INNER-CITY NEWS

INNER-CITY NEWS July 28 27, 2016 --August 02, 2016 THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October , 2020 November 03, 2020

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Covid Mask Crusade Hits Waverly THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 28, 2020 - November 03, 2020

by LAURA GLESBY

New Haven I ndependent

The masks had arrived. So Kyasia Parker sprinted door to door, rounding up her neighbors and friends — and keeping up the momentum in a grassroots pandemicsurvival effort.

As Kyasia hopped between her neighbors’ houses, her mother, Nikki Parker, called for her friends to come out.

Eventually, Parker brought out a folding chair so she could sit and help local contractor Rodney Williams and the neighborhood’s alder, Tyisha Walker-Myers, distribute packets of disposable face masks to residents and passersby.

That was the scene Thursday after noon at the Waverly Townhouses public-housing complex in the West River neighborhood.

Waverly Street was filled with hearty laughter that day as the close-knit residential community showed up in full force to help keep each other — and their loved ones, and their students — a little more pandemic-safe. The afternoon reflected the challenge and the promise of pandemic survival in the city: people pulling together to carry out the steps needed to keep everyone safe.

Williams, who has spearheaded several other mask distribution events and said he plans to run more next week, donated over 2,000 adult-sized masks and 4,500 kid-sized ones. Two hours into the event,

his supply was nearly depleted; he had to drive home to retrieve more.

Williams is the owner of local contracting company Green Elm Construction.

He also sells face masks and face shields at bulk prices. He said he uses the profits to purchase more masks for donationdriven events like Thursday’s.

He had masks in two sizes: one for young kids, and one for teens and adults.

“You got kids? Grandkids?” Williams and Walker-Myers would ask the adults who strolled by. “Go get your friends.”

They gave out as many packs of masks as people asked for. Williams stressed that he wasn’t going to run out of stock anytime soon.

One kid, Nazir, showed up proudly donning a mask patterned with ice cream and balloons. Williams fished through his trunk to find two packs of masks with pandas on them.

While the masks on Thursday were free, Williams nonetheless made a few sales to people interested in supporting the distribution effort, including Rev. Steven Cousin of Bethel A.M.E. Church, who arrived to buy 2,500 masks on the spot.

He also sold plastic kid-sized face shields for $2 a piece, which eventually proved to be popular with the Waverly kids.

As Covid-19 infections rise in Connecticut, Williams said, “I’m giving the people what they need.” He said that even the masks he sells are priced accessibly.

Tynicha Drummonds, baby Payton, Patricia Evans, and Precious Hill.

“They sell them in the street for a dollar a piece,” he said, shaking his head.

Walker-Myers said she sees continuous free mask distribution as critical in the pandemic, she said, because “you gotta have access to them to be able to keep them on.”

And Covid isn’t going anywhere soon,

she added. “We are gonna be doing this for a long time.”

Nikki Parker stayed to help for the duration of the event. She and her friend Kathy work as paraprofessionals in New Haven Public Schools. They both took packets of masks to distribute to their classrooms.

Then, Parker began calling neighbors by

name as they walked by, asking if they needed masks.

Dominique Edge was one of those neighbors passing by.

“Masks, they do get expensive,” said Edge, who has worked in retail through the pandemic. “Especially with hours beCon’t on page

Health Plan Browsing Starts Today

by Christine Stuart Ct. Junkie News

HARTFORD, CT — It’s the eighth year of open enrollment and nothing fazes the staff at Access Health CT—Connecticut’s health insurance exchange.

Andrea Ravitz, chief marketing officer for Access Health CT, said they’ve faced enrollment challenges in the past and they just keep pressing forward.

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In 2018, a Texas judge struck down the Affordable Care Act. The appeal of that decision is now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. Even though the law has been twice upheld by the court there’s a possibility it might get struck down. A hearing in the case is expected to be held on Nov. 10.

The Affordable Care Act and the Texas lawsuit were part of the focus of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s recent confirmation hearing.

But what happens in the courts isn’t on the minds of Access Health CT employees.

“This is not the time for us to hit pause,” Ravitz said. “But to push forward and deal with whatever happens just like everyone

else.”

Ravitz said they are having to go back to the first few years of enrollment and explain to a whole new group of people what the exchange is and how it works.

That’s because the number of individuals who lost employer-provided health insurance coverage during the pandemic has grown. Ravitz said there are many newly uninsured who don’t have to wait for open enrollment and can purchase a plan right now through the AHCT website because losing a job is a qualifying life event.

For all other individuals, open enrollment for 2021 begins on Nov. 1.

Anthem and ConnectiCare are the two private insurance carriers who will offer plans on the exchange in 2021.

Earlier this year, the Insurance Department reduced the rate increases each company sought.

The average rate increase for the 22,071 customers covered by Anthem Health Plans was slashed from 9.9% to 1.9% and the average increase for 75,174 ConnectiCare customers was cut from 5.5% to -0.1%.

There are nearly 100,000 people enrolled through Access Health CT. About 881,000

CTNEWSJUNKIE FILE PHOTO

Former Access Health storefront in New Britain

are enrolled in Medicaid.

Consumers looking to purchase a plan through the exchange can start browsing offerings starting today.

Consumers can browse at AccessHealthCT. com When enrollment begins they will be able to make an appointment at one of six enrollment locations or they can attend

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an enrollment fair in a virtual environment. Enrollment centers will be located at Project Access, 63 York St., New Haven; and Community Renewal Team, 330 Market St., Hartford. The other cities will be Bridgeport, Stamford, New Britain and Groton, at sites that have yet to be announced.

Also for the first time this year, dedicated

Access Health CT representatives at the virtual enrollment fairs will be able to cobrowse the website with customers.

In addition to Access Health CT, the two carriers are also helping boost enrollment.

ConnectiCare https://www.connecticare. com/live-well/blog/health-insurance/ open-enrollment-is-around-the-corner-getready has five physical locations in Farmington, Manchester, Norwalk, Shelton and Waterbury to help with enrollment. The centers are available by appointment only due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Kim Kann, ConnectiCare spokeswoman, said they are doing everything they can to get the word out about enrollment, which ends December 15.

“You need to know what your options are and then know what actions you have to take,” Kann said.

Anthem said they won’t have any physical enrollment locations, but will be doing video discussions with customers in a “virtual neighborhood.”

“Our virtual neighborhood will be a welcoming, personalized approach to engaging our members to ensure they have what they need during this open enrollment period,” an Anthem spokesman said.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 28, 2020 - November 03, 2020

A Young People’s “Village” Emerges

by SAM GURWITT

New Haven I ndependent

Melissa Atterberry-Jones understands that to raise a child, it takes a village.

Hamden now understands that to make a village, it takes … Melissa Atterberry-Jones.

As of Saturday afternoon, after months of work, Atterberry-Jones’ village is now open. The fruit of those months of planning, “The Village,” is a new youth center on Pershing Avenue in Hamden.

Atterberry-Jones said she and her mother had talked about opening a youth center for years. Her mother used to run a daycare from her home.

Kids in the neighborhood would stop by whenever they needed anything.

“Anything they needed, my mom’s house was that house,” she said. She said her mother used to say that kids needed a place to go instead of being on the streets. “We can’t just tell them to get off the streets and not have somewhere for them to go,” she said.

Her mother, Michele Atterberry, passed away in May. After that, said Atterberry-Jones, “I felt I had no choice but to follow in her footsteps.”

With the recent uptick in shootings and murders, and with so many families struggling, it needed to happen now.

At its grand opening Saturday afternoon, The Village was packed with friends, kids, community leaders, town officials, gold and black balloons, and a smattering of politicians. Darryl Pervis of Dperv’s T. O. P. BBQ was serving sumptuous-smelling trays of fried chicken and rice.

While it may take a village to raise a child, Atterberry-Jones did most of the work to create the village in the first place. She said she’s been working on the center for about two months. She funded it entirely herself.

As she walked around the one-room space, she pointed out where the many activities would take place. One side is devoted to fitness. In one corner is a boxing ring, where boxing teacher Solomon Maye was coaching kids through a match. Along another wall are weights and other gym equipment like treadmills and ellipticals.

On the other side of the central column that divides the room in two were the tables laden with food, but when the space is in use, Atterberry-Jones said, it will mostly remain open for activities like dance. There is a foosball table and a pool table, along with an alcove with TV for video games, a small basketball hoop, and a table with a chess set.

At Saturday’s youth center opening: sisters Melissa Atterberry-Jones, Melinda Atterberry-Chapman, Melony Atterberry-Brooks.

Atterberry-Jones with State Rep. Robyn Porter and Porter’s grandson. “I got butterflies, that’s how excited I am,” Porter said.

SAM GURWITT PHOTOS Melissa Atterberry-Jones at Saturday’s opening.

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Atterberry-Jones said that side of the room would be used for games, arts, crafts. A table set apart from the rest of the room by dividers will provide the space for homework.

While The Village will offer kids the chance to learn boxing and dance, it will also teach them life skills like how to change a tire and how to tie a tie. It is also partnering with a bank to teach financial literacy.

While Atterberry-Jones created, and will run, the center, she started to get help from friends, politicians, and the town.

A few weeks ago, her car was vandalized. She called the police, and an officer showed up to investigate. He asked her what she was working on, and she told him that she was creating a rec center. The officer told her she should talk to his sergeant, who was looking for ways to engage with the town’s youth.

A few days later, Atterberry-Jones got a call from Hamden Sgt. William Onofrio.

“This is all her,” said Onofrio. But he said the department has helped however it could. It connected Atterberry-Jones to businesses in the area that could partner, and is helping her through the process of becoming a non-profit.

The department will also send plainclothes officers to the center a few days a week to mentor kids. He said he wants officers to build relationships with kids. The department will also be able to send teenagers deemed “at-risk”

who have been referred to the town’s juvenile review board to The Village.

He said they would come to the center so they could have something to look forward to, and have a place to learn to box, or play games.

Mayor Curt Leng said he is thrilled to see the center opening. “They did it on their own, and I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said.

Leng was standing near the treadmills, facing the boxing ring.

In the ring, Brianna Alers and Amir Foster were bounding about in a match.

“Keep your head down! Keep your chin down,” shouted coach Solomon Maye from the side.

Maye has moved his teaching operation to The Village. He runs Knock ‘em Boy, LLC, and a non-profit called Tha Bridge.

Maye said he hopes to use boxing to provide structure and stability that he didn’t have as a kid. “Boxing was like a parent to me,” he said.

He started as an amateur boxer at 13, but his amateur career ended when he started going back and forth to prison.

After serving a six-year sentence, he started boxing as a professional at age 38. He said he never intended to teach, but kids would ask him for pointers when he was training in the gym, and that pushed him toward his current role as a mentor.

“I want to be to them what I didn’t have,” he said. A lot of the kids he mentors don’t have fathers, or their parents don’t have time to take care of them because they have to work. Boxing requires discipline, and above all, trust, he said. It forces him to build strong relationships with the kids he mentors, he said.

The center is open to any student from grades 7-12 who wants to come. There is a one-time $25 registration fee, and after that, they can come for however much or little time they want. It will be open Monday-Saturday, 2:30-6 p.m.

Atterberry-Jones gave a list of her dreams for The Village. “I’m hoping by this time next year we have to move into a bigger space,” she said. She said she would like to start a community closet where kids can come get clothes for free. Someday, she said, she hopes to create a scholarship, and even provide housing for kids who don’t have homes.

But for now, she can give kids a place to come after school, and a community. “Sometimes what a kid needs is just to know that someone loves them and someone cares,” she said. “And we want to be that support for them.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 28, 2020 - November 03, 2020

New Report Adds Up the Financial Burden of a Cancer Diagnosis

by Lisa Backus Ct. Junkie News

Bertrand Levesque was having most of the cost of his cancer treatments picked up by Medicare, his son Roger said.

Then the Newington resident in his eighties had a bad reaction to his chemotherapy shots and had to switch to oral chemotherapy which he takes at home.

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The transition, from going to a cancer center to receive a shot to taking the medication by mouth, came with a $2,600 a month price tag, said Roger Levesque who along with his siblings has been helping their father get through Multiple Myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells.

“The insurance companies get away with it because now it becomes a prescription,” Roger Levesque said. “He has less side effects and takes it at home without even seeing a doctor but it’s $2,600 a month for three pills.”

Cancer patients need access to adequate low-cost health insurance that caps outof-pocket expenses to make treatment affordable, according to a report released early Friday by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.

Bertrand Levesque’s plight is just one of many that cancer patients face as they deal with the cost of treatment, said Bryte Johnson, Connecticut Government Relations Director for the ACSCAN. “For a lot of families even a few thousand dollars is problematic,” Johnson said. “We’ve seen people who wound up losing their house over it, it’s more common than you think.”

