Elvie Ellis, Nathan Haydel, Jared Howelton, and Tyler Fauntleroy star in Hamilton
NHSO Stirs Up A Sanctum At Woolsey Hall
Shaunda Holloway
Inside Woolsey Hall, dozens of bows dragged across taut, singing strings, translating to thunder. Arms moved slowly up and down, guiding string instruments into a frenzy of activity and promise. Before long, bells chimed, a reminder to honor what is sacred within one another and our own selves.
Had you missed service at any of New Haven’s 100 churches last week, your Sunday was safe with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra (NHSO). It was in especially good hands with composer-in-residence-Courtney Bryan, whose 12-minute “Sanctum” fully channeled the sacred space after which it is titled.
Seventy-five musicians, with Bryan, soprano Dana Fripp, drummer Anton Kot, and bassist Jeff Fuller, brought a spirit of unity and perseverance to Woolsey Hall last Sunday, as the NHSO performed “Montgomery Variations,” a tour de force that builds on a season woven with cultural and literary significance.
In addition to Bryan’s “Sanctum,” as well as her arrangement of “This Little Light of Mine,” the concert featured Margaret Bonds’ “Montgomery Variations,” Tania Léon’s “Stride,” and a moving arrangement of the spiritual “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me,” made complete with Fripp’s powerful voice and presence. The NHSO is directed by Maestro Perry So, now in his second season with the organization.
“I finally feel like I know what I am doing. This is not like playing the clarinet where you practice and then you play,” So said of conducting, the act of which turns him into a live wire on the podium, still
intentional in every movement. Sunday, he moved with the grace and urgency of a professionally trained dancer, moving with the music as instruments did most of the talking. (Asked if he’d ever studied dance, he refuted the question immediately, “Oh no! In fact, my wife hates my dancing. I step on her toes all the time.”) Sunday, he made sure the crowd’s spirit was ignited. As the program began with
“Sanctum,” he let the music move through him, lunging forward and retreating as it built slowly. While his back faced the crowded auditorium, all the intensity was there: instruments stirred up a soul-warming sound throughout each performance, aware of their own voices and yet often in concert with each other.
This was not yesteryear’s silver-haired, overwhelmingly white symphony. “I am
not that,” So said. Instead, it was on the road to reflecting the richness of our society, including members and listeners from an array of backgrounds.
That was very much on view during “Sanctum,” as Bryan—who herself has familial roots in Kingston, Jamaica— spoke to the audience about the urgency of emergency aid for Hurricane Melissa, which has left parts of the island devas-
tated. As she dedicated the piece to survivors of the storm, she showed immense gratitude for the love and support. In the audience, Jamaica-born attendee Jameelah Irshad, now a student at Southern Connecticut State University, was spellbound. Born and raised in Kingston, she’s been living with her heart in two places as she watches the news of the hurricane unfold. During the piece, Irshad sat forward, holding her face in between both hands as if the moment had been hers alone fully savoring its intricate offering. “The hurricane really hurts me,” she said in between pieces.
Leon’s “Stride,” meanwhile, gave the audience flashes of sound so intensely it could have easily been the score from any riveting drama. At the podium, So turned the pages of sheet music while calculating time, making quick movements to choreograph sound. Sharp thumps vibrated from violas. The harp gave a gently seasoned tune as the brassy horns wailed from the stage’s rear. Trumpets blared. Then, a brief silence.
Enter sounds resembling a train in motion, making Sunday afternoon as exciting as any Saturday night out.
From the audience it was nearly impossible to count the number of musicians performing. But, each was an essential thread in the tapestry of enchantment of this sweet, small city. The concert attendees ranged from adolescents to octogenarians, wrapped and rapt in spell between music scales.
By Fripp took the stage for “This Little Light of Mine,” the soloist had the audience in her hands. Like Moses, she parted the room in two. The left side cried
Brooklyn Democrats celebrate annual gala as election comes
by Ariama C. Long
The mayoral election is finished, but the Brooklyn Democratic Party is just getting started backing its candidates and as the city headed into Election Day, its annual gala last week boasted a central theme of party unity.
“The Brooklyn Democratic Party is coming together as a unified coalition to support our Democratic nominees on the ballot,” said Assembly Member Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn at this year’s celebration, held at the Liberty Warehouse in Red Hook on Oct. 30.
Speakers for the night included Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, comptroller candidate Mark Levine — both now elected — Congressmember Yvette Clarke, New York State Attorney General Letitia James, and Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, who ran unopposed for his position.
“We are here as Democrats because we understand the importance of voting, of getting representation in our communities that reflect who we are as a people,” said
Clarke speaking about getting the vote out on Election Day on Nov. 4.
“Across this nation, there are a lot of families that won’t be able to socialize. They won’t even be able to have a decent meal on their table because there are some people in Washington, D.C. who don’t believe that the least amongst us should have healthcare, should have food to eat, should have shelter,” said Clarke. “And so we need to send a big number to those who have forgotten their own humanity. Who don’t remember that they, too, were it not for someone who sacrificed for them, would not be where they are today. Let us show them by showing up to vote in record numbers.”
James took the opportunity to thank the crowd for their support following her indictment, and excitedly spoke about her endorsement of Mamdani for mayor. “It’s an honor and a privilege to serve you as the Attorney General of the State of New York and to let individuals know that I believe in the law, I believe in justice, and I believe that justice will rain down like the waters, and righteousness, like a mighty flow,” said James.
“As we stand here in Brooklyn, I’m reminded of the history of this borough, of standing up to repression, of refusing, in the words of Dylan Thomas, to go gentle into that good night,” said Mamdani. “The
Underground Railroad ran through Brooklyn. It was a hotbed of the abolitionist movement, so often led by those who had fled slavery. And it has long welcomed those who have been denied, those who have been made into the downtrodden.
It was here in Brooklyn that free Black Americans founded the village of Weeksville. It was here in Brooklyn that millions of Jewish and Irish and Italian and Chinese immigrants found a home. And it is here today that the world sees itself reflected in communities that exist differently, but live together.”
In addition to talking about Brooklyn’s history, Mamdani talked about unifying the Democratic party and backing James in her legal fight against alleged mortgage fraud.
