THE INNER-CITY NEWSNEWS - November 18,2016 2020- August - November 24, 2020 INNER-CITY July 27, 02, 2016
Covid Inspection Crew Confronts Issues Warnings Financial Justice a Key FocusThe atMaskless, 2016 NAACP Convention New Haven, Bridgeport
INNER-CITYNEWS ‘How Did 12 Percent of Volume 28 . No. 2415 Volume 21 No. 2194
“DMC” Color Struck? Shop Black Week 2020 With Black-Owned Businesses US FOLLOW
Black Men Malloy Dems: Malloy To To Dems: Ignore “Tough On Crime”
Ignore On Crime” vote “Tough for Trump?’
Snow July? Flu Shotsin Delivered ON 1
1
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 2020
City To Issue Covid Mask, Party Fines by THOMAS BREEN
New Haven I ndependent
If your employees don’t wear face masks to work or if you host a party with more people than allowed by the state’s reopening guidelines, then watch out: After one warning, it’ll cost you between $100 and $500. That emerged Tuesday during a Covid-19 virtual press briefing. Mayor Justin Elicker and city Health Director Maritza Bond announced at the briefing that the city will be rolling out this week a new set of Covid-19 related fines for businesses and individuals as the virus continues to surge across the region. Invoking the fining authority granted by Gov. Ned Lamont to municipalities in mid-September, Elicker and Bond said that the city will fine businesses $100 each if their employees are caught not wearing face masks while on the job. And the city will fine businesses and individuals $500 each if they’re caught hosting a social gathering or party that exceeds the capacity restrictions described by the state’s Covid-19 reopening guidelines. Both of those fines will come only after a single warning and the city’s finding of a repeat offense. “We will warn them once, and then we will fine them,” Elicker said. The move towards financial penalties for Covid-related public safety violations represents the city’s latest efforts to crack down on businesses — and, now, private individuals — who do not heed statemandated guidelines around mask wearing and capacity limitations. The city’s Covid-19 safety crew, led by Building Official Jim Turcio and Bond, has been conducting random inspections of businesses for months to make sure they’re keeping their employees and customers safe during the ongoing pandemic.
They’ve shut down businesses, like Anthony’s Ocean View, that have flouted the state’s Covid-19 guidelines and hosted mask-free holiday parties. Now the city is adding to those enforcement efforts and the threat of a temporary closure the additional heat of a financial penalty. Here’s how the new fining protocol will work, according to Bond. If the city is conducting an inspection, whether routine or random as part of the city’s Covid safety task force, and if a city staffer notices employees working and not adhering to the state’s mask rules, that business will be immediately issued a warning letter. “If we do a follow up and see they’re still not complying, we will issue an infraction notice, and they will be instructed to pay a fine,” she said. Elicker said that the city will issue the $100 fine only to businesses, and not to individual employees, when workers are caught not wearing masks while on the clock. The city will, however, issue $500 fines to businesses and private individuals alike if they’re caught hosting social gatherings in excess of the state’s current Covid-19 phased reopening guidelines. “It’s an impossible situation for our businesses,” Elicker acknowledged as he repeated his call on the state to allow cities like New Haven to roll back to Phase 1 reopening guidelines, which would prohibit indoor dining at restaurants altogether, among othe rrestrictions. “Ultimately, what the federal government should be doing is paying businesses to close, like what we’re seeing in Europe, so that businesses are not forced to go out of business or to violate guidance as they’re trying to survive.” Nevertheless, he said, Covid cases are on the rise, and businesses and individuals alike need to
THOMAS BREEN PHOTO Building Official Turcio on a Covid safety crew inspection.
“opt into doing the right thing.” Bond said that a total of 351 new local Covid-positive cases were reported in the last 14 days, bringing the city’s total number of positive cases since the start of the pandemic to 4,177. Also during Tuesday’s virtual presser, city Food Systems Policy Director Latha Swamy gave an update on food delivery and pickup services available in the coming weeks and months. She said that the public school sys-
Free Covid Tests Weekly Through December At Boys & Girls Club
tem, which remains closed to in-person learning indefinitely, still distributes free breakfasts and lunches Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 38 different school sites. During the winter holiday break, from Dec. 21 to Dec. 23 and from Dec. 28 to Dec. 31, those 38 food pickup sites will be temporarily reduced to 11. When families go to pick up meals during that shortened schedule, they’ll be able to pick up double meals.
Small, In-Person Special Education Classes To Close by EMILY HAYS
by STAFF
New Haven I ndependent
Yale New Haven Health has set up a weekly Covid-19 testing site in the Hill neighborhood at the Boys and Girls Club of New Haven, open every Monday through December. The hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Those wanting a test can enter through the club’s gym at 144 Minor St. or via the wheelchair-accessible entrance at 253 Columbus Ave. The Covid-19 tests are free to all. YNHH asks those with insurance to bring their insurance card. YNHH also asks those wanting to get tested to bring photo identification and to wear a mask. The Boys and Girls Club testing site will be open Nov. 16, Nov. 23, Nov. 30, Dec. 7, Dec. 14, Dec. 21 and Dec. 28. YNHH has a daily Covid-19 testing site
After Friday, Nov. 20, no students will be in any New Haven Public Schools buildings. Superintendent Iline Tracey sent out this update by email on Tuesday afternoon. She announced that the district had decided to move its small, in-person Special Education program onlineonly after Friday. “As we watch the uptick of positive cases in our schools and the uptick in the community, it is prudent that at this time we discontinue the special population classes until further notice,” Tracey wrote. The New Haven Board of Education voted in September to allow up to 125 students with severe cognitive disabili-
New Haven I ndependent
CHRISTOPHER PEAK PHOTO The Boys and Girls Club of New Haven on Columbus Avenue.
open at the former Strong School site at 130 Orchard St. That location’s hours are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m, seven days a week. Appointments are required, however. Book
an appointment at this website or by calling 833-ASK-YNHH. Find more testing sites on the city’s coronavirus website.
2
Families can also call ahead of time to pick up a meal kit with a mix of fresh and frozen ingredients designed to last a full week. The number to call to put in a food kit pickup order is 475-220-1612. The pickup sites are High School in the Community, King Robinson, and Hill Regional Career, and the pick up days are Nov. 20, Dec. 4, Dec. 11, and Dec. 18.
ties into 11 different school buildings for in-person classes. New Haven students with severe forms of autism and other cognitive disabilities have sometimes struggled to focus on their online classes or understand why they have to sit in front of a computer screen for so long. The closure follows the district’s decision not to reopen for hybrid classes in early November, as originally planned. It also follows a rise in Covid-19 cases among students, teachers and other school staff. Three coronavirus cases have been confirmed at Bishop Woods and West Rock schools since Friday, resulting in quarantine for eight others who had been in contact with those who tested positive.
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 2020
Baltimore Fashionista Flows With Elm Style by MAYA MCFADDEN
New Haven I ndependent
In New Haven, women favor wearing sneakers, not heels. But they love their sequins. Baltimore transplant Kimberly SewellPoole got up to speed on all that, as she hits round two of trying to launch a retrochic boutique on Whalley Avenue during a pandemic. Sewell-Poole, 38, is the owner of More Amour Boutique at 43 Whalley Ave. on the periphery of the Shop at Yale Broadway district. She moved here with her husband, local real estate investor Gerald Poole. She brought her Baltimore boutique dream with her, looking to introduce unique apparel and edgy accessories to women. Sewell-Poole had to make some adjustments — not just to launch amid the Covid-19 pandemic, but to learn New Haveners’ preferences. New Haven differs from her hometown, she learned. For one thing, New Haveners opt to wear sneakers more often than heels. “In Baltimore, we wear heels all the time,” she said. So now, when ordering from vendors, Sewell-Poole chooses pieces that can be worn with both sneakers and heels. More Amour Boutique had its soft opening March 7. Sewell-Poole’s vision was to create a shop that gave customers a fun experience when entering. “The shiny lights and dark floors made a statement while being inviting at the same time,” she said. “With fashion comfort is important.” The shop has an open floor with a private office for Sewell-Poole and a fitting room.
During the third week of March, only ten days after she opened, Sewell-Poole got a call from her landlord, Yale, telling her that her shop had to close as apart of the city’s Covid-19 stay-at-home order. At the time the shop did not have a website or enough time to build any clientele. “It was like being stuck,” she said. Nearly all of Sewell-Poole’s vendors had paused doing business. It wasn’t until around April that SewellPoole was able to being working with a handful of vendors to get new summer pieces into the shop. She readied round two, a June reopening. “It was a standstill, but there was no way I was going to give up,” she said. From Baltimore to New Haven Originally from Baltimore, SewellPoole moved to New Haven in January with her husband after annual trips to visit her in-laws. She developed a love for fashion because of its ability to make women feel good about themselves. “I love to see their smile after putting an outfit together,” she said. Sewell-Poole worked as a sales associate for Neiman Marcus for six years and Saks Fifth Avenue for four. The combined 10 years of experience introduced her to a number of name-brand designers. She developed a talent for coordinating styles for clients. Sewell-Poole learned as well from family members in the fashion industry. Her parents owned a clothing store for six years. Her uncle was a fashion designer for Beyoncé‘s House of Deréon. Her cousins have their own fashion businesses. Growing up, Sewell-Poole admired her parents’ sense of fashion. “I remem-
MAYA MCFADDEN PHOTO Kimberly Sewell-Poole inside More Amour.
ber my eyes lighting up when my mom wore these bright outfits in the ‘80s to the club,” she said. Sewell-Poole always knew she would own her own clothing shop. Last year, while visiting New Haven, Sewell-Poole went shopping in search of a statement piece for an outfit for a fashion show in New York. The pickings were slim. “I’m going to open a shop here,” she decided. She began looking for a storefront. A frequent shopper downtown, Sewell-Poole found the Whalley space and fell in love. “It was perfect,” she said. “I wanted to be
downtown to get the foot traffic.” Sewell-Poole took a class while in Baltimore to learn more about the process of getting the required permits for a business. Sewell-Poole learned in a roomful of designers with popular brands like Milano Di Rouge. As a sales associate, Sewell-Poole would tell the designers she met, “I’m going to contact you one day.” Now she’s doing just that. Her shop carries more than 30 different designers’ women’s clothing items. Next year, she is looking to open a sec-
ond location in Maryland to bring more love to her home state. Reopening When the shop reopened in June SewellPoole kicked off with an indoor pop-up display of her newest seasonal pieces. The shop restocks weekly with new pieces including from high-end designers. She noticed a high demand for sequin pieces. Many customers come to shop with Sewell-Poole with incomplete outfits ideas for big events like birthdays, anniversaries, or photo shoots. “I don’t know what to wear with this,” customers tell her as they show her shoes or a top. Sewell-Poole works with them to figure out their fashion inspirations and comfort zones. “It’s like a game of, ‘Do you wanna be flashy, subtle, or simple with a pop?’” To avoid any “fashion dilemma,” Sewell-Poole orders only three to six copies of each piece. “I know what it’s like to go out and have someone wearing the same thing as you. I don’t want that happening to my shopper,” she said. Soon Sewell-Poole will stock her racks with bold and trendy holiday pieces. She expects the shop’s website to be completed and up-to-date pieces in store by December. Currently the shop’s hours are 11 a.m to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Sewell-Poole is making plans in case the store must close or adjust to regulations as local Covid cases increase. The shop may operate on an appointment-only basis, as Sewell-Poole styles one customer at a time in the store. You can call the shop at (203) 859-5266.
Race Was On To Clean Up The Neighborhood by MAYA MCFADDEN
New Haven I ndependent
A plastic bottle = “big money.” A paper receipt? “Chump change.” Those calculations applied to a game with real-life consequences for the environment, made up by Eastview Terrace youth who spent their Veterans Day picking up neighborhood litter. A dozen volunteers gathered to support a Solar Youth neighborhood clean up program in Fair Haven Heights on their school day off. The kids got suited up in face masks and gloves. Then each picked up their weapons of choice: a trash picker and a trash bag. They competed informally throughout the event, seeing who could pick up the most trash the fastest — and, in terms of “chump change” and “big money,” who could discover the most valuable “treasure.”
The program’s mission expanded beyond helping to beautify the neighborhood, said Shannon Dickey, Solar Youth’s site coordinator for the Eastview publichousing development. The youth were also able to see their community come together and do something positive for their neighbors. The kids noted the trash around the neighborhood needed to be cleaned up for a number of reasons: To keep their lawns clean for toys. To “save the turtles.” To “leave space for the snow.” To keep raccoons away. Youth educator Paige Brown, 19, suggested the idea for the event. As a forensic psychology student, Brown said, she learned about how too often “the black community is set up to be underprivileged.” Events like these offer a different approach. Jack and Destiny Borges, who are 6 and 7, respectively, joined the group of vol-
unteers after receiving a flyer for the program on Tuesday when Brown knocked on doors in the complex. While Brown, who is adopted, lives in West Haven; her biological family is from Fair Haven. “This affects us all. It’s more
3
than just trash,” she said. Brown led the group around and over the hills surrounding the townhomes in search of litter. When the group spotted a pile of litter from a distance. the kids raced each other to it to claim dibs on the “treasure.” While picking up trash, 10-year-old Hezekiah played a game with himself to see how many pieces of litter he could pick up at once with the trash picker. After the group’s half hour of community service, Hezekiah’s record was picking up three pieces of trash at once. The walk around the neighborhood resulted in five full trash bags of litter, which the group wouldn’t have accomplished without an occasional sword-like battle with the trash pickers along the way. Sanaii Austin, 10, decided to come out to be with her friends, who participate in Solar Youth. “I just be bored in the house
when I can’t go to my cousin’s house to play,” she said. By the end of the program many of the bags were filled with disposable mask, cigarette butts, and plastic bags and bottles. Eight-year-old Raymond struggled to use the trash picker until mastering his grabbing technique with two hands. The kids, ranging from 5 to 10 years old, raced back to the community building after one member yelled out, “Last one is a rotten egg!” The youth sat together while eating snacks provided by the Solar Youth staff and played a name game with Brown and Dickey. Each volunteer received a thank you treat to “thank them for making a change,” said Dickey. The group finished off with the cha-cha slide. “The earth is smiling because of you guys,” Shannon told the youth.