Cancer patients spent $5.6 billion in out-of-pocket costs for cancer treatment in 2018 and the disease cost the country $183 billion in cancer-related health care spending in 2015, according to the report.

The total cost of care is expected to increase to $246 billion, by 2030, an increase of 34%, Johnson said.

The nonpartisan network aims to make cancer a priority among local, state and federal officials to promote evidencebased public policy on reducing the burden of the disease financially and creat-

ing public awareness policies for cancer prevention.

By examining costs associated with three different cancer patients who underwent three different types of treatment, the report concluded that patients need reliable low cost insurance that doesn’t come with high out-pocket-expenses including high co-pays for treatment and drugs.

The authors looked at the expenses for each patient by examining the cost if they had insurance through their employer, through an individual market plan or through Medicare.

Even with insurance, cancer patients of-

ten face unpredictable or unmanageable costs including high co-insurance, high deductibles, or higher incurred by having to seek out-of-network care or needing a treatment that is not covered by their plan, the report said.

Newly diagnosed cancer patients often see their highest out-of-pocket costs in the first two to three months following a diagnosis until they meet their deductible and out-of-pocket maximums, the authors said.

The patient with the employer-sponsored insurance paid the least in premiums and cost-sharing and the patient with indi-

DONT LET THEM COUNT YOU OUT!

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vidual market insurance paid the most, the report found. Limits on out-of-pocket costs significantly lowered patients’ expenses in two of the three insurance scenarios, the report said. “Without these limits, patients’ costs would have skyrocketed,” the authors said.

Cancer patients who pay for an individual market plan through the Affordable Care Act could be facing escalating costs and fewer treatment options if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down portions or all of the 2010 law, ACS officials said.

The Supreme Court is set to hear a challenge to law which allows the uninsured to purchase low cost insurance with subsidies on Nov. 10 against the backdrop of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic which has killed more than 220,000 Americans since March.

“COVID (the disease caused by the coronavirus) is scary enough as it is,” Johnson said. “It’s a very real possibility that by the time the Supreme Court issues a decision in June that coverage could be taken away.”

Most of Bertrand Levesque’s treatment expenses were being paid by Medicare until he suffered neuropathy, a numbing of the hands and feet, which could have become permanent, his son Roger said.

He stopped chemotherapy for a while but then had to restart when his numbers began looking tough, Roger Levesque said.

He was showing up weekly at the Gray Cancer Center to get his chemo shot but his doctor instead put him on oral chemotherapy which should prevent the neuropathy, his son said.

The problem is that the oral chemotherapy has a $2,600-a- month co-pay even with Medicare, he said. The family was able to get a state grant for $11,000 to pay for the chemotherapy for the next three or four months, Levesque said.

“I don’t know if I can get another grant when this runs out,” he said. His father will be on the chemotherapy as preventative maintenance for the rest of his life, Roger Levesque said.

“At this point all we can do is reapply when the money runs out and take it from there,” he said.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 28, 2020 - November 03, 2020

OP-ED | Public Higher Education At Critical Crossroad

by Jonathan L. Wharton The Connecticut State College and University system has been and remains a grandiose public policymaking experiment. From consolidating our community colleges and regional universities under one administrative umbrella to merging 13 community colleges under a single unit, the system faced, and still faces, various political and financial hurdles.

One hurdle is student course transfers from a community college to a public regional university. It has been a difficult challenge for students and even for faculty and administrators to sort similar courses and curricula details. Even

though public higher education in Connecticut is under a large administrative operation, few programs work effectively together on an issue like course transfers.

In fact, last semester I helped co-chair a Southern Connecticut State University faculty senate ad hoc committee to investigate a “2+2,” or community college and university pathway for students.

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Connecticut’s public higher education system has been underfunded for generations. It has also faced much scrutiny because of financial mismanagement. Even though the University of Connecticut is not tied to the CSCU system, it is a public land-grant university that has received notable attention because of the financial issues raised by itsprevious presidential administration.

Just as our public higher education system faces financial concerns and administrative reforms, a pandemic strikes.

CSCU currently has a projected $69 mil-

lion deficit and our community colleges have a student enrollment drop of 15% this semester. CSCU’s Board of Regents voted last week to use nearly half of its emergency reserves – $15 million – and almost the same amount in federal pandemic relief funding through the Lamont administration to plug the deficit. But these steps will hardly be enough this year or for future budgetary concerns.

Beyond deficits, system reforms, and enrollment concerns, our state higher education system faces a significant staffing issue. As a way to save costs, the Board of Regents recently instituted hiring freezes.

Unions are not budging on additional concessions. This all takes place with the approach of 2022’s “silver tsunami,” when hundreds of faculty and staff are expected to retire since contract changes will affect many longtime employees. In fact, CSCU President Mark Ojakian announced his own retirement recently.

So our state higher education system continues to experience various challeng-

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es expected to continue for decades to come. What to do? Beyond the usual cuts, freezes, reserve-raiding and likely tuition increases, our public university system has remained in a major crossroads. We need to get beyond these administrative and financial hurdles. We must ensure continuity staffing through a tsunami of retirements and institute bold steps to maintain our public higher education system for the future.

With a search for a system president in process, this is the opportune moment for candidates and also employees, students, and alumni to consider what needs to be addressed now and what needs to happen down the road to ensure the CSCU system’s long-term future. Higher education system leaders are often political appointees of elected officials.In this instance, the system is considering a search committee composed of higher education presidents’ appointees to decide the new president. This is a helpful start to reforming the CSCU system.

At the same time, what will the system face? Should further consolidation and merger measures remain on the table?

How can we increase and retain student enrollment? How can we recruit and keep our staff? These are pressing issues, especially during a pandemic and an economic slowdown.

Adhering to the status quo of cuts, hiring freezes, and tuition increases is not sustainable. Instead, we should be informed and engaged in finding pathways to resolve our past, present, and future challenges within Connecticut’s public higher education system.

Jonathan L. Wharton, Ph.D. is associate professor of political science and urban affairs and the School of Graduate and Professional Studies Interim Associate Dean at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven. He is also a frequent guest on WNPR’s Wheelhouse radio show.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 28, 2020 - November 03, 2020

As Pandemic Drags On, West Rockers Emerge For Masks

by RABHYA MEHROTRA New Haven I ndependent

They came for masks. And they spoke of the ongoing challenges posed in their daily lives by the pandemic that make the masks necessary.

Some have lost jobs and are having trouble making ends meet. Others fear contracting Covid-19 and infecting families.

And some feel ... cooped up or bored from the isolation.

West Rockers offered those observations Monday afternoon as they came to the city’s latest Covid-19 mask giveaway, held on Solomon Cross. The giveaway was organized by Rodney Williams, the owner of Green Elm Construction, who has been staging similar events in neighborhoods around town.

Fall leaves from West Rock shone against the misty sky. A car radio nearby blared music as neighbors came, greeting each other. Williams asked families what they needed as he gave out masks – up to 90 or 110 at a time. At the end of the giveaway, he reported distributing a total of 4,000.

“I can’t go out anymore,” said Ruth Hoskie. Hoskie is the tenant president for the Twin Brook complex (the rebuilt former Ribicoff Cottages). But these days, she doesn’t leave her apartment much.

She doesn’t own a car, and at age 68, she doesn’t feel safe riding buses. “I only came here today because my friend gave me a ride,” she said.

For Linda Gray, the struggles relating to Covid-19 are personal. “My brother passed away,” she said. “And so did some of my friends. I grew up with them, right in this neighborhood.”

Gray thanked Williams, picking up masks for her grandkids, who are 3, 8, and 12. She said she’s not sure if they’re going back to school when hybrid learning commences next month, and hopes it will be safe.

Indeed, Gray is worried about losing more family members: she has 11 siblings, plus her mother. “I’m just trying to keep [my mother] safe,” she said.

Mary Britton walked up with a smile, requesting masks for herself, her greatgrandsons, and granddaughter. For her, the pandemic hasn’t changed her life much. “All my daughters and son work at home, and I’m retired,” she said. “I’m just enjoying my time at home and relaxing, which I was doing before the pandemic.”

Meanwhile, Evelyn Moore has been out of work since the start of the pandemic.

(Moore declined to be photographed.)

She used to work at a nursing home, but “I just felt like my life was at risk,” she said. “So I quit.” It’s been difficult for her family in terms of finances.

Normally, her niece can spare her a few masks from work, but she hadn’t come in a bit. So Moore came to Monday’s giveaway to pick up masks for her three grandchildren aged 2, 8, and 10, along with her daughter. “My daughter was working at The Graduate,” she said.

RABHYA MEHROTRA PHOTO Quanetta Thomas with daughter S’ence at Monday’s mask giveawayt.

“She’s out of work, too.”

Alonda Boone has had a similar experience. Her job teaching at a daycare center almost stopped after March. “We didn’t do virtual learning, so I’d go in for a few hours a week for administrative stuff, but that was basically it,” she said.

Boone came to pick up masks for her two kids and nephew. Since the day care reopened in September, she’s been working full time.

“I’ve started to catch up with bills again,” Boone said.

For Winyia Corey, a high school student, the pandemic presented different challenges. “It was boring at the start,” she said. As places began to reopen, however, it got better. She sees her friends in their backyards, too.

As for online school? “It sucks a bit.” But at least she can lie in bed while taking classes, she said.

Eduardo Espino is a student at Southern Connecticut State University. He felt pretty safe going back to in-person instruction, he said. “People wear masks and distance.” Although he can still see his friends, “it’s not the same as it used to be.”

Espino is living with his parents at home, and came to get masks for the three of them. Although his parents still have jobs, they’ve had to cut down their hours.

“We’re not the most fortunate, but not the least, either,” he said.

“How can we not be affected by” the pandemic? Gray noted. “It’s just all around you.”

Corey and siblings.

Williams, at the giveaway.

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Con’t from page 2

Covid Mask

ing cut, this is a huge help.”

Jonathan Bailey, an old friend of Williams’ who noticed the event as he rode by on his motorcycle, said the distribution effort was necessary.

“You got people waltzing around with the same mask on, dirty and worn out,” he said. “They’re supposed to be singleuse.”

The city should be doing more to distribute masks, Bailey added. “What’s the plan?”

Stetson Library Branch Manager Diane Brown, who stopped by for a quick visit, praised Williams for stepping up. “He’s taking care of the village the way we all should be taking care of the village,” she said.

Thursday’s mask distribution wasn’t the first event promoting mask-wearing at the complex. Recently, Tynicha Drummonds — the complex’s Youth Program Coordinator — orchestrated a tie-dye maskmaking event.

Drummonds said that building community within the complex has been challenging during the pandemic, as she tries to keep everyone safe and socially distanced but still engaged. In the warmer months, Drummonds said, she’s been holding events outdoors, but she’s worried about how she’ll run events when the weather grows cold.

Another challenge has been the closure of the Waverly community room, which shut down in February and was eventually turned into another apartment unit.

Other housing complexes have community rooms, Drummonds pointed out; Waverly deserves one too.

“I used to love going there,” Precious Hill, who grew up in the complex, reminisced about the community space. “You meet new people.”

Patricia Evans also mourned the loss of the community room. She’s lived in the complex for 17 years, and she knows everyone. She and her late husband had a tradition of giving out fried dough to neighbors. Now, without a space for Waverly residents to gather, she’s especially concerned about how the kids and teens will fare without as many structured activities. “There’s nothing for these kids to do,” she said.

Both the pandemic and the lack of a gathering space has forced the Waverly community to adapt. But residents have continued to care for one another through tough times.

When Evans was recently sick, Hill checked in on her and offered to buy groceries.

“She’s not my daughter, but she might as well be,” Evans said.

As they spoke, Kyasia Parker returned with a cluster of her peers, who lined up with two dollars each to purchase a face shield.

The one Parker bought for herself was pink and puppy-themed.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 28, 2020 - November 03, 2020

Lunch Ladies Serve Up Jobs Petition To City Hall

by THOMAS BREEN

New Haven I ndependent

Over a dozen public school cafeteria workers served up a petition to the mayor Friday in a push to save their jobs, and keep New Haven school children fed, during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

Around 15 New Haven Public Schools food service employees delivered that message to Mayor Justin Elicker during a brief rally held on the front steps of City Hall.

The demonstration came just a few days after the school system announced that it will be using currently idled school buses to deliver meals to homebound students between now and when hybrid, in-person schooling begins on Nov. 9 The lunch ladies present—all of whom are members of UNITE HERE Local 217—said they are part-time, hourly workers whose employment is directly tied to federal reimbursements the city school system receives through the National School Lunch Program. The school system currently employs 156 such cafeteria workers, according to a union representative.