The event honored union, business owners, and community leaders from all over the borough, including the Teamsters Local 831 Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association, LiUNA!-NY/NYS Laborers, Civil Service Employees Association, the Brooklyn Cyclones, Gyro King, Rockwell Health Center, Red Hook Business Alliance, Flume, Earn Your Leisure; and Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Attorneys Martin Connor, Kwok Kei Ng, and Benjamin Pinczewski also received awards.
NHSO Composer-In-Residence Courtney Bryan with Jameela and Aqueelah Irshad. Shaunda Holloway Photo.
Elected officials celebrate the annual Brooklyn Dem Gala 2025: Power in Unity at the Liberty Warehouse in Red Hook on Oct. 30 Credit: (Ariama C. Long.)
Con’t on page 18
Arts Council of greater New Haven
Revised CT Housing Bill Clears House After 7-Hour Debate
by Donald Eng Nove
HARTFORD, CT — A reworked housing bill encountered spirited resistance from House Republicans Wednesday, although nothing changed in the seven hours of debate, and the bill passed 90-56, mostly along party lines. Five members did not cast a vote.
The bill, HB-8002, makes numerous changes in regards to housing and planning and zoning, according to the bill analysis. It includes dozens of sections with things like a first-time homebuyer savings program, a requirement for a town to either opt into a regional Council of Governments (COG) plan or develop their own plan to increase affordable housing and submit it to a COG every five years, a requirement for the housing department to create a plan to provide portable laundry and shower facilities for people experiencing homelessness, creation of fair rent commissions for communities larger than 15,000 residents and making it easier for owners of commercial buildings to convert their buildings for residential use.
Republicans focused their criticism on various topics, including the role of municipal councils of governments (COGs), a potential reduction in local control over
zoning, minimal parking mandates for multi-family housing development, and a claim that the bill had been created behind closed doors, among other issues.
“You might as well give those planning and zoning people a nice thank you for their effort, but you’re really not needed
now because we’re going to handle it out of Hartford or a COG,” said Rep. Steven Weir, R-Hebron.
In a pre-session briefing, House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, and Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, pointed out that the bill had received the
support of regional COGs and municipal leaders that had been critical of the original proposal at a Friday press conference.
“The agreement that the bipartisan group of local elected officials , representatives from all levels of government stood behind is still the bill that we have today,” he said.
Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, disputed that assertion, saying House Republicans had received a copy of the bill 15 minutes after the Friday press conference ended.
“We certainly did have local leaders stand there in support of a bill which, frankly, I’m not sure any of them read,” he said.
Rojas called the approval among municipal leaders and opposition from Republican lawmakers, “a disconnect that they’ll have to explain.”
Rojas said the new bill addressed concerns with local control and local officials being involved in decision making.
“We actually did that. Compromised,” he said. “And now they’re trying to find all sorts of other reasons to oppose a bill that is really important to the State of Connecticut.”
State Rep. Antonio Felipe, D-Bridgeport, speaks during the Nov. 12, 2025 special House session at the State Capitol in Hartford. Credit: Donald Eng / CTNewsJunkie
Candelora, in his closing remarks, said the bill “did not have an open and honest and transparent process.”
He would go on to retract the dishonest comment, but maintained that the bill had not had the kind of robust discussion typical of the legislative process.
“Instead it is here before us during a special session,” he said.
Should the bill ever be legislated, he said, the courts would have no committee hearing transcripts or other information to determine the bill’s intent.
“I find that dangerous to this process,” he said.
Rojas concluded debate expressing his disappointment in the way the topic had been discussed.
“Unfortunately, this vote is not going to be bipartisan,” he said. “I don’t think that should discount the approach we took with our towns and cities.”
Rojas said legislators and local leaders had worked and compromised to get a bill that was palatable to municipalities.
Con’t on page 18
“I
House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, and Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, answer questions before Wednesday’s special House session. Credit: Donald Eng / CTNewsJunkie
CTNewsJunkie
Sisters’ Journey November Survivor of the Month - Rhoda Gail Williams
It was one of the happiest times of my life. I had just celebrated my oldest daughter's wedding. It was a proud Ma moment. I had felt some sharp pains in my left breast, but there was no time to focus on that. I was in Ma mode.
In February 2021, I scheduled a physical and a breast exam. To my surprise, she felt a small ball. Worried (but not worried), we scheduled a mammogram. I always had dense breasts, so I knew the pictures would not be clear. They did the mammogram and asked me to sit and wait for the doctor. That was a first. I began to feel anxious. The radiologist came in and asked me to schedule a biopsy. I literally felt faint, but my faith began to kick in and I started to process what was happening – still not concerned but following the doctor’s orders.
It was the day of the biopsy (April 2021) when I fell apart. I called my bestie, Paula, but could not get her on the phone. Then I called Bestie #2, Tracy, and cried profusely. Standing naked in the dressing room, I could not get my words together but to say, "I'm scared." At that moment, I let doubt in. I accepted the report – breast cancer.
From that moment, I just told everyone I was fine. It wasn't until the chemotherapy was scheduled that I told my kids. I feared there would be significant changes
in my body and they would notice. So, I did a video chat and told them what was ahead. First there was concern for me and how I felt. Then there was silence. Finally, those jewels of mine went into spiritual warfare. We prayed and took communion every night for 21 days.
I took steroids for two weeks as a part of my treatment. They made me so sick, I had to stop. I was experiencing dehydration often and had to get fluids on occasion.
My oldest, Tasche, took me to all my labs, was on every call (sometimes called the doctors herself) and came to every chemo session except two. Tierra and John Jr. filled in the gap, but I know it was very difficult for them. Tasche was confirming my prescriptions, checking my meal plan, ordering breast pillows and blankets, giving instructions to her siblings, etc.
She drove four hours every week to attend my appointments and meet with my team (surgeon, oncologist, radiologist).
She was in charge of my medical journey. The others were in charge of my spiritual journey. I had an affirmation wall that showcased healing scriptures and a box of communion sets.
At every appointment, there was a noticeable change in my exam. Glory to God – after the 4th chemo infusion, they
could no longer feel the ball. I continued for eight more infusions and then declined to continue. I agreed to go through with a lumpectomy and 20 rounds of radiation. In September 2022, there was no
trace of disease in my body. In January 2023, I rang the bell.
I did not tell other family or friends what I was going through until after the surgery. I did not want to hear voices of pity or negative discussions. I did not want to have people call me more than they would normally call. I just wanted to get through it. I did talk to a therapist who suggested I allow my loved ones to be there to support me, but I felt that the extra attention that I would get would not be authentic.