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 2020
Team Seeks Remote-Student “Ghosts” by EMILY HAYS
New Haven I ndependent
Gemma Joseph-Lumpkin and Kermit Carolina were ready to give an Augusta Lewis Troup School student everything he needed to connect with his remote classes. There was just one problem. They had to find him. The two outreach administrators had that experience over and over on Tuesday as they walked from house to house in the Dwight neighborhood to find students who had not logged into their classes. “These kids are ghosts right now. But trust me, we will not give up,” Joseph-Lumpkin said. New Haven Public Schools student attendance has dropped dramatically since the Covid-19 pandemic hit. New state data shows that New Haven students attended roughly 93 percent of school days last year prior to the pandemic. This fall, that attendance rate dropped to 86 percent for all students and to 84 percent for students with disabilities, low-income students and English learners. It’s one of the largest drops in attendance among highneeds students in Connecticut. Joseph-Lumpkin leads the department responsible for bringing these absent students back into the fold. As chief of youth, family and community engagement (YFCE), Joseph-Lumpkin has overseen countless phone calls, texts and in-person visits to the families struggling most during the pandemic. Members of her department have delivered groceries, provided tech support and connected families to more long-term resources, like food pantries and mental health services. With all of these efforts, the number of students absent from remote school has steadily decreased since the pandemic began in March. Months into the fall semester, however, hundreds of students have still not logged on at all. Attend. Connect. Inspire. Tuesday marked a new infusion of energy into the search for these missing students. Volunteers gathered in the golden afternoon sun next to Hill Regional Career High School to kick off YFCE’s new campaign, “Attend. Connect. Engage.” The school system holds community canvasses in regular years, where volunteers help staff knock on doors to reach families about going back to school or starting kindergarten. This year, the canvass is more urgent, Joseph-Lumpkin said. “Even a small in-person interaction can make a big difference,” Assistant Superintendent Paul Whyte told the assembled volunteers. After brief instructions from JosephLumpkin, the volunteers paired with YFCE staff members. Clutching lists of addresses, bags of school supplies and informational flyers, the teams set off. Joining Joseph-Lumpkin and Carolina’s team was James Hillhouse High School grad Samuel Bowens IV The 22-year-old is a proud volunteer at soup kitchens and in mentorship programs. He counts Carolina as one of the three men
Penfield Communications Inc
John P. Thomas Publisher / CEO
Babz Rawls Ivy
Editor-in-Chief Liaison, Corporate Affairs Babz@penfieldcomm.com
Advertising/Sales Team Keith Jackson 10 Delores Alleyne John Thomas, III
Editorial Team
Staff Writers Christian Lewis/Current Affairs Anthony Scott/Sports Arlene Davis-Rudd/Politics
Contributing Writers EMILY HAYS PHOTOS New Haven Public Schools comes knocking.
who inspired his passion for volunteering, the other two being a drumming instructor and an Omega Psi Phi Fraternity brother. Bowens met Carolina when the district’s now-supervisor of youth development was the Hillhouse High School principal. Bowens has spent his years since graduating doing renovations and other carpentry work. However, he is about to start work as a paraprofessional in New Haven schools and hopes to build a career as a safe adult in kids’ lives, just as Carolina has been for him. “[So] they know they have someone to look up to, like a brother or a parent,” Bowens said. Carolina’s connections proved helpful at the first house the team visited. He recognized a young man entering the house, who let the team inside. The family they hoped to visit was not home, so Carolina left a pamphlet on the apartment door. The next house seemed off, even on paper. Six students were listed at the same address. All were young, were supposed to be students at Troup and had different last names. Joseph-Lumpkin led the team up to the house. Darkened wood tiles covered the sides of the house. Paint was peeling from the window frames. Signs warned trespassers that they were being filmed. When there was no answer to several rounds of knocks and doorbells, JosephLumpkin held a poster up to the camera. At last, someone cracked open the door. Joseph-Lumpkin conferred with the woman at the door for a moment and learned that no children live in the house at all. The fact that six children were mistakenly listed at the address could be a computer error, Joseph-Lumpkin said. Or the parents could have listed a false address, or moved and not updated the school system. The
children will not be removed from Troup’s enrollment list until YFCE confirms that they are safe and sound elsewhere. “We haven’t seen them, and they are not at the address,” Joseph-Lumpkin said. “These are red flags.” The team tried another house across the street. The landlord, Jonathan Noonan, was outside raking leaves. He said that the family in question had moved out suddenly a month before. He has been unable to contact them. “I want to find them as much as you,” Noonan said. Noonan said that two brothers and their families had lived together in the same home. One moved out. Suddenly so did the other, leaving behind all their furniture and belongings. For now, Noonan has piled their furniture in a shed behind the house (pictured above). If the family does not get back in touch soon, Noonan plans to get help to haul it all to the sidewalk and picked up by trash collectors. This left a tally of seven students not only not home but not living at their listed addresses. This doesn’t usually happen, JosephLumpkin said. “Part of this is the despair [caused by the pandemic]. We’re trying to understand stories. We don’t know their story and we have to know it,” Carolina said. Carolina noted that it sounded like the families were combining resources by doubling up. “We don’t know what strain they were under to leave so suddenly,” Joseph-Lumpkin said. The department may be able to use a state records system to check whether the student had moved somewhere else in Connecticut.
4
Joseph-Lumpkin said that the department does not give up. She recalled finding a student in a homeless shelter elsewhere in the state after the student had fled home. Her department was able to find a ride for the student and get the student back to school. Thanks For The Books Carolina, Joseph-Lumpkin and Bowens finally connected with a parent at the last house of the afternoon. “Who is knocking on my door like that?” a little girl called out from inside. When the girl’s mother answered the door, Joseph-Lumpkin and Carolina explained that they had books, school supplies and other goodies from the school system in a bag. The little girl took the bag and scampered immediately back to her apartment. Joseph-Lumpkin then got down to the real business of the visit: How are things going? Does the little girl have a tablet or Chromebook? Yes, she is able to connect, the mom relayed. She didn’t go to school today, but she would try harder tomorrow. Joseph-Lumpkin offered her own experience trying to get her two children out of bed and ready for school. “I know it’s tough,” Joseph-Lumpkin said. “Do you have people to talk to? Church friends? Regular friends?” The team wrapped up the visit reinforcing the message that the mother could call them if she needed anything. Everyone was waiting for the home’s little student to come back to school. The mom thanked JosephLumpkin and Carolina for the books. Joseph-Lumpkin and Carolina summarized the visit: The mother seemed overwhelmed but receptive. And they now knew that this student on their list was happy and healthy.
David Asbery / Tanisha Asbery Jerry Craft / Cartoons / Barbara Fair Dr. Tamiko Jackson-McArthur Michelle Turner / Smita Shrestha William Spivey / Kam Williams Rev. Samuel T. Ross-Lee
Contributors At-Large Christine Stuart www.CTNewsJunkie.com
Paul Bass www.newhavenindependent.org
Memberships National Association of Black Journalist National Newspapers Publishers Association Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce Greater New Haven Business & Professional Greater New England Minority Supplier Development Council, Inc. The Inner-City Newspaper is published weekly by Penfield Communications, Inc. from offices located at 50 Fitch Street, 2nd Floor, New Haven, CT 06515. 203-387-0354 phone; 203-3872684 fax. Subscriptions:$260 per year (does not include sales tax for the in State subscriptions). Send name, address, zip code with payment. Postmaster, send address changes to 50 Fitch Street, New Haven, CT 06515. Display ad deadline Friday prior to insertion date at 5:00pm Advertisers are responsible for checking ads for error in publication. Penfield Communications, Inc d.b.a., “The Inner-City Newspaper” , shall not be liable for failure to publish an ad or for typographical errors or errors in publication, except to the extent of the cost of the space in which actual error appeared in the first insertion. The Publisher reserves the right to refuse advertising for any reason and to alter advertising copy or graphics deemed unacceptable for publication. The entire contents of The Inner-City Newspaper are copyright 2012, Penfield Communications, Inc. and no portion may be reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher.
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 2020
Crossing Guards Bid Farewell To One Of Their Own by LISA REISMAN
New Haven I ndependent
Celeste “CeCe” Staten Gilchrist died in the early-morning hours of Sept. 27 after being struck by a hit-and-run driver as she crossed Whalley Avenue between Davis Street and Anthony Street. Police believe the 68-year-old school crossing guard was looking for her dog Harlem, a small lhasa apso mix. Roughly 30 family, friends, and fellow crossing guards, masked and socially distanced, attended a funeral service at Beaverdale Memorial Cemetery on Pine Rock Avenue. Mayor Justin Elicker told the group he’d been feeling the brunt of the dreary day, and the times, until hearing Stephanie Townsend’s soul-stirring rendition of the worship song “Way Maker” resound through the cemetery. Her singing inspired him to “look for small glimmers of light,” he said. “From the stories I’ve heard, CeCe was one of those glimmers of light.” Elicker recognized the essential role of the city’s crossing guards who stood arrayed in yellow fluorescent vests across the leaf-strewn lawn. “You are on the front lines, you are taking care of our most vulnerable, you are protecting our
young children, and how many times have I heard, ‘Don’t take away my crossing guard, Mayor Elicker?’” Gilchrist had worked most recently at King Robinson Inter-District Magnet School and Lincoln-Bassett Community School. The mayor said at the Thursday funeral gathering that she did more than just care for young school children. In donating to domestic violence shelters, helping the homeless, and caring for dogs, “she followed that passion for protecting the most vulnerable in her own personal life,” he said. Gilchrist’s friend Evangeline Lannette Price said Gilchrist had a “giving spirit” from a young age. She recalled Gilchrist throwing her a surprise sweet 16 birthday party. “She invited everybody in our school,” she said. “I didn’t know all these people, but she did. She had the ability to draw people in, even at that age. She just said, ‘Boom, here it is.’ She had everything, music, food; don’t ask me how. I don’t know if she saved her allowance or what she did, but she gave it to me.” Delivering the eulogy, Rev. Shelly Emery Holness, associate pastor of Christian Tabernacle Baptist Church in Hamden, said, “CeCe was a person who loved very
Fellow crossing guards Delores Wright, Lostina Lee, Catherine Bright at the funeral.
big. She loved her son Tywan, and she loved her grandchildren, and she loved her community and co-workers.” Gilchrist, Holness said, “was able to protect and care for the schoolchildren as
they went back and forth, 20 years. She stood in the cold, she stood in the rain, she stood faithful, for 20 years.” Jeannette Pizarro, the city’s chief crossing guard supervisor, recognized the im-
pact of Gilchrist on countless children and families and her perfect attendance over 20 years of service. “No matter what CeCe was going through, I would see her out at the corner, crossing her kids, and she would always say, ‘Oh, look at your smile, God bless you, God loves you.’” After the service, school crossing guard Latrina Outlaw, while remembering Gilchrist as a “beautiful person,” rued the dangerous high-speed thoroughfare that is Whalley Avenue. (At an event to mark the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims on the New Haven Green on Sunday, Gilchrist’s was among the names read aloud as one of the eleven pedestrians who died in car crashes on New Haven streets within the past year.) “This shouldn’t have happened,” Outlaw said. “We have to stop this from happening.” Mignone Henderson, standing nearby, nodded. She said she convinced Gilchrist to consider becoming a crossing guard, and Gilchrist never looked back. “It was just mad love with CeCe,” she said, as the wind kicked up and the leaves swirled. “She loved those school kids. She loved her family. She loved her dog. She died trying to save the life of her dog.”
Ferraro’s Packing Up For North Haven by PAUL BASS
New Haven I ndependent
The Ferraro’s family is moving the market it started in New Haven in 1952 to the suburbs — leaving public-housing tenants like Yelissa Martinez and Gladys Lugo with no walkable place to buy groceries. The Ferraro’s Food Center will leave its Grand Avenue location on Dec. 24, according to Victoria Ferraro, a third-generation family member helping to run the market that Sal Ferraro started in 1952. The market will reopen next to Target on North Haven’s Universal Drive some time in February, she said. Sal Ferraro opened the business as Mohawk Market on State Street in 1952. The market moved to the Grand Avenue location in the 1970s. Victoria Ferraro said the neighborhood has gotten too dangerous for many of her customers, who drive in from other neighborhoods or from the suburbs. Daily shootings took place on Grand Avenue right in front of the market in September and October. “It’s bittersweet for sure,” she said of the move out of the city. “The past couple of years haven’t been the same. The area’s getting rougher for us. I work with a lot of family members. My sisters come help my mom. It is still [going to be] very
close to New Haven.” Her uncle, store co-owner Peter Ferraro, said crime wasn’t the driving factor, but rather a desire to “downsize” from the current 20,000 square-foot space to the new 6,400 one. The new location will focus mostly on Ferraro’s trademark lure ... ... its meats. “I don’t think we will lose any business” in North Haven, Victoria Ferraro predicted. “We’ll gain a lot.” Indeed, some customers interviewed outside the store Monday — none of whom had known about the pending move — said they will drive out to North Haven to shop at the new location. To a person they gave the same two reasons for why they drive to Ferraro’s: “The meats.” And the lower prices, which Peter Ferraro said the market is able to procure by buying so much meat in bulk. (It operates a “Meat King” distribution business for markets throughout the region.) Flor Bernier (pictured), for instance, is ready to drive to North Haven to continue buying chicken and pork chops, even though he lives so close to the current store on Woolsey Street. C-Town, which is near him in Fair Haven, charges too much for its meats, he said. “I’m going to go where the meat’s at,” echoed Herbert Russell, who drives to the market from Dixwell, bypassing Stop &
PAUL BASS PHOTOS Victoria Ferraro with staffer Aniello Furino outside the market Monday.