They told the mayor that the shift to allremote school for the last few months of the spring semester and the first 10 weeks of the fall school year, and the associated shift from in-person meal service to bagged breakfast and lunch pick-up, has caused the number of meals distributed each day to plummet from a pre-pandemic average of 15,000 to roughly 2,500.

That number is worrisome for two very

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big reasons, said Troup School cafeteria worker and 18-year public school veteran Robin Jones (pictured at right).

For one, fewer city kids are getting free meals from the school system every day, meaning that some are almost certainly going hungry.

And two, fewer meals distributed each day means the city will get a smaller reimbursement from the federal government through the school lunch program. That in turn means that cafeteria workers’ jobs may be in jeopardy.

“Our kids are our jobs and our family,” Jones said. “We’ve got to make sure our kids are fed.”

“This is my calling,” she added about her work preparing meals in New Haven Public Schools for the past nearly two decades, including during the pandemic. “I love my job.”

“I first just want to say thank you for the work that you have done” during the pandemic, and beforehand, often for years and years, to keep New Haven school children fed, said Elicker.

He said he could not promise that no school cafeteria workers will ever be laid off during the pandemic. But he did commit to working with the Board of Education, the New Haven Public Schools administration, and the cafeteria workers themselves to increase the availability and distribution of food through the school system.

“I know that there many, many, many people in New Haven who need food right now,” the mayor said. “And the last thing

THOMAS BREEN PHOTO School cafeteria workers posing with Mayor Justin Elicker on the front

steps of City Hall.

we want to do is lay people off.”

Elicker said, and the cafeteria workers present celebrated, that the school system plans to use school buses to deliver meals to children for the next two weeks of allremote learning.

“It’s a blessing. It’s truly a blessing,” said Doretta Bowman, a seven-year veteran cafeteria worker who currently serves at East Rock Community Magnet School.

Bowman said that the city should try to

send out as many school buses with meals as it can, because, based on the conversations she has with families when they come by pick up breakfast and lunch togo everyday, people are going hungry throughout the city.

“What happens to the buses on Nov. 9?” asked Angie Monack, a 22-year school cafeteria veteran who currently works at New Haven Academy. “How can they go out if they’re busing kids to school? Is

there a plan that maybe they could do it after they take the kids home?”

Elicker said he did not have an answer right then about what the school meal busing plan is once hybrid learning begins Nov. 9. He promised to look into it, and noted that roughly 44 percent of school students plan to continue with remote education even when the hybrid option becomes available. So there will still be a great need to make sure kids who are not coming to school in person every day get fed.

Christine Saffioti, who also works in East Rock School’s cafeteria and has been with the school system for 18 years, said that if she or any of her colleagues are laid off, they can’t collect unemployment because they’re part time and because of their union contract. “Where does that leave us?” she asked.

“That’s why we’re so scared,” added Monack. “We’re here to ask you to support us in keeping us working. We all have to pay our bills.”

Regina Byrd, a 21-year schools veteran who currently works at Co-Op, and Latasha Vereen, a 12-year veteran who works at John C. Daniels School, stressed that they’ve continued coming to work, making meals, and doing their part to keep their school kids fed even as classes have moved entirely online.

“None of us complain, because we love our jobs,” Byrd said.

Her favorite part about her work, after over two decades on the job? “Being able to cook and feed the children.”

VOTE YES! STATE REPRESENTATIVE PAT DILLON STATE REPRESENTATIVE PAT DILLON FOR STATE REPRESENTATIVE PAT DILLON PROUDLY SERVINGNOVEMBER NEW HAVEN VOTE ROW A A TUESDAY, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6TH VOTE ROW 6TH.

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7

Newhallville Bundles Up THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 28, 2020 - November 03, 2020

by RABHYA MEHROTRA New Haven I ndependent

“I’ve had trouble finding coats,” said Karen Tucker, who brought her two great-nephews Eli and Jayden, who are 8 and 9 respectively, to a giveaway on Saturday. “The ones in the store aren’t insulated or don’t fit right. And they’re more expensive for bigger sizes.”

Tucker came to the coat drive, hosted

by Ruth Kid’s Closet, at Newhallville’s Learning Corridor, the outdoor community space at Shelton Avenue and Hazel Street.

Cynthia Spears, who grew up in Newhallville, created Ruth Kid’s Closet this past year.

Her mother, Ruth Friday, was a teacher in the New Haven Public Schools for 35 years. “She always had a closet in her classroom with weather-appropriate clothing,” said Spears. “When she’d see a kid come in with just a sweater on a cold winter day, she’d give them warm clothes.”

In 2008, Spears moved back to her childhood home on Huntington Street to take care of her mother when she got dementia. After her mother passed away seven years ago, Spears decided to stay in Newhallville, and “start something she would be proud of.”

“Newhallville has been one of the hardest hit communities in the pandemic,” said Spears. “When people are struggling to pay rent and put food on the table, there’s few resources for winter clothing.”

Spears secured a donation from the Yale Community for New Haven Fund, which helped her buy about 300 winter coats for kids. Because Ruth Kid’s Closet has not gotten federal nonprofit tax status, CPEN (Community Placemaking Engagement Network) served as the fiduciary, overseeing the donation. Doreen Abubakar, the creator of CPEN, was also presentSaturday and bundling coats.

Throughout the grey afternoon, families came and went. Kids posed in front of “Wear a mask” sign for photos and bounced around with hula hoops.

“What size are you looking for?” Spears asked Nikia Carey. Carey came with four kids aged 4, 5, 6 and 13. Spears helped the kids put the coats on, making sure they fit.

“This is warm!” declared one of Carey’s kids. “I like it.”

“We went to community events throughout the summer, encouraging people to register for coats,” Spears said. “Sixtyfive families signed up, requesting 150 coats.” In addition to the initial sign-ups, Spears estimated that another 70 families came and registered on site that day.

RABHYA MEHROTRA PHOTO The

Tucker family.

Laura Daniels was one of the parents who had pre-registered. She came with her 9-year-old daughter, Halo Daniels.

(Daniels requested to not be photographed). Halo had two ponytails, a pink sweater, and a big smile.

Halo received a knee-length green coat with a fur hood, which she immediately tried on and pronounced comfortable. It’ll

8

serve as her main coat for when she goes back to hybrid in-person/remote learning next month.

“Financially with Covid, grocery prices have skyrocketed,” said Daniels. “This is one less thing to budget in for.”

For Chaila Gilliams, it was hard to find a size for her 13-year-old son Owen.“For young children, you can find a good deal

for coats,” she said. “But with the speciality sizes, prices are higher.”

Her son is athletic and likes to spend time outside with friends. “It’s getting cold out, and having a nice coat helps with socializing outside,” she said.

Gilliams registered on the same day, so her son’s size wasn’t available. “They’re ordering a special size for him, and it’ll come next week,” she said.

Peyton Covington, who is 7 years old, came with his grandfather. Peyton didn’t have a lot of winter clothing, he said, and last year he didn’t wear his coat much because he didn’t like the color. Robert Smith, Peyton’s grandfather, had trouble getting winter clothes. “It’s hard to get a job in the pandemic,” said Smith.

In addition to coats, Spears handed out child-sized masks, hand sanitizer, and little goodie bags.

“See this book?” said Spears, holding up a children’s book. “It’s an explanation of Covid for little kids. I emailed the author and asked permission to print and distribute them today.”

Spears is planning to come back every Saturday until the coats run out. It’s clear that her efforts are appreciated. “This is a really good resource for the neighborhood,” said Daniels.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 28, 2020 - November 03, 2020

School Cops: Few Arrests? Too Many Calls?

tive Lihame Arouna, who brought student demands from this summer’s Black Lives Matter protests to the board.

It mirrored similar calls nationwide to reexamine the role of police officers in school buildings.

by EMILY HAYS

New Haven I ndependent

Police top brass and an activist youth mentor looked at the same data and saw two different stories.

Citywide Youth Coalition Executive Director Addys M. Castillo saw school administrators calling police officers on students instead of using other solutions.

Assistant Police Chief Karl Jacobson saw officers successfully deescalating situations and avoiding arrests.

Castillo and Jacobson provided those two perspectives at a recent meeting of a work group tasked with recommending whether to keep school resource officers (SROs) in New Haven Public Schools.

“I’m not complaining about the police department. I’m saying it’s overused,” Castillo said at the last Board of Education virtual subcommittee meeting.

The statistic in question was 2,000 calls from New Haven schools to the New Haven Police Department, resulting in around 30 arrests per year.

“Out of 2,000 calls, there were only 30 arrests. We’re doing everything possible not to arrest, and it’s a more positive situation than if didn’t have SROs. That’s our perspective,” Jacobson said.

“Maybe I’m wrong. Thank you so much for speaking up. We can’t get better as police and as a community without you guys,” he added.

The work group’s existence was thanks to Board of Education student representa-

Upon request, Arouna reminded the work group of her reasoning.

“I and many other New Haven Public Schools students feel that having SROs in New Haven schools are criminalizing students. I think there is a better way to handle behavioral issues,” Arouna said.

“Are they serving their purpose or are they causing more harm than necessary? There are a lot of studies that show that policing children like this can be very dangerous.”

She added that many Black and brown students already have negative experiences with police officers outside of school and bring that trauma with them.

“It’s not about school resource officers personally but the whole system that often even students miss. Maybe they’re being criminalized. Having a police officer in school isn’t very normal for all students,” Arouna said.

Arouna also questioned oft-lauded programs like the New Haven Police Activities League (PAL) summer camp. Why is it a good thing for students to get to know police officers better and be more exposed THOMAS BREEN PHOTO Activists raise the school-cop issue at a Black Lives Matter rally.

PAID FOR BY AARP

Con’t on page 16

Across A ro Ac r ss my m career, c re ca r er, I have hav ave av ve been fighting government f ghtin fi ng to t make k g ke ove ov vernment work w rk for wo for people. I believe fo believ eve ev ve that is more r important re import rta rt tant than ever eve ev ver now, now ow, ow w, as we w battle batt t le health, tt economic, eco c nomic, and racial co r cial injustices. ra inj n ustice nj c s. ce You Y u know Yo k ow kn o me - I am always alw lwa lw way ays ys ready r ady re d for dy f r a fight. fo fg fi ght. I thank you y u yo from fro fr rom the bottom bot ott ot tto tom of o my m heart r rt for f r this opportunity fo opport r unitty rt ty to t continue c ntinue co to t serve serv rve rv ve you. y u. yo

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 28, 2020 - November 03, 2020

A New Haven Dancer Finds Perspective In Senegal

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

Hanan Hameen turned on her camera from Kaolack, Senegal. In New Haven, her students from Neighborhood Music School beamed in one by one. They took in the impromptu classroom, which sat nearly 4,000 miles—and a single Zoom link—away. Hameen stood, and began stretches for the three-hour session.

The New Haven teacher is building a new model for cultural exchange and dance education from Kaolack, where she is facilitating workshops and learning from dancers for the next three months.

It is her second time this year in the city, which at the heart of the Kaolack region in Senegal. Hameen is leading the work through Artsucation Academy Network, of which she is also the founder and director.

“This is a more personal, cultural, global exchange, really connecting with who we are as Africans in America, and who I am as an African in America,” she said in a recent interview, digging into shredded chicken and fried plantains from Somos Arepas. “Not only what that means here, but what does that mean in the world?

What does that mean in other places?

Who is that person? Who are all of the ancestors, all of the cultures that make up that person?”

She noted that the timing is intentional: winter is coming, and she doesn’t want to be here for it. COVID-19 cases are also rising in the U.S., including in New Haven. Senegal, which has recorded 15,000 cases and just over 300 deaths this year,

feels like a safer place to be. She added that she can feel the unique stress and trauma of America—a country built by stolen West Africans laboring on stolen land—leaving her body when she’s abroad.

“Over there, you can be an individual,” she said. “Over there, I’m just Hanan. I’m African like everybody else. I just speak a different language and I sound a little different, but if I keep my mouth shut nobody even knows. And dance is a universal language.”

The connection to Senegal goes back to 2016, when Hameen met dancer Baidy Ba through DanceAfrica Founder and Hameen’s “dance grandfather” Chuck Davis. Ba is the director of the M’Bosse Dance Company in Kaolack, where he also leads its Back To The Roots Dance Festival. After the two shared a stage four years ago, they kept in touch. Before Davis passed away in 2017, Hameen promised him that she would “keep the legacy going.” Davis had told her that Ba was her dance brother, an affectionate term that she uses to describe him today.

