and volatility caps. He said those practices, which were locked in place by the bond covenants for five years, will likely improve Connecticut’s credit.

The Aug. 15 bond sale was the second sale made under the new bond covenant which requires the state to pledge to address its long-term liabilities and rebuild its rainy day fund.

The covenant prohibits Connecticut from altering these fiscal restraints except in cases where the governor has declared an emergency and three-fifths of each chamber of the General As-

11

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 - August 28, 2018

Black Festival Ranks Among the Five “Top Theatre Festivals to Visit Around the World”

Atlanta, GA — The Atlanta Black Theatre Festival (ABTF), which is commonly referred to as the festival of “40 plays in four days,” provides attendees with access to the largest selection of world-class, afro-centric theatre, in the entire country, all under one roof. The ABTF was recently ranked among the “Top Theatre Festivals to Visit Around the World” by TopTenZilla.com The dates for the annual event have now been released for 2018, and those planning their October events in Atlanta can schedule this amazing festival for October 3rd to October 6th. The event will take place at the Porter Sanford III Performing Arts Center in Decatur, Georgia.

“We are excited about this year’s marathon celebration of Afrocentric theatre, culture, and art,” stated Festival Director, Toni Simmons Henson. “When it comes to Atlanta festivals, there are more than a few to choose from. However, this celebration is one where the plays and events envelop you until it feels more like a family reunion than an art festival.”

Regardless if an attendee is a fan of traditional theatre (August Wilson), urban contemporary (Tyler Perry) or just loves a great art festival, this event has something for everyone. The diverse line-up of plays, exhibits, parties and market vendors have been curated from around the corner, and

around the world.

“Recently, this festival has also been named as one of the ‘Best Fall Festivals’,

by MyAJC.com, as well as a ‘Can’t Miss Fall Festival’ by the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau,” continued Henson.

“There’s no question that the Atlanta Black Theatre Festival is going to become one of your favorite things to do each year when in Atlanta and we invite you to stop by and see what it’s all about this year.”

Additional information about the line-up for the 2018 Atlanta Black Theatre Festival can be found by visiting the organization’s website at www.AtlantaBTF.org.

Black Nurse Sues Major Hospital for Honoring a Patient’s Racist Request

Dearborn, MI — Teoka Williams, an African American nurse has filed a lawsuit against her employer, Beaumont Hospital, claiming that she was discriminated against when the hospital decided to honor a white patient’s request to remove her from their care just because she is Black. She believes her civil rights were violated by the incident.

Williams, who worked as a nurse at Beaumont Hospital in Dearborn for 10 years, was very humiliated, embarrassed, and disappointed after an incident in October 2017 where the hospital accommodated a patient’s request to forbid her from taking care of the patient.

According to the lawsuit, Williams has finished checking up on the two patients on her assigned room when she overheard one of the patients saying she didn’t want a “black b—-” taking care of her.

Williams told the clinical manager about what she heard and expected that the decision would be that they won’t accommodate requests based on race. However, Williams was eventually forbidden to enter the room while still being required to give

reports when her shift was over.

There were also times during her shifts that patients in that room needed care but she couldn’t provide nor enter just because of her race.

Williams added that she also informed human resources but she was just told that patient requests are honored all the time and the next time it happens, she would simply be taken off the assignment altogether.

Beaumont Hospital hasn’t particularly commented on the lawsuit yet but issued a statement saying that its “highest priority is providing a safe environment that is free from discrimination for both our patients and staff, and delivering care with compassion, dignity and respect.”

In the lawsuit filed last Monday, Williams claims her federal and state civil rights were violated. Her attorney Julie Gafkay said the lawsuit “is about being denied the opportunity to do your job duties based on your race, and being segregated from your job duties based on your race.” Williams is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.

Nurse Teoka Williams is suing Beaumont Hospital in Dearborn, Michigan

DNC Gives Pennsylvania Democratic Party $175K Grant

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Contributor

Only 40 percent of the voting eligible population voted in the 2016 election and with midterm turnouts historically low, the Democratic National Committee has swung into action providing grants to 41 states and territories to help prevent voter suppression and other Republican-based strategies ahead of the crucial election.

In its latest bid to win control of the House and Senate, the DNC has awarded a $175,000 grant to the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.

The grant is specifically designed to help with base community organizing ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, party officials said in a statement.

Combining traditional boots-on-theground organizing with innovative digital and technological tools, these investments will support the DNC’s “IWillVote” initia-

tive, which aims to reach 50 million voters

by Election Day, party officials said.

The new investment in Pennsylvania is in addition to the $100,000 already awarded

to the Keystone State’s Democratic Party through the State Party Innovation Fund.

Further, DNC officials said the latest round of investment includes $1.2 million

12

for organizing in African American, Latinx, AAPI, millennial, and rural communities that will help fund over 50 organizers in 16 states, including Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, New Mexico, Tennessee, Mississippi, Florida, West Virginia, Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Maine, California, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Each state party is receiving funding to hire African American, Latinx, AAPI, rural or millennial organizers, who will be hired by early summer and be part of the coordinated campaign through the end of the election cycle.

“The new DNC has been working tirelessly to support our state parties, motivate voters to get to the polls, and organize around issues that matter for country’s future,” said DNC Chair Tom Perez.

“We are investing in our base communities and putting organizers on the ground across the country because we know that’s the only way we’ll win,” he said.

In total, the DNC has awarded 41 states and territories with grants through the State Party Innovation Fund.

That is in addition to the $10,000-amonth investment that state parties receive through its “Every ZIP Code Counts” program.

“This investment will help ensure that Democrats are talking to voters in every community, and make sure that activists and candidates have the new tools and resources they need to succeed,” Perez said.

“The DNC is proud to partner with our state parties to expand our engagement in all communities and support Democratic candidates running up and down the ticket.”

Recently, the DNC announced a multimillion-dollar investment, which includes a nationwide cell-phone acquisition, a complete overhaul of the party’s data for voter-registration targeting and further data Con’t on page 16

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 - August 28, 2018

CHILD WATCH® COLUMN: Saluting the Children on the Frontlines of the Civil Rights Movement

By Marian Wright Edelman, President, Children’s Defense Fund “I can make a difference!” Every July thousands of students from Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) Freedom Schools® sites across the country participate in the CDF Freedom Schools National Day of Social Action. This year’s action focused on the need to vote for children and the fact that every vote matters. Though children and teenagers in Freedom Schools are too young to vote themselves, they held rallies and marches urging adults to get registered and vote for leaders this election cycle and in every election who will stand for children. Young people are refusing to sit on the sidelines as they see even children’s most basic needs under assault by many in the Trump Administration and Congress.

I am so proud of the Freedom Schools scholars who have learned they are following in the footsteps of children and youths who were the foot soldiers and infantry of the Civil Rights Movement. Some of their stories from the Movement are well known: six-year-old Ruby Bridges in New Orleans walked through White mobs to attend school—even praying for those jeering at her; the Little Rock Nine; the four little girls killed in the bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church.

Thousands of children were on the frontlines of history. Whether sung or unsung heroes, we owe all of them a debt of gratitude.

For example, in April 1951, Black students at Robert Russa Moton High School in Prince Edward County, Virginia—led by 16-year-old Barbara Rose Johns—walked out of class to protest conditions at their segregated school. Moton was built for 180 students but had 450. Some classes were held in old farm buildings. Students lacked all the basics such as science labs, a gym, or a cafeteria found at all-White Farmville High, just a few blocks away. When Barbara Johns complained how unfair this was a teacher told her she should do something about it. She did, leading her fellow students in a strike. As she later said, “It was time that Negroes were treated equally with Whites, time that they had a decent school, time for the students themselves to do something about it. There wasn’t any fear. I just thought—this is your moment.

Seize it!” That strike was a critical push in the start of America’s desegregation movement.

The Moton students’ demonstrations resulted in a court case ultimately bundled with four others before the U.S. Supreme Court as Brown v. Board of Education.