I am so grateful that this organization exists to support women going through this journey or caring for a loved one that has.
“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle
New Haven Virtual Support Group Meeting: Every 3rd Tuesday of the month 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm Bridgeport Virtual Support Group Meeting: Every 3rd Thursday of the Month 6:30pm – 7:30pm Contact Us: sistersjourney@sbcglobal.net Or Call: 203-288-3556 We’re on the web @ Sistersjourney.org.
Veterans Commemorated In The Cold
by Mona Mahadevan
They huddled beside the Vietnam Memorial for a Veterans Day ceremony organized by the National Veterans Council for Legal Redress (NVCLR), a Dixwell-based nonprofit that provides support services for veterans, particularly for those with less-than-honorable discharges.
Addressing a shivering crowd of 30 veterans and their families, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal declared, “I don’t think there is a more lively, spirited, and cold group.” The annual Veterans Day event featured patriotic songs from PhoenixFire Divaa, Doron Flake, and the Hillhouse High School marching band, as well as a JROTC color guard procession. A slate of city and state officials joined the ceremony, including Blumenthal, Mayor Justin Elicker, State Rep. Steve Winter, and Alders Angel Hubbard, Evelyn Rodriguez, Carmen Rodriguez, and Jeanette Morrison.
NVCLR Executive Director Garry Monk presented V-shaped awards to Elicker, Morrison, and Cindy Anderson, the director of Bridgeport Veterans Affairs, for their veterans advocacy. As he handed them over, Monk said, “We want you not to put this in your closet. We want you to put it on your desk,” as a reminder of the work still needed to secure jobs, homes, and healthcare for every veteran.
“We love you, Cindy!” a veteran shouted from the crowd, sparking a cheerful chant of “Cindy, Cindy, Cindy!”
“Thank you to our veterans for fighting
for our country,” said Elicker. “It is our duty as citizens not only today to thank our veterans, but every day to fight in our own way to protect our democracy.” He urged New Haveners to “practice voting” and “fight for press freedom,” a right he argued is being attacked by “leadership in Washington.”
Later in his remarks, Elicker said the city remains “committed” to a housing initiative with the NVCLR.
Back in January 2024, the NVCLR proposed redeveloping a sliver lot on Daven-
port Avenue into four single-family homes for vets. And in July 2024, as part of a separate housing project, the Board of Alders signed off on selling them the rundown, grandiose building at 596-598 George Street for $6,000.
After the ceremony, Monk told the Independent that he wouldn’t be able to share details about the housing initiatives, but emphasized that both processes are “ongoing.”
He also said that he and NVCLR co-founder Conley Monk are still work-
John P. Thomas Publisher / CEO
Babz Rawls Ivy Editor-in-Chief Liaison, Corporate Affairs Babz@penfieldcomm.com
ing to create a second monument behind Long Wharf’s V, one featuring the names of all living Vietnam War vets from West Haven, East Haven, North Haven, Orange, Woodbridge, and Hamden.
Towards the end of Tuesday’s event, Kennedy James, a daughter of an army veteran and child of the American Revolution, played “God Bless America” on her flute. Following a raucous round of applause, Monk closed the event, promising “warmer weather next year.”
Advertising/Sales Team
Keith Jackson Delores Alleyne
John Thomas, III Editorial Team
Staff Writers
Christian Lewis/Current Affairs
Anthony Scott/Sports
Arlene Davis-Rudd/Politics
Contributing Writers
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
The Inner-City Newspaper is published weekly by Penfield Communications, Inc. from offices located at 50 Fitch Street, 2nd Floor, New Haven, CT 06515. 203-3870354 phone; 203-387-2684 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. 10
Conley Monk, Alder Angel Hubbard, and Garry Monk huddled for pictures after the event.
Rhoda Gail Williams
The New Haven independent
Head Start Closures Could Derail Education for Black Children
by Alvin Buyinza
As the government shutdown grinds on into its sixth week, Head Start, the iconic program designed to help children from low-income households improve school readiness, is now among the many federally funded services that have officially run out of money.
Experts say that the funding lapse, effective Nov. 1, means hundreds of thousands of Black pre-K schoolchildren — a disproportionate number of whom depend on the 1960s-era program for meals, health screenings, and family support services — could soon fall behind.
That could have negative consequences for Black student achievement at the K-12 level. Research shows that children who participate in Head Start do better in school, and go on to earn more as adults.
A 10% Shut Down
When the calendar changed, 140 Head Start programs across 41 states and Puerto Rico lost funding for the fiscal year, according to the National Head Start Association. On. Nov. 1, nearly 10% of all Head Start schools shut down.
Since Head Start programs’ funding cycles vary by month, some local programs have already shut down. Others can continue to function as their grants are still active.
The Purpose of Head Start
Created as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” program, Head Start provides free, comprehensive support services for pregnant women and children from birth to age five to boost school readiness. Along with individualized school-readiness activities and nutrition aid, Head Start also provides health, dental, and developmental screenings, as well as referrals for specialized vision, hearing, and mental health services. In 2024, the government funded Head
Start to serve 716,000 infants and preschool children through community centers, family homes, and child care centers. About 29% of the youngsters enrolled in Head Start were Black.
“Head Start isn’t just an education program — it’s a promise of stability,”
Yasmina Vinci, the executive director of the National Head Start Association, said in a statement. “When parents go to work or school, they do so knowing their children are safe, learn-
ing, and cared for. That sense of stability is priceless, and it’s exactly what’s now at risk.”
Research shows that children enrolled in Head Start are more likely to see improvements in their health, such as dental screenings, than children who aren’t enrolled in the program. The programs’ positive effects are more pronounced among Black and Hispanic students, according to one study.
Pushing Families to the Breaking Point
Since Head Start programs’ funding cycles vary by month, some local programs have already shut down. Others can continue to function after Nov. 1 because their grants are still active.
Julie Stone, the executive director of the Ohio Head Start Association, says that seven programs have been disrupted due to the government shutdown, affecting 3,700 children and
more than 900 staff members. Head Start programs in Coshocton and Allen Counties have developed contingency plans that will help them run for two more weeks starting on Monday, Nov. 3.
However, Head Start programs in Ohio’s rural Highland and Scioto counties will be forced to shut down, affecting about 700 children.