She intended to go well before this year, she added. For Hameen, travel to Africa is a normal part of her life: her grandmother repatriated to Ghana over two decades ago, and Hameen grew up seeing her parents visit West Africa. Through her work as Artsucation Academy Network founder and director, she leads workshops focused on West African drumming and dance at the Stetson Branch of the New Haven Free Public Library and around New Haven and New York. In March, she typically travels to Guinea for cultural

exchange.

This March, however, Hameen watched as COVID-19 hit and the world closed around her. For the first six months of the year, she taught classes from a tem-

porary apartment in the Bronx, bridging New York, Connecticut, and West Africa with Zoom. She continued dancing with her students from Neighborhood Music School each week, working through a

network of one-inch squares and spotty internet connections. She also started hosting Ba’s Saturday classes for a New Haven audience, sharing her Zoom account with him.

After realizing that her Juneteenth celebrations would have to be virtual, she worked with colleagues in Guinea, Senegal, Mali and South Africa as well as New York and New Haven to bring an international celebration to the city’s International Festival of Arts & Ideas. Ba, who led a one-hour workshop on the Sabar technique that weekend, kept asking her when she was coming to Senegal. Not just over Zoom, but for real.

For months, she assumed it wasn’t possible due to COVID-19. Then she had another thought.

“I finished teaching, the Festival [of Arts & Ideas] was over, my classes were over … everything was still shut down,” she recalled. “We didn’t know when or if school was going to start, and if it did, it would most likely be online. I thought: ‘If Baidy can teach online from Senegal, I can too.’ You can be anywhere in the world right now, doing what you need to do. This opportunity might not open up again.”

She traveled to Kaolack for the first time in August, arriving in time to present a segment of her “Africa Is Me” class with live dance and drumming. She said she was careful to build a program that would look like “a real cultural exchange,” instead of a one-sided exercise in voluntourism. In a normal week, Hameen faNext page

Opinion: Coliseum Site Needs A Neighborhood Builder

by JOEL SCHIAVONE

(Opinion) When I first came back to New Haven in 1971 I was told by everyone to focus on the problems of the poor and the disadvantaged. Forty years later I see the mood of the City seems not to have changed. Affordable housing is critically important but there are several much larger issues which need to be the focus of our discussions, all of which conclude making the project financially successful for all income classes.

The current controversy over the Coliseum site is focused strictly on affordable housing, a subject which, by itself, is a nonstarter.

Requiring developers to offer affordable housing has been a tenet of city development requirements for years and has never really worked. It basically requires developers to build units in conjunction with existing zoning, existing union dominated construction

costs, and then paying for the difference themselves between their costs and the resulting rental levels.

In the past the City has attempted to bridge this gap with local, state and federal subsidies but it should be clear to everyone that this era of supporting developers with our tax dollars is over.

Rather than miring ourselves in a debate about affordable housing and who is to pay the subsidies, may I suggest that we take a look at the future of New Haven, where we might be going, and what policies might accomplish the latter.

The history of development in New Haven is littered with the bodies of every failed government program in the U.S. All well meaning, but all failed, suggesting that we can learn from all these projects. For example - I warn you, a very discouraging list - the Chapel Square Mall, Ninth Square, Legion Avenue/Rte. 34, the Coliseum, Gateway Community College, the Long

Wharf Maritime Center, Harbor Landing, Granite Square - we have been very innovative in our approaches but because they were the fad of the moment they’ve all failed to withstand the test of time. Affordable housing policy is only one of the problems.

With the Coliseum site, however, we now have a chance to do something better. First, take our future back from the developers and put it in the hands of our citizens. Second, wean ourselves away from total dependence on Yale.

Fortunately, their presence has established New Haven as a center of “eds and meds,” which has produced a successful development motivator throughout the United States.

Unfortunately their dominance of downtown New Haven and their Shops at Yale mall is a disaster. My opinion is the only answer is neighborhood development.

In order to move forward toward the future, we need to embrace neighbor-

10

hoods. In cities all over the world the only successful survivors are neighborhoods. Most of them were created on planning practices of the 1700s or 1800s. Very few of them have been constructed recently. They’re too complicated, too many moving parts, no easy money for a developer, meaning you are only rewarded with long term success.

But, after our 50-year string of failures, it’s the only alternative. Their precepts such as low rise, high density projects have made them flourish over time. We need a discussion about the future of New Haven, precisely to determine if this neighborhood philosophy should be our credo. If it is, we are going to need significant changes to our zoning and our negotiations with developers.

Once this philosophy is in place, and this may take one to two years, we can then properly address the status of the Coliseum site.

Yes, I know, a long-term plan, but let’s examine the short-term proposal.

We rush to give the site to Spinnaker.

They promise to build the most lucrative part of the development - namely a subsidized high rise apartment - and submit no plans or pro formas or projections about the balance of the project. Somehow they assume that once they have their shovel in the ground they’ll be able to manipulate the City into almost anything. This is not an unusual negotiation and has happened frequently with developers of all sorts promising all kinds of things as the project matures but which are never delivered.

The pandemic along with the destruction of all of our government finances - local, state and federal - gives us an opportunity to hold back now and look to the future. I hope we can take advantage of it.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 28, 2020 - November 03, 2020 Con’t from page 10

A New Haven

cilitates dance workshops with M’Bosse, and also spends time learning from the dancers there. She is also working with The Centre Culturel Régional de Kaolack and the town’s Alliance Française. Ba often calls her “the plug,” because she has a way of connecting people.

“If I’m really gonna try and understand something, I’m going to go to the source,” she said. “I’m going to go all the way in.

And I’m gonna do it in a way that’s not touristy, that’s not exploratory, but in a way that’s reciprocal. We need to help each other.”

Her days are long by design, she added. After waking up and stretching early in the morning, Hameen gets on a motorcycle to get to the Centre Culturel or Alliance, often dancing for two hours straight. She takes a break for lunch, and then spends the afternoon rehearsing for three hours with members of M’Bosse.

In the spirit of exchange, she does skillsharing, teaching the Dunham Technique, the evolution of hip-hop, and the histories of hip-hop, ballet and tap in the United States.

Multiple days per week, she also teaches her NMS students from 6 to 9 p.m. Eastern Time, which is 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. in Senegal. While she called the language of dance universal—”the drumming is the heartbeat, and it connects us all”—Ba and members of the M’Bosse ensemble are also teaching her Wolof, so she does not have to use the colonial languages of English or French.

During her time in Kaolack, she said she has been moved by a commitment to mutual aid and community building that she doesn’t herself experience in New Haven.

Her neighbors stop by to see if she’s doing okay. She recalled travelling in a car that got stuck in the mud during a rainstorm, and watching as residents came out of their homes to pull the car out of the water. When she returned to the U.S. in September—she came back to participate in Melanie Crean’s If Justice Is A Woman—she sent out a call for donations of clothes and instruments. She said it’s a small way she can give back.

Then she got back on a plane and headed out. She called the exchange medicine for both the body and the soul: she finds that her lupus symptoms are less severe when she is in Senegal. Occurrences of COVID-19 are also low in Kaolack, although she wears a mask when she is rehearsing and in meetings. Next year, she hopes that she will be able to bring members of M’Bosse over to do the same sort of long term exchange in New Haven.

“Mother Africa is a healer,” she said.

“The drums are a healer. I’m at home.

And I’ve never felt at home before. This is the first time. My spirit feels at peace.

Everything is just in alignment for me to be able to go and do this work. It’s surreal, and it’s a dream, and it’s an honor.

It’s life-changing, and I’m for it.”

RE-ELECT MARTIN M. LOONEY

DEMOCRAT

AN ADVOCATE FOR US DISTRICT 11 SERVING NEW HAVEN, HAMDEN, AND NORTH HAVEN

VOTE

3A!

Unmasked photo taken before Covid-19.

Martin coordinated the legislative response to the coronavirus by helping small businesses and expanding unemployment benefits.

Martin passed a law that caps the cost of insulin at $25 a month.

Martin helped pass the police accountability bill which increases training to counter racial bias.

RE-ELECT SENATOR MARTIN M. LOONEY

BY NOVEMBER 3. /ReElectMartinLooney Paid for by Martin M. Looney for State Senate. Nicholas E. Neeley, Treasurer. Approved by Martin M. Looney.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 28, 2020 - November 03, 2020

November 3: So much at stake in this election

By Ray Curry

Vote! I cannot say it any simpler or say it enough.

Vote to restore government for the people, by the people; vote to preserve our threatened middle class; vote for America’s workers by voting for an America that works; vote up and down the ballot and vote union blue.

Sisters and brothers, I have to say that never before has there been so much at stake for the American people than in this election. From constitutional court decisions affecting human, civil and worker rights, to the ability to safely exercise our right to vote … all are on the line. Our current way of life, fought for and worked for over so many decades, is being threatened. Ruled by the rich for the rich sure is not looking out for those of us who work for a living.

Together we can readjust America’s light to again shine on a united future — the way it was intended to be.

Here is what makes your vote so critical.

Consider the issues that your ballot will impact by helping to elect representatives who support labor and the American worker — Who represents us in the courts?

Our courts are deteriorating quickly to an anti-worker mindset. Over the past four years, two very conservative Su-

Your very right to vote in this, and every election is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. It is a fundamental aspect of living in this democracy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, making our way to the polls has been a concern for many. Mail-in and absentee ballots are a viable option for a safe, secure election. However, we have seen:

preme Court justices have been appointed, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, moving the Court further to the right and further away from protecting our rights.

And a third anti-labor judge will likely be railroaded through in advance of the election. In addition, more than 50 judges for the United States Courts of Appeals, more than 135 judges for the United States District Courts, and two judges for the United States Court of International Trade have been appointed during the current term.

In consequence of these numerous court appointments, our courts are turning in a detrimental way against fair labor practices and human rights. Through your vote in November, you can help fend off further anti-labor control of decisions and policy.

• Challenges to states’ rights and roles in overseeing the presidential election.

• Opposed election aid for states to run safe elections with • COVID-19 restrictions in place.

• Opposition to funding to make elections safe and secure, including a $25 billion emergency funding bill for the U.S. Postal Service and a Democratic proposal to provide $3.6 billion in additional election funding to the states.

Who is watching out for us?

Since the 2016 election, there have been several disturbing anti-labor appointees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the government agency that enforces labor law as it relates to collective bargaining and unfair labor practice charges. This includes officials like William Emanuel, a labor lawyer at the notorious anti-worker law firm Littler Mendelson. He is, most certainly, no friend to labor and his voting record shows it. And we must not forget the appointment of Eugene Scalia last fall to Secretary of Labor. The New Yorker magazine has called him “a wrecking ball for labor.”

Keep us safe And consider that on February 6, 2020, the House of Representatives passed the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would significantly restore workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively. However, the Senate has failed to even allow a vote, let alone, pass the PRO Act. The UAW has endorsed the PRO Act and we must work to see that it is passed.

Protect our right to vote

W W W . 2 0 2 0 B A R T L E T T . C O M

3G

BALLOT POSITION 3G

JASON W. BARTLETT for STATE SENATE

JASON BARTLETT WILL LOOK OUT FOR THE TAXPAYERS OF NEW HAVEN, THE YOUTH, AND SENIOR CITIZENS. JASON WILL FIGHT FOR: Equitable education funding Increased SNAP vouchers for senior citizens Monies for economic development Social justice Green alternatives for environmental safety

“On election day vote for a change in leadership.

I will stand up for New Haven, not the status quo.”

-Jason W. Bartlett

DID YOU KNOW THAT SEN. GARY WINFIELD voted to give Hartford $500 million to bail the city out of debt? While in the same year voted to cut New Haven's budget by $9.5 million. This resulted in an 11% tax increase for everyone. Sen. Gary Winfield and Gov. Lamont also authorized the State Commissioner of Education to award Hartford almost $12 million to reopen schools during Covid-19 but only gave New Haven $2.5 million.

Paid for by 2020 Bartlett, Lucille Roach, Treasurer. Approved by Jason Bartlett

-Jason W. Bartlett

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That the current management of the pandemic favors the Chamber of Commerce interests over that of the labor force is clearly illustrated in the response to the COVID-19 crisis. Among the anti-worker, anti-safety steps taken: • The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) refused to issue any required measures — via an emergency temporary infectious disease • standard — to protect workers from the virus.

• OSHA is also failing to enforce the Occupational Safety and Health Act during the pandemic. Despite over 9,000 complaints from workers about unsafe working conditions from COVID-19, the agency issued only four citations for failure to protect workers as of August.

• Petitions by unions representing affected workers and by the AFL-CIO for mandatory rules to protect workers from exposure to the coronavirus on the job were rejected.

Guide us out of this crisis This terrible pandemic has been devastating on so many levels and recovery from the economic, public health and employment impact of the virus will take years.