The Brown case was named for lead plaintiff Oliver Brown, whose nine-year-old daughter Linda in 1950 was barred from attending all-White Sumner Elementary

School near their Topeka, Kansas home with her White neighborhood playmates, and instead forced to enroll in an all-Black school miles away. The landmark victory in Brown overturned the “separate, but equal” doctrine established under Plessy v. Ferguson. Years later Linda Brown, who died in March of this year, engaged as a parent in a follow up suit in Topeka because the city’s schools were still not fully integrated. She knew her case had sparked transforming change in our nation, but real change is slow.

For children in Prince Edward County, the Brown victory was shamefully delayed. The county eventually took Virginia’s policy of “massive resistance” to school desegregation to its full extreme.

In 1959 it closed its entire public school system and created private schools to educate the county’s White children using tuition grants from the state and tax credits from the county. No provision was made for educating the county’s Black children, forcing them to move in with relatives in nearby communities or study in makeshift schools in church basements. Prince Edward public schools remained closed for five years while legal challenges bounced between courts, and about 1,700 Black and lower-income White students struggled to find schooling elsewhere or stayed home.

It took another U.S. Supreme Court ruling to force Prince Edward’s schools to finally reopen.

Remembering these past struggles and the price of progress to get non-White children an equal education makes recent threats and actions by the Trump Administration simply evil—as they seek to halt or reverse course on civil rights, education and juvenile justice protections; school desegregation; housing discrimination; and affirmative action. On July 3rd, the Department of Justice announced it was repealing 24 federal guidance documents that all sought to clarify basic federal civil rights protections for children, older youths and young adults and the Department of Education announced it would delay, for two years, a requirement that states identify and address racial disparities in special education, including disparities in the ways children of color are disciplined. What a mean unjust slap in the face of our most vulnerable children.

We must continue to support and praise the action by today’s children and youths standing up against injustice, gun violence, child poverty, and unequal education and let them know we stand with them, are determined not to go backwards, and will step forward with them on the front lines seeking justice.

Marian Wright Edelman is President of the Children’s Defense Fund whose Leave No Child Behind® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. For more information go to www.childrensdefense.org.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 - August 28, 2018

Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin Dies at 76

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Contributor

Aretha Franklin, arguably the greatest voice in music history, has died.

The Queen of Soul was 76.

“She will be so missed as a mother, sister, friend, cousin,” said longtime friend Roger Friedman, who also covered the Queen of Soul for decades and originally broke the story about her cancer fight on showbiz411. com.

“Her legacy is larger than life,” Friedman said. “It’s not just that ‘Rolling Stone’ called her the No. 1 singer of all time, or that she’s the Queen of Soul. Long live the Queen.”

Franklin passed away at her home on Thursday, August 16.

“The NNPA profoundly mourns the passing of our beloved ‘Sister Leader’ and Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin,” said NNPA President and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. “Her creative genius was matched by her steadfast courage as a freedomfighting singer and leader for civil rights.

Black America and all people of goodwill throughout the world will miss her, but her legacy will never be forgotten.”

Dr. Chavis continued: “Long live the spirit and legacy of Queen Aretha Franklin.”

Dorothy Leavell, the chairman of the NNPA and publisher of the Crusader newspapers in Chicago and Gary, Ind., said that she was saddened by the loss of the music icon.

“I send a message of sadness and respect

for our beloved Queen whose musical genius [shined brightly] and resounded around the world,” Leavell said.

The fourth of five children, Aretha Louise Franklin was born on March 25, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee, to Baptist preacher Reverend Clarence La Vaughan “C.L.” Franklin and Barbara Siggers Franklin, a gospel singer, according to her biography.

Franklin’s musical gifts became apparent at an early age. Largely self-taught, she was regarded as a child prodigy. A gifted pianist with a powerful voice, Franklin got her start singing in front of her father’s congregation.

By the age of 14, she had recorded some of her earliest tracks at his church, which were released by a small label as the album “Songs of Faith” in 1956. She also performed with C.L.’s traveling revival show and, while on tour, befriended gospel greats such as Mahalia Jackson, Sam Cooke and Clara Ward.

Hitting her stride in 1967 and 1968, Franklin churned out a string of hit singles that would become enduring classics, showcas-

ing Franklin’s powerful voice and gospel roots in a pop framework.

In 1967, the album “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)” was released, and the first song on the album, “Respect”— an empowered cover of an Otis Redding track—reached No. 1 on both the R&B and pop charts and won Aretha her first two Grammy Awards.

She also had Top 10 hits with “Baby I Love You,” “Think,” “Chain of Fools,’” “I Say a Little Prayer,” “(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You’ve Been Gone” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.”

Franklin’s chart dominance soon earned her the title Queen of Soul, while at the same time she also became a symbol of Black empowerment during the Civil Rights Movement of the time.

In 1968, Franklin was enlisted to perform at the funeral of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during which she paid tribute to her father’s fallen friend with a heartfelt rendition of “Precious Lord.”

Later that year, she was also selected to

sing the national anthem to begin the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

In 1987, Franklin became the first female artist to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and was also awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Detroit.

Prior to her passing this week, Stevie Wonder and the Rev. Jesse Jackson were among those who paid a visit to her at her home in Detroit.

“I prayed with her,” Jackson said.

In a statement, former President Barack Obama lauded Franklin as “The Queen.”

“America has no royalty but we do have a chance to earn something more enduring,” Obama said. “For more than six decades since, every time she sang, we were all graced with a glimpse of the divine.

Through her compositions and unmatched musicianship, Aretha helped define the American experience.”

Obama’s statement continued: “In her voice, we could feel our history, all of it and in every shade—our power and our pain, our darkness and our light, our quest for redemption and our hard-won respect.

She helped us feel more connected to each other, more hopeful, more human.”

And, Obama added, sometimes she helped us just forget about everything else and dance.

“Aretha may have passed on to a better place, but the gift of her music remains to inspire us all,” Obama said. “May the Queen of Soul rest in eternal peace. Michelle and I send our prayers and warmest sympathies to her family and all those moved by her song.”

Stacy Brown is an NNPA Newswire Contributor and co-author of “Michael Jackson: The Man Behind the Mask: An Insider’s Story of the King of Pop.” Follow Stacy on Twitter @stacybrownmedia.

This article was originally published at BlackPressUSA.com.

Toyota Establishes the John W. Mack Scholarship Fund Through the National Urban League COLUMBUS, OHIO/August 17, 2018/ NNPANewswirePR—Toyota returned this year as a title sponsor of the National Urban League (NUL) Annual Conference held August 1-4, 2018, at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, OH. This year commemorated Toyota’s 27-year partnership with the National Urban League. The conference theme, Save Our Cities – Powering the Digital Revolution featured numerous business, civic and community empowerment workshops, exhibits and career fair for conference attendees which included notable businesses, community and civil rights leaders, government officials and attendees from around the country.

To commemorate the passing of John Wesley Mack, former President of the Los Angeles Urban League, during the NUL Awards Gala, Toyota announced the newly established John W. Mack Scholarship Fund to be administered through the National Urban League. John Mack was a highly respected advocate for equal op-

portunities in education, law enforcement, and economic empowerment for African Americans and other minorities. He was known as a bridge builder across all racial, cultural, economic, gender and religious lines. He began his career in 1964 with the Urban League in Flint, Michigan, and was appointed executive director a year later. He served as president of the Los Angeles Urban League from August 1969 until his retirement in 2004. It was through John Mack’s leadership that Toyota, then headquartered in Los Angeles, became partners with the NUL. “Through this scholarship fund, Toyota’s goal is to make it possible for many worthy students to attend college and earn a degree focusing on the fields of science, technology, engineering, arts and math,” said Al Smith, group vice president and chief social innovation officer, Toyota Motor North America. “Just like John Mack who inspired our executives by his visionary leadership, we want to help make dreams comes true and encourage

students to start their impossible. We encourage others to support the fund.”