“It breaks my heart,” she says. “No matter how this ends, it’s been disruptive, and families and children are paying the price of the chaos. Those children and families are collateral damage of the shutdown.”
Juanita Yancey, the executive officer of the Georgia Head Start Association, estimates that the Head Start funding lapse will affect more than 6,000 families and 1,300 staff members. She says that the federal shutdown is pushing families to the “breaking point.”
“The bottom line is children can’t pause their development for political gridlock,” she says. We need Congress and President Trump to act now.” Some Head Start programs have been scrambling for funds to keep their doors open.
In Georgia, the YMCA of Metro Atlanta — the largest Head Start provider in Georgia — teamed up with Sheltering Arms, a nonprofit early childhood care program, and Easter Seals of North Georgia to secure a 45day bridge loan, according to Reuters. Lauren Koontz, YMCA of Metro Atlanta’s president and CEO, said the cash “gives us a temporary reprieve, but it’s not a sustainable solution.”
Stakeholder organizations like hers “need Congress to end the shutdown and ensure these programs can continue to serve the children and families who depend on them,” she said in a statement to local station WSB-TV.
“Head Start is more than just childcare. It’s a lifeline for families in underserved communities.”
Credit: Getty/kali9
Louise Mandumbwa Recognizes the Person She Loves
by Jisu Sheen
How does an artist know when their piece is done? As I viewed her work in a group show at The Lab at ConnCORP’s Orchid Gallery, artist Louise Mandumbwa called from Zambia to tell me the two qualifications she considers.
If someone who knew the subject were to see the painting, would they recognize the person they love?
Is there space for the subject to grow?
“They’re still so young,” Mandumbwa told me about her two younger cousins Luwi and Luyando, whom she painted in her piece (An Etymology for) a Namesake. In the painting, her cousins, who are currently 5 and 16, are lovingly depicted in grayscale. Energetic, wide brushstrokes create the flow of each form—the tender swoop of Luwi’s cheek, the straight shoots of the plant behind her, and the soft light peeking through the gaps in the flora. Swathes of bare canvas and long sketchy lines let the painting breathe. “They’re still becoming,” Mandumbwa said of Luwi and Luyando. She was leaving gaps for them to change.
I walked through the gallery’s long hallway, watching Mandumbwa’s pieces interact with other artwork about place, nostalgia, and transformation. The show is called Liminal Landscapes, and according to curator niko w. okoro‘s exhibit description, it “grieves what’s been left behind and envisions futures yet to materialize, while reveling in the sites of liminality, or transition, that bridge the two.” Yasmin Essafi‘s photographs from Cuba blur figures to create a snapshot of time itself, while Benita Nnachortam takes an experimental approach to the post-processing, screenprinting photographs and overlaying drawings so the shutter click is just the beginning.
A piece by Rebecca Fowke titled Mother is suspended with hemp string at all angles, making the central figure feel like a portal. Zajah Divine‘s works step fully into an inner world, with intaglio prints titled Her Image and Her Imagination. Kwadwo Adae‘s paintings use abstract Kente cloth patterns to reflect realities before, after, and beyond manufactured
Ed Board Withholds Supt. Eval
by Maya McFadden
The Independent has filed an appeal with the state’s Freedom of Information Commission, as the public school district has failed to provide a copy of the Board of Education’s 2024-25 evaluation of Supt. Madeline Negrón.
Not only has the school board not responded to the request — it won’t even say whether it put its review in writing, or whether it sought to evade open-records laws by choosing not to.
The Independent filed the appeal on Tuesday. State Freedom of Information Commission Secretary Mikia Gray acknowledged receipt of the appeal on Wednesday.
disorder.
Parts of Mandumbwa’s painting lay hidden, safe to develop beyond the realm of what could be seen. Looking into the blank spaces, I started to get a handle on what Mandumbwa meant when she talked about the “things I can’t possibly perceive about the person without it becoming fully about my projection.” I felt myself let go of the urge to draw conclusions, instead opening up to the experience of impossibility and the true nature of memory. Mandumbwa seemed okay with not knowing everything. “Sometimes all you have is the approximation,” she said. At times, not even that.
In her other piece in the exhibit, Configuration 1, the image of a plant is split across two surfaces, one section rendering the leaves in negative space. Mandumbwa told me that when she thinks of this plant growing at the doorstep of her grandmother’s kitchen, she remembers everything around it but doesn’t always see the plant itself. So she painted it that way.
This was also the way Mandumbwa described her surroundings when she first picked up the phone for our conversation. Otherwise based in New Haven, she was in Zambia for her wedding, an extended stay that prompted her to “rec-
The appeal stems from the school district’s failure so far to provide the Independent with a copy of the Board of Education’s evaluation of New Haven Public Schools’ (NHPS) superintendent last academic year.
The school board conducted the evaluation in private executive session during its meetings on Aug. 11 and Aug. 25, which were held in person at King/Robinson School and online via Zoom. On Sept. 9, the Board of Education’s president stated that the school board found during its review of Negrón’s performance found her to be “highly effective.” Negrón first stepped into the top school district role on July 1, 2023.
The Independent submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the city and to the school board on Sept. 9, seeking a copy of the evaluation and related documents.
On Sept. 11, city Corporation Counsel staffer El Sulman acknowledged receipt of the FOIA request and then forwarded it along via email to Board of Education attorney Elias Alexiades as well as to Ne-
grón, city spokesperson Lenny Speiller, and city paralegal Olga Bonilla.
After multiple follow-up requests, the district has yet to provide a copy of that evaluation.
At the Board of Education’s Sept. 8 meeting, Board of Education President OrLando Yarborough included in his president’s report that “our board conducted our standard annual review evaluation of our superintendent, and there are seven standard areas for evaluation for superintendents. They include visionary leadership, instructional leadership, talent development and labor relations, culture and climate, operational and fiscal improvements, family and community engagement, and demonstrating leadership grounded in Board of Education and superintendent’s collaborative governance.
Our board agrees that our superintendent has been highly effective and effective in these areas and we are appreciative of your leadership.”
Yarborough also described Negrón as growth-oriented and growth-minded, and thanked her further for her leadership during that Sept. 8 meeting.