Shop. “I can go to North Haven. Everything is over there anyway.” “I don’t mind” the drive, said Arkisha Smith, who said she has been coming regularly to Ferraro’s from Valley Street for decades. She was picking up turkey legs and Italian sausage Monday to prepare for Thanksgiving, “It’s the best in town,” she said. James Dudley, pictured during a work break, said he hopes he can make the move with the market. After the pandemic put on hold his job as a chef at Wilbur
5
Cross High School, he landed work in the Ferraro’s dairy section, and likes it. He lives down the road on James Street. He said he has shopped at the store since it moved to Grand Avenue, when he was growing up across the street at the Farnam Courts public-housing development. That complex is now rebuilt and renamed Mill River Crossing. Some tenants there, like Yelissa Martinez and Gladys Lugo, won’t be able to shop at the new North Haven Ferraro’s. Because they
don’t have a car. They have six people in their household. So they end up walking across the street every day to pick up groceries at Ferraro’s. What will they do now? Martinez shrugged. They’ll have to figure out a way to shop at the Fair Haven C-Town, she figured. She’ll miss the convenience, not to mention the low meat prices. “It’s not good,” she said.
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 2020
Wooster Square Neighbors Welcome Planned Re-Entry Drop-Off Center by LAURA GLESBY
New Haven I ndependent
When a new drop-off center for people transitioning out of prison comes to Wooster Square in January, the program will have some friendly faces — and even a few potential new collaborators — in the neighborhood. The drop-off center is a forthcoming initiative based in Project MORE, a local nonprofit at 830 Grand Ave. that provides resources for people exiting prison. When city Prison Re-Entry Director Carlos Sosa-Lombardo pitched the program to the Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team at a Zoom meeting Tuesday night, members of the group welcomed the notion with open arms. The drop-off station is the city’s effort to create a centralized place at which correctional systems would drop off exoffenders coming back to New Haven. The drop-off center would be integrated with Project MORE’s existing resources and housed within the same space, so that formerly incarcerated people can meet with case managers upon arriving to New Haven. When formerly incarcerated clients arrive at the drop-off center, Sosa-Lombardo explained, a peer mentor or staff member will greet them and assess which social services they might benefit from. “If people need services, they can always come back,” he said. According to Sosa-Lombardo, resources for formerly-incarcerated individuals in New Haven are scattered across the city and often disconnected from one another. “They receive referrals after referrals and
THOMAS BREEN FILE PHOTO Carlos Sosa-Lombardo: drop-off center clients can “always come back.”
residents get discouraged,” Sosa-Lombardo said of people out of prison seeking reintegration services. He envisions the consolidated drop-off center as an alternative to “people going place to place to sustain piecemeal services.” Dennis Daniels, Project MORE’s president, said he hopes the drop off center “will be a one stop shop for our clients.”
Morris Moreland, the organization’s vice president, clarified that clients would be dropped off inside the building, rather than outside on Grand Avenue. “We’re talking about the DOC escorting those individuals into our building and making sure there’s a safe change of hands,” he said. “That person will either be integrated with a family member or get a bus pass. It’s not gonna be a place where
people hang out, loiter.” The management team welcomed the forthcoming program. Andrew Giering, a federal public defender, urged Project MORE to ensure that people reintegrating from federal correctional facilities can benefit from the drop-off program, in addition to those reintegrating from state prisons. “You don’t want them to slip through the cracks,”
Giering said. Moreland responded that the organization hopes to grow its relationship with the federal government. Gina Bingham of the New Haven Free Public Library offered to connect the organization to the library’s services. The library already partners with the city’s Project Fresh Start for formerly incarcerated residents, she said. “I would love to connect with you all. A lot of the folks who come in to access computers have become near and dear to our hearts.” Caroline Smith, co-founder of the startup incubator Collab and the management team’s chair, proposed a similar partnership with her organization. Collab could host one-on-one office hours for clients who want to start their own businesses, she suggested. “We really need opportunity for all of our neighbors, and I feel like this is a really crucial program,” said Mill River Alder Ellen Cupo. “Is there anything that you need from us? Clothes, toiletries, other items that the community can donate?” “That is something that we can look into,” Moreland said. He did have one ask: to become a member of the management team. “That way you can really understand the work we do,” he said. He added that after the pandemic, management team members could come see drop-off center for themselves, in person. This request received smiles from Smith and executive board member Ian Dunn. “Welcome,” Smith said. “If you’re here, you’ve already joined.”
"American Moor" Makes Its New Haven Debut by Arturo Pineda. The Arts Paper www.newhavenarts.org
The young white director offered no apology for his tardiness to the casting of his own production of Othello. Instead, he commented on the actor Keith’s height. “Man! You’re tall!” he said. After a prolonged musing on his height, he began to explain Shakespeare’s work to an actor with twice his experience. “Purely by virtue of being born Black in America,” Cobb said to the audience. “I know more about who this dude is than any graduate program could ever teach you.” Keith—a middle-aged Black man auditioning for the role of Othello— is the focal point in American Moor, Keith Hamilton Cobb’s 2018 reimagining of Shakespeare’s 1622 Othello and his role as a Black American within it. Earlier this fall, Elm Shakespeare Company screened a 2018 production and talkback with Cobb as part of its five-part series “Build-
ing a Brave New Theatre: Exploring Race & Shakespeare in 2020.” The first production was performed at the Jacobean-style, candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe in London, followed by a talkback on Zoom and Facebook Live. The next installment of the series, a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) Directors’ Forum, is planned for November 12 on Zoom. A link to registration is accessible here. “Building A Brave New Theatre” came out of discussions within Elm Shakespeare—a historically white-led organization staffed overwhelmingly by white people—and SCSU theater students about the company’s capacity to do anti-racist work during and beyond COVID-19. Introducing the series, Artistic Director Rebecca Goodheart said that she is working to learn more about the complicated relationship that William Shakespeare— and his millions of interpreters—had with both race and racism.
“I started reading and educating myself about some of the issues with Shakespeare and race,” she said. “And what I realized is there was a lot I did not know, and I spent my life doing this!” In return, she reached out to members of the community to question Shakespeare’s place in the Western canon. Spread over five, biweekly sessions, the series asks audiences to consider questions like “Who ‘owns Shakespeare?” or “What do these plays offer our time?” Cobb’s play answered those questions with a kind of necessary bluntness, and so opened them to further discussions that the company plans to have. In the play, Cobb submits that non-Black audiences—and especially white audiences—have a lot to learn about race in America. Early in the play, his character Keith asks that white director simply talk to him before projecting his own white, Westernized version of the play onto him. The exchange mirrors Shakespeare’s own attempt, as a white man, to conjure and
6
speculate on the ostensible interiority of a Black man like Othello. “Talk with me,” he tells the director in the show. “We got so much to talk about.” In response to the director’s stifling micromanagement—think Rhada Blank’s 40 Year Old Version, but not funny—Keith’s frustration grows, just as Othello’s own anger grows after Iago deceives him. “You think any American Black man is gonna play Othello without being in touch with his anger—at you?” he asks. The question hits home two years after Cobb first asked it on a main stage. At times, the actor’s comments are meant for the director, but are equally applicable to the mostly white audience. It is not lost on Cobb that the play would most likely be performed in predominantly white spaces; Keith remarks at one point that Othello wouldn’t have needed to perform a “minstrel show” for these men. “Put on your poker face, Brotha,” he says before performing Othello’s mono-
logue as the director asked. In the monologue, set in front of the Venetian senate, Othello responds to the charges that he seduced Desdemona through witchcraft. In a talkback with Cobb, Goodheart commented on Shakespeare’s reputation as “untouchable,” noting that the reputation has led it to be associated with an educated, upper-middle class and often white demographic. “I have never been that interested in ‘high art,” she said. “It’s one of the reasons we do it in the park. We want it to be for everybody.” “Building a Brave New Theatre” continues Nov. 12 with a BIPOC Director Forum featuring Carl Cofield (director of the 2019 Afro-futurist Yale Repertory Theatre production of Twelfth Night), Madeline Sayet (of Long Wharf Theatre and the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program), L. Peter Callender, Antonio Ocampo Guzman and Dawn Monique Williams.
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 2020
Greater New Haven Chamber & Quinnipiac Chambers of Commerce Host Virtual Business Expo Presented by Comcast Business, Four Half Days Full of Speakers, Virtual Exhibits, & Networking
New Haven, CT – November 17, 2020 – The Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce (GNHCC), will host The Big Connect, Connecticut’s premier business expo, presented by Comcast Business online this year, for four half days, Monday, November 16 - Thursday, November 19, 2020, 8:30am -1pm. The large-scale business expo goes online with national and regional speakers, educational workshops, panel discussions, and close to 50 virtual exhibits. The expo features a keynote speaker on each day, Frank Sesno, Emmy Award Winning Journalist & former CNN Correspondent, sponsored by Marrakech, Inc., Tobey Corey, Former President of Tesla, presented by Comcast Business and introduced by Southern CT State University’s School of Business, Bill Strickland, President & CEO, Manchester Bidwell Corporation, sponsored by Inner City News, and Ross Douthat, New York Times Op-Ed Columnist who will share his perspective on U.S. Presidential Results. Connecticut Lieutenant Governor, Susan Bysiewicz, is a panelist on the annual Women’s Power Panel, sponsored by KeyBank’s Key4Women. Attractions of the expo include the 4th
annual Nonprofit Stars Align Awards Ceremony, presented by Mutual of America, Start with Art segments highlighting arts & culture, part of Greater New Haven’s regional economy, recognition of four minority owned businesses that are community focused and mission driven, and a Zoom Lounge, online networking rooms sponsored by the Energy Efficiency programs at Southern CT Gas / United Illuminating. Navigate The Future of Business NOW! is the theme of this year’s expo. Programming includes information on access to capital, a workshop on how to
create business plans and adapt business strategies, panel discussions on advanced manufacturing, advancements in bioscience, an abbreviated presentation of Yale University’s infamous The Science of Well-Being course, a discussion about equity & inclusion through authentic means, and the annual Women’s Power panel who will talk about being resilient while leading others through crises. Additional speakers Pamela Shand, Paolo Romanacci, and Tara Healey will discuss an array of topics, including how to get hired, marketing your brand, and how to cultivate clarity in difficult times, re-
7
spectively. “We are excited to host The Big Connect again this year,” commented Garrett Sheehan, President & CEO of Greater New Haven and Quinnipiac Chambers. Sheehan continued, “We invite all members of the business community to join the sessions and visit the virtual booths.” The Big Connect Expo 2020 is made possible by these additional sponsors: ConnectiCare, AMS Practice Management, Aligning, American GreenFuels, CoForge, Connecticut Public/NPR, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Hearst Connecticut Media Group, IKEA, KeyBank,
Latinas & Power, La Voz Hispana, New Haven Biz, New Haven Register, Record Journal Media Group, Southern Connecticut State University, Story Real Studios, The HR Source, and We Work For Health, and WTNH News 8. One lucky attendee who interacts with multiple virtual booths, will have the chance to win a grand prize, including an overnight stay at Foxwoods Resort Casino. Admission is free to all programs. To register and learn more, visit www.gnhccexpo.com. Attendees can download an app to guide them throughout the day.
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 2020
Recount Gives Fishbein Victory in 90th by Hugh McQuaid Ct. News Junkie
After a recount in Wallingford and Cheshire, Republican Rep. Craig Fishbein will hold onto his legislative seat by 17 votes, overturning an apparent loss to Democratic challenger Jim Jinks during last week’s election. The recount was required by state law after Wallingford officials discovered a result-reporting error Monday, which put the race within one-half of 1%. Initially the recalculation had Fishbein leading by 21 votes. When the votes were re-tallied and reported to the state Friday, Fishbein had retained the seat by a 17-vote margin. Support authentic, locally owned and operated public service journalism! In a phone interview Friday, Fishbein said the tight results underscore the importance of voting. “Every vote does count. There’s really no other lesson to take away from it. Those who had sought my defeat should take away the same lesson,” he said. “I’m just happy with the razor-thin margin that I was successful.” It was still unclear exactly what went wrong in the initial reporting that led to Jinks’ erroneously reported victory. Wallingford Town Clerk Barbara Thompson said she discovered Monday that the results reported into the secretary of the state’s election system did not include returns from one of Wallingford’s voting
precincts. She said the mix-up was either a clerical or a computing error. Gabe Rosenberg, communications director for Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, said state law requires town officials to check their reported results against hard copies generated by tabulators. He said each step of the process is bipartisan, involving both Democrats and Republicans. The error “was caught exactly when it should have been caught. Town clerks and registrars are required by law to sit down together a couple of days after the election to check the tapes against what they reported on election night. That’s exactly where they caught it,” he said. Fishbein said the last two weeks have been a rollercoaster. “I went up to the Capitol last Wednesday and I emptied my Capitol office. I took my name plate out of the parking garage and off of the door. I gifted my couch. My wife went and got new health insurance and now we’re in a totally different place,” he said. Thompson described Thursday’s recount process as “intense” with lawyers for both candidates closely scrutinizing the process. In her 13 years as Wallingford town clerk, she said it was the first time she had seen a result overturned in a recount. “You felt bad for Jim because he thought he won and now he didn’t. You feel happy for Craig because now he didn’t lose his
CTNEWSJUNKIE FILE PHOTO Rep. Craig Fishbein
seat. You feel for both sides,” she said. “I’m a true Libra. I see both sides of the aisle.” Jinks could not be reached for comment. The upset will do little to shift the balance of power in the Connecticut House of Representatives where Democrats hold a strong majority. Fishbein’s victory shrinks that advantage to 97 to 54. Fishbein has made news in recent weeks
for his role in representing a group of parents in court opposing Connecticut’s requirement that students wear masks in schools. Last week a judge rejected his motion asking the court to halt the mandate, citing a medical consensus that masks are safe for children. Fishbein said he did not believe the lawsuit factored into the election results. Razor-thin election results happen in
almost every election for the General Assembly. Outgoing House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz squeaked out a 50-vote victory over Republican Michael Gagliardi during a 2018 recount in Berlin. In the Senate that same year, Republican George Logan beat Jorge Cabrera by 85 votes for the 17th District seat—only to have Cabrera win the rematch in 2020.