We need strong leadership to guide our country out of this crisis. Now, more than ever, it is time to use our right to vote to let our voices be heard. When UAW members vote, when labor votes, we win.

If we stay home, we are silent and powerless and we enable those who would work against us.

Brothers and Sisters there are no excuses. Voting by mail is easy and safe. Dropping your ballot at the city clerk’s office or at a voting ballot drop box is easy and safe. You can vote early. Or you can do it at the polls on November 3rd. But however you choose to vote, please vote. Don’t let anything or anyone stand in your way.

Our way of life is at stake.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 28, 2020 - November 03, 2020

Why the 2020 Vote Matters More than Ever to African Americans

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

Her father survived Jim Crow and saw the evolution of the vote in America, so Lex Scott speaks from a unique perspective when she champions African Americans’ historical significance casting their ballots.

“When my father voted, his life was at risk,” remarked Scott, the president of the Black Lives Matter Utah Chapter.

“Black people were also filled with many obstacles that prevented them from voting.

Some had to be landowners; some had to be sponsored by white personnel,” Scott recalled.

“Some had to pay fees. Some were tested.

Many people died for that right. It is too important for us not to vote, and if we want to have a democracy, we need to participate in it. We can’t hope that situations will change. We have to be active in helping candidates get elected who will create that change.”

The fight for African Americans’ right to vote dates back to the late 1800s.

Freed Blacks in New York briefly held the right to vote before the Civil War, and there were similar instances in other Northern states.

“African American men were given the right to vote with the passage of the 15th amendment in 1870 as one of the Reconstruction Amendments after the Civil War, Brianna Mack, an assistant professor of politics and government at Ohio Wesleyan University, wrote in an email to BlackPressUSA. “The Reconstruction era ended in 1877 with President Rutherford B. Hayes explicitly ending federal oversight of Southern states to fund public schools, establish charitable institutions, raise taxes, and fund public improvements to incorporate newly freed Blacks into the fabric of daily life as citizens and equal participants in America,” Mack noted.

During Reconstruction, the Black vote’s influence materialized as African Americans won election to local, state, and national offices.

“Black men won election to state legislatures and Congress indicating an impending drastic social change,” Mack added.

“Starting in 1868, we see white supremacist groups, precursors to the Ku Klux Klan, use violence to suppress the Black vote, and fraud was rampant. Many congressional elections in the South were contested,” she continued.

“Such tactics were used because white political leaders quickly realized that African Americans are independent political beings whose participation in elections can upset the ‘balance’ that previously existed without their involvement. These political leaders could not appeal to Black people and/or Black people were not responsive to their appeals because their appeals were rooted in the subjugation of the racial group i.e. for the foreseeable future, southern Democrats would/could not count on

Black support.”

President Lyndon Johnson signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which reinforced the 15th amendment of nearly a century earlier. The Voting Rights Act outlawed discriminatory voting practices and effectively provided African Americans the right to cast ballots freely.

Despite the 1965 law, Blacks were still denied the right to vote.

In some cases, by violence and in many instances through suppression and misinformation tactics.

One year after the Voting Rights Act, civil rights activist James Meredith was shot and wounded during a voter registration march between Tennessee and Mississippi.

Undaunted, 4,000 African Americans registered to vote in Mississippi the day after the shooting as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Stokely Carmichael joined the march.

Suppression efforts have continued, and, in 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the federal government’s ability to block states’ voting restrictions.

In doing so, the high court effectively struck down a significant part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which has led to restrictive laws that have primarily affected African American voters.

“In a general sense, the power of the vote is absolutely critical to the creation and maintenance of an equal society, and that’s why ruling classes fought the concept of

universal suffrage for so many years in Europe and the U.S.,” remarked Amber Dozier, the managing partner, and chief strategy officer of the ABCD & Company, a Rockville, Maryland-based marketing firm.

“In the case of African-Americans, voting is even more important because the laws of this nation have been historically designed in a way that leads to the de facto economic, cultural/social, and political subjuga-

13

tion or African-Americans,” Dozier added.

“The Constitution, a document that framed the legal and political essence of America, declared the African-Americans were three-fifths of a White person – all for the purpose of amassing political power through the vote.”

She concluded: “This demonstrates that the Black vote

has power and has always been a commodity to those in power, even when we were deprived of that right. Voting gives citizens, the power to shape the laws that govern their lives. In a sociopolitical climate where there is vehement debate over the appropriateness of saying ‘Black lives matter.’ African-Americans must vote because our lives and the sanctity with which they are treated depends on it.”

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 28, 2020 - November 03, 2020

For Millions of Americans, the Future of Health Care is What’s on the Ballot

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Elections Have Consequences #1 Presidential elections impact Americans’ lives in a wide array of ways. It’s widely maintained that the outcome of the 2020 contest between the incumbent, Donald Trump, and the Democratic Nominee, Joe Biden, will have long-term consequences for many in general and African Americans specifically. The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), the trade association of the more than 200 Black-owned newspapers and media companies in the United States, will examine potential election outcomes and consequences in six key areas: Education, Health Care, the Economy, Foreign Affairs, Employment, and Criminal Justice.

With the confirmation of Supreme Court Nominee Amy Coney Barrett by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the consensus among many Americans is that the conservative jurist’s appointment portends doom for the Affordable Care Act. Nominated by President Donald Trump following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — with just weeks to go before the general election — Judge Barrett has openly stated opposition to Obamacare.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on Nov. 10 from a Republican-led coalition seeking to strike down the health care law.

Barrett’s appointment shifts the makeup of the justices that for the highest court in the land to an overwhelmingly conservative majority.

With no replacement for the health care law – commonly known as Obamacare – it’s estimated that more than 22 million Americans will lose coverage. That number includes a large swath of African Americans and those with preexisting conditions.

“Without a replacement in place for Obamacare, the loss of this act will make things more difficult for those who need healthcare the most, in particular, the underrepresented and underserved communities, and those with preexisting conditions,” stated Dawon Hawkins, the Chief People and Training Officer for the health care startup Xcelrate UDI. “Obamacare has provided affordable healthcare for millions of Americans, particularly 25 million Americans who will be left uninsured,” Hawkins continued.

“Under Obamacare, Medicaid eligibility expanded, enabling low-income uninsured adults to have healthcare access they desperately needed finally. This expansion greatly benefitted minority communities, who were otherwise unable to access healthcare services, let alone the ability to pay for healthcare.”

Losing coverage could also prove devasting for women and expecting mothers, shared Andrea Ippolito, a health tech expert and founder of SimpliFed, a company that assists mothers who breastfeed.

“Right now, under the Affordable Care

ELECTION

2020 Act, it is your right to have access to lactation support and counseling without cost-sharing for as long as you are breastfeeding. If the ACA gets struck down, then insurers will not be required to cover it, which could have devastating impacts on new parents,” noted Ippolito.

“Currently, there is already a lack of services available for new parents, so this would be a huge blow to moms and babies. For babies, breastfeeding provides a protective effect against respiratory illnesses, ear infections, gastrointestinal diseases, and allergies, including asthma, eczema, and atopic dermatitis,” she continued.

“For moms, breastfeeding helps reduce postpartum blood loss and reduce the risk of postpartum depression, type-2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, and ovarian cancer.

Lactation support helps increase breastfeeding rates, so the ripple effects of dismantling the ACA could be devastating.”

According to a study by the Jama Health Forum, health issues facing the Black community in this election year are broader than insurance coverage.

The COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged black communities across the United States, and Black individuals are more likely than white individuals to report being adversely affected by COVID-19 when it comes to health and economics experts found.

“For example, Black individuals are significantly more likely to contract and die from COVID-19 than White individuals, regardless of income and, approximately 24 percent of Black people say they have

a family member or a close friend who has died of COVID-19,” study authors noted.

Further, Black individuals are also more likely to be exposed to COVID-19 in their work environments and are disproportionately experiencing major financial challenges because of the pandemic.

The study also discovered that “a substantial share of Black adults are critical of their state governors on several aspects of the United States’ COVID-19 outbreak.

This, study authors determined, “includes one-third or more who reported disapproval of their state’s policies to ensure enough face masks (41 percent) and enough testing (40 percent), to help small- and medium-sized businesses (39 percent) and individuals (38 percent) in their state financially hurt by the outbreak, to provide health insurance or financial assistance to those who need medical care (35 percent), and ensure enough protective clothing for health workers (33 percent).”

The authors concluded that candidates interested in securing Black voters’ support must address the virus’s disproportionate economic and health consequences on this community.

Others noted that the 2020 election also has mental health consequences.

“Currently, there has not been sufficient attention to the real mental health needs of students,” stated Karen Gross, a former senior policy advisor to the U.S. Department of Education.

“Under a Joe Biden/Kamala Harris term, it would be recognized that student mental

15

health matters, and we need to pay attention to it. With the pandemic and natural disasters and school shootings and community and family dysfunction, student mental health has to be a high priority.”

Since Trump took office in 2016, the number of uninsured people in the United States increased by more than 2.3 million, including 726,000 children, according to the nonprofit Washington, D.C.,-based think tank, Center for American Progress (CAP).

Research also revealed that the Trump administration’s attacks on Medicaid has also driven up the number of uninsured.

The administration’s public charge rule created “chilling effects that discouraged immigrants and their family members from seeking coverage and care for which they are eligible,” CAP researchers found.

Also, at Trump’s urging, some states implemented work requirements for Medicaid and a study on Arkansas’ program demonstrated that these requirements, which a federal appeals court struck down earlier this year as illegal, resulted in coverage losses without actually increasing employment.

During his 2016 campaign, Trump repeatedly promised “insurance for everybody,” and committed to lowering costs. According to the CAP, the administration’s record “falls far short of these promises” as the number of uninsured Americans have swelled while Trump has chipped away at the consumer protections guaranteed by Obamacare.

“Costs have risen for Americans with marketplace plans, and the nation is mired

in a public health crisis,” CAP researchers determined.

And, at Trump’s backing, Republican attorneys general have fought to repeal Obamacare all the way to the Supreme Court, which will hear the case next month.

Dr. Giuseppe Aragona, a General Practitioner and Family Doctor at Prescription Doctor M.D., expressed concerned that the millions with preexisting conditions would suffer significant harm under a second Trump administration that abolishes Obamacare.

“People with preexisting conditions would also be deeply affected. Millions of people would become uninsured because insurance companies could deny coverage due to preexisting conditions or charge higher premiums, making it extremely difficult for those impacted to afford coverage,” Dr. Aragona said.

“The result could be crippling to our healthcare system and millions of families across the country. People would delay preventative health services due to limited access and ability to pay, which would result in a spike in emergency room visits and serious compounded health conditions that are expensive and not easily treated,” he determined.

“At a time where our country is battling a pandemic, social and civil unrest, and at a political tipping point, the safety and security provided by programs like the Affordable Care Act bring invaluable peace of mind to address their physical and mental health concerns in a timely manner.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 28, 2020 - November 03, 2020

The Future of Education is at stake in the 2020 Election

By Stacy M. Brown

Elections Have Consequences #2 There are various ways that a presidential election can affect people, but it’s widely believed that the 2020 contest between incumbent Republican Donald Trump and the Democrat’s nominee Joe Biden will have long-term consequences for African Americans. The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), the trade association of the more than 200 Black-owned newspapers and media companies in the United States, will break down those consequences in categories of Education, Health Care, the Economy, Foreign Affairs, Employment, and Criminal Justice.

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent @StacyBrownMedia Dr. Naomi Johnson Booker, the founder of the Philadelphia-based charter school management corporation, Global Academies, is adamant about the importance of getting out the vote.

Booker, whose academy scholars program establishes 8th graders as passportholding citizens, who have travel the globe on learning excursions as they prepare for leadership roles, said the future of education is among the more significant concerns going into the 2020 election.

“Although African Americans have a ‘seat at the table,’ we do not have enough of a voice in government to make a difference. But our power rests within our vote like a seed waiting to germinate,” Booker declared.

“We have got to exercise that power at the local, state, and national levels for real change to happen. Every Black and brown person has the right to be part of the decisions that impact our country.

And so, to do that, we have to show our power at the voting booth.”

Booker points out that regardless of how high the stakes are in this year’s presidential election, local races are just as important for families with school-age children.

“Systemic racism in public education relative to funding and fairness can only be overcome by electing candidates who stand for justice and equity and removing those whose records show they don’t,” Booker demanded.

Karen Gross, a former college president who once served as a senior policy advisor to the U.S. Department of Education, told BlackPressUSA that the election’s impact on education would be profound across the entire early childhood through adult education pipeline.