On Tuesday, public schools spokesperson Justin Harmon told the Independent that he is not sure if the evaluation was in writing or if it was conducted orally. State law requires a superintendent’s evaluation to be released publicly when a member of the public requests it. School boards across Connecticut have tried to skirt that provision by evaluating the superintendent behind closed doors without leaving any written record behind.
Griffin Health Free Annual Holiday Concert Set For Dec.
by STAFF
SEYMOUR – Griffin Health invites the community to a free concert of traditional and contemporary gospel and holiday music on Tues., Dec. 9 at Church of the Good Shepherd, 135 Mountain Road, Seymour.
The Griffin Health Annual Holiday Concert is a cherished community tradition that brings voices together from all walks of life, backgrounds, personal circumstances and life experiences in a collaboration that builds understanding, trust, mutual respect and beautiful music to bring joy to the holiday season.
Under the direction of recording artist and music industry veteran Angela Clemmons, the Valley Soul Gospel Choir of volunteer singers will be the main attraction for an energizing and uplifting concert of traditional and contemporary gospel and ‘gospelized’ holiday songs. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the free concert starts at 6:30 p.m. Refreshments will follow the concert.
The event is sponsored by the President’s Fund at Griffin Hospital as a thank you to Griffin’s sponsors and the community, and as a celebration of Griffin’s family of employees, medical staff, volunteers, corporators, and trustees for their dedication, compassion and expertise.
The event is free and open to all. No res-
ervations needed. Seating is general admission on a first come, first served basis. Donations to TEAM, Inc., the Valley Community Action Agency, are appreciated at the event.
For more information, contact the Griffin Hospital Development Fund at 203732-7384 or lnista@griffinhealth.org.
How's Supt. Negrón doing? Independent seeks school board's full evaluation of district leader.
Credit: Maya McFadden file photo
The New Haven independent
The New Haven independent
Another Week, Another Apizza Donation For Yale Children’s Hospital Families
by Lisa Reisman
Jeff Dorman knows the reality of spending month after month in a pediatric ward with a seriously ill child: the incessant beep of monitors, the hard couches, the cries from other rooms, the bright lights, the endless waiting. And the hunger: skipping meals that aren’t readily available to stay at the bedside of his daughter.
That’s how Dorman came to be waiting for 16 large pizzas, including one-gluten free, at Modern Apizza last Friday. With him was his business partner Michael Pollack. As they do each Friday, the two deliver the pizzas to 40 parents, children, and nurses at the Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital’s pediatric hematology/oncology floor and PICU units.
Marcus Harvin, founder of Newhallville Fresh Starts, was there too. The mission of the three is simple: Stamp out hunger in New Haven one slice, one plate of food, at a time. The bill was likewise simple. $0. As it does each Friday, Modern provides the pizzas free of charge.
“Modern was the first to do this,” said Dorman of Feeding Families Foundation, a nonprofit he and his wife Sam created as a way to feed the families of critically ill pediatric patients who don’t have easy access to regular meals as they care for their children.
Founded in September 2023, the nonprofit works with upwards of eight local restaurants—among them, Olmo, Haven Hot Chicken, and Nolo Pizza—each of which makes available meals that Dorman and his wife pick up and deliver directly to those families, regardless of financial need.
When his two-year-old was diagnosed with leukemia in 2022, “we learned the hospital provides meals for the child, but not the parents unless we purchase them, and that can add up,” Dorman said. “So you start skipping meals, and then you’re not at your best to advocate for your child’s care.”
Once he and his wife Sam started the nonprofit, he said, “it became this giant magnet that’s brought like-minded people together.”
One of those was Pollack, a commercial artist and founder of the New Haven Pizza Club, which has as its mission to celebrate the rich tradition of New Haven pizza through Pollack’s prints, paintings, and sculptures; the most prominent is a giant pizza-slice sculpture made of steel and concrete that stands outside Modern Apizza. In 2024, Pollack learned about Dorman’s Feeding Families Foundation, and an idea struck him. “New Haven pizza shouldn’t end with its global reputation,” he said, amid the cozy, coal-
fired aroma wafting through the space.
“We can harness it toward the good.” Soon he was auctioning off items from his studio in District NHV, using the proceeds to expand the reach of Feeding Families. He also called upon his network of pizza connections.
“Pick a day,” Pollack recalled Modern Apizza owner Billy Pustari telling him. “We’ll give pizza to those families every week for life.” They chose Fridays. Nolo’s Derek Bacon, he said, “asked when they could start and offered to deliver them himself.”
It was at a Wu Tang Wednesday at Nolo in September that Pollack first met Harvin; his father, Marcus “Marc Mecca” Carpenter, was deejaying there. Harvin told him about his nonprofit, Newhallville Fresh Starts, which repurposes excess food from area universities to feed anyone who’s hungry. Pollack told him about Dorman and his foundation.
“We have the same purpose,” said Dorman on Friday as he waited for the pies he and Pollack would deliver; he and his wife work with a charge nurse to coordinate the number of meals needed, as well as any food allergies to account for. “It might look different but the most important thing is that people who are hungry are getting fed.”
The next stop was Nolo, where, after a brainstorming session, owner Derek Bacon met them with 19 pizza pies for Harvin and Adam Rawlings, a member of the Fresh Starts team, to deliver to the Life Haven women’s shelter and Surfside Veterans in West Haven.
“This is great, everybody together, especially right now, because this is absolute crisis time,” Bacon said; the following day, Nov. 1, SNAP benefits would lapse due to the government shutdown. “Hopefully other people in higher places will see the difference we can make by working together and multiplying our efforts.”
As Harvin was loading the boxes into his car in the Nolo parking lot, a man approached them.
“What is Feeding Families?” he asked; he had seen the logo on Dorman’s SUV as it was pulling onto State Street on its way to the hospital. “They feed families in the hospital, we feed families in shelters, and people who are homeless, and now we are coming together to feed everyone that’s hungry,” Harvin answered.
“I’m from Romania,” the man said. “I did something similar there.”
“You wanna join us here?” Harvin asked him, his voice rising in excitement. “You see? This is how we change the world.”
Marcus Harvin, Jeff Dorman, Michael Pollack, and Adam Rawlings, teaming up at Modern Apizza to feed the hungry.
Michael Pollack and Jeff Dorman delivering Modern Apizza Friday evening to Yale Children's Hospital parents, patients, and nurses. Credit: Michael Pollack photo
Sharing ideas at Nolo, with Fresh Starts team member Babatunde Akinjobi.