Covid Inspection Crew Confronts The Maskless, Issues Warnings by RABHYA MEHROTRA New Haven I ndependent
Jim Turcio walked into CTown Wednesday not to shop for food, but to look for violators of pandemic public-safety rules. It didn’t take him long to find what he was loking for. Turcio, Health Director Maritza Bond, and a team of sanitarians and inspectors headed to Fair Haven and Long Wharf a day after the city’s announcement that it will begin handing out $100 fines to businesses if employees aren’t wearing face masks and $500 to establishments and private gatherings exceeding thee governor’s limits on occupancy. Click here for a story about the new fine policy and the details about the public-health rules. The city’s giving out warnings first, then levying the fines if violators are found to repeat their mistakes. On Wednesday’s rounds, the team issued five warnings. No fines. “This is a hotspot,” Turcio said upon the team’s arrival in Fair Haven. “I’m not surprised to see infractions.” As soon as Turcio arrived in the back room of the CTown Supermarket at Ferry and Grand, “we saw three people with no masks whatsoever,” he reported. “That’s unacceptable, especially in a food estab-
RABHYA MEHROTRA PHOTO Turcio, at far right, with inspection team on Ferry Street.
lishment.” He also noted that the worker at the entrance was not counting the number of customers let in. CTown Supermarket has a strict capacity of 250 people. The task force subsequently hit other nearby businesses.
At Dunkin’ Donuts, a group of elderly men were congregating in the entrance without masks or distancing. “Please put your masks on,” an inspector told them. The customers obliged, and quickly left the restaurant. After going into the restaurant, the in-
8
spector reported “no other problems.” At a liquor store on Ferry Street, a man walked in without a mask right after the inspectors. He was quickly turned away. “I normally wear my mask at home, but I forgot it today,” the man (pictured above), who declined to give his name, told the
Independent. “I tried to cover my mouth with my jacket, but they didn’t let me in.” “We’ll be giving out masks to stores, so they can offer them to customers walking in,” Turcio said. Other businesses were not so eager to have inspectors come by. Later, the same man without a mask was found leaving Redenti’s Package Store on Grand Avenue. The inspectors came in, but only two were allowed at a time. A man with a yellow jacket and skullteeth mask stormed out. “What the fuck do they think they’re doing!?” he exclaimed. He began to take his phone out and record the inspectors and reporters. When asked for comment, he replied, “Don’t come near me or talk to me.” Most places, however, were abiding by the rules. USA 1 Pizza and Wah Chun Chinese food, for example, had established plastic walls between staff and customers. “They’ve renovated their whole counter space,” said one inspector approvingly. “We’ve been doing this since May,” Turcio said of Covid-health and building code inspections. “And we’ll keep on doing this.” Thursday’s assignment: Beaver Hills.
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 2020
We’re here to help with your bills. Solutions designed to help you better manage your energy now and in the future.
We’re all trying to take care of ourselves and our families. That’s most important. But right now, it can be a little challenging.
Simple, practical answers. That’s what we all need a little more of right now.
We understand. And we also know how important energy is for you and your family.
If you rent, if you own your home, or if you’re a property owner whose tenants are experiencing economic hardship, let us help. These services are free while funding lasts.
If you’ve been financially impacted by the pandemic, talk to us today. We’ve got payment plans to help you take care of today’s bills. We also have programs like Home Energy
And the peace of mind is worth everything.
GetEnergySmart.com 877-WISE USE Paid for by a charge on customer energy bills.
9
FHIAAP320IC
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 2020
Myths Dispelled, Flu Shots Delivered by RABHYA MEHROTRA New Haven I ndependent
A blue van stopped on Charles Street on Friday morning. Under a grey sky, people came inside the van and quickly received their flu shots, no payment or insurance required. The Free Flu clinic is a partnership among Community Health Care Van, CARE, and Women of the Village. The mobile clinic has been giving out free flu shots for almost a month now. Nathan Nunez, a Yale student, was one of those who received shots Friday. He came to the Cornell Scott Hill Center nearby to get a free Covid test, and saw the van on his way out. “Because I’ve taken time off, I don’t have Yale’s health insurance,” he said. “All of my household is low income, and we don’t have health insurance. So when I saw this free vaccine I thought, why not?” For some, it was their first time getting a vaccine. “One of the women I saw today said, ‘My father ran an emergency room, but I hate the flu shot,’” said Sharon Joslin. Joslin, a nurse practitioner, has been working with the Community Health Care Van for nine years. “This is the first she’s ever had, and she was in her thirties. She was always scared.” For others, it was a routine. Frankie Tyson usually gets his free shot at CVS, but he was on his way to work and decided to stop by. “If you wanna stay healthy, it’s
Caro Vera receives a flu shot.
good to get it, given everything else that’s going on,” he said. “When we are living with two very serious respiratory diseases at the same time, it makes it a lot more dangerous,” added Bernard Macklin, who works for CARE and Southern Connecticut State University. Tackling Disparities One of the goals of the Free Flu clinic has been to reduce disparities in who gets vaccinated. “We want to give the Black and brown communities information and get them vaccinated,” said Macklin. He cited CDC research that found that Black people have the highest rate of flu hospitalization, with every 68 out of 100,000 people being hospitalized. Macklin has a team of eight outreach
workers who go into local communities to raise awareness and dispel myths about the vaccine. “We want to meet people where they are,”Joslin said. So why aren’t more people getting vaccinated? Besides access to care, there are a lot of myths. “They’re scared. Everybody thinks it’s a conspiracy,” said Macklin.
G R E ATE R N E W H AV E N
C O V I D -1 9 COMMUNITY FUND A COM MUNIT Y-WIDE EFFORT
Make a gift at cfgnh.org /covid19 fund See the top 5 needs identified by CT Nonprofits. The Greater New Haven COVID -19 Community Fund was established on March 20, 2020 by a par tnership between The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven and United Way of Greater New Haven.
13
10
“A lot of patients tell me that they got sick after the vaccine, that they think the vaccine gives you the flu,” said Joslin. “That’s not true – it makes your immune system respond with antibodies to protect you.” Some patients that day had heard those myths. “Some years back, they were saying that
they injected people with the flu,” said Tyson. “People got paranoid to get it.” Tyson added that he didn’t believe in those rumors, but heard them often. The solution? Talking to one person at a time. “For every one person who gets it, that’s one less person we have to worry about,” said Macklin.
Artspace Asks: "Who Governs?” THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 2020
by Lucy Gellman Editor, Arts Paper www.newhavenarts.org
Ala Ochumare stares into the camera, a smile teasing at the edges of her mouth. Her right hand grazes her shoulder as it rises in a fist. Her head tilts to one side, exposing a glinting gold hoop. A three-pronged crown beckons from her shirt, guiding viewers to the message beneath it. I AM BLACK EXCELLENCE, it reads. Bek Andersen’s Power Portraits are part of Who Governs?, a sweeping look at recent New Haven history running at Artspace New Haven now through Dec. 12. A celebration of Robert Dahl’s 1961 book of the same name, the show is curated by Frank Mitchell, director emeritus of the Amistad Center for Art & Culture in Hartford and a longtime advocate of the arts in New Haven. It features artists Bek Andersen, Emily Larned, Bev Richey, and Bayeté Ross Smith. The show yokes past and present from its outset, as Mitchell puts Dahl’s work into context. In 1961, Dahl published the first edition of Who Governs?: Democracy and Power in an American City during his tenure as a professor of political science at Yale University. In the book, Dahl uses the city of New Haven as a case study, exploring its people and its municipal government to argue for a pluralistic tilt to city politics. The argument, which Mitchell calls radical for its time, went against the suggestion that power, like wealth, rested in the hands of the few. The book came as Dahl—and Americans—were experiencing a greater political shift in the country towards civil rights, women’s rights, increased access to civic institutions and the pushback that inevitably followed all of those. In 1960, John F. Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon, who had served for eight years as vice president to Dwight D. Eisenhower. In the city, Mayor Dick Lee was well on his way to being the architect of urban renewal, the scars of which are still very much alive and visible today. Blessedly, Who Governs? is not a show about the book but about its cultural and civic aftershocks and implications. In a mostly-empty side gallery that looks out onto Orange Street, Mitchell has installed large vinyl labels with quotes from Mierle Laderman Ukeles and Félix González-Torres, both of whom changed the landscape of public art in the second half of the twentieth century. It gives the viewer a sort of pretext: that this show is both hyper-local and a product of larger shifts in American art and politics. Artists frame history as a living thing, and the show is better for it. Across from Mitchell’s introductory text, Richey has created an archive around The A-Mazing Bureaucratic Birthday Cake, a June 1988 art installation designed and consumed for the city’s 350th birthday celebrations on the New Haven Green. At the time, Richey was a member of the then-fledgling Arts Council of Greater New Haven and a working
artist herself. Biagio DiLieto was serving what would be his last term as mayor. Festival coordinator and artist Robert Gregson commissioned Richey for the piece. To complete the project, she worked with a team of 50 artists-turned-“cake commissioners,” as well as members of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, the New Haven Register, and Leon Weinberg of the now-defunct Leon’s Bakery to build a large, scalable iced replica of City Hall and provide enough sheet cake to feed 3,500 city residents. True to the installation’s name—and its attempt to mirror city policy—residents had to make it through a maze to receive a piece of cake, for which they received a permit for consumption. Even the building and its iced replica resonated: Henry Austin built New Haven’s gingerbread house of a City Hall in 1861, exactly 100 years before Who Governs? was published and 127 years before the city’s birthday. Amidst parades, horse-drawn carriage rides, live music and dancing on the Green in 1988, cake commissioners and celebrity guests doled out sweet slices with permits to consume cake. They used rubber stamps for fork usage and appropriate cake zoning. Richey’s aim was not just celebratory: she also intended to remind DiLieto and the city’s Board of Alders (then dubbed the Board of Aldermen) that there was an acute need for affordable artists’ housing across the city. It’s a need that still exists—and is perhaps exacerbated by New Haven’s number of luxury apartments—today. In the gallery, Richey has assembled a small display that walks viewers through the installation, with photographs, preserved rubber stamps, old programs and a screen-printed shirt from the event. It’s a window into history that is both cheeky and instructive: the things Richey was asking for in 1988 are still things artists are asking for today. The only difference is that New Haven is 32 years and four mayoral administrations older than it was then. When a viewer sees a faded yellow “permit to eat cake,” they may be reminded of the long, confusion-riddled showdown
between artists and alders over who got to live in the Hamilton Street Clock Factory last year. Or, perhaps, the narrow-eyed befuddlement that often strikes first-time presenters to the city’s Historic District Commission, when a ten-minute request is met with four hours of debate. Or the Board of Alders’ struggle to balance the city budget each year when 60 percent of the city’s grand list is tax exempt. “The bureaucracy involved frightens, inspires and fascinates me,” Richey told the New Haven Register in June 1988. “But through it all I’ve discovered that systems, hierarchy, aren’t necessarily bad, that in certain cases they are essential to get things done. It’s been quite a stretch for me working with so many individuals and groups.” As a bridge from past to present, Bek Andersen’s Power Portraits bring a viewer right into 2020. The artist has laid her process bare: an in-house studio in the next gallery is plastered with the bubblegumand neon-colored backgrounds against which she photographs. The gallery pulses with the process of reclamation: a queer artist picturing Black and Brown subjects, mostly queer women, in a medium that has long been categorized as overwhelmingly white, cisgender and male. On one wall, viewers come face-to-face with the organizers Sun Queen, Kerry Ellington, Addys Castillo, and Ala Ochumare, who have been at the forefront of Black Lives Matter New Haven, People Against Police Brutality, and Citywide Youth Coalition for years. Near the gallery’s Crown Street widows, a viewer spots Black Lives Matter New Haven organizers Ashleigh Huckabey, Sy Frasier, and MiAsia Harris, Pastor Kelcy Steele, and mentor Tyrone Jones. Andersen’s focus, rendered in saturated color, gives viewers a chance to pause with these dynamos, whose concern for the
11
community has often come at the expense of their own self care. They are pictured in a tradition that lives between sainthood and superhero, endowed with the power of making the city a better version of itself. And they are: all of them have been pushing for systemic, legislative change in the city for years. Not just at the front of protests this year, but in community backpack drives, public art projects, youth-led calls to get cops out of schools, and public testimonies for greater police accountability. Andersen holds a delicate balance in her hands: the portraits feel intimate yet public; majestic but down to earth. At the far left, Sun Queen lifts her right hand over a shirt that reads “Black Lives Matter,” resting it gingerly beneath her chin. Her eyes lock with a viewer’s, eyebrows raised in a question. Her skin glows, light spilling over her face and arms. There’s nothing pushy or pugnacious here: her authority, like her name, is her birthright. So too for Ellington and Castillo, who look out as if they are standing over the city—their city—and can see with crystal clarity the next steps New Haven needs to take. The photographs live alongside Smith’s multimedia installation Got The Power, as if to layer reclamation on reclamation. Sound bounces across the gallery, a speaker positioned to seem like it is emanating from a bright boombox made of sugarcane and cotton pulp. Deftly, the artist threads music, appropriation, anti-Black policing and economic deprivation, and the iconic imagery of the boombox itself. It feels like the accompaniment to NPR’s Louder Than A Riot that listeners didn’t know they needed. The installation is a collaboration with the manufacturer PulpWorks and asks New Haveners to submit their audio recordings for an accompanying mixtape. “Sweet is the only way to describe the ser-