To wrap up the conference, Toyota reached out to the local community at the NUL Experience & Expo Community and Family Day by setting up an in-house barber shop for boys and a beauty salon for girls to get them ready for school. To add fun to the area, the Toyota Camry Carpool Karaoke was a hit as conference attendees and community guests raised their voices to their favorite tunes as the crowd cheered them on. As a takeaway, Toyota gave away an uplifting t-shirt where guests could select from various slogans, such as, “Toyota I Represent… the future, education, innovation, creativity or empowerment.”

The National Urban League is a historic civil rights and urban advocacy organization dedicated to economic empowerment in historically underserved urban communities. During the event, the Columbus Urban League celebrated 100 years of service to the community.

15

National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial (left) and Al Smith of Toyota talk during a NUL press conference, this month. During the NUL Awards Gala, Toyota announced the newly established John W. Mack Scholarship Fund to be administered through the National Urban League. (Toyota)

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 - August 28, 2018 Con’t from page 12

DNC Gives

investments for the party’s voter-protection efforts.

As part of the DNC’s “IWillVote” program, the DNC plans to launch a six-figure digital ad buy across the country to encourage Americans — with a focus on sporadic voters, especially those whodropped off in 2014 from 2012 — to commit to vote this November.

“We are thrilled that the DNC is investing in Pennsylvania. We need to ensure that people of color continue to have a voice and play a role in the direction of our Party,” said Pennsylvania Democratic Party Executive Director Sinceré Harris.

“That’s why we are happy to partner with the DNC to reach out to and organize in communities of color from Erie to Hazleton, Philadelphia to Reading, and places in between. Chairman Perez and Chairwoman Mills are committed to engaging these ever-important communities to ensure that we elect Democrats up and down the ballot,” Harris said.

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Con’t from page 10

Henry Green’s Story Continues

prompted candid discussions among audiences from neighborhoods to film festivals, to a screening for 150 incoming Yale School of Medicine residents, generating a companion screening facilitation guide which is available through Connecticut Center for School Change .

The guide provides this synopsis of the film: “It is a story about the tension that exists in a community when an impoverished neighborhood dominated by gangs and plagued by gun violence is in the shadow of one of the country’s wealthiest universities. It is about the complexity of identity, and the struggle for pride and self-worth. It is about suffering trauma, receiving salvation, and offering forgiveness. It is a story about hope.”

Marks, noted other dimensions of Green’s life that were not the focus of the film and often missed in narratives about his life.

Green and his siblings, Jamillah Green, Jamaahl, Kevin Green, Cynthia, and Solomon, were raised in the church, New Haven’s Church of the Rock and later West Haven’s Vertical Church. Marks, who was divorced, did her best to provide for the family with some monetary support from Green’s father. She said that for a short while, she was on assistance, but later found full time employment and managed to provide a home sanctuary for her family even as she worked to educate herself and see that her children remained on a trajectory of advancement. She recalled that at one point, the whole family was in college in one form or another.

Marks attended Southern Connecticut State University graduating with a B.S. degree in Business Administration, and afterward, attended Lincoln Technical Institute Vocational School graduating with nursing certification. Her tenacity sometimes included bringing her children with to her with to her college classes when she was unable to secure a baby sitter, an arrangement that professors accommodated.“My hard work, tenacity and willingness to try new things taught my children that anything is possible if you’re willing to put the time and effort into it,” she said.

Daviya Green met Henry Green in the church they both attended. They later married in 2014.

“Henry lived with contradictions,” she recalled. “He wasn’t a hard core gangbanger… He was always a principled person. Henry was the hood, Robin Hood; he would stand up for anyone who needed help.”

Toward the end of 2016, after living with his first intestinal transplant for almost five years, Henry began to show symptoms that would soon be interpreted by doctors as early signs of transplant rejection.

He would need another life saving transplant—a second transplant miracle.

Following the second transplant, Green seemed to recover quickly. His resilience and determination, the prayers and support of family and friends converged with innovative medical procedures to buy him additional time, but it would not be long

before new complications, would again, get the attention of doctors.

At the beginning of 2017 Green’s external life seemed to be coming together.

He graduated with a bachelor of science degree in psychology from Charter Oak State College’s online program. He was poised to receive a raise at his job as a social worker teaching social skills to kids at Family Centered Services in New Haven.

In March of this year Green went in for a check-up following symptoms related to his kidneys. The visit would require an overnight stay; the day turned into weeks as complications began to mount. Green contracted a bacterial blood infection called PTLD, one of the growing list of medical acronyms with which the Green family would become familiar.

He also suffered repeating bouts of pneumonia. For the next few months Green was in and out of intensive care while also receiving kidney dialysis.

The hospital was in Washington, D.C. where Daviya made periodic trips to be with her husband. “It was expensive but I had to be there for my husband - he was my best friend” she said.

Daviya received a call from doctors one evening to come to Washington immediately, if she could. Green’s blood pressure had dropped precipitously. They were concerned that he would not make it through the night.

Buoyed by gospel music as she drove to D.C., fighting to see the road through a steady flow of tears, Daviya was delayed with two flat tires and the cost of their replacement, which she could ill afford.

At the hospital, facing her still-conscious husband whose communication was hampered by an assortment of tubes and devices, Daviya told Green she loved him/ She told him that everything was going to be OK. She asked him if he was afraid. Green shook his head “no.”

Those would be among the last words she would speak to her husband before his death two nights later. “With so many things left for Henry to do,” said Daviya, “it was hard to pray for God’s will to be done.”

Daviya expressed her gratitude for having been married to Henry Green: “He cared for me like nobody could. He was serious about taking care of me, a protector. He was serious about the people he cared for.“ The young widow reluctantly allowed herself a momentary, wistful thought: “With a size 15 shoe, any man in my future will have big shoes to fill, literally and figuratively.”

In 2018, Henry Green’s name has been added to the numbing, annual statistics associated with gun violence in this nation.

The impact of his life, however, will transcend statistics. His message “Violence is definitely preventable” will resonate with all who knew him, and with many more who did not.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 - August 28, 2018

Pancreatic Cancer: After The Diagnosis

by Peter Jideonwo, BlackDoctor.org

Pancreatic cancer, which is the disease that took the life of the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, is considered to be incurable. Many people who have the disease generally have a 5-10 percent chance of recovery. The chances tend to be even lower for someone of older and overweight.

What Causes Pancreatic Cancer?

As with many types of cancer, the causes of pancreatic cancer are simply not known. Although certain pancreatic cancer risk factors have been identified, there is no complete understanding of the disease.

Pancreatic cancer develops when a cell in the pancreas acquires damage to its DNA that causes it to behave and multiply abnormally (no one knows exactly how this process happens). A single cancer cell grows and divides rapidly, becoming a tumor that does not respect normal boundaries in the body. Eventually, cells from the tumor can travel elsewhere in the body (metastasize) through the blood or lymphatic system.

Some of these mutations happen randomly. Others occur in response to things we do or experience in the environment. Some may be inherited.

Pancreatic Cancer Risk Factors Though the underlying causes of pancreatic cancer are still not understood, certain risk factors for pancreatic cancer have been identified. These factors are present more often in people who get pancreatic cancer than in people who don’t.

There are multiple pancreatic risk factors, although most are only weakly associated with pancreatic cancer. Many people with pancreatic cancer don’t have any one risk factor: • Genetics. Five percent to 10% of people with pancreatic cancer have an immediate family member who also has pancreatic cancer. Several different genes have been associated with the increased risk, although no “pancreatic cancer gene” has yet been identified.

• Diabetes. People with diabetes are slightly more likely to get pancreatic cancer. There’s some controversy in these cases as to whether diabetes causes pancreatic cancer, or if the pancreas starts to malfunction before cancer develops, causing diabetes.

• Smoking. Cigarette smoking is well known to increase the risk for pancreatic cancer. The more a person smokes, the higher the risk of pancreatic cancer.

Ten years after quitting smoking, the risk returns to about that of someone who never smoked.