The New Haven independent
Alders OK Street Closure For Postdoc-Organizing Rally
by Thomas Breen
The Board of Alders voted Thursday night to approve the temporary closure of two blocks of College Street later this month to allow for a rally by Yale’s graduate student-teacher union — which is now looking to organize the university’s postdoctoral workers.
Local legislators took that vote during their latest full board meeting at City Hall. They voted unanimously to approve an order submitted by Local 33-UNITE HERE President (and Board of Zoning Appeals commissioner) Adam Waters to close College Street between Grove Street and Elm Street from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Nov. 19.
“Postdoctoral workers at Yale University are organizing to form a union with Local 33–UNITE HERE,” Waters wrote in an Oct. 30 letter to the Board of Alders. “UNITE HERE represents thousands of workers on campus. Our contracts provide dignity and security for members and their families and strengthen our community.”
Waters said that the Nov. 19 requested street closure will allow for the union to host a public rally to further this campaign to organize postdocs.
The postdoc-organizing rally is set to take place roughly two months after 2,000 people flooded the streets of downtown to call for higher wages and increased funding for the city amidst contract negotiations involving two of the univer-
sity’s most politically influential unions, Locals 34 and 35. At that Sept. 26 rally, Yale postdoc Bryan Mckiver announced that “a majority of postdocs have signed union cards.” Local 34 Organizing Director Barbara Vereen also said at that event
that postdocs would add 1,300 members to the union’s ranks.
The rally also comes nearly three years after Yale graduate teachers and researchers voted overwhelmingly to form a union, Local 33, in January 2023. Rough-
ly 3,214 Yale graduate students, teachers, and researchers were eligible to vote in that election. In December 2023, the university-recognized Local 33 ratified its first contract.
According to Local 33’s website, postdocs are currently unionized at Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, Penn, Brown, Rutgers, and UConn, among other universities.
That website also states: “Postdocs at Yale have identified many issues that could be addressed by a union and contract: pay that keeps up with the rising cost of living; protections for international employees; support for parents; and real recourse in situations of abuse, discrimination, or harassment. After we win recognition of our union, postdoc union members will collectively determine priorities for our contract and any tentative contract would be subject to a ratification vote.”
In a text-message comment provided to the Independent for this article, Waters wrote, “Hundreds of postdocs have signed union cards — the first step towards joining the nearly 3,000 unionized graduate workers at Yale. Yale graduate workers have an industry-leading contract that has changed so many of our lives and postdocs deserve those same basic rights and protections.”
Connecticut Sets Aside $500 Million Safety Net As Shutdown Threatens Food, Heat, and Health Programs
by Karla Ciaglo
HARTFORD, CT — As the nation endures its longest federal government shutdown on record, Connecticut leaders are moving to shield the state’s most vulnerable residents from the fallout.
Gov. Ned Lamont, joined by top Republican and Democratic lawmakers, announced the creation of a $500 million contingency reserve — a bipartisan safeguard meant to keep food stamps, nutrition vouchers, heating aid, and health insurance subsidies flowing if federal funding remains stalled.
“This is about readiness, not spending,” Lamont said. “We’re giving ourselves the ability to act if Washington doesn’t.”
The reserve temporarily redirects money normally used to pay down pension liabilities into a restricted account within the state’s $4.3 billion rainy-day fund. It can be tapped only if programs such as SNAP, WIC, LIHEAP or Affordable Care Act subsidies lose federal support. Any use of the fund must be approved by a six-member bipartisan panel of legislative leaders, and a tied vote automatically blocks the spending.
Lamont said the account was designed to carry Connecticut through February, when the regular legislative session begins, and would revert to pension payments by June 30 if unused.
The state acted after a weekend of confusion at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which initially released two-thirds of November SNAP benefits from a reserve
fund, prompting Connecticut to cover the remaining third — about $28 million. The next morning, the agency instructed states to “undo” the full payments, but Lamont said Connecticut would not claw them back and expects reimbursement as earlier today a federal judge blocked enforcement of the memo.
“Over the last month, there’s been a lot of on-again, off-again — a lot of risk to our citizens,” Lamont said, crediting Social Services Commissioner Andrea Barton Reeves and her staff for working overtime to ensure families received full SNAP payments Saturday morning.
The $500 million figure stems from projected costs: SNAP and WIC together consume about $74 million a month, and LIHEAP about $80 million. If all three programs were cut, the state would need roughly $100 million per month to fill the gap. A collapse of ACA premium subsidies could add $350 million annually.
Lamont said it is too early to say whether the fund would cover health insurance aid, adding that the state expects clarity on federal subsidies by year’s end and may extend open enrollment into January if uncertainty persists. He said he hopes Congress maintains the subsidies so Connecticut does not have to consider alternative health insurance options for residents.
Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven, called the agreement “a bond to bridge us over until February” and said federal instability had created “a Sophie’s Choice between food aid
and insurance subsidies.”
House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, called the fund both a practical fix and a moral necessity.
“If I was ever the speaker of a chamber that left town while people went hungry, I would resign in five seconds,” he said.
House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, endorsed the measure and emphasized its temporary,
bipartisan nature.
“We’re not creating a slush fund. We’re creating a safety net that expires when we’re back in session,” he said. “This shows how government should work in a crisis — both parties at the same table, focused on solutions, not politics.”
Candelora noted that even with the re-
serve, Connecticut remains on solid fiscal footing, with a $4.3 billion surplus and more than $10 billion in supplemental pension payments since 2021.
State Treasurer Erick Russell said the plan fits within Connecticut’s fiscal guardrails under an extraordinary-circumstances clause, adding that more than $1.2 billion in volatility-cap transfers are already planned this year.
“Creating additional reserves and having flexibility is fiscally responsible,” he said, noting that the state will still contribute $1.5 billion to its pension fund in 2025.
Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz said the need for action was clear after visiting food banks and seeing empty shelves. She said Foodshare and other hunger-relief groups are working hard but cannot match the scale of federal aid.
“Food banks are a supplement to SNAP, not a solution,” Bysiewicz said.
Lawmakers plan to move quickly. The House will take up the measure Wednesday, followed by the Senate on Thursday. If Congress passes a spending bill or extends a continuing resolution before then, the reserve will remain untouched and revert automatically to pension funding. If gridlock persists, Lamont can propose limited spending subject to bipartisan review.