endipity of recycling two commodities— sugar and cotton—associated with Black bodies in antebellum America to produce the shell of an object associated with hiphop culture,” reads an accompanying label. “This piece continues a tradition of flagging the contradictions of citizenship from the 1920 NAACP anti-lynching banner, to interpretations on the national flag by Dana Chandler, Faith Ringgold, and David Hammons.” The works weave an asynchronous narrative right into Larned’s 2020 Police Others As You Would Have Others Police You, a sweeping installation that takes on the history and legacy of community policing under Chief Nicholas Pastore and educator K.D. Codish. Codish was recruited in March 1992 to lead training and education at the New Haven Police Academy. Her background wasn’t in law enforcement. Prior to her time at the academy, Codish led a feminist theater company called Theatre of Light and Shadow, founded and led the city’s first Take Back The Night marches against sexual assault and rape, and served as an educator at both the Yale School of Medicine and AIDS Project New Haven (now A Place to Nourish Your Health). She wrote articles about domestic abuse and called for HIV education campaigns that targeted all city residents in English and Spanish. At the time that Codish was hired, Pastore recognized “not only that the situation was bad, but that police were part of the problem,” she wrote in a 1996 report titled “The New Haven Police Academy: Putting A Sacred Cow Out To Pasture.” “He maintained that what the police were doing and how they were doing it were clearly not working, and that the ‘new’ community policing philosophy (not yet considered a strategy) Con’t on page 12
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 2020
Speculation Swirls that Trump Will Resign, Clearing Way for Pardon by VP Pence By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent According to multiple news reports, with the walls of defeat from the 2020 election closing in, lame-duck President Donald Trump may be seeking a way to avoid prosecution after he is no longer in office while still claiming victory in the election. Numerous outlets are reporting that Trump is preparing for life after the White House, planning a major media platform that could net him billions of dollars because of his robust following. He’s also examining a host of presidential pardons, including for his family members and himself. One former Democrat aide even floated this wild prediction on Nov. 14: In an editorial for The Hill, Brent Budowsky, who served as an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), said “Trump will resign the presidency, and [Vice President] Mike Pence will pardon him.” “A presidential pardon by Pence would not offer protection from cases originating in states, but those cases will be far more manageable if they are not sunk into a morass of federal cases that only a federal pardon can protect him from,” Budowsky added. “While I suspect we will learn that he is not nearly as wealthy as he claims, Trump can reap extravagant financial rewards from the mother of all business deals which he could conclude shortly after he leaves office.” CNN reported that current and former Trump administration officials say there’s been minimal preparation for an expected onslaught of clemencies, as Trump is still pursuing dubious legal challenges to the election. But his Twitter feed over the past three years offers a working list of where the President might turn to wield his pardon power – primarily toward those targeted Con’t from page 11
Artspace Asks: "Who Governs?”
was a viable alternative.” Her approach, chronicled in a series of archival news clippings and advertisements from the time, was to reform the academy both internally and externally. At the same time that Rafael Ramos was starting Bregamos Community Theater as an de-institutionalized outlet for public health, she took that approach to the academy. She grew collaborative community-wide initiatives focusing on empathy and listening. She built teen theater troupes that wrote and performed alongside police recruits. That approach springs back to life as the artist layers and repeats archival images, such that they become a sort of technicolor, weathered mantra. Larned does not romanticize 1990s New Haven: Codish took over
Forbes reported that President-elect Joe Biden wouldn’t pardon Trump.
Pence could assume the presidency and pardon him,” the magazine reported, echoing the editorial by Brent Budowsky in The Hill. Any pardon Trump potentially receives would only apply to alleged federal crimes. New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance have separate state-related fraud and financial crimes cases involving Trump. A federal pardon would not hinder prosecution in those cases.
“If Trump can’t pardon himself, he would likely have to preemptively resign from office so that Vice President Mike
Only the governor could offer Trump such protection. Trump’s adversarial and sometimes vol-
influenced a generation of officers who have since retired or moved on, from Holly Wasilewski to former Chief Anthony Campell. In 2008, she was one of 34 people that the city laid off as it scrambled to close a $6 million gap in the city budget. In laying out the installation, Larned pushes her viewer to interrogate what they understand of the department—past, present, and future—versus its multiple realities, missteps, and regressions. In a year that has included the use of force on protesters from police in riot gear, it makes a viewer think twice about a department that now seems more about policing the community than community policing. Without ever having to use the words, it also asks how New Haven can get back to a community-centered model, from city negotiations with the local police union to crisis response alternatives to law enforcement.
As it comes full circle, the exhibition seems aligned with both Who Governs? and Dahl’s 1989 Democracy and Its Critics, which dove further into the question of civic participation. Indeed, the show challenges a viewer to question the narrative of forward progress that both the city’s Economic Development Administration and Yale University have pushed aggressively for the last several decades, as luxury apartments and big-box retail stores have replaced independent businesses and affordable housing has become increasingly elusive. Artists are not just asking “who governs,” but also “by what means?” Is it through sustained collective action, or a sheet cake that doubles as an argument for affordable housing? Is it done with the city’s blessing, or in opposition to it? If the system is broken, do the people need to ask for its per-
by former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. “Perhaps the biggest looming pardon question is whether Trump will consider granting himself a pardon, amid state investigations into his business and finances and the prospect of federal investigators scrutinizing him after he leaves office,” CNN’s Evan Perez noted. Vanity Fair, Forbes, The Independent, and other news outlets are also publishing articles related to Trump’s possibility of pardoning himself. Each outlet speculates that the President is sure to pardon Trump organization employees who might come under investigation. Attorney and former New York City
Mayor Rudy Giuliani reportedly is under federal investigation, and former Trump advisor Steve Bannon has already been indicted. It’s believed a pardon will occur for Jared Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, who was prosecuted by former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and pleaded guilty in 2004 to tax evasion, retaliating against a witness and lying to the Federal Election Commission.
the academy at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in New Haven, when the city was also reeling from crack, citywide violence, and a rate of infant mortality among Black babies that was far higher than that of their white counterparts in the city and the country. She was fighting a battle in a city that was a different place than it is today. But Larned also celebrates Codish’s approach, punctuated by a kind of moxie that now feels foreign to Otoniel Reyes’ tenure as chief. Across the walls and several display cases, Larned tells the story of how Codish transformed the department, from raising recruits’ exam scores to weaving role-playing and dramatic arts into community-cop relations. Viewers are invited to watch archival academy training videos on an old television that sits in the corner of the gallery. In her work, Larned explains, Codish
12
atile relationship with New York Democratic Mayor Andrew Cuomo makes such a state-level pardon challenging to imagine. “The ‘Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment,’ is vested in the President,” the Department of Justice wrote in August 1974, days before President Richard Nixon resigned. “This raises the question of whether the President can pardon himself. Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, it would seem that the question should be answered in the negative,” Forbes reported.
mission in the first place? Maybe, artists submit, it’s a hybrid of the two. Sometimes the past repeats itself, like a record hitching on loop after too many plays. Sometimes it’s buried, until an artist unearths it and literally plasters it across the walls. Sometimes the cycle breaks, and change marches methodically forward. What is up to viewers, at the end of the show, is what future they want to be a part of. Who Governs? runs at Artspace New Haven through Dec. 12. Artspace is open Wednesday through Saturday, 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. Attendees are required to wear masks at all times. A panel A Zoom reunion of commissioners from the A-Mazing Beaurocratic Birthday Cake is scheduled for Nov. 18 at 7 p.m.
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 2020
Stream the moment without skipping a beat. !"#$%&'()*+,-".&/-(0&12&"-(%3&4-(0&(0*&5*'(&-"60$,*&4-7-&*89*)-*":*;&12&"-(%&<*=->*)'&?+'(& +"<&)*=-+5=*&@"(*)"*(&?$)&.)$$>-".&($&%$A)&(A"*'&$)&/+(:0-".&%$A)&'0$/'&+)$A"<&(0*&0$A'*3& B=A';&C**9&<*>-:*'&:$""*:(*<&($&%$A)&0$,*&"*(/$)C&9)$(*:(*<&/-(0&(0*&12&"-(%&87-&D+(*/+%3& 4-(0&12&"-(%;&'()*+,-".&-'&4%+5637#384'7#8934*+3(
0"#$%&'#<$&32$3&
39
$
99
/ month
For 12 months
Paperless Billing and Auto Pay Required | No Term Contract
Get the !:%#;8&398' for speed, coverage and security
xFi Advantage Security FREE with the !:%#;8&398'
Equipment, taxes, and other charges extra, and subject to change. See below for details.
Go to !"#$%&'()*+, call ,-.//-!"#$%&', or visit an 0"#$%&'#1&*23 today.
Offer requires enrollment in both automatic payments and paperless billing. Must enroll within 30 days of placing the order. Without enrollment, the monthly service charge automatically increases by $10. The automatic payment and paperless billing discount is for a period of 24 months and will appear on the bill within 30 days of enrolling. If either automatic payments or paperless billing are subsequently cancelled during the 24-month term, or services are reduced to Xfinity TV Limited Basic service only, the $10 monthly discount will be removed automatically. Offer ends 12/20/20. Restrictions apply. Not available in all areas. New residential customers only. Limited to Performance Internet. Equipment, installation, taxes and fees extra, and subject to change. After promo. period, regular rates apply. Actual speeds vary and are not guaranteed. For factors affecting speed, visit xfinity.com/ networkmanagement. Xfinity xFi and xFi Advanced Security are available to Xfinity Internet customers with a compatible Xfinity Gateway. Call for restrictions and complete details. NPA232172-0003 NED AA Q4PI V3
138794_NPA232170-0003 Moments ad 9.25x10.5 NewHaven.indd 1
13
10/13/20 1:07 PM
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 2020
‘How Did 12 Percent of Black Men vote for Trump?’ By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
Juan Williams posited that he’s a Black man born in a Latin country and grew up in a Spanish-speaking family. The author and Fox News political analyst then stated a head-scratching fact that many still find difficult to rationalize. “It stuns me to see that President Trump set a record last week by attracting the highest percentage of the non-white vote of any Republican presidential candidate in the last 60 years,” Williams wrote in an editorial for The Hill. Perhaps must stunning, lamented Williams, “How did 12 percent of Black men vote for Trump?” Although an overwhelming majority of Black men, 80%, voted for President-elect Joe Biden, support for the Democratic presidential ticket reached a new low among Black men in 2020, according to the NBC News poll of early and Election Day voters. In the same poll, 8% of Black male voters were reported to have cast their ballots for alternative candidates. In Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign, of all Blacks casting ballots, 95 percent of Black men and 96 percent of Black women chose him, NBC News reported. Four years later, Black women’s support remained at 96 percent for Obama’s 2012 re-election. However, the black male vote
decreased to 87 percent. In 2016, when the nominee was Hillary Clinton, Black men dropped even further to 82 percent, while Black women’s support for Clinton remained high at 94 percent. Biden came close to matching that this year, garnering the support of 91 percent of Black women. “It’s a trust issue. I view the Black community’s relationship with the Democratic Party, for example, as sort of like a domestic violence relationship,” Demetre Coles, a 25-year-old African American who lives in Waterbury, Conn., told NPR. Coles told the outlet he voted for Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins because Coles couldn’t connect with Democrats or Republicans. “We’ve been giving our vote to them loyally for 55, 60 years, and we have got nothing in return,” Coles remarked. And as for the Republican Party, I don’t feel as if they care about me at all. It’s just more blatant.” While Coles expressed a reason for casting his ballot for an alternative candidate who had virtually no chance to win, his declaration didn’t explain why so many other Black men voted for Trump. “Black men are hurting. Political parties mostly forget them, and then there’s this anger — whether it’s right or misguided — towards Biden for the 1994 Crime Bill,” said Unique Tolliver, a New Yorkbased mathematician. The 1994 Crime Bill, which was authored by then Senator Biden, and signed by President Bill Clinton, was crafted to
address rising crime in the United States. The law contained numerous crime prevention provisions, including the controversial “three strikes” mandatory life sentences for repeat violent offenders. The law, which also called for funding community policing and prisons, dispro-
portionately punished African American men, and most observers said it caused mass incarceration. “But, what Black people [today] fail to understand is that, at the time, there were all of these Black people, including the clergy, who supported the bill,” said Le-
nora Turner, a California-based psychologist. “So, with Black men still smarting over that bill and holding it against Biden, and Trump repeatedly spreading the falsehood of how much he’s done for the Black community, you had quite the storm brewing among Black male voters,” Turner offered. “You also had respected strong Black men like Ice Cube — even though he said he didn’t endorse Trump — swaying Black men. I know that makes it sound like Black men don’t have a mind of their own, but think about what Ice Cube came out and said. He said the Democrats told him we’d talk later while Trump ‘listened’ and agreed to institute some of Cube’s initiatives in the President’s overall plan.” Still, as Juan Williams noted in his editorial, Trump’s racism toward Blacks and Latinos is so well-established. “It’s sad to say, but a lot of Black and Latino voters, especially the men, got distracted by Trump’s boasts and bling,” said Williams. Half of all Americans in a June 2020 YouGov/Yahoo News poll said outright that he is a racist, and another 13 percent could only say they are “not sure” whether he is a racist or not. A Quinnipiac University poll in July 2019, found that 80 percent of Black people and 55 percent of Latinos said Trump is a racist. A Fox News poll in July 2019 found 57 percent of Americans agreed that Trump has no respect for racial minorities.