She pointed out significant differences between President Donald Trump and Democratic Nominee Joe Biden and the impact that they would have on children.

“The high-profile engagement of the Secretary of Education in policy-making

across government is critically important.

Under the current administration, the Secretary of Education has been missing in action, especially related to the pandemic and school reopening and closing,” Gross remarked.

“Under a Biden/Harris term, education and its Secretary will have a high profile and will be deeply engaged in a range of issues including student success, student mental health, and educational needs across other disciplines.”

Gross added that there’s currently a push for privatizing education, focusing on charter schools and religious schools and not enough attention to public education, especially for young children.

She believes a Biden/Harris term would recognize the critical values of public education, including the need to pay attention to all students’ equity.

Mental health, addressing student progression to post-secondary education, and appreciation of students’ lives outside of school are also vital educational components voters should consider.

“The debates were a sharp example of what is terrible for children – not understanding how fighting and yelling and name-calling affect students and trigger

trauma in some instances,” Gross said.

“If we are to help all children, we need to role model for all children – positive role models.”

Jason Llorenz, the vice president of Communications at Leadership for Educational Equity, said building a diverse pipeline of leaders “that reflect our communities and values is critically important to the continued progress of our country and central to the work of Leadership for Educational Equity.”

“Supporting values-based, equity-driven leaders to assume political power at the highest level in this is a long-overdue step,” said Llorenz.

“Women, Latinos, and Black Americans have been civically leading our communities for generations but are completely underrepresented in elected office.

“While the civic and political landscape in the United States hasn’t kept pace with our demographics, it has been changing.

Instead of serving as faithful electors for others, minority communities are stepping up and winning elections to address the broken systems that perpetuate inequity in our country.”

Michael Miller, the CEO of VPN Online, offered that whoever wins the election

16

will dictate how to spend the budget and what to prioritize.

“In education, Trump will create a more privatized charter school, thereby lessening the need for an education budget,” Miller stated.

“The idea is to promote private charters so they can fund their school. Of course, this will leave most of the decisionmaking in the private owners’ hands, and whatever they decide will dictate what will happen to the country’s education system.”

He continued: “On the other hand, Biden has proposed an educational plan that will remove private charter and promote free K12 education and free two years of community college. The program also reduces student loan payment, cutting it down from 10 percent to 5 percent.

“Furthermore, the plan also lowers student loans for anyone who works for the public schools. This will encourage more people to look for a career in that field.

Whoever wins the election will promote their respective stance in education. So, think profoundly and vote wisely because elections have consequences.”

Con’t from page 9

Few Arrests? Too Many Calls?

to the criminal justice system? she asked.

“I think of all of the things that money could be used for instead of PAL. The nonprofits [that are supposed to be supporting youths]—we are always fighting for crumbs,” Castillo said.

Wilbur Cross High School Principal Edith Johnson took issue with the idea that administrators, at least at Wilbur Cross, were calling the police too frequently.

She said that school security guards, who cannot arrest students, respond to most student behavioral issues. Teachers call them to help break up fights or escort someone out of class who is refusing to follow instructions.

SROs are called in when there is a weapon involved or a crime-like event, Johnson said. She added that they sometimes volunteer to help deescalate fights or to check bathrooms for students skipping when the school is short-staffed for the day. She recalled asking a student to go back to class and the student started swearing at her.

The SRO helped take the student aside and calm them down.

“How many times have they have helped me deescalate a situation that might be escalated by me as a principal, because of the power dynamic which happens in general,” Johnson said.

She said that she thinks about this question often and is not saying that experiences of discrimination students of color have relayed are not true.

Not every school has an SRO on-site. The biggest schools, like Wilbur Cross, James Hillhouse High School and Hill Regional Career High School, do have one to two officers stationed at the school.

High School in the Community does not have an SRO. Instead, HSC calls an officer stationed elsewhere if a crime arises.

“That’s a way we can look at things. Maybe the SRO doesn’t have to be in the building,” offered HSC School Culture Leader Michelle Cabaldon.

The other two high schoolers on the call were not as focused on SRO alternatives as Arouna. All three said that they personally had positive experiences with SROs. “Some students say that some of the SROs are rude towards them for no reason. My experience is that they are welcoming,” said one student, listed only as Jocelyn.

She said that more than one officer creates the impression that students are under surveillance.

“I think having security is enough. I wouldn’t miss them if they weren’t there but it’s good to have them,” she said.

The third student, Amaia Richlyn, said two SROs are necessary. One could be backup for the other, she said.

The work group’s chair, former Board of Education member Carlos Torre, asked whether it would be possible to settle the too many calls versus low arrest rate question with more data. He asked Jacobson for more information on the reason for each call. Were administrators dealing with high-level crises that SROs were able to diffuse, or were they calling the police for behavioral issues? Jacobson said that he would try to pull what data he could.

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ELECTION 2020: THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 28, 2020 - November 03, 2020

For Many Voters, “It’s [Still] the Economy, Stupid…”

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire

the pandemic, there were an additional 6.4 million jobs.

In the last three years under Obama, 7 million jobs were added.

“It’s true that the job record under Trump so far is better than the job record during Obama’s first 35 months in office,” CNN added.

“But, Obama inherited an economy in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. In comparison, Trump took office with a string of 76 straight months of job gains. Job creation under the Trump administration is a continuation of an improving job market, not the turnaround that occurred in the early years of the Obama administration.”

During the final presidential debate, Trump and Democratic Nominee Joe Biden squared off on the economy and how they plan to improve the current economic and health crisis.

“COVID-19 is real, and the health and the socio-economic impact it has had on our communities is devastating,” said Derrick Johnson, the president and CEO of the NAACP. “There is too much at stake in this election, and we must make our voices heard.

Our communities need healing and recovery, and our vote is the first step in effectuating change,” Johnson remarked.

In key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Black voters have turned out in record numbers for early voting. When Trump took office, the unemployment rate in Pennsylvania stood at 5.2 percent.

Elections Have Consequences #3 Presidential elections impact Americans’ lives in a wide array of ways. It’s widely maintained that the outcome of the 2020 contest between the incumbent, Donald Trump, and the Democratic Nominee, Joe Biden, will have long-term consequences for many in general and African Americans specifically. The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), the trade association of the more than 200 Blackowned newspapers and media companies in the United States, will examine potential election outcomes and consequences in six key areas: Education, Health Care, the Economy, Foreign Affairs, Employment, and Criminal Justice.

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent @StacyBrownMedia During the heated 1992 presidential race, James Carville, who was then a strategist for the Bill Clinton campaign, coined the phrase used in our headline to remind those working in Clinton’s campaign headquarters of what is really important to voters.

However, for most Americans who have either already voted, or are still on their way to the polls, today’s economic situation is significantly more nuanced than the ’92 economy.

For example, as a result of the coronavirus-induced recession and budget cuts by the Trump administration, millions of government jobs in the U.S. Postal Service and state and local governments are in danger of disappearing, according to a new issue brief from the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the National Advisory Council on Eliminating the Black-White Wealth Gap. The brief finds that the disappearance of these jobs would disproportionately hurt Black workers while Black Americans are facing disproportionately bad economic and health outcomes from the coronavirus crisis.

“Today, nearly 1-in-5 Black workers are employed in the public sector. The legacy of Black government workers is particularly strong in the Postal Service, where 27 percent of postal workers are Black – more than double the share of Black workers in the civilian workforce,” the report authors wrote.

“And while the numbers of Black employees in state and local governments are

harder to measure, they are a substantial portion of the workforce in states and municipalities around the country.”

The authors continued: “Decades of organizing by Black people in the labor movement have made public sector work a way for Black workers to build personal economic security through better wages, benefits, and job security than are often available in the private sector while serving their communities.

“While public sector work cannot solve structural racism or close the Black-white wealth gap, the gap in the public sector is much smaller.”

For example, in the private sector, white households have as much as $10 of wealth for every $1 Black households have; in the public sector, white households hold closer to $2 for every $1 of wealth for Black families.

Simultaneously, the Trump administra-

tion’s cuts to the Postal Service and budget cuts by state and local governments threaten this path to stability for Black workers.

Over the past six months, 1.2 million state and local government jobs have disappeared.

Data show 211,000 fewer Black workers were working for governments in September 2020 than in September 2019.

“As policymakers from school board members to the Federal Reserve chairman look for ways to address structural racism, it’s important they do not undermine one of the few long-standing paths to financial stability for Black workers: government jobs,” Anne Price, president of the Insight Center for Community Economic Development and co-author of the brief, stated in a news release.

“Without significant action from the federal government to address the budget shortfalls in both the Postal Service and state and local governments, the economic security of millions of Black Americans

18

may be in danger for the second time in a decade,” Price declared.

Throughout his presidency, Trump has proclaimed building the greatest U.S. economy.

He’s often denigrated his predecessor’s accomplishments, Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president.

However, economists agreed that the U.S. remains amid its most significant economic contraction and the highest unemployment rate in nearly a century.

Figures show that during Trump’s first three years in office, the annual average economic growth stood at 2.5 percent.

In the final three years of Obama’s presidency, the growth was 2.3 percent, including a significantly higher figure of 5.5 percent in 2014.

Checking other claims, the BBC notes that the Obama administration added more jobs to the economy, comparing similar timeframes.

Under Trump, in the three years before

Today, the state’s unemployment is 8.1 percent.

COVID-19 continues to spread, and uncertainty has created wildly unstable economic conditions in the state. Amid this financial instability, Trump cut federal unemployment insurance by $300 initially.

Now, it has let that relief run out, leaving Pennsylvania single-parent families with one child on a modest budget facing a shortfall of $2,779 per month, according to a recent CAP analysis.

More than 447,940 Pennsylvanians are still receiving some unemployment benefit.

In total, 358,600 fewer Pennsylvanians were employed in August compared with February—an 8.7 percent decline.

Further, economists at the CAP said Trump had continued his long-time assault on Social Security by calling for the termination of a large portion of its dedicated funding source – payroll taxes.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 282016 , 2020- August - November 03, 2020 INNER-CITY NEWS July 27, 02, 2016

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St. New Haven, CT Laurie A. Sirois Manager of Grants, Procurement and Insurance Programs Connecticut Airport Authority Bradley International Airport Administration Office, Terminal A, 3rd Floor Windsor Locks, CT 06096 lsirois@ctairports.org 860-292-2043 (direct)

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY

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

DBE/ACDBE Compliance Specialist - New England Region FAA Office ofconference Civil Rights,will AWP-9 A pre-bid be held at the Housing Authority Office 28 Smith thomas.knox@faa.gov Street Seymour, CT at 10:00 am, on Wednesday, July 20, 2016.

Phone: 424-405-7208 - Fax: 424-405-7215 Cell: 951.489.8674 Physical Location: 777 S. Aviation Blvd. Suite 150, El Segundo, CA 90245

Bidding documents are available from the Seymour Housing Authority OfComments from Public Review(203) and Consultation fice, 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 888-4579.

DELIVERY PERSON

NEEDED

Part Time Delivery Needed One/Two Day a Week,

Must Have your Own Vehicle If Interested call

(203) 387-0354

QSR STEEL CORPORATION

APPLY NOW!

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

ELM CITY COMMUNITIES

Invitation for Bids Robert T. Wolfe Building Upgrade Phase II The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven d/b/a Elm City Communities is currently seeking Bids for Robert T. Wolfe Building Upgrade Phase II. A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from Elm City Communities’ Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/ gateway beginning on Wednesday, September 23, 2020 at 3:00PM.

Construction Administrative Office Position. FT-Exp required.Email- Hherbert@ gwfabrication.com

PUBLIC NOTICE

THE HOUSING AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF BRISTOL OPENING WAITING LIST FOR THE HOUSING CHOICE VOUCHER (SECTION 8) PROGRAM

Starting on Oct. 26, 2020 the Bristol Housing Authority will accept pre-applications for their Housing Choice Voucher Program (Section 8), specifically for households with a nonelderly person with a disability, between the ages of 18-61 and who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. Applicants must meet these criteria to apply.

To apply online or to down-load the application, go to https://www.bristolhousing.org.

Large CT guardrail company looking for Applications will not be available until Oct. 26, 2020. Applicants are encouraged to apply Laborer/Driver with valid CT CDL Class online; however, applications will also be available at our main office lobby located at A license and able to get a medical card.

164 Jerome Ave., Bristol CT 06010. The office hours are Mon-Thur 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

Must be able to pass a drug test and physiand Fri 8:30 a.m.-2:00 p.m. For assistance with the online application, please call (860) cal. Compensation based on experience.

582-6313.