“This money may never leave the account,” Lamont said. “But people need to know it’s there.”
At a Sept. 26 UNITE HERE contract rally downtown. Credit: Laura Glesby file photo
The New Haven independent
Gov. Ned Lamont speaks about a state fund to address potential federal program funding deficits in Hartford, CT on Nov. 10, 2025. Credit: Karla Ciaglo / CTNewsJunkie
CTNewsJunkie
Ten years later, I’ve had my fill of calling killers great men
Hamilton Hasn’t Changed, But I Have
Hamilton Bushnell Center for Performing Arts
Hartford Nove. 5, 2025
I’ve been waiting ten years to see Hamilton. I still remember when the play burst onto the scene, and the craze that ensued. A hip-hop musical about one of the Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton, had managed to capture the attention of the nation? I was definitely interested, but as ticket prices soared, the experience quickly got out of reach for me.
But all good things come to those who wait. Finally, Hamilton was right down the street from me at the Bushnell Center for Performing Arts. My anticipation for the show remained unchanged over the long wait, but something I didn’t anticipate happened: I changed over the last ten years.
As a show, Hamilton remains unmatched.
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s soundtrack is as perfect from top to bottom today as it was ten years ago. I’ve listened to Hamilton’s music nonstop since, but there’s still nothing like hearing “My Shot” and “Take a Break” performed live.
The songs were brought to life by one of the most talented casts I’ve seen at the Bushnell. Tyler Fauntleroy as Hamilton is a worthy successor to the titular role. He plays Hamilton as rebellious and optimistic, convinced of his own greatness and the greatness of his cause. Fauntleroy is also a terrific singer, and handles the demands of rapping and singing Miranda’s ambitious soundtrack with ease.
The other performers, from Lauren Mariasoosay’s Eliza Hamilton to A. D. Weaver’s George Washington, were outstanding as well. The breakout star of the show for me was Marja Harmon as Angelica Schuyler, sister-in-law to Hamilton. Her performance of “Satisfied,” where she recounted her regret at not pursuing Hamilton for herself, was my favorite of the night.
The staging for the performance was also excellent. It featured a turntable that added an extra layer of dynamism to the performance, allowing the action to be seen from multiple angles. The costume
design and backdrops were also immaculate.
Yet I’m not the same person who jealousy watched as theatergoers in 2015 enjoyed Hamilton. I’ve become far less forgiving of the myths of the American Revolution, far more critical of the propensity towards violence.
As a result, I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable during the performance. Lin-Manuel Miranda has said that Hamilton is a story about “America then, as told by America now.” I think that’s a laudable goal in a vacuum. But seeing George Washington, played by an African American, singing about freedom despite the hundreds of enslaved people at his Mount Vernon estate, felt more like an exercise in Orwellian thought manipulation than a diverse celebration of America’s founding. For enslaved people, Native Americans and women, what was there to celebrate? Putting a literal Black face on that may be well-meaning, but feels disingenuous.
It’s not just about slavery and race. Over the last decade, I’ve become skeptical of the idea of “righteous murder,” for lack of a better term. Does the desire for freedom and rights justify taking another person’s life? That question is not asked a single time during the play. The righteousness of war is self-evident, so the necessity of killing thousands of people to build a free country on a foundation of the rankest hypocrisy is simply treated as the cost of doing business.
Hamilton, Washington, Lafayette and the rest are men of war and violence, and I’ve had my fill of calling killers great men. Hamilton himself, despite surviving several years of war, still managed to get himself murdered in a duel with Burr. This is how civilized, enlightened men behave?
Hamilton is exactly the same show that it was when it broke out in 2015, an exuberant celebration of one of the country’s founders and a brilliant display of music, choreography, staging and acting. I’m different, and while I appreciate the achievement of Hamilton, I’m not too keen on its subject matter anymore.
Lauren Mariasoosay as Eliza Schuyler and Tyler Fauntleroy as Alexander Hamilton in the "Hamilton"
Treats, Coats, & Hot Meals In Newhallville
by Lisa Reisman
Inside the Newhallville police substation on Winchester Avenue, Rhonda
“Boss” Bolden was issuing a warm welcome to a young astronaut and a rock star.
“Grab a goodie bag,” she called out to them, two adults trailing behind them.
“We also have bread, we have sandwiches, we have hot meals, we have coats of all sizes. And make sure you get some soup.”
The 9th Annual Trick or Treat, Grab & Go event last Friday wasn’t perhaps a typical trick or treat experience. And that was fine with Kanesha Crenshaw, president of the CT Kayo Social Club, short for “Knowledge above the Oppressors”— Bolden is vice president—and host of the Halloween community celebration.
“It’s a chance for us to show people in our own backyard that we care about them and they matter to us,” said Crenshaw, as she handed out loaves of bread to families.
Crenshaw said CT Kayo, the social arm of the CT Kayo Motorcycle Club, is community-driven. In addition to the annual Trick or Treat at the substation, they sponsor events at Christmas and Easter, and typically bring in other area social clubs to support their efforts. They also have teen groups where, she said, “we teach self-love, proper etiquette skills, team
building, and conflict resolution.”
“We go wherever the need is at,” said Crenshaw, who has worked for Dream Kit, a nonprofit that equips New Haven youth with the skills they need to excel in the workforce.
“You kids need coats?” asked Cynthia Spears, head of Ruth’s Kids Closet,
another of the organizations pitching in, from across the space. She created Ruth’s Kids Closet in 2020 after seeing a family passing her Newhallville home wrapped in blankets. She named the LLC in honor of her mother Ruth Friday, a schoolteacher in New Haven for 40 years who kept a coat closet in her class for any of her
students in need of one.
A woman shepherding a turtle, dragon, and policeman thanked Spears. “Give it to someone who really needs it,” she said. Initially, Spears secured donations from the Yale Community for New Haven Fund, which helped her buy 300 winter coats for kids. Operation Warm, which
offers brand-new, high-quality coats for children in need, provided 125 coats. Its tagline, “a brand-new coat empowers children by sparking self-confidence in a way that second-hand clothing cannot,” inspired her to use monetary donations to buy new coats from Costco and Walmart.
Beside her, Bolden was offering grinders and sandwiches. “We go to different vendors and different stores and they come through,” she said, identifying Dixwell’s Pianca Pizza, People’s Choice Grocery & Deli, and Haven’s Harvest, among those donating.