• Obesity and inactivity. In a study of 88,000 nurses, those who were obese

(body mass index higher than 30) were more likely to develop pancreatic cancer. Those who exercised frequently were about… …half as likely to get pancreatic cancer, compared to those who did not exercise at all.

• Diet. Can what we eat cause pancreatic cancer? A diet high in fat and meat (especially smoked or processed meat) has been linked to pancreatic cancer in some studies. Eating a healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables decreased pancreatic cancer risk in other studies. Still other studies suggest there’s no identifiable link between diet and pancreatic cancer.

• Lycopene and selenium. Studies have shown low levels of these nutrients in some people who developed pancreatic cancer. That’s not proof that low levels cause pancreatic cancer, though. Any diet that includes lean meat and red or yellow vegetables should provide adequate lycopene and selenium.

Unfortunately, eliminating your risk factors for pancreatic cancer many not entirely reduce your pancreatic cancer risk. But eating a healthy diet, keeping a healthy weight, and exercising frequently will improve overall health, and reduce your risk of other health problems.

Treatment According to the Mayo Clinic, treatment for pancreatic cancer depends on the stage and location of the cancer as well as on your overall health and personal preferences. For most people, the first goal of pancreatic cancer treatment is to eliminate the cancer, when possible.

When that isn’t an option, the focus may be on improving your quality of life and preventing the cancer from growing or causing more harm.

Treatment may include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy or a combination of these. When pancreatic cancer is advanced and these treatments aren’t likely to offer a benefit, your doctor will offer symptom relief (palliative care) that makes you as comfortable as possible.

Surgery Operations used in people with pancreatic cancer include: Surgery for tumors in the pancreatic head. If your cancer is located in the head of the pancreas, you may consider an operation called a Whipple procedure (pancreaticoduodenectomy).

The Whipple procedure is technically difficult operation to remove the head of the pancreas, the first part of the small intestine (duodenum), the gallbladder and part of the bile duct. In some situations, part of the stomach and nearby lymph nodes may be removed as well.

Your surgeon reconnects the remaining

parts of your pancreas, stomach and intestines to allow you to digest food.

Surgery for tumors in the pancreatic body and tail. Surgery to remove the left side (body and tail) of the pancreas is called distal pancreatectomy. Your surgeon may also remove your spleen.

Surgery to remove the entire pancreas.

In some people, the entire pancreas may need to be removed. This is called total pancreatectomy. You can live relatively normally without a pancreas but do need lifelong insulin and enzyme replacement.

Surgery for tumors affecting nearby blood vessels. Many people with advanced pancreatic cancer are not considered eligible for the Whipple procedure or other pancreatic surgeries if their tumors involve nearby blood vessels. At a very few medical centers in the United States, highly specialized and experienced surgeons will safely perform these operations with removal and reconstruction of parts of blood vessels in select patients.

Each of these surgeries carries the risk of bleeding and infection. After surgery some people experience nausea and vomiting if the stomach has difficulty emptying (delayed gastric emptying).

Expect a long recovery after any of these procedures. You’ll spend several days in the hospital and then recover for several weeks at home.

Extensive research shows pancreatic cancer surgery tends to cause fewer complications when done by highly

17

experienced surgeons at centers that do many of these operations. Don’t hesitate to ask about your surgeon’s and hospital’s experience with pancreatic cancer surgery. If you have any doubts, get a second opinion.

Chemotherapy Chemotherapy uses drugs to help kill cancer cells. These drugs can be injected into a vein or taken orally. You may receive one chemotherapy drug or a combination of them.

Chemotherapy can also be combined with radiation therapy (chemoradiation).

Chemoradiation is typically used to treat cancer that has spread beyond the pancreas, but only to nearby organs and not to distant regions of the body. At specialized medical centers, this combination may be used before surgery to help shrink the tumor. Sometimes it is used after surgery to reduce the risk that pancreatic cancer may recur.

In people with advanced pancreatic cancer, chemotherapy is often used to control cancer growth and prolong survival.

Radiation therapy Radiation therapy uses high-energy beams, such as those made from X-rays and protons, to destroy cancer cells. You may receive radiation treatments before or after cancer surgery, often in combination with chemotherapy. Or your doctor may recommend a combination of radiation and chemotherapy treatments

when your cancer can’t be treated surgically.

Radiation therapy usually comes from a machine that moves around you, directing radiation to specific points on your body (external beam radiation). In specialized medical centers, radiation therapy may be delivered during surgery (intraoperative radiation).

Radiation therapy traditionally uses Xrays to treat cancer. Some medical centers offer proton beam radiation therapy, which may be a treatment option for some people with advanced pancreatic cancer.

Clinical trials Clinical trials are studies to test new treatments, such as systemic therapy, and new approaches to surgery or radiation therapy. If the treatment being studied proves to be safer and more effective than are current treatments, it can become the new standard of care.

Clinical trials for pancreatic cancer might give you a chance to try new targeted therapy, chemotherapy drugs, immunotherapy treatments or vaccines.

Clinical trials can’t guarantee a cure, and they might have serious or unexpected side effects. On the other hand, cancer clinical trials are closely monitored to ensure they’re conducted as safely as possible. And they offer access to treatments that wouldn’t otherwise be available to you.

Talk to your doctor about what clinical trials might be appropriate for you.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 - August 28, 2018

Spike Lee Assumes His Role as an Iconic Filmmaker with His Latest Production: BlacKkKlansman

By Dwight Brown, NNPA Newswire Film Critic

You just can’t make this stuff up! A Black detective infiltrates the White racist Ku Klux Klan. When? Where? Why? How? If you want to know the details and want to be entertained while you catch up on this bit of Americana history, just set aside 2 hours and 14 minutes and watch this screen adaptation of the memoir “Black Klansman.”

It’s a very true and eclectic story about a brave man and a very gullible bunch of bigots.

In the mid ‘70s, Detective Ron Stallworth broke the color barrier at the Colorado Springs Police Department. He went undercover to attend a pro-Black rally, sponsored by a college group that featured Black Panther Party’s Kwame Ture (aka Stokely Carmichael) giving a fiery speech.

Shortly thereafter, he got the idea to join the local KKK, who was revving up a membership drive and sanitizing their hatred by calling themselves “The Organization.” By phone, Ron joined the group to investigate their activities and thwart any violence. Talking to them over AT&T was one thing, however seeing them in person, was going to be another.

As the story unfolds on screen—directed

by Spike Lee, from a script by Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Lee—Ron (John David Washington) has come up with a brilliant idea for faking out the KKK in person.

He will send a fellow White police officer, Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) to do the face-to-face meetings. Flip will be the White Ron Stallworth, but he is reluctant,

so Ron applies peer pressure.

“You’re Jewish! Why you acting like you don’t have skin in the game.” Flip takes the bait and goes along with the masquerade.

And so, the subterfuge begins, the charade gets more devious and success follows to the point of the Black Ron Stallworth, getting assigned as a security guard for KKK head David Duke (Topher Grace).

In real life, Duke must rue the day he was outsmarted and duped—by a brother man!

While the satiric shenanigans are on parade, the musical soundtrack (Terence Blanchard) is blaring ‘70s soul music.

The editing (Barry Alexander Brown, Do the Right Thing) is keeping a beat and the characters are jetting around in fly period costumes (Marci Rodgers) with the characters sporting afros the size of basketballs.

In addition, the visuals (Chayse Irvin, cinematography) brim with colors and doodads (Marci Mudd, art direction; Curt Beech, production design) that recreate a time in America when standing up to the man was the thing to do. Many things can be said about Spike Lee’s direction, but subtlety is not one of them. The gutsiness and insanity of the situation is in every scene.

Stallworth’s crazy quest is hyped and manic. The hysteria, satire and absurdity are in your face, which is juxtaposed against a serious storyline where a cop is risking his life and in danger. The comic approach to the historical feat may be courtesy of producer Jordan Peele (Get Out).