Email resume to dmastracchio@atlasoutApplications not completed online must be mailed to the Bristol Housing Authority, 164 door.com AA/EOE M-F Jerome Ave., Bristol, CT 06010, postmarked no earlier than Oct. 26, 2020 and no later than Oct. 30, 2020 and received by Nov. 9, 2020. Applications will only be accepted online or by mail and must contain accurate and complete information. Hand-delivered, faxed or emailed applications will not be accepted. Only 1 pre-application per post-marked enveInvitation lope to Bid: will be accepted. Duplicate, incomplete, or illegible applications will not be accepted.

100 applications will be drawn at random on Dec. 1, 2020 and only families selected will 2nd Notice Large CT Fence & Guardrail Contractor receive notification by Dec. 15, 2020. is looking for experienced, responsible Bristol Housing Authority is an equal housing provider. commercial and residential fence erectors Old Saybrook, CT and installers on a subcontractor basis.

(4 Buildings, 17 Units) Earn from $750 to $2,000 per day. Email Tax Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage Rate Project resume to rhauer@atlasoutdoor.com AA/ Lead Building Maintainer - Facilities EOE

HELP WANTED:

FENCE ERECTING SUBCONTRACTORS

SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE

Town of Bloomfield Finance Director

New Construction, Wood Framed, Housing, Selective Demolition, Site-work, CastLEGAL NOTICE of in-place Concrete, Asphalt Shingles, Vinyl Siding, Full Time - Benefited TOWN OF PORTLAND, CT Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Casework, Town of Portland has amended its Citi$96,755 - $149,345 zen Participation Mechanical, Plan for the Electrical, purpose ofPlumbing and Fire Protection.

This contract is subject state set-aside and contract compliance requirements. informing the public abouttoits intent to Pre-employment drug testing.

apply for CDBG, Covid-19 funding. For For more details, a copy of the amendedBid Plan go to www. visitAugust our website – www.bloomfieldct.org Extended, Due Date: 5, 2016 portlandct.org.

Town of Bloomfield

Full Time - Benefited $31.26 hourly Pre-employment drug testing.

For more details,

visit our website – www.bloomfieldct.org

Anticipated Start: August 15, 2016 Project documents available via ftp link below: EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage

DELIVERY PERSON

NEEDED

HANDYMAN P/T. Bristol Neighborhood Development Corp. (BNDC)

Fax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com seeking an 3 energetic individual who has experience maintaining HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran,isS/W/MBE & Section Certified Businesses properties.

Duties include but not limited to various small to medium Haynes Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 tasks of carpentry, painting, plumbing, HVAC, snow removal, and AA/EEO EMPLOYER

Part Time Delivery Needed One/Two Day a Week,

Must Have your Own Vehicle If Interested call

Public review comments - pending

(203) 387-0354

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

19

landscaping. Pay will commensurate with experience. Send resume and references by October 9, 2020 to The Bristol Neighborhood Development Corporation, Mitzy Rowe, CEO, 31 Quaker Lane, Bristol, CT 06010. An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Entity

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 28, 2020 - November 03, 2020 INNER-CITY NEWS July 27, 2016 - August 02, 2016

Garrity Asphalt Reclaiming, Inc seeks:

Listing: Commercial Driver

Construction Equipment Mechanic preferably experienced in Full time Class A driver for petroleum deliveries for nights Reclaiming and Road Milling Equipment. We offer factory and weekends. Previous experience required. Competitive training on equipment we operate. Location: Bloomfield CT We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits wage, 401(k) and benefits. Send resume to: HR Manager, VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE Contact: Tom Dunay P. O. Box 388, Guilford, CT 06437.

APARTMENTS FOR RENT

NOTICE

Phone: 243-2300 HOME INC, on behalf of860Columbus House and the New Haven Housing Authority, ********An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer********** is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this develEmail: tom.dunay@garrityasphalt.com opment& located at 108 Frank Street, Haven. Maximum Women Minority Applicants are New encouraged to apply income limitations apply.Affi Pre-applications willEqual be available from 9AM TO 5PM beginning Monday Ju;y State of Connecticut rmative Action/ Opportunity Employer 25, 2016 and ending when sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) have Office of Policy been received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be mailied upon request by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours. Completed pre- and Management Garrity Asphalt Reclaiming, Incoffices seeks: applications must be returned to HOME INC’s at 171 Orange Street, Third Reclaimer Operators and Milling Operators with current licensing Floor, New Haven, CT 06510. and clean driving record, be willing to travel throughout the NorthThe State of Connecticut, Office of east & NY. We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits

NOTICIA

Policy and Management is recruiting for a Leadership Associate (target class Budget Analyst).

Contact: Rick Tousignant Phone: 860- 243-2300 VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES Email: rick.tou-

254 Fairmont Avenue, New Haven 258 Fairmont Avenue, New Haven

Spacious 2 & 3 bedroom townhouses. $1,225.00 to $!,400.00. Tenant pays all utilities including gas for heat,hot water, elec.stove, balcony and private entrance, off street parking. Close proximity to restaurants, shopping centers and on bus line. Section 8 welcome. Call Christine 860-985-8258.

APARTMENTS FOR RENT 241 Quinnipiac Avenue, New Haven

Spacious 2 bedroom townhouses with hardwood floors. 1.5 baths. Select with basements and washer/dryer hookups. On-site laundry facility. Off street parking. Close proximity to restaurants, shopping centers and on bus line. No pets. Security deposit varies. $1,425-$1,450 includes heat, hot water and cooking gas. Section 8 welcome.

Call Christine 860-985-8258.

Further information regarding the duties, signant@garrityasphalt.com eligibility HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, estárequirements and application Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply instructions for this position is available aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer at: ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos

Union Company seeks:

máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 https://www.jobapscloud.com/ julio, 2016 hasta cuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) CT/sup/bulpreview.asp?R1= en lasTrailer oficinasDriver de HOME INC. & Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas Tractor for Heavy Highway Construction Equip- por correo a petición 201015&R2=5989VR&R3=001 llamando a HOME INC al 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirse ment. Must have a CDL License, clean driving record, capable of . a las oficinas de equipment; HOME INCbe enwilling 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, 06510State operating heavy to travel throughout theNew Haven , CTThe of Connecticut is an equal Northeast & NY. We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits opportunity/affirmative action employer and strongly encourages the applications of women, minorities, and persons Email: dana.briere@garrityasphalt.com with disabilities.

Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply

CITY OF MILFORD

242-258 Fairmont Ave Townhouse, 3BR, 1vacancies level , 1BA Seeking2BR qualifi ed condidates 1.5 to fillBA, numerous to include,

All Health new apartments, new appliances, carpet, I-91informa& I-95 Public Nurse, Mechanic Sewernew Line and close more.toFor nearinstructions, bus stop & shopping center tion and detailedhighways, application visit www.ci.milford.ct.us Pet under 40lbon allowed.

Interested parties MariaTITLE. @ 860-985-8258 Click SERVICES, JOBScontact and JOB

Real Estate Controller

CT. Unified Deacon’s Association is pleased to offer a Deacon’s Certificate Program. This is a 10 month program designed to assist in the intellectual formation of Candidates in response to the Church’s Ministry needs. The cost is $125. Classes start Saturday, August 20, 2016 1:303:30 Contact: Chairman, Deacon Joe J. Davis, M.S., B.S. Fusco Management is seeking a Real Controller.

Candidate should have (203) 996-4517 Host, General Bishop Elijah Davis, Estate D.D. Pastor of Pitts Chapel U.F.W.B. Church 64 Brewster

leadership, communication and supervisory skills. Controller should have 6+ St. New Haven, CT year’s hands on accounting experience and have a BS in Accounting.

Duties and Responsibilities:

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY

Oversee the activities of the Accounting Department for the accurate and timely dissemination nancial by management reports including andSeymour external Sealed bids of arefiinvited the Housing Authority of theinternal Town of monthly financial statements, and annual budgets. until 3:00 pm on Tuesday,annual Augustaudits 2, 2016 at its office at 28 Smith Street,

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

Qualifications: • • • •

Proficient in Microsoft Word, Excel, Timberline and Timberscan, BNA, TValue.

A pre-bid conference willand be good held communication at the Housing skills.

Authority Office 28 Smith Discretion, good judgment Street general Seymour, CT at 10:00 am, on Wednesday, 20, 2016.

Strong ledger, accounts payable and accountsJuly receivable.

Real Estate experience a plus.

Bidding documents are available from the Seymour Housing Authority OfEducation and Experience Required: fice, 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579.

Bachelor's degree in Accounting or Finance. CPA certification a plus. Must have 6+years of hands-on accounting managerial experience. Fusco Management ofThe Housing Authority reserves the right to accept or reject any or all bids, to fers a competitive benefit package. Fusco is an Affirmative Action/ Equal Opreduce the scope of the project to reflect available funding, and to waive any portunity Employer

informalities in the bidding, if such actions are in the best interest of the Housing Authority.

Invitation for Bids

Phase 2 – Group 4 – Lead Abatement at Essex Townhouses The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven d/b/a Elm City Communities is currently seeking Bids for Phase 2 – Group 4 – Lead Abatement at Essex Townhouses. A complete copy of the requirements may be obtained from Elm City’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on Monday, October 26, 2020 at 3:00PM

Contact Dana at 860-243-2300

NEW HAVEN

ELM CITY COMMUNITIES

Invitation to Bid: nd Notice

Town of Bloomfield2

ELM CITY COMMUNITIES Request for Proposals

SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE of Single-Family Homeownership Housing Development

Lead Building Maintainer - Facilities

Old Saybrook, CT Full Time - Benefited (4 17 Units) $31.26 hourly Buildings,The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven d/b/a Elm City Communities is

Taxdrug Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage seeking Rate Project Pre-employment testing. currently Proposals for Development of Single-Family Homeownership For more details, visit our website – Housing. A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from Elm City www.bloomfiWood eldct.org New Construction, Framed, Housing, Selective Demolition, Cast- Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobbleCommunities’ VendorSite-work, Collaboration

beginning on in-place Concrete, Asphaltstonesystems.com/gateway Shingles, Vinyl Siding, Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Casework, Monday, August 10, 2020 at 3:00PM. Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection.

Seeking qualified condidates to fill This contract is subject to state set-aside and contract compliance requirements. Office Position. FT-Exp required.

Construction Administrative numerous vacancies to include, Email- Hherbert@ gwfabrication.com Benefits & Pension Coordinator Bid Extended, Due Date: August 5, 2016 and more. For information and Anticipated Start: August 15, 2016 detailed application instructions, Project documents available via ftp link below:ELM CITY COMMUNITIES visit www.ci.milford.ct.us http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage Click on SERVICES, JOBS and Invitation for Bids JOB TITLE. Fax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com

CITY OF MILFORD

QSR

Plumbing Services Agency-wide

HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran, S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified Businesses Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 STEELHaynes CORPORATION AA/EEO EMPLOYER The Housing Authority

APPLY NOW!

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

20

of the City of New Haven d/b/a Elm City Communities is currently seeking Bids for plumbing services agency-wide.

A complete copy of the requirements

may be obtained from Elm City’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on Monday, October 26, 2020 at 3:00PM

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 28,2016 2020- August - November 03, 2020 INNER-CITY NEWS July 27, 02, 2016

REQUEST FOR BIDS

Federal Program Waiting List Opening Notice (1-bedroom Non-Elderly Disabled Only)

NOTICE

Sale of Surplus Rolling Stock New Haven, Connecticut VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE

New Haven Parking Authority Project #21-006 HOME INC, on behalf of Columbus and the 10, New2020 Haven Authority, Bids dueHouse November atHousing 3:00 P.M.

is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this development located at 108 Frankwill Street, New Haven.

MaximumOctober income limitations ap-at no cost Bid Documents be available beginning 20, 2020 ply. Pre-applications will be available 9AM TOSecretary 5PM beginning Monday Ju;y by emailing Fortunata Houde,from Executive at fhoude@nhparking.com .

25, 2016 and ending when sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) have been received at the offices HOME INC. will be mailied upon re- employer.

New Haven ParkingofAuthority is anApplications equal opportunity/affirmative action quest by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours. Completed preapplications must be returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange Street, Third Full-Time Gate Operator Technician Wanted: Floor, Haven, CT 06510.