“It takes a village,” she said, before directing a young boy dressed as a superhero to take a sandwich. “We have to take care of our own.”
“That’s right,” said Michelle “Prezchelles” Gwynn from the next table. Gwynn is president of The Presidents Social Club out of Bridgeport which, like CT Kayo SC, is the social club chapter of The Presidents Motorcycle Club (MC).
“We donate hats and scarves in the winter, we visit pantries for Thanksgiving, we give away book bags in September,” she said, as members of her group distributed goodie bags.
“The community needs to know they’re not alone, facing whatever they’re facing,” Gwynn said. “They need to know there are people who do care. That’s what keeps us going.”
Summers Shines On Pride Center’s New Executive Director
by Mona Mahadevan
The New Haven Pride Center has tapped a long-time LGBTQ+ advocate, Thinkubator founder, and professional therapist to serve as the local nonprofit’s next executive director.
The appointment of Dr. Edward Summers, 43, was announced by the Pride Center on Monday. Wednesday will be his first day at the 50 Orange St. office. Summers fills a role last occupied by Juancarlos Soto, who stepped down in April. According to his LinkedIn, some of Summers’ most recent roles include Vice President of Administrative Affairs at Anaheim University, Director of the Cadence Institute for Policy & Society, and Executive Director of Pridelines.
On Monday, Summers told the Independent that in his new role, he plans to bring with him a lifelong commitment to uplifting marginalized communities — work he began at the Diego-Beekman complex in the South Bronx.
When he was nine years old, Summers said his landlord burned down apartments for insurance money, reflecting a well-documented pattern of Bronx homes catching on fire through the 1970s and 1980s.
He described the South Bronx at the time as a neglected neighborhood, filled with “pockets of poverty” and “a lot of abandoned buildings.” Met with apathy
and inaction from local officials, tenants gathered in a community meeting to figure out how to save their homes.
Summers’ mom brought him to that meeting. There, he piped in with a question: “What if the tenants get together and try to buy the building?”
A few years later, Diego-Beekman residents successfully lobbied for the building to be turned over to a housing association, composed of tenants and policy experts, and won millions from Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to improve the property.
That’s the first example Summers could remember of engaging in community advocacy. Since then, he’s started a nonprofit workforce development group for Bronx youth, served in strategic roles for multiple universities, and worked as a therapist specializing in LGBTQ+ affirming therapy and substance use disorders. Now, he’s moving from New York City to New Haven to take over the Pride Center.
Summers cited the political climate as a major reason why he pursued the role.
“During a time where we are seeing our democracy attacked” and “the rights of our community” threatened, said Summers, “we need people who are going to fight for our community.” He’s looking forward to moving into a Westville home with his partner and two puggles (pugand-beagle mixes) and joining the city’s “beautiful community.”
LGBTQ+ community members get through the holidays. “Some families may not still be accepting of a person’s identity or sexual orientation,” said Summers. “That is hard.”
“While some people are on their way back home to spend time with their families,” many LGBTQ+ individuals instead convene with their “chosen family,” defined as a group of people that provide kinship and support to each other. For the people who can’t celebrate with their families, Summers wants to make sure the Pride Center is a warm, safe space to gather.
Given the continued uncertainty over federal SNAP benefits, Summers also wants to make sure the pantry is fully stocked through winter. Ahead of Thanksgiving, he said they’re planning a giveaway of 20 turkeys and side items.
Longer term, he’s talking to residents, other advocacy groups, and staff members about new or different ways that the center can serve the LGBTQ+ community.
He praised the Pride Center as a “connective tissue” linking the community to resources for “housing, therapy, and medical services,” and he’s exploring whether it makes sense to bring some of those services in-house.
For example, the closure of Youth Con-
Member of The Presidents Social Club with tired daughter.
At the Pride Center, he’ll be working with a little less than ten staff members and interns. Top of his priority list is helping
Welcome to New Haven, Dr. Summers. Credit: New Haven Pride Center Facebook image
The New Haven independent
Upcoming Film Tells Silenced Story
by Jisu Sheen
Mary When You Follow Her Manjares
Seventeen-year-old Maria is surrounded by a web of violence, death, sexism, and racism. She has just lost her father, and girls are going missing in her town, leaving behind wakes of devastation. Maria is trying to grow up as fast as she can, but she isn’t given a second to catch her breath. She’s overwhelmed, and she feels alone.
But Maria, the fictional main character in Carmen Maria Machado’s short story Mary When You Follow Her, is not alone. She has readers to witness her efforts to stay sane in an incomprehensible world, and soon she will have viewers to watch the events of her life unfold alongside her. Hartford-based filmmaker Pedro Bermudez is deep in the process of turning Machado’s story into a short film. He and his team brought a crowd of film supporters across Connecticut to Manjares in Westville to celebrate the movie in progress Friday night, and Bermudez told the story of how the film came together.
His first encounter with Maria was a meeting that happened in the span of one long breath. Machado crafted the story that way, as a single sentence. After
RESTAURANTS
INCLUDE:
reading it, Bermudez contacted Machado directly to ask if he could turn it into a movie. She said yes.
The challenge, then, was how to make a film that also feels like 20 minutes of waiting to exhale. It was important to Bermudez keep the relentless pace of the story as a reflection of how trauma plays out all too often in real life: one thing after another, with no breaks in between. As Bermudez put it, it “just keeps happening.”
Producer Karl Brooks emphasized that this compounding trauma is an experience more common than one might realize, especially for women of color like Maria, who is Dominican. “I feel the U.S. is in a really dark time, and the themes that we are touching upon cannot be ignored and need to be understood as reality,” he said. Through the film, he aims to help audiences “conceptualize the pressures that these people are feeling every single day.” Maria is now being seen through the careful eye of cinematographer Rashad Frett, who grew up in Hartford and recently won the Directing Award for a U.S. Dramatic at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.
Filming for Mary When You Follow Her started a month ago on Oct. 13, with four whirlwind days of shooting. To keep up with the original story’s persistent pace, the screenplay jumps quickly from scene
to scene, a style matched in the nature of the shoot days. “I had my phone pressed to my face at all times,” Brooks said. Now there is just one more day of filming left, in January; “We need snow on the ground,” he explained.
The team’s hope is for the film to be a proof of concept for an anthology television series