Advice you need for the mortgage you want.
Polly Curtin • Loan Officer 860-200-2292 pcurtin@liberty-bank.com NMLS #555684
Chris Stokes • Loan Officer 203-720-6121 cstokes@liberty-bank.com NMLS #1182815
We’ll help you find the mortgage that’s right for you. Contact us today. Loans are subject to credit and underwriting approval. Certain fees, restrictions and other terms and conditions may apply. Ask your loan officer for details. MEMBER FDIC
14
EQUAL HOUSING LENDER NMLS #459028
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 2020
One in three Black men backed Trump in ‘blue wall’ states By Christopher Tidmore, Contributing Writer, Louisiana Weekly
Donald Trump earned a historically high African-American vote in his bid for reelection of at least 12 percent, according to results of 2020 exit polls by Edison Research – an improvement of four percent over his 2016 totals. The problem was that the president needed more than 20 percent of Blacks nationwide to win thanks to his eroding support in Caucasian suburbs and with other traditionally Republican groups who supported him four years ago. Nevertheless, a subtle shift in AfricanAmerican voters in Philadelphia, Detroit or Milwaukee would have denied the Oval Office to Joe Biden. One out of every three Black men living in the Midwest did vote for Trump, according to NBC News. If that Black support had been even slightly higher, Donald Trump would have slept in the White House for the next four years. African-American voters constitute the main reason that Joe Biden won – especially the Great Lakes states. His 20,000vote win in Wisconsin, his 150,000-vote victory in Michigan, and his effective tie in Pennsylvania came down to AfricanAmerican voters turning out in bigger numbers than in 2016, and mostly opting for the Democratic presidential candidate. In Milwaukee and surrounding Milwaukee County, where the largest share of Black voters in Wisconsin live, Barack Obama won roughly 328,000 votes in 2012. Four years later, Clinton won fewer than 289,000 votes in Milwaukee County. As Tim Alberta of Politico noted, “The challenge for Biden wasn’t necessarily to get all the way back to that Obama 2012 number; rather, at the bare minimum, it was to split the difference between these
figures. He did that and then some: With all the votes counted, more than 317,000 people in Milwaukee County voted for the Democratic ticket, and Biden needed every single one of them.” “It was a similar story in Detroit, a city that’s more than 80 percent Black, and surrounding Wayne County. In 2012, Obama won nearly 596,000 votes in Wayne County. Four years later, Clinton won fewer than 520,000. Once again, the question in Michigan – as in Wisconsin – was whether Biden could push that figure somewhere close to that Obama 2012 number…But Biden has already won 568,000 votes there, far surpassing Clinton’s performance from 2016.” Continuing the argument, in Flint, Mich., and surrounding Genesee County, Democrats went from winning nearly 129,000 votes in 2012 to some 103,000 votes in 2016. Biden topped 120,000 votes in the
county. Trump lost Michigan by just over 150,000 votes. This trend continued in Philadelphia with the city’s plurality African-American electorate. The vote count continues at the time that The Louisiana Weekly went to press, yet Biden appears poised to exceed Obama 2012 and Clinton 2016 numbers in Philadelphia County well into the 600,000-vote range. His appeals to both Black voters (who came out for Obama) as well as affluent whites (who supported Clinton) seem to have worked. To achieve the presidency, Joe Biden never needed Obama-era levels of turnout and support from Black voters. With this coalition, he just had to exceed Hillary Clinton’s performance in 2016. Still, there were some warning signs for Democrats on November 3. Some socially conservative African-American voters, particularly Black men, have started to
display Republican sympathies. Black voters constituted 11 to 12 percent of the electorate, according to The Associated Press and Edison, respectively. The AP found that 90 percent of Black voters went to Biden and eight percent to Trump, yet Edison Research determined that 87 percent of Black voters voted for Biden and 12 percent for Trump. Where both surveys agree is that each found Black men were more likely than Black women to support Trump. In the AP’s case, 12 percent of Black male voters backed Trump, compared to six percent of Black women; in Edison’s case, 18 percent of Black male voters cast ballots for Trump, while eight percent of Black women did the same. In fact, a third survey, an NBC News poll of early and Election Day voters, said that Trump’s support was even stronger amongst males than either of the other polls, claiming al-
most 80 percent of Black men supported Hilary Clinton’s 82 percent in 2016 but significantly down from Barack Obama’s level of support among Black men in 2012 and 2008. Most frightening for Democrats, one in three African-American men living in the Midwest also voted for Trump. The NBC poll also noted that there was an unusual relationship between education and how Black men voted this year. About 26 percent of African-American males who had a high school diploma or less supported Trump. But 22 percent of Black men with bachelor’s degrees and 20 percent of Black men with advanced degrees also supported him. (African-American males with some college education broke for Biden at levels comparable to those of Black women.) Therefore, the Caucasian GOP gender gap has entered the African-American electorate, at least to some degree. The polls appear to suggest that Trump’s message of economic improvement did have resonance among some Black voters, along with appeals for educational reform and a generally socially conservative message to some religious voters. As the secular wealthy white electorate decamps for the Democrats, improving support from African Americans along with rising backing from Hispanics could provide a viable winning coalition for the GOP. After all, while Donald Trump lost, the Republicans picked up two legislative chambers, a net six seats in the U.S. House, a majority of governorships, and held the U.S. Senate. The highest and most racially diverse turnout in American history did not translate into a “Blue Wave.” This article originally published in the November 9, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
Over $400M Projected to Be Spent During Shop Black Week 2020 With Black-Owned Businesses By BlackNews.com
Nationwide — As Black Friday approaches, early projections indicate that over $400 million will be spent during Shop Black Week (SBW) 2020. The highprofile events of 2020 greatly highlighted the existing disparities and injustices within the Black community. Hashtags and postings dominated many people’s social media platforms in support of Black lives. Because of the numerous protests, videos and news reports, many high-profile celebrities, athletes, and influencers indicated that they felt a tremendous personal responsibility and are now focused on what they can personally do to help. With this heightened awareness, a campaign like SBW is slated to be wellreceived and well-supported by everyone. This year SBW has over 200 participating organizations that represent over 1.5 million members, subscribers, and
followers who will share and hashtag #shopblackweek to encourage all Americans to participate. “We simply ask that every American make at least one purchase from a Black-owned business from November 20-27th as well as throughout the holiday season,” says Aysha Jackson, SBW’s Campaign Coordinator. With the success of the previous year’s campaign, early interest from supporters, copycat initiatives, and the SBW website’s daily organic traffic, all of this predicts that millions will be participating. For those visiting the SBW website, there will be tens of thousands of visitors daily looking for quality Black-owned businesses alone. “Because of this early interest, we need additional businesses to sign up on the site to take advantage of this traffic,” says Carla Tillman, Ph.D., SBW’s National Director. SBW organizers indicate that the 2020 SBW campaign will be bigger and better
than ever. Many commercials will be running in over 10 markets on over 20 premium networks such as CNN, ESPN, BET, OWN, VH1, and MTV to help spread the word. “We will not only air these commercials, but we will ensure that the commercials are streamed and promoted online for complete saturation,” indicates Stan Matthews of The Matthews Broadcast. “Many businesses will be featured on the All Black Home Shopping Experience episodes which will be aired live on the UTS-TV broadcast network,” says Sharon S. Gordon, founder of Urban Trendsetters. “However many other streaming and online platforms will be showing the program as well.” Organizers welcome all types of Blackowned businesses who would be able to keep 100% of the proceeds from their products and services. A qualified business simply has to register and pass the
15
vetting process by signing up at ShopBlackWeek.org. Everyone making a purchase from a Black-owned business during SBW No-
vember 20-27th should hashtag #shopblackweek and let everyone know about any purchases including business names, locations, dates, and photos.
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 2020
New Coronavirus Vaccine Requires ‘Trust’ of African American Community By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
News that Pfizer and BioNTech’s announcement that their coronavirus vaccine was more than 90 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 among those without previous infection arrives as the United States continues to realize recordbreaking new cases. For the first time on Thursday, November 12, the country surpassed 150,000 new coronavirus cases in a single day. The total number of cases soared past 10.5 million, according to Johns Hopkins University. Both California and Texas have recorded more than 1 million total cases, while states like Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey have seen significant rises in COVID infections. The most recent available statistics show that the District of Columbia has more than 18,500 total positive cases and 657 deaths. Washington, DC health officials have administered nearly 572,000 COVID tests to roughly 272,000 residents. More than 242,000 people have died in the United States since the declaration of the outbreak of the pandemic in March. Health officials have expressed that the new vaccine offers real hope for the future. “It is a great day for science and humanity. The first set of results from our Phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine trial provides the initial evidence of our vaccine’s ability to prevent COVID-19,” Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizer Chairman and CEO, offered in a news release. “We are reaching this critical milestone in our vaccine development program at a time when the world needs it most, with infection rates setting new records, hos-
She created an urban garden in New York after growing up on a farm in Oklahoma.
pitals nearing over-capacity, and economies struggling to reopen,” Dr. Bourla remarked. He continued: “We are a significant step closer to providing people around the world with a much-needed breakthrough to help bring an end to this global health crisis. We look forward to sharing additional efficacy and safety data generated from thousands of participants in the coming weeks.” Pfizer has maintained a strategic partnership with the National Newspaper Publishers Association, offering insight on various rare diseases like sickle cell that disproportionately affect the African American community. Dr. Kevin Williams, the Chief Medical Officer for Pfizer’s Rare Disease unit, periodically writes a column in the Black
Press to help keep the African American community informed. According to information posted on the CDC’s website, clinical development is a three-phase process. During Phase I, small groups of people receive the trial vaccine. In Phase II, the clinical study is expanded, and vaccine is given to people who have characteristics (such as age and physical health) similar to those for whom the new vaccine is intended. In Phase III, the vaccine is given to thousands of people and tested for efficacy and safety. Many vaccines undergo Phase IV formal, ongoing studies after the vaccine is approved and licensed.
Pfizer’s vaccine is the first in the United States to generate late-stage data. An analysis of individuals that received two injections of the vaccine, spaced three weeks apart, revealed more than 90 percent fewer cases of symptomatic COVID-19 when compared to those who received the placebo. The results are significant because health and science experts have stated that they expected a vaccine to yield an effective rate of no more than 70 percent. In spite of this good news, many in the African American community continue to take a wait-and-see approach. “Somehow, scientific, education and community leaders must reassure a skeptical community of color that the vaccine will help and protect them,” said Gina Harper.
“Perhaps the best way would be to prove the point by exemplifying members of the Black community who have taken the vaccine and remained healthy,” Harper remarked. The Pfizer vaccine clinical trial “went out of its way in their recruitment and enlarged their initial population of 30,000 to almost 44,000 to recruit more people of color,” stated Dale Yuzuki, a biotech executive and author of “COVID-19: From Chaos to Cure. The Biology Behind the Fight Against the Novel Coronavirus.” “It is certainly a focus within the National Institutes of Health, where they are sensitized to the acute needs of minority populations and their justified suspicion of government-sponsored public health programs.” Dr. James E.K. Hildreth, one of the world’s foremost immunologists and president and CEO of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn., is a recent appointee to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s commission that will ultimately approve the Pfizer vaccine and any others. Hildreth, an African American, insists that any vaccine must have the confidence of Black people. “I’ve made the decision that I’m going to participate in one of the vaccine trials. The trust issue cannot be overstated,” Dr. Hildreth said. “We have to have more trusted messengers and more trusted opinion leaders to make this work.”