Must haveNew mechanical ability, knowledge of power tools along with electrical knowledge. Welding a Plus. Will train the right

person. Must be able to lift 100 lbs. and work in some adverse weather conditions when needed. Must have a valid Connecticut driver’s license and be able to obtain a medical card. Must pass a physical exam and drug test. Compensation starts at $30.00 per hour plus benefits with room for advancement. Please send resume to gforshee@atlasoutdoor.com AA/EOE/MF

NOTICIA

Electric

VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo Chief Engineer – The Town of Wallingford Electric Division is seeking a highly qualified engineer ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos with strong technical and leadership/management skills that will be responsible for the planning, designing, máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 and maintenance of the electric generation, transmission, and distribution systems and related facilities of the julio, 2016 hasta cuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) Electric Division. Must possess a bachelor’s degree from a recognized college or university in electrical, meen las oficinas de HOME INC. Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas por correo a petición chanical, or civil engineering, plus eight (8) years of progressively responsible engineering managerial work llamando a HOME INC al 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirse for electrical utilities or an engineering consulting firm doing work for electric utilities. An Associates Degree a las oficinas de HOME INC en 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, New Haven , CT 06510 . in one of these fields may substitute for two (2) years of the work experience requirement. One year of supervisory experience as a supervisor is preferred. In addition, must possess and maintain a Connecticut Motor Vehicle Operators License. Salary: $97,203 - $124,140 plus an excellent fringe benefit package. Application forms will be mailed upon request from the Department of Human Resources. Phone: (203)-294-2080. Fax (203)-294-2084. The closing date will be November 24, 2020. EOE

Starting Nov. 2, 2020 at 8:30 a.m. through Nov. 13, 2020 at 2:00 p.m. the Bristol Housing Authority will accept pre-applications for the 1-bedroom Non-Elderly Disabled Waitlist for its Low-Income Public Housing Program. Only households with a disabled head of household or co-head between the ages of 18-61 years of age qualify to apply. Maximum of 2 occupants for a 1-bedroom unit.

To apply online or to download a Pre-application go to www.bristolhousing.org or www.cthcvp.org. Applications may also be picked up in person at the BHA office lobby during business hours. Pre-applications and online applications will be available starting Nov. 2, 2020. Pre-applications not completed online must be mailed to Bristol Housing Authority, Attn: Maura Martin, 164 Jerome Avenue Bristol, CT 06010.

Pre-applications must be postmarked no earlier than Nov 2, 2020 and no later than Nov. 13, 2020 and received

by Nov. 20, 2020. If you are a person with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to apply, please contact Maura at (860) 582-6313.

Following the closing date, applicant position will be determined by a LOTTERY SELECTION and PREFERENCES as set forth in the BHA’s Tenant Selection Policies. 150 applications will be drawn at random on Dec. 14, 2020 and only families selected will receive notification by Dec. 30, 2020.

Applicants must be determined eligible and qualify in accordance with HUD regulations and the Bristol Housing Authority’s Tenant Selection policies.

We are an equal housing provider and we do not discriminate based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, marital or familial status.

The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport Energy Performance Contract Consultant (EPCC) Request for Proposal (RFP) Solicitation Number: 149-PD-20-S

NEW HAVEN

242-258 Fairmont Ave Manager Utility Business

Invitation toofBid: The Housing Authority the City of Bridgeport d/b/a Park City Communities (PCC) is seeking a quali2nd Notice fied firm to perform tasks related to its “Energy Performance Contract” (EPC). Solicitation package will be available on October 26, 2020, to obtain a copy of the solicitation you must send your request to bids@ 2BR Townhouse, 1.5 BA, 3BR, 1 level , 1BA The Town of Wallingford’s Electric Division is seeking a highly qualified business manager to perform re- parkcitycommunitittes.org, please reference solicitation number and title on the subject line. A Pre-proposal All managerial new apartments, appliances, new carpet,and close to I-91 &ofI-95 Oldwill Saybrook, sponsible work innew the administration, direction supervision the financial, accounting and conference call be heldCT on November 12, 2020, at 11:00 a.m. Although attendance is not mandatory, bus business stop & shopping center billing functions for highways, the Electricnear Division office. The successful candidate must have a bachelor's submitting (4 a proposal attending the pre-proposal conference call may not be in the best interest of Buildings,without 17 Units) degree from a recognized collegeInterested or university in contact accounting or @ business administration plus five (5) years of Tax Pet under 40lb allowed. parties Maria 860-985-8258 theExempt Offeror.& Additional questions should be emailed only to bids@parkcitycommunitites.org no later than Not Prevailing Wage Rate Project increasingly responsible office work experience including at least three (3) years in a supervisory capacity, or November 19, 2020 @ 3:00 p.m. Answers to all the questions will be posted on PCC’s Website: www.parkan equivalent combination of education and qualifying experience substituting on a year-for-year basis. Sal- citycommunities.org. Proposals shall be mailed, or hand delivered by December 1, 2020 @ 3:00 p.m., to CT. Unified Deacon’s Association is pleased to offer a Deacon’s New Construction, Ms. Wood Framed, Housing, Selective Demolition, Site-work, Castary: $88,004 - $112,597 annually plus an excellent fringe benefit package. Applications can be downloaded Caroline Sanchez, Director of Procurement, 150 Highland Ave, Bridgeport, CT 06604, of via e-mail at Certificate Program. This is a 10 month program designed to assist in the intellectual formation of Candidates Concrete, Asphalt Shingles, Late Vinylproposals Siding, will not be accepted. from the Town’s ofneeds.

Human webpage.

Applications in response to the Department Church’s Ministry TheResources’ cost is $125. Classes start Saturday, August or 20, resumes 2016 1:30- can be mailed or faxed in-place bids@parkcitycommunitites.org.

Contact: Chairman, Deacon Joe J. Davis, M.S., B.S. to 3:30 Department of Human Resources, Town of Wallingford, 45 S. Main Street, Room 301, Wallingford CT Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Casework, (203) 996-4517 Host, General Bishop Elijah Davis, D.D. Pastor of Pitts Chapel U.F.W.B. Church 64 Brewster 06492 Fax (203) - 294-2084 Phone: (203)-294-2080.The closing date November 16, 2020. EOE Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection.

SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE

NOTICE OF REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATIONS HOUSING AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF DANBURY Bid Extended, Due Date: August 5, 2016

St. New Haven, CT

TOWNAUTHORITY CLERK SEYMOUR HOUSING

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

Architectural and/or Anticipated Start: August 15, 2016

Engineering On-Call Services

TOWN CLERK - Responsible records management andTown supervision of a Municipal Town Clerk’s Sealed bids are invited byfor thepublic Housing Authority of the of Seymour Project documents available via ftp link below: RFQ No. RQ20001 Office position a H.S. Diploma GEDatand (5) years responsible untilThe 3:00 pm onrequires Tuesday, August 2, or 2016 its five office at 28 ofSmith Street,office work experience http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage in a municipal Town Clerk’s Office to include one (1) year of supervisory experience. Wages: $62,542Seymour, 06483 for Concrete RepairsDepartment and Replacement the $80,021 plus CT an excellent fringe benefitSidewalk package. Apply: of HumanatResources, Town of WallSCOPE: Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour. ingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492. The closing date will be November 16, Fax 2020.

EOE or Email Questions & The Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 Housing Authority of the dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com City of Danbury hereby issues this Request for Qualifications to provide HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran, S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified Architectural and/orBusinesses Engineering On-Call Services Haynes Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 SUBMITTAL RETURN: PROPOSAL A pre-bid conference will be held at the Housing Authority Office 28 Smith AA/EEO EMPLOYER Housing Authority of the City of Danbury, 2 Mill Ridge Rd, Danbury, CT 06811 Street Seymour, CT at 10:00 am, on Wednesday, July 20, 2016.

Envelope Must be Marked: RFQ No. RQ20001 Architectural and/or Engineering On-Call Services

Listing: Dispatcher

Extremely fast paced petroleum company needs a full time (which includes on call and Bidding documents are available from the Seymour Housing Authority Ofweekend coverage) detail oriented experienced Dispatcher. A strong logistics background fice, 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579. and a minimum of one year previous petroleum experience required. Send resume to: HR Manager, P.O. Box 388, Guilford, CT. 06437 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 ********An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer********** informalities in the bidding, if such actions are in the best interest of the Housing Authority.

SUBMITTAL DEADLINE November 9, 2020 at 10:00am (EST) CONTACT PERSON FOR RFP DOCUMENT: Ms. Devin Marra, Director of Procurement,Telephone: 203-744-2500 x141 E-Mail: dmarra@hacdct.org

21

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 28, 2020 - November 03, 2020

Voter Suppression

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent The lines are long, but Black voters are demonstrating their will to vote.

In Texas, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana, African Americans’ resiliency and resolve have never been as severely tested.

They have gone to great lengths to overcome voter suppression, discouragement, misinformation, gerrymandering, and so many other obstacles to participate in America’s elections.

In Fort Bend County, Texas, a check-in machine glitch shut down at least four precincts, and a court ruling that significantly limited ballot locations didn’t stop many African Americans from traveling long distances and overcoming even longer wait times to vote.

In Georgia, NPR Reported that the clogged polling locations in metro Atlanta reflected an underlying pattern: the number of places to vote has shrunk statewide, with little recourse.

“Although the reduction in polling places has taken place across racial lines, it has primarily caused long lines in nonwhite neighborhoods where voter registration has surged and more residents cast ballots

in person on Election Day. The pruning of polling places started long before the pandemic, which has discouraged people from voting in person,” the report noted.

In Virginia, a glitch shut down polls and forced officials to push back deadlines to cast early votes.

Also, General Registrar Donna Patterson told reporters that the long lines in Virginia Beach had been like that each day since early voting began about one month ago.

Add to that number the 55,000 mail-in ballots the registrar received to that point.

Patterson noted that the state might have the highest voter turnout ever.

In North Carolina, about 163,000 votes were cast in person across North Carolina on Saturday, bringing the total to 828,456 in the state — more than double the number of people in North Carolina who went to the polls at this time in the 2016 election.

“Texas has been under siege confronting voter suppression from multiple fronts from our Governor Greg Abbott to the state higher courts,” noted Sonny Messiah Jiles, the publisher, and CEO of The Houston Defender Media Group, DefenderNetwork.com.

Tactics and Long Lines Fail to Quell Resolve of Black Voters

“It is unbelievable or ridiculous for a county with 2.4 million registered voters to have one location to drop off mail-in ballots,” Jiles remarked.

“Despite their efforts, the Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins, a smart young millennial, has been strategic and innovative with drive-thru voting, doubling the early voting locations and the historical move of 24-hour voting. But aside from voting access, we need to beware not to be bamboozled listening to the polls and just go and vote like our life depends on it, because it does.”

Numerous voter suppression tactics have been used in Texas and throughout the nation, added Patrick Washington, CEO, and co-publisher of the Dallas Weekly.

“Like the late-night ruling, from a 5th Circuit Court via a three judge panel, all of whom appointed by President Trump to uphold Governor Abbot’s mandate to limit one ballot drop box for millions of voters in Dallas county,” Washington observed.

However, he continued: “Despite this deliberate, detrimental move, the night before early voting in Texas, I am pleased to see that the very

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voters that may have been affected in Dallas counties came to the polls big.

“I witnessed many volunteers at the Martin Luther King Center assisting the elderly with remaining comfortable with chairs and water during the long wait and assisting first-time voters by explaining the sample ballots. To know that ballot records are being broken in counties all over Texas doesn’t shock me. Unfortunately, a lot of tragic events due to racism and police brutality have occurred during Trump’s time in office.

“People are tired. People can’t see family and friends like they used to. In some cases, people are unemployed, angry, scared or maybe all of the above. So, in any case, people have the time to exercise their civic duty and vote.”

Even in states like Indiana, voter suppression efforts haven’t stopped Black people from lining up at the polls.

“Indiana has some incredibly restrictive voter laws, and currently we only have one early voting site in all of Indianapolis,” stated Robert Shegog, CEO at the Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper and Indiana Minority Business Magazine.

“A few more will open Oct. 24, but significantly more are needed given the size of the city. However, it is very refreshing

to see so many people voting early. This has been a trend in Indianapolis for over ten years now, and the numbers keep increasing,” Shegog noted.

The Indianapolis Recorder reported that there were 13,206 votes cast through the first nine days of early voting – or nearly 10,000 more in the same period in 2008 and 5,000 more than in 2016.

Early voting in Marion county started on Oct. 6 and continues through Nov. 2.

In 2016, 33 percent of the 362,372 voters in Marion county voted early – a recordbreaking number.

This year, Indiana voters are expected to break the record again.

“When one considers the pandemic and the physical and mental effects it had on so many Hoosiers, the tough voting laws, only one early voting site in a city that is nearly 400 square miles, and even the immense pressure that Blacks experience daily; the fact that so many people are voting early demonstrates their desire to have their voices heard and their votes counted,” Shegog said.

“I am incredibly proud of the numbers, and local experts are optimistic that they will continue to increase through Nov. 3.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 28, 2020 - November 03, 2020

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - October 28, 2020 - November 03, 2020

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