Certainly, watching racism full on is made a bit more palatable with the doses of humor. On the other hand, at times, the humor seems to undermine Stallworth’s coura-

geous mission and the dialogue’s constant barrage of repulsive, racial slurs, may give some audience members pause.

John David Washington brings a lot of verve to the Stallworth character. What’s missing is an obvious range of emotions that should run from anger, to fear, to sadness, to elation. Hard to image the real Stallworth was so giddy as he was putting his life on the line and dealing with murderous psychopaths.

Laura Harrier as Patrice Duke, who runs the Black student group that brings Kwame Ture to town, is the perfect counterbalance.

Her Duke is sublime, intelligent and politically savvy. Her performance brings a sensitivity out of Washington that is needed.

Driver is fine as the reluctant doppelgänger.

Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton) as Ture, brings the juice in his flaming speeches. A cameo by Harry Belafonte adds an unexpected state of grace.

There are moments when David Duke talks to his constituents about making “America First.” At these points it is very obvious to anyone who has kept up with the news in the last two years that this dog whistle language parallels Donald Trump’s spiel. At the end of the film, during a montage of current civil rights moments (e.g., the killing at Charlottesville) there are images of Trump at a podium in front of his followers bellowing “Make America Great Again.” These last minutes of news clips would have been stronger if they were shorter.

No need to hit the audience over the head with the film’s most obvious message: the ‘70s made Americans fight against racism,

things haven’t changed much, look where we’re at now and what are you going to do about it? The film’s masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

BlacKkKlansman is surreal and stranger than fiction. It is also an audacious racial, social and political statement.

Dwight Brown is a film critic and travel writer. As a film critic, he regularly attends international film festivals including Cannes, Sundance, Toronto and the American Black Film Festival. Read more movie reviews by Dwight Brown here and at DwightBrownInk.com.

Three African-Americans Claim Rare Engineering Accomplishment

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Contributor

The National Academy of Engineering has 83 new members this year, including a rare three African-Americans who are scheduled to be inducted in a ceremony in Washington, D.C. on September 30.

Lynden A. Archer, a James Friend Family Distinguished Professor of Engineering in the Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York; Gary S. May, chancellor of the University of California, Davis; and Gabriel C. Ejebe, the senior project manager for energy trading and markets for Open Access Technology International in Minneapolis; are the three African-American fellows.

“I think African-American participation in engineering is crucial,” said Archer, who joined the faculty at Cornell in 2000.

Archer has earned recognition by the academy for “advances in nanoparticle-polymer hybrid materials and in electrochemical energy storage technologies.”

A graduate of the University of Southern California where he majored in chemical engineering, Archer holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Stanford University.

“We basically live in an era where engi-

neering and science are essentially at the forefront of both human advancement and creating wealth,” Archer said.

“It’s crucial to encourage minority and African-American youngsters to train their creativity in this field … it prepares you for so many things,” he said.

Election to the National Academy of Engineering counts among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer.

Academy membership reportedly honors those who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature” and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/ implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.”

The academy does not disclose the racial makeup of its membership, but past Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (JBHE) research has shown that Blacks make up about one percent of the members.

According to an analysis of the new membership list by JBHE, it appears that there are three Black engineers among the 83 new members. Two of the three – Archer and May – have current academic affilia-

Pictured: Gary S. May (Courtesy of Georgia Tech College of Engineering), Gabriel C. Ejebe (Courtesy of National Academy of Engineering), Lynden Archer (center) (Courtesy Cornell University) tions.

The new members bring the total number of U.S. members to 2,293, according to JBHE. “I am honored to be included in the National Academy of Engineering Class of 2018,” said May, the seventh chancellor of UC Davis and one-time dean of the College of Engineering at the Georgia Institute

18

of Technology in Atlanta.

“It is gratifying to be recognized for my research in semiconductor manufacturing and for creating programs to encourage underrepresented groups to pursue STEM careers,” said May, a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology who earned selection to the academy for his contributions to semiconductor manufacturing research and

for innovations in educational programs for underrepresented groups in engineering.

A St. Louis, Missouri, native, May holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Despite his success, he said there’s still a glaring need for more individuals of color in engineering.

“We need more diversity in engineering so that we solve problems that take into account all experiences and perspectives.

I encourage young people who are interested in engineering to seek mentors who can help them get on a path that works for them,” May said.

“My early experience with the National Society of Black Engineers was invaluable, and I’m still involved with them. All of us can and should play a role in inspiring people of all ages to find ways to follow their dreams,” he said.

The third African American in this year’s cohort of new members is Gabriel C. Ejebe, the senior project manager for energy trading and markets for Open Access Technology International in Minneapolis.

Ejebe could not immediately be reached for comment.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 - August 28, 2018

YOUR TICKET TO FAMILY FUN!

AUGUST 17-25

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855-464-8366 ctopen.org SPECIAL EVENTS SHOPRITE KIDS’ DAY

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Sunday, August 19

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Friday, August 24 • Kids in superhero or princess costumes get in for free!

• High School Day • WTA matches

Connecticut Open

MEN’S LEGENDS RETURN TO NEW HAVEN! Thursday, August 23 – James Blake vs. Tommy Haas Friday, August 24 – John McEnroe vs. Todd Martin

Host Sponsors:

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INNER-CITY NEWS July 27, 2016 -- August 02, 2016 THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 August 28, 2018

The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven

Dispatcher

ELM CITY COMMUNITIES

NOTICE Invitation for Bid Pest Control and Preventative Maintenance Services

Galasso Materials is seeking a motivated, organized, detail-oriented candidate to join its truck dispatch office. Responsibilities include order entry and truck ticketing in a fast paced materials The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven manufacturing VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLEand contracting company. You will have daily ind/b/a Elm City Communities is currently seeking Bids teraction with employees and customers as numerous truckloads for PestINC, Control and Preventative Maintenance of material cross our scales daily. We are willing to train the right HOME on behalf of Columbus House and theServices.

New Haven Housing Authority, individual that has a great attitude. NO PHONE CALLS PLEASE. A is complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this develReply to Hiring Manager, PO Box 1776, East Granby, CT 06026.

Elm City’s Vendor Collaboration Portal opment located at 108 Frank Street, New https://newhavenHaven. Maximum income limitations apEOE/M/F/D/V. housing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway

ply. Pre-applications will be available from 9AM TO 5PM beginning Monday Ju;y Monday, 6, 2018 at 9:00AM.(approximately 100) have 25,beginning 2016 andon ending whenAugust sufficient pre-applications been received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be mailied upon request by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours.Our Completed pretree service company is looking for a laborer Common Ground is hiring a part timeoffices Grants As-Orange Street, applications must be returned to HOME INC’s at 171 Third to assist the Shop manager. Basic mechanic knowlsociate.

ForHaven, a complete job description and directions Floor, New CT 06510.

Shop Assistant

on how to apply, please visit http://commongroundct. org/2018/07/common-ground-seeks-part-time-grantsNOTICIA associate

edge a must Responsible for filling in where needed around our garage and yard. Doing minor repairs and maintenance on equipment and vehicles, loading mulch and/or firewood

is seeking to fill the position of Director of Gift Planning.

Please refer to our website for details: http://www.cfgnh. org/About/ContactUs/EmploymentOpportunities.aspx.

EOE. Electronic submissions only. No phone calls Laboratory Technician

Responsible for the sampling and laboratory analysis of domestic and industrial water and wastewater. Requires an A.S. degree in biology, chemistry or related field and 2 years experience in laboratory analysis. Experience and training may be substituted on a year for year basis. Must have a valid State of CT driver’s license. $26.96 to $32.41 hourly plus an excellent fringe benefit package. Apply: Human Resources Department, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492, (203) 294-2080, Fax #: (203) 294-2084 The closing date will be that date the 50th application form/resume is received, or September 11, 2018, whichever occurs first. EOE

VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES

Waste Treatment

Candidate is subject to a drug check.

HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está Wastewater Treatment Plant Operator (AttendantHouse III): Operates and maintains Email resume to mclellantree@comcast.net equipment andpre-solicitudes processes in a municipal sewage treatment plant. a aceptando para estudios y apartamentos deRequires un dormitorio en este desarrollo H.S. diploma or GED. A State of CT Dept. of Energy and Environmental Or Fax: 860-261-7755 ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven.

Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos Protection (DEEP) Class III Operators License or higher certification plus We are a medium sized 30+ year company that offers máximos.

Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 three (3) yrs. of experience in the operation of a class II or higher wastewater treatment facility, with one (1)seyr.han in arecibido supervisory capacitypre-solicitudes of foreman level(aproximadamente julio, 2016 hasta cuando suficientes 100)and dental benefits as well as 401K plan medical or higher. possess and maintain validpre-solicitudes driver’s license serán enviadas por correo aAffirmative en las Must oficinas de HOME INC.a Las petición Action/Equal Opportunity Employer $ 28.77 to $ 32.83 hourly / $ 26.69 to $ 32.83 based on certifications & exllamando a HOME INC al 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirse perience oficinas fringe de HOME INC en 171Apply: Orange Street, tercer piso, New plusa las an excellent benefit package.

Department of Human Re- Haven , CT 06510 . sources, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492.

1907 Hartford Turnpike North Haven, CT 06473 The closing date will be that date the 50th application form/resume is received, or August 28, 2018 whichever occurs first. EOE

KMK Insulation Inc.

The Glendower Group, Inc

NEW HAVEN Request for Qualifications Land Use Zoning Attorney Services 242-258 Fairmont Ave

Mechanical Insulator position.

Insulation company offering good pay and benefits.

Town of Bloomfield

Part Time Foster Care Family Support Worker $18.00 to $20.00 hourly – non-benefited Pre-employment drug testing. AA/EOE For details and how to apply go to www.bloomfieldct.org

DELIVERY PERSON NEEDED

Please mail resume to above address.. MAIL ONLY This company is an Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer.

Part Time Delivery Needed SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE One/Two Day a Week,

Invitation to Bid: 2nd Notice Common Ground High School is hiring a Full Time Grade 10 In-

2BR Group, Townhouse, 1.5ofBA, 3BR, 1 levelterdisciplinary , 1BA Lab Instructor, a Full Time Teaching Assistant and The Glendower Inc an affiliate Housing Authority a Part visAllNew new Haven apartments, newcity appliances, newiscarpet, close to I-91Time & I-95certified Social Studies/History Teacher. Please City of d/b/a Elm Communities currently Oldjob Saybrook, CT it http://commongroundct.org/get-involved/join-our-staff/ for seeking proposals for Land Use Zoning Services.center A descriptions and how to apply. highways, near bus Attorney stop & shopping (4 Buildings, 17 Units) complete theallowed. requirement may be obtained from Elm@ 860-985-8258 Pet copy underof40lb Interested parties contact Maria Tax Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage Rate Project City’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing. cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on Monday, August 6, 2018 at 3:00PM CT. Unified Deacon’s Association is pleased to offer a Deacon’s New Construction, Wood Framed, Housing, Selective Demolition, Site-work, Cast-

Must Have Own Vehicle

QSR STEEL CORPORATION

Electric

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

Distribution Engineer – The Town of Wallingford Electric DiviSt. New Haven, CT

APPLY NOW!

in-place Concrete, Asphalt Shingles, Vinyl Siding,

If Interested call

Fabricators, Erectors & Welders Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Casework, Top pay for top performers. Health Benefits, 401K, Vacation Pay. Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection.

Email Resume: Rose@qsrsteel.com Hartford, CT

(203) 435-1387

sion is seeking a highly technical individual to work in the design and This contract is subject to state set-aside and contract compliance requirements. development of overhead and underground power distribution lines. The AFFIRMATIVE ACTION/EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER utility serves 23,000 customers in a 50+ square mile distribution area with a peak demand of 130 MW. The position requires a B.S. degree in Bid Extended, Due Date: August 5, 2016 electrical engineering plus 2 years of responsible experience in utility Anticipated Start: August 15, 2016 engineering, or an equivalent combination of education and experience Sealed bids are invited by the Housing Authority of the Town of Seymour substituting on a year-for year basis.

Salary: $73,999$94,676 annually Project documents available via ftp link below: plus an excellent benefit package.

Apply Human until 3:00 pmfringe on Tuesday, August 2, to: 2016 at itsResources office at 28 Smith Street, Requesthttp://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage for Proposals Department, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, Seymour, CT 06483 for Concrete Sidewalk Repairs and Replacement at the CT 06492. Fax #: (203) 294-2084. Closing date will be September 11, Material Testing Services Smithfield AssistedisLiving Facility, 26occurs Smithfirst.

Street Seymour.

2018 or the dateGardens the 50th application received, whichever Fax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com EOE. all Veteran, S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified Businesses The Glendower Group, IncHCC anencourages affiliatethe ofparticipation Housingof Au-

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY

Town of Bloomfield

The Glendower Group, Inc

Full Time Building Official $78,100 to $120,552 Pre-employment drug testing. AA/EOE For details and how to apply go to www.bloomfieldct.org Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 City of New Haven d/b/a Haynes Elm Construction city CommuniA pre-bid conference will be held at the Housing Authority thority Office 28 Smith

Common Ground is looking for an Assistant Manager of Fa-

ties is currently seeking proposals for Material Testing Street atthe 10:00 am, on with Wednesday, July and 20, 2016. cilities andSeymour, Grounds to CT assist Site Manager the care, upkeep maintenance of Common Ground’s site and facilities in order to ensure Services. A complete copy of the requirement may be they effectively meet all of Common Ground’s programmatic needs. obtained from Elm City’s Vendor Collaboration PorBidding documents are available from the Seymour Housing Authority OfClick here for a full job descrtipion and how to apply: http://commongroundct.org/2018/07/common-ground-is-seeking-an-assistant-managfice, 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579. tal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/ gateway beginning on Monday, July 30, 2018 at 3:00PM er-of-facilities-and-grounds/

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

AA/EEO EMPLOYER

20

Property Management Company is seeking a Resident Services Coordinator in New Haven, CT. Part time- 16 hrs/wk. Must have experience working w/ senior and disabled community. Social Services background preferred. Please call (860) 951-9411 x238 for inquiries.

July 2016 -- August THEINNER-CITY INNER-CITY NEWSNEWS - August 2227, , 2018 August02, 28,2016 2018

PUBLIC NOTICE NOTICE The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport (HACB) d/b/a Park City Communities (PCC)

will be opening itsMACRI Low Income Public HousingPREWaiting Lists for 1BRAVAILABLE Elderly/62 and VALENTINA RENTAL HOUSING APPLICATIONS over individuals and our 2BR & 3BR family units beginning Monday, August 13 through Friday, August 2018. of ToColumbus qualify forHouse Elderly, youthe must 62 years or older; for 2BR HOME INC, 31, on behalf and NewbeHaven Housing Authority, & 3BR units a family size MUST be a minimum of two (2) AND the annual gross income is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this develmay not exceed the income limits shown below for the household size. Pre-Applications opment located at 108 Frank Street, New Haven. Maximum income limitations apmust be picked up at Gary Crooks Community Center, 301 Bostwick Ave. Pre-Applicaply.can Pre-applications will befrom available from www.parkcitycommunities.org.

9AM TO 5PM beginning Monday tions also be downloaded our website OnlyJu;y one 25, 2016 and (approximately 100) have pre-application perending family when will besufficient accepted; pre-applications duplicate pre-applications will be disqualified.

been received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be mailied upon request by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 those hours.