New Study Suggests COVID Patients More Susceptible to Mental Illness By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
Medical and scientific experts have sounded the alarm, wanting people to understand that COVID is not the flu or a common cold, and recovery may not be permanent. According to a new study, 20 percent of recovering coronavirus patients develop some form of mental illness within 90 days. Researchers at Oxford University in Great Britain noted that first-time diagnosis of anxiety, depression, and insomnia increased two-fold in patients after they’ve recovered from COVID. Further, they discovered that COVID survivors also found significantly higher risks of dementia. “People have been worried that COVID-19 survivors will be at greater risk of mental health problems, and our findings … show this to be likely,” Paul Harrison,
a professor of psychiatry at Oxford, told Reuters. “(Health) services need to be ready to provide care, especially since our re-
sults are likely to be underestimates (of the number of psychiatric patients),” he added. The study, published in The Lancet Psy-
16
chiatry journal, analyzed electronic health records of 69 million people in the United States, including more than 62,000 cases of COVID-19. The findings are likely to be the same for those afflicted by COVID-19 worldwide, the Oxford researchers noted, according to Reuters. In the three months following testing positive for COVID, 1 in 5 survivors were recorded as having a first-time diagnosis of anxiety, depression, or insomnia — about twice as likely as for other groups of patients in the same period, the researchers said. The study further revealed that people with a pre-existing mental illness were 65 percent more likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19 than those without. More than 10 million Americans have been diagnosed with the coronavirus, and over 238,000 have died. African Americans comprise more than 20 percent of the total deaths in the Unit-
ed States. Blacks and other communities of color continue to suffer disproportionately from the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Urban Institute. Over one-quarter of adults in Black households surveyed between August 19-31 used savings or sold assets to meet economic needs on the previous week. Twenty-four percent of Black adults lived in households that were behind on rent payments. And approximately onethird of African Americans shared a home with someone expected to lose employment income this month. “COVID-19 affects the central nervous system, and so might directly increase subsequent disorders,” Simon Wessely, regius professor at King’s College London, told Reuters. “But this research confirms that is not the whole story, and that this risk is increased by previous ill health.”
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 2020
Been avoiding seeing your orthopedic specialist? Maybe it’s time to stop putting it off. At Yale New Haven Health, we’ve instituted a comprehensive 10-step safety program in all of our facilities to ensure that everything is clean, safe, and ready to treat you at a moment’s notice. There’s never been a better time to take advantage of our world-class medical expertise in the presence of new, world-class safety measures. ynhh.org
17
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 2020
African American Woman, Midshipman 1st Class Sydney Barber, Makes US Naval Academy History By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent Midshipman 1st Class Sydney Barber, a mechanical engineering major from Illinois, has been named brigade commander for the spring semester at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Barber, a track star with a stated desire to work as a Marine Corps ground officer, becomes the first Black woman to lead the Naval Academy’s student body. The brigade commander heads the Academy’s day-to-day activities and trains the class of approximately 4,500 midshipmen. Barber becomes the 16th woman to serve in that role. “Earning the title of brigade commander speaks volumes, but the title itself is not nearly as significant as the opportunity it brings to lead a team in doing something I believe will be truly special,” Barber said in a news release. “I am humbled to play a small role in this momentous season of American history.” As a walk-on sprinter and hurdler of the Navy Women’s Varsity Track and Field team, Barber has lettered all three years of competing and is an Academy record
Photo: Midshipman 1st Class Sydney Barber
holder for the outdoor 4x400m relay, according to her biography. She is the co-president of the Navy Fellowship of Christian Athletes Club, secretary for the National Society of Black Engineers, and a USNA Gospel Choir and
Midshipman Black Studies Club member. Barber served as the 13th company’s executive officer and currently serves as the Brigade’s 1st regiment executive officer. She also initiated a STEM outreach program that leverages mentoring, litera-
Comedian Sinbad Recovering from a Stroke By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire
Sinbad, the talented comedian whose reputation has endeared him to millions of fans on television, in the movies, and on stage, is recovering from a stroke. The icon, who appeared earlier this year on the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) #FIYAH! livestream series, and during the NNPA’s celebration of Afro Comic-Con, was recently hospitalized. It’s not clear if he’s still in the hospital or at home in California.
“It is out of sincere love that we share Sinbad, our beloved husband, and father, is recovering from a recent stroke,” the comedian’s family shared in a statement. “Sinbad is a light source of love and joy for many generations. While he is beginning his road to recovery, we are faithful and optimistic that he will bring laughter into our hearts soon,” the statement continued. The 64-year-old Sinbad, born David Adkins, is known for his stand-up work and appearances in the sitcoms “A Different World” and “The Sinbad Show.” The entertainer has also appeared in several movies, including “Good Burger,” “First Kid,” and “Jingle All the Way.”
According to his biography posted on Fandango.com, Sinbad has dedicated his free time and personal efforts to such causes as the Children’s Defense Fund and the Omega Boys Club. Sinbad also made his bid to increase AIDS awareness with his involvement in the Time Out: The Truth About HIV, AIDS and You video in 1992. His intense dedication to family is evident in his hiring of his brothers and sisters to assist him in numerous endeavors. “Our family thanks you in advance for your love and support and ask for continued prayers for his healing. We also ask that you please respect our privacy during this time,” the family statement read.
ture, and service lessons to serve middle school-aged girls of color. Barber led a team to organize the inaugural U.S. Naval Academy Black Female Network Breakfast to bridge the generational gap between current black midship-
12-Year Old to Become Youngest Composer of New York City Orchestra
BlackNews.com New York, NY — Grace Moore, a 12year old girl from New York, has made history as one of the youngest composers to join the New York City Philharmonic Orchestra. Moore, who is a seventh-grade student at Poly Prep in Dyker Heights, is also enrolled in the organization’s Very Young Composers program. There, participants from the age of 8 are taught to create music. The composition that Moore created for
(Photo: Jerry Crawford / Wikimedia Commons)
18
men and alumni. Barber is recently credited with mobilizing a team of more than 180 midshipmen, faculty, and alumni to develop the Midshipman Diversity Team to promote greater diversity, inclusivity, and equity within the Brigade. “Sydney stands out amongst her peers, for not only her exemplary record but for her clear vision of how she intends to make the world a better place and her accompanying bias for action,” said Lt. Commander Darby Yeager, a member of the U.S. Navy Academy’s Truman Scholarship Selection Committee. “We were incredibly proud to have Sydney represent the Naval Academy in her Truman Scholarship interview this year,” Yeager added. Janie Mines, who became the first Black woman to graduate from the Naval Academy in 1980, expressed her excitement for Barber on Twitter. “This bought me to tears. This young woman, Midshipman Sydney Barber, will be the first Black Female Brigade Commander at the U.S. Naval Academy. 40 years later. Thank you, Sydney! Love you!” Mines tweeted.
the program made a world premiere in a live performance by the NY Philharmonic in October. Moore, who started showing her passion for music at the age of 2 when her mother gave her a piano, has showcased extraordinary talent. Moreover, Moore hopes that as a woman of color, she can inspire others to create and appreciate music. “I hope everyone follows their hobbies and do what they love,” Moore told PIX11.
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November , 2020 - November 24, 2020 INNER-CITY NEWS July 27,18 2016 - August 02, 2016
NOTICE Accountant Commercial Property
Property Management Company located in New Haven, CT is looking for a Commercial Property Accountant. The ideal candidate will be responsible for all accounting aspects for a portfolio of 13-15 commercial properties. Responsibilities include:
VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE
• Prepare, maintain and distribute statements. HOME INC, on behalf of Columbus Housemonthly and thefinancials New Haven Housing Authority, • Mortgage, taxes and insurance invoice processing. is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this devel• Analyze dataFrank to prepare budget actual Maximum variance reports. opment located at 108 Street, Newvs Haven. income limitations ap• Compile monthly and yearly sales tax filings. ply. Pre-applications will be available from 9AM TO 5PM beginning Monday Ju;y • Assist with annual budget preparation. 25, 2016• and ending when sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) have Collect and post all tenant payments. been received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be mailied upon re• Prepare journal entries. quest by• calling HOME INC atescrow 203-562-4663 duringaccounts. those hours. Completed preReconcile all cash, and investment applications must bedepreciation/amortization returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange Street, Third • Maintain schedules. Floor, New Haven,annual CT 06510. • Prepare escalation/recovery settlement invoices. • Annual income and expense and personal property filings. • Third party funding requisitions.
NOTICIA
Job Requirements:
in accounting, finance or related discipline. VALENTINABachelor’s MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES 3-5 years accounting experience. Accounting experience with property management is strongly preferred. HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está Experience with Sage Real Estate (Timberline) a plus. aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo Organized and able to handle multiple properties and deadlines in fast paced, timely, ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos accurate manner. máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 Detailed oriented. julio, 2016 hasta cuando se hanExcel recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes Strong skills and software savvy. (aproximadamente 100) en las oficinas deFast HOME INC. Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas por correo a petición learner with excellent communication skills. llamando a HOME INC alTeam 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirse player with positive attitude. a las oficinas de HOME INC en 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, New Haven , CT 06510 . Excellent benefits include medical, dental and 401k. Please send resume to openjobs. mgmt@fusco.com. Phone calls will not be accepted. Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer
Public Notice NEW HAVEN
The Connecticut Airport Authority (CAA) hereby announces its federal fiscal years Fairmont Ave (DBE) plan related to 2021-2023 49 CFR Part 26242-258 Disadvantaged Business Enterprise FAA-assisted contracts for professional services and construction 2BR Townhouse, 1.5 BA, 3BR, 1 levelprojects , 1BAfor the five General Aviation Airports. The proposed plan, which includes the 3-year goal and raAll new apartments, new appliances, new carpet, close to I-91 & I-95 tionale, is available for inspection between 8:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., Monday through highways, Airport, near busAdministration stop & shopping center Friday at Bradley International Office, Terminal A, 3rd Floor, WindsorPet Locks, 06096 or onInterested CAA's website the Bradley underCT 40lb allowed. partieshttp://www.ctairports.org, contact Maria @ 860-985-8258 International Airport website http://www.bradleyairport.com for 30 days from the date of this publication. 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 Comments onChurch’s the DBE goal will forstart 45 Saturday, days from the date1:30of in response to the Ministry needs. Thebe costaccepted is $125. Classes August 20, 2016 3:30 Contact: Chairman, Deacon Joe J.notice Davis, M.S., B.S. availability of this and can be sent to the following: (203) 996-4517 Host, General Bishop Elijah Davis, D.D. Pastor of Pitts Chapel U.F.W.B. Church 64 Brewster
St. New Haven, CT 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. Public review comments - pending
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
ELM CITY COMMUNITIES
DELIVERY PERSON
NEEDED
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
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
HELP WANTED:
Large CT guardrail company looking for Laborer/Driver with valid CT CDL Class A license and able to get a medical card. Must be able to pass a drug test and physical. Compensation based on experience. Email resume to dmastracchio@atlasoutdoor.com AA/EOE M-F
Wednesday, September 23, 2020 at 3:00PM.
Construction Administrative Office Position. FT-Exp required.Email- Hherbert@ gwfabrication.com
Firefighter/Paramedic The Town of Wallingford is currently accepting applications for Firefighter/Paramedic. Applicants must have: a valid CPAT card, issued within two (2) years prior to December 4, 2020, HS diploma/GED, valid driver’s license and hold a valid Paramedic License that meets CT State Regulations. Applicants who are enrolled in an accredited Paramedicine training program may apply, but will not be considered for appointment until they complete the Paramedic licensing requirement. Copies of licenses and certifications must be submitted with application materials. The Town of Wallingford offers a competitive pay rate of $57,232.76 to $73,786.44 annually. In addition, there is a $4,950 annual paramedic bonus plus an excellent fringe benefit package. Application deadline is December 4, 2020. Apply: Human Resources Department, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main St., Wallingford, CT. phone: (203) 294-2080; fax: (203) 294-2084. EOE.
Town of Bloomfield
FENCE ERECTING Finance Director Invitation to Bid: SUBCONTRACTORS2 NoticeFull Time - Benefited nd
Large CT Fence & Guardrail Contractor is looking for experienced, responsible commercial and residential fence erectors Old Saybrook, CT and installers on a subcontractor basis. (4 Buildings, 17 Units) Pre-employment drug testing. Earn from $750 to $2,000 per day. Email For Project more details, Tax Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage Rate resume to rhauer@atlasoutdoor.com AA/ visit our website – www.bloomfieldct.org EOE
SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE $96,755 - $149,345
Town of Bloomfield
Lead Building Maintainer - Facilities
Full Time - Benefited $31.26 hourly Pre-employment drug testing. For more details,
visit our website – www.bloomfieldct.org
New Construction, Wood Framed, Housing, Selective Demolition, Site-work, CastLEGAL NOTICE of DISPATCHER in-place Concrete, Asphalt Shingles, Vinyl Siding, The Town of Wallingford is seeking responsible candidates to perform 911, police, fire and EMS TOWN OF PORTLAND, CT Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential emergency dispatching duties.Casework, Must be able to work under stressful conditions and be able to Town of Portland has amended its Cititype information with a high rate of speed and accuracy. Must be able to work all three shifts Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection. zen Participation Plan for the purpose of including weekends and holidays and be able to work additional shifts beyond the regular shift This contract is subject state set-aside and contract compliance requirements. informing the public abouttoits intent to schedule. Requires a H.S. or business school diploma with courses in typing and 2 years of reapply for CDBG, Covid-19 funding. For sponsible office work experience. Wages: $ 22.41 ~ a copy of the amendedBid Plan go to www. $26.72 hourly5,plus shift differential and excellent fringe benefits. Closing date is November 12, Extended, Due Date: August 2016 portlandct.org. 2020, or the date of receipt of the 50th application, whichever occurs first. Apply: Department
Anticipated Start: August 15,Resources, 2016 Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main St., Wallingford, CT 06492. Phone: of Human 203-294-2080, 203-294-2084. EOE. Project documents available via ftp linkFax: below: http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage
DELIVERY PERSON
NEEDED
Planning
Town Planner: Seeking an experienced professional to perform highly responsible and Fax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com zoning work in the management of a municipal planning departHCC encourages the participation of all Veteran,complex S/W/MBE planning & Section 3 and Certified Businesses ment. Some evening work involved. Bachelor’s Degree in Urban Planning, Public AdHaynes Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 ministration or related field plus 4 years of responsible experience in municipal planning AA/EEO EMPLOYER and zoning enforcement work or an equivalent combination of experience and training Part Time Delivery Needed One/Two Day a Week, substituting on a year-for-year basis. Salary: $97,023 - $124,140 annually plus an excellent Must Have your Own Vehicle If Interested call fringe benefit package. Applications can be downloaded from the Town’s Department of Human Resources Webpage and mailed or faxed to: Human Resources Department 45 S. Main Street, Room 301, Wallingford CT 06492 Fax (203)-294-2084 Phone: (203)-2942080. The closing date will be November 16, 2020.EOE
(203) 387-0354 19
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 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-
242 Fairmont Avenue, New Haven Spacious 2 bedroom townhouse $1,225.00. 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. Security Deposit varies. 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 - November , 2020 - November 24, 2020 INNER-CITY NEWS July 27,182016 - August 02, 2016
REQUEST FOR BIDS NOTICE
Miscellaneous Concrete Repairs, Waterproofing and Drainage Repairs at the Union Station Parking Garage
VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE
New Haven, Connecticut
HOME INC, on behalf of Columbus House and the New HavenProject Housing Authority, New Haven Parking Authority #18-016 is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this development located at 108 Frank Street, New Haven. Maximum income limitations apply. Pre-applications will be available from 9AM TO 5PM beginning Monday Ju;y 25, 2016 and ending when sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) have been received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be mailied upon reby calling INC at beginning 203-562-4663 during 9, those preBidquest Documents willHOME be available November 2020hours. at no Completed cost by downloading from the Buildapplications must be returned to HOMEBigda INC’sof offices atConstruction 171 Orange Company Street, Third ingConnnected FTP site. Contact Maryann Turner at 203-712-6070 for FTP New Haven, CT 06510. siteFloor, access.