Completed preApplications must be returned toduring Gary Crooks ONLY. applications must be returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange Street, Third This housing does have a preference point system: disabled, homeless, elderly, Floor, Newauthority Haven, CT 06510.

working, displaced, domestic violence, veterans, elderly congregate and witness protection. A waiting list with preferences means that applicants who qualify for the preference will receive

NOTICIA

Household size VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES 1 3 Income Limits

2

HOME INC, enVery nombre de (50%) la Columbus House y de la$38,750 New Haven$43,600 Housing Authority, está Low $33,900 aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo Extremely LowStreet, New $26,15 de ingresos $20,35 $23,25 ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Haven. Se aplican limitaciones 0 0 0 máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 julio, 2016 hastaLow cuando se han recibido suficientes (aproximadamente 100) (80%) $64,75 $50,35 pre-solicitudes $57,55 en las oficinas de HOME INC. Las pre-solicitudes serán 0 0 enviadas0 por correo a petición llamando a HOME INC al 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirse If youde require a reasonable this process, helpHaven line will, be a las oficinas HOME INC enaccommodation 171 OrangeforStreet, tercera designated piso, New CT 06510 . available to receive your requests at (203) 337-8804 PCC Does not discriminate based upon race, color, disabilities, religion, sex or national origin.

NOTICIA PUBLICA NEW HAVEN

The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport (HACB) d/b/a 242-258 Park City Communities (PCC) Fairmont Ave

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

abrirá sus listas de espera de viviendas públicas de bajos ingresos para 1dorm. para personas de edad avanzada, y mas y nuestras familiares 2BR &close 3BR comenzando el Lunes, All new62apartments, newunidades appliances, newdecarpet, to I-91 & I-95 13 de Agosto hasta el Viernes, 31 de Agosto de 2018. Para calificar para ancianos, usted debe highways, near bus stop & shopping center tener 62 años o más; para las unidades 2BR & 3BR un tamaño de familia debe ser un mínimo de dos (2) el ingreso anual Interested no puede exceder límites de ingresos que se muestran a Pety under 40lbbruto allowed. parties los contact Maria @ 860-985-8258 continuación para el tamaño del hogar. Las pre-solicitudes deben ser recogidos en el Centro Comunitario Gary Crooks, 301 Bostwick Ave. las aplicaciones previas también se pueden descargar desde nuestra página Association web www.parkcitycommunities.org.

CT. Unified Deacon’s is pleased to offer a Deacon’s Sólo se aceptará una pre-solicitud por Certificate This is a 10duplicadas month program designed to assist in the intellectual formation of Candidates familia; las Program. pre-aplicaciones serán descalificadas. in response to the Church’s Ministry needs. The cost is $125. Classes start Saturday, August 20, 2016 1:303:30 Contact: Chairman, Deacon Joe J. Davis, M.S., B.S. deben serBishop entregadas a Gary CenterChurch solamente!

(203)Aplicaciones 996-4517 Host, General Elijah Davis, D.D.Crooks Pastor ofCommunity Pitts Chapel U.F.W.B. 64 Brewster St. New Haven, CT

La Autoridad de Viviendas tiene un sistema de preferencias: personas sin hogar, discapacitados, mayor de edad, empleados, víctimas de violencia domestica, veteranos, ancianos congregados y protección de testigos. Una lista de espera con preferencias quiere decir que personas que cualifican con su preferencia recibirán asistencia antes de personas sin preferencias.

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY

Sealed bids areTamano inviteddelbyhogar the Housing1 Authority2 of the Town of Seymour Los limites de ingresos 3 until 3:00 pm on Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at its office at 28 Smith Street, Muy Bajo (50%) $33,900 $38,750 $43,600 Seymour, CT 06483 for Concrete Sidewalk Repairs and Replacement at the Extremademente Bajo $23,25 $26,15 Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living$20,35 Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour.

0

0

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Bajo (80%) $57,55 $64,75 A pre-bid conference will be held at$50,35 the Housing Authority Office 28 Smith 0 0 0 Street Seymour, CT at 10:00 am, on Wednesday, July 20, 2016.

Si necesita un ajuste razonable para este proceso, una línea de ayuda designada estará disponible

para recibir sus peticiones (203) 337-8804 Bidding documents are available from thealSeymour Housing Authority Office, Smith Street, CT 06483 (203) religión, 888-4579.

PCC 28 no discrimina basadoSeymour, en la raza, color, discapacidad, sexo u origen nacional.

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

CDL Driver with 3 years min. exp. HAZMAT Endorsed.

(Tractor/Triaxle/Roll-off) 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 EOE/AA.

TRACTOR TRAILER DRIVER (F/T) Perform routine driving (in state)/inspection of transported goods and material handling duties for retail operations. Valid CDL A & current med examiner’s card. HS Diploma/GED w/1-3 yrs. exp.

Pay rate $19.21/hr. (DOE) plus benefits. Apply in person: 432 Washington Ave, North Haven/hr@goodwillsne.org/fax:203-4956108 EOE/AA – M/F/D/V

Common Ground is looking for an Assistant Manager of Facilities and Grounds to assist the Site Manager with the care, upkeep and maintenance of Common Ground’s site and facilities in order to ensure they effectively meet all of Common Ground’s programmatic needs. Click here for a full job descrtipion and how to apply: http:// commongroundct.org/2018/07/common-ground-is-seeking-an-assistant-manager-of-facilities-and-grounds/

EXP, welder for structural steel, misc. metals shop Send resume: hherbert@gwfabrication.com

FENCE ERECTING CONTRACTORS

Field Engineer

BA/BS in Civil Engineering or Construction Management.

2-5 yrs. experience. OSHA Certified.

Proficient in reading contract plans and specifications.

Resumes to RED Technologies, LLC, 10 Northwood Dr., Bloomfield, CT 06002; Fax 860.218.2433; Email resumes to info@redtechllc.com. RED Technologies, LLC is an EOE.

Project Manager Environmental Remediation Division 3-5 years exp. and Bachelor’s Degree, 40-Hr. Hazwoper Training Req. Forward resumes to RED Technologies, LLC, 10 Northwood Dr., Bloomfield, CT 06002;

Fax 860.218.2433; or Email to HR@redtechllc.com

RED Technologies, LLC is an EOE.

Garrity Asphalt Reclaiming, Inc

seeks: Construction Equipment Mechanic preferably experienced in Reclaiming and Road Milling Equipment. We offer factory training on equipment we operate. Location: Bloomfield CT We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits Contact: Dan Peterson Phone: 860- 243-2300 email: dpeterson@garrityasphalt.com Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer

Garrity Asphalt Reclaiming, Inc

Large CT Fence & Guardrail Contractor is looking for seeks: Reclaimer Operators and Milling Operators Fence Installer foreman and helpers. Foreman must have at with current licensing and clean driving record, be least 5 years’ experience. Helpers-no experience required, willing to travel throughout the Northeast & NY. will train the right person. Work available 10-12 months per We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits Invitationand to Bid: year. Valid Ct. Driver’s license required must be able Contact: Rick Tousignant to get a DOT Medical Card. All necessary equipment pro2nd Notice Phone: 860- 243-2300 vided. Medical, vacation & other benefits included. Must be Email: rick.tousignant@garrityasphalt.com able to pass a physical and drug test. Foreman rates from Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply Saybrook, CT $16 to $22 to $28.10/hour plus benefits,Old helper rates from Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer $18.10/hour plus benefits. OSHA 10 training required.

(4 Buildings, 17 Units) Please email resume to pking@atlasoutdoor.com AA/EOE Tax Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage Rate Project

SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE

Union Company seeks:

VanNew Driver to transport w/disabilities Construction, Woodindividuals’ Framed, Housing, SelectivereceivDemolition,Tractor Site-work,Trailer Cast- Driver for Heavy & Highway Coning services according to assigned schedule/destination. HS struction Equipment. Must have a CDL License, in-place Concrete, Asphalt Shingles, Vinyl Siding, diploma/GED plus 3-12 months exp/training. Current CT PSL/ clean driving record, capable of operating heavy Flooring, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Casework, Medical Card a Painting, must. Split shift 20-25 hrs/week. Pay rate $11.85/ equipment; be willing to travel throughout the hr. Apply to: GWSNE, Recruitment Mgr., 432 Washington Ave, Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection.

North Haven, CT 06473/fax (203) 495-6108/ hr@goodwillsne.

This contract is subject to state set-aside and contract compliance requirements. Northeast & NY. org EOE/AA – M/F/D/V We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits Contact Dana at 860-243-2300.

Bid Extended, Due Date: August 5, 2016 Email: dana.briere@garrityasphalt.com Waste Treatment

Anticipated Start: August 15, 2016 Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply Wastewater TreatmentProject Plant Operator (Attendant II):via Operates documents available ftp link and below: Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer maintains equipment and processes in a municipal sewage treathttp://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage ment plant. Requires a H.S. diploma or GED. In addition, must possess a State of Connecticut Department of Energy and EnviFax or Protection Email Questions & Bids Dawn Lang 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com ronmental Class II to: Operator or @higher certification; or encourages the participation of allcertification.

Veteran, S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified Businesses a Class IIHCC Operator-in-training or higher Must possess Haynes Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 Large CT Fence & Guardrail Contractor is looking and maintain a valid driver’s license. $25.38 to $30.24 hourly / $22.59 - $30.24 on certifications AA/EEObased EMPLOYER for experienced, responsible commercial and resi& experience plus an excellent fringe benefit package. Apply: Perdential fence erectors and installers on a subcontracsonnel Department, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, tor basis. Earn from $750 to $2,000 per day. Email Wallingford, CT 06492. The closing date will be that date the 50th resume to pking@atlasoutdoor.com AA/EOE application form/resume is received, or August 21, 2018, whichever occurs first. EOE

FENCE ERECTING SUBCONTRACTORS

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 - August 28, 2018

OP-ED: America’s Teachers Need More Community, Parental Support

Questions about your bill?

By Dr. Elizabeth Primas, Program Manager, NNPA ESSA Public Awareness Campaign

Yale New Haven Hospital is pleased to offer patients and their families financial counseling regarding their hospital bills or the availability of financial assistance, including free care funds.

By appointment, patients can speak one-on-one with a financial counselor during regular business hours. For your convenience, extended hours are available once a month.

Date: Monday, August 20 Time: 5 - 7 pm Location: Children’s Hospital, 1 Park St., 1st Floor, Admitting Parking available (handicapped accessible) An appointment is necessary. Please call 203-688-2046.

Spanish-speaking counselors available.

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, f sday Clif Thur e’s Sea ant .

Amar 6 - 10 p.m

The latest data from the Center for American Progress shows that the average salary for an attorney is more than two times that of elementary and middle school educators.

The Washington Post reported last week that nearly 1 in 10 hosts who rent out their apartments, homes and spaces on Airbnb are teachers. Low salaries, compared with other college graduates, may inhibit highly-effective professionals from pursuing a career in education; specifically for people of color who currently make up just seven percent of public school teachers.

I come from a family of educators. My mother, both of my grandmothers, and one of my sisters were teachers. However, the family tradition of educating children ended after me. None of my daughters, nieces, or nephews decided to pursue a career in education. Data comprised from surveys completed during the NNPA’s National Black Parents’ Town Hall Meeting echoed this sentiment. When asked what they believed is needed to close the academic achievement gap, respondents selected community participation and funding over the acquisition of highly-effective teachers.

Many reasons have led to frustrations with teaching in the United States. Work-to-pay ratio, a lack of resources, and an increased focus on standardized testing has made it increasingly difficult for teachers to be highly-effective.

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This year, teacher strikes broke out in several states concerning school funding and teacher pay. Teachers in Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and West Virginia left the classroom for the state house to protest the lack of resources in the profession. NPR reported in April that teachers have begun to seek support outside of the educational bureaucracy; forming “supply shops” where teachers can swap educational materials for free or at a dramatically reduced cost.

A first-year teacher who attended the National Black Parents’ Town Hall Meeting in Norfolk, VA, said that she stepped into the role of teaching, initially excited, but found by the end of the year she was extremely drained physically and emotionally. “I stepped into the role, mid-year, with no lesson plan. What can be done to keep teachers teaching and encourage new teachers coming into the program? I really want to teach, but there is very little support.”

Highly-effective teachers require competitive pay, professional support, and access to innovative resources. President Barack Obama signed the current national education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in December 2015 with educators in mind. Title II of ESSA provides program grants to states and districts that can be used for teacher preparation, recruitment, support, and continued learning. ESSA also ends the requirement of states to set up teacher evaluation systems based significantly on students’ test scores which should reduce the pressure teachers feel to teach to the test. The Teacher and School Leader Innovation Program provides grants to districts that want to try out performance pay and other teacher quality improvement measures. ESSA became effective this 2018-2019 school year.

With data compiled from 26 school districts, the Institute of Education Sciences

(IES) found that on average there were small differences in the effectiveness of teachers of high- and low-income students, hiring patterns and teacher transfer patterns were consistent, with only minor differences, between high- and low-income students, and that in 3 of the 26 chosen districts there was meaningful inequity in access to effective teachers in math. Data showed that access to highly-effective teachers was relatively equal across the board. Yet, inequities in educational outcomes between low-income students and students from wealthier families persist throughout the United States.

As a new teacher, the constant challenge for me was parental engagement. A working parent’s schedule often left little time during school hours to participate in their child’s education and those who were free during school hours, failed to realize the importance of their presence and participation. Today, meaningful parental engagement remains a challenge for educators.

So, this is a call to action for all parents.

Let’s listen to teachers. They are calling for more support and increased pay. Let’s attend to school meetings to find out how to provide them additional support. Let’s attend city and the state meetings to advocate for competitive pay. Let’s vote for leaders who support the academic advancement of our children through access to additional resources.

Dr. Elizabeth Primas is an educator, who spent more than 40 years working towards improving education for children of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds. Dr. Primas is the program manager for the NNPA’s Every Student Succeeds Act Public Awareness Campaign. Follow Dr. Primas on Twitter @elizabethprimas.

Learn more about the Every Student Succeeds Act at nnpa.org/essa.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 - August 28, 2018

NEW HAVEN’S GRASSROOTS COMMUNITY RADIO STATION!

Endangered Amur Tiger cubs born November 2017.

www.newhavenindependent.org

IN THE MORNING Weekdays 6-9 a.m.

THE TOM FICKLIN SHOW

MAYOR MONDAY!

MERCY QUAYE

Mondays 11 a.m.

Mondays 1 p.m.

“THE SHOW”

“DJ REL”

MICHELLE TURNER Tuesdays 9 a.m.

50% OFF BEARDSLEY ZOO CHILD ADMISSION (ages 3-11)

with purchase of adult ticket and this coupon.

Limit 1 discount ticket per household. May not be combined with other offers. EXPIRES: 12/31/18

“WERK IT OUT”

ELVERT EDEN Tuesdays at 2 p.m.

MORNINGS WITH MUBARAKAH

“JAZZ HAVEN”

Wednesdays 9 a.m.

Wednesdays 2 p.m.

N O T WO C AREER P ATHS A RE T HE S AME

STANLEY WELCH

“TALK-SIP”

LOVEBABZ LOVETALK

Thursdays 1 p.m.

Mondays-Fridays 9 a.m.

ALISA BOWENSMERCADO

BEARDSLEYZOO.ORG • BRIDGEPORT, CT

Mondays 10 a.m.

INNRCTY418

JOE UGLY

Looking For Some Fun? Join the Cub!

We Offer: • Employer Incentives to Hire • On-the-Job Training • Job Search Assistance • Re-Training • Transportation Assistance • Hiring Events

4 Locations: New Haven: (203) 624-1493 Meriden: (203) 238-3688 Middletown: (860) 347-7691 Hamden: (203) 859-3200 Open Mon-Fri, 8:30am – 4:30pm Hamden opens at 8am

Visit www.workforcealliance.biz/services/wheredoistart Be Part of the South Central CT Economy

*There is never a fee for the jobseeker or the employer. Services are funded through state and federal grants.

FRIDAY PUNDITS Fridays 11 a.m.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - August 22, 2018 - August 28, 2018

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