Bids due December 3, 2020 at 3:00 P.M. NOTICIA
The work mainly includes concrete repairs, waterproofing, and drainage repairs. Bidders must submit with their Bid on forms provided a list of their Intended Subcontractors, including the MACRI VIVIENDAS PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES use ofVALENTINA Minority Business EnterprisesDE andALQUILER Women Owned Business Enterprises as subcontractors for a goal of at least 25% of the total value of the Bidder’s subcontracts. HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está aceptando New pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos un dormitorio en este desarrollo Haven Parking Authority is an equaldeopportunity/affirmative action employer. ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 julio, 2016 hasta cuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) en las oficinas de HOME INC. Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas por correo a petición llamando a HOME INC al 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirse a las oficinas de HOME INC en 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, New Haven , CT 06510 .
PUBLIC INFORMATIONAL MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT
Safety-Kleen Systems, Inc. invites interested community members to attend an Informational Meeting to learn about and give your input into the proposed expansion of facilities ofSafety-Kleen’s existing Environmental Recycling Facility at 120 Forbes Avenue, New Haven, CT.
HAVEN OPEN TO THE GENERALNEW PUBLIC INFORMATIONAL MEETINGS REGARDING:
Invitation to Bid: 2nd Notice
Proposed expansion of facilities of Safety-Kleen’s existing Environmental 242-258 Fairmont Ave Oil Recycling Facility at 120 Forbes Avenue, New Haven, CT.
2BR Townhouse, 1.5 BA, 3BR, 1 level , 1BA
All new apartments, new appliances, new carpet, close to I-91 & I-95 SESSION 1 (ENGLISH LANGUAGE) – DECEMBER 1, 2020 at 7 PM highways, near bus stop & shopping center PetSESSION under 40lb allowed. Interested parties contact – Maria @ 860-985-8258 2 (SPANISH LANGUAGE) DECEMBER 3, 2020 at 7 PM
SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE Old Saybrook, CT Invitation for Bids (4 Buildings, 17 Units) Scattered Sites East and WestTax Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage Rate Project
Furnace & Hot Water Conversion/ Replacement
Housing of the City of New Site-work, Haven d/b/a The informational meetings will be held virtually because of Covid-19 public health restrictions. CT. Unified Deacon’s Association is pleased to offer a Deacon’s New Construction,The Wood Framed,Authority Housing, Selective Demolition, Cast-Elm City Communities is currently seeking Certificate Program. This is a 10 month program designed to assist in the intellectual formation of Candidates Bids for Scattered Sites East and WestFurnace & Hot Water Conversion/ Replacement. A complete Attendees can join the meeting in the following ways: in-place Concrete, Asphalt Shingles, Vinyl Siding, in response to the Church’s Ministry needs. The cost is $125. Classes start Saturday, August 20, 2016 1:30copy of the requirements may be obtained from Elm City’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://ne3:30 Contact:By Chairman, Deacon Joe J. Davis, M.S., B.S. Computer: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8859944711 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 whavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway St. New Haven, CT
Meeting ID: 885 994 4711 By phone: +1 929 205 6099 US (New York) Meeting ID: 885 994 4711
SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY The agenda for the informational meeting will be:
1. Welcome and Introduction Sealed bids are invited by the Housing Authority of the Town of Seymour 2. Existing purpose, operations until 3:00 pm on Tuesday, August facility 2, 2016 at its layout office and at 28 Smith Street, Proposed facility purpose, layout and operations Seymour, CT 06483 for 3.Concrete Sidewalk Repairs and Replacement at the 4. Safety Features Associated with Facility Operation Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living5.Facility, 26and Smith Street Seymour. Questions Answers
Listing: Dispatcher
A pre-bid conference will be held at the Housing Authority Office 28 Smith Street Seymour, CT at 10:00 am, on Wednesday, July 20, 2016.
Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection. beginning on Monday, October 5, 2020 at 3:00PM This contract is subject to state set-aside and contract compliance requirements.
Bid Extended, Due Date: August 5, 2016 The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport Anticipated Start: August 15, 2016 Performance Project documentsEnergy available via ftp link below: Contract Consultant (EPCC) Request for Proposal (RFP) http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage
Solicitation Number: 149-PD-20-S
Fax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com HCC encouragesThe the participation all Veteran, S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified Businesses HousingofAuthority of the City of Bridgeport d/b/a Park City Communities (PCC) is seeking a qualiHaynesfied Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 Performance Contract” (EPC). Solicitation package will firm to perform tasks related to its “Energy AA/EEO EMPLOYER be available on October 26, 2020, to obtain a copy of the solicitation you must send your request to bids@
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.
parkcitycommunitittes.org, please reference solicitation number and title on the subject line. A Pre-proposal conference call will be held on November 12, 2020, at 11:00 a.m. Although attendance is not mandatory, submitting a proposal without attending the pre-proposal conference call may not be in the best interest of the Offeror. Additional questions should be emailed only to bids@parkcitycommunitites.org no later than November 19, 2020 @ 3:00 p.m. Answers to all the questions will be posted on PCC’s Website: www.parkcitycommunities.org. Proposals shall be mailed, or hand delivered by December 1, 2020 @ 3:00 p.m., to Ms. Caroline Sanchez, Director of Procurement, 150 Highland Ave, Bridgeport, CT 06604, of via e-mail at bids@parkcitycommunitites.org. Late proposals will not be accepted.
21
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 2020
Minority Employees v. Amazon: Rev. Jackson, CK Hoffler, Announce Support of Class Action Lawsuit
Smalls’ allegations. “As New York City was fast becoming the epicenter of this deadly and brutal disease, Amazon knowingly subjected its majority-minority line workers to unsafe, dangerous, and inferior work conditions as compared to its white employees working in managerial classifications,” Hoffler remarked. “When Chris Smalls organized workers against Amazon’s discriminatory practices by voicing his opposition in an effort to protect the workers, he was fired.” Sussman noted that the case is still early but is expecting “thousands” of plaintiffs to join the class action suit.
By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
Rev. Jesse Jackson has announced his support for former Amazon employee Chris Smalls, who has spearheaded a class-action lawsuit against the company for its alleged failure to provide personal protection equipment. Smalls and his attorneys, National Bar Association President C.K. Hoffler and famed Civil Rights Lawyer Michael Sussman, detailed the lawsuit which seeks unspecified punitive damages against the tech giant, during a call with members of the press and media, including the Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos. Smalls claims that Amazon failed to comply with safety guidelines, particularly for Black and Brown employees, as the coronavirus pandemic raged in late March. After starting his employment with Amazon in New York City in 2015, Smalls earned a promotion to a supervisory position about a year later. He alleges that a co-worker with whom he had close contact tested positive for COVID on March 24, 2020. When Smalls learned of the positive test, he said Amazon failed to issue a directive to quarantine workers with whom the employee had close contact. One day later, Smalls said he arrived at work but wasn’t advised of any quarantine measures for himself or other workers who had close contact with the infected employee. He then spoke with higher-level managers and an individual in Amazon’s human resources department, seeking clarity and to request permission to quarantine. Smalls eventually served as a liaison between workers, who felt management was
Jackson and his Rainbow Push Coalition have also backed Smalls.
Former employee
Chris Smalls unresponsive to their concerns. He then led a demonstration with coworkers in Amazon’s parking lot. After confirming that Amazon wasn’t taking employees’ temperatures before allowing them to work and that the company did not offer protective equipment, hand sanitizer, or adequately enforce social distancing measures within the facility, Smalls further raised concerns to management. “Amazon concluded that as a Black man, he would serve as a ‘weak spokesman’ for the workers and criticized him for standing up and fighting for the workers,” Hoffler noted.
“Over 240,000 people have died in the United States from COVID-19, and millions have been infected, but Amazon was cavalier with the safety of its employees amidst this pandemic,” Hoffler offered. “Amazon puts profits before people and placed its workers at risk.” A company spokesperson declined to comment. Smalls, who said he’d not been diagnosed with COVID, added that he’d been loyal to Amazon since his arrival in 2015 and until they fired him because of his
activism. “I was a loyal worker and gave my all to Amazon until I was unceremoniously terminated and tossed aside like yesterday’s trash because I insisted that Amazon protect its dedicated workers from COVID-19,” Smalls declared. “I just wanted Amazon to provide basic protective gear to the workers and sanitize the workplace.” Sussman and Hoffler both asserted that Amazon’s actions violate federal statutes and New York City Human Rights law. They said the New York Attorney General’s office currently has a whistleblower investigation into Amazon related to
“I have spent my entire career fighting against the type of oppression that Chris and his fellow workers experienced at JFK8 and around the world,” Jackson offered in a statement. “It’s a shame that Amazon would not protect its workers and laborers, exposing them to one of the deadliest enemies in modern history— COVID-19. It’s not right, and I applaud Chris for his courage under fire.” Jackson continued: “We, too, stand in solidarity with him on this journey. COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted Black and Brown communities on so many levels, from warehouses to jailhouses. It’s an invisible enemy that is killing our communities. “Chris’s case is a classic example of how corporate greed and insensitivity can literally expose communities to untold and unnecessary risks. We must continue to fight for the voiceless who can’t fight for themselves because of their circum-
Black-owned Greeting Card Brand, Culture Greetings, Now Offers In-Store Pickup at Walgreens
November 2020, Atlanta, GA—Culture Greetings, a woman-led and Black-owned greeting card company, announces the launch of a new print-to-store integration partnership with Walgreens. Through the technology integration with the Walgreens Photo Prints and Store Locator APIs, in addition to the Culture Greetings’ mail-to-recipient delivery option, customers will now have the choice to pick up their customized printed greeting cards in any of the 9,277 Walgreens or Duane Reed locations in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. “The launching of this new partnership and integration reflects a significant first for the Walgreens API team,” said Andrew Schweinfurth, Manager, Walgreens Developer Relations. “As we welcome Culture Greetings and founder Dr. Dionne Mahaffey, we acknowledge that she is the first African American female founder to join the platform.” Founded in 2018, Culture Greetings of-
fers more than 2000 greeting cards featuring imagery centered around and elevating the Black and Brown communities’ voices. Card options span all mainstream and cultural holidays and occasions, life milestones, social justice, LGBTQ+, and photo-card templates for customized personal greetings. “We are excited be a part of the Walgreens Developer Program,” explains Dr. Dionne Mahaffey, Culture Greetings founder. “As we approach our two-year anniversary, this new integration marks a significant milestone for us, expanding the greeting card aisle, bringing more inclusive options and providing customers with the instant gratification of picking up their customized card within minutes of creating it.” Culture Greetings will continue to offer their flagship delivery method of mailing cards directly to the customer’s recipient. On the website, customers can
choose a greeting card, write a personal note using handwriting fonts that mirror real penmanship and click “send,” which cues their state-of-the-art printing press. Gift cards from Target, Amazon, iTunes and other brands can also be included in the mailing. The company then prints and mails the card directly to the recipient’s address the following business day, saving customers a trip to the store.
About Culture Greetings Culture Greetings is a Black-owned greeting card brand. Customers pick a card online and write a note inside using handwriting fonts that mirror real penmanship. Through innovative technology, Culture Greetings will print, stamp and mail the cards directly to the recipient. The platform now offers same-day pickup in partnership with Walgreens in-store photo prints. For more information visit: https://CultureGreetings.com
22
Culture Greetings and founder Dr. Dionne Mahaffey
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 2020
23
THE INNER-CITY NEWS - November 18, 2020 - November 24, 2020
Have a new reason to think about health insurance? We can help. Visit AccessHealthCT.com to compare plans and see if you qualify for financial help, or are eligible for low-cost or free coverage. Open Enrollment ends December 15.
Connecting you to quality health insurance plans. AHCT-38032 Inner City News 925x105_f.indd 1
24
10/20/20 5:33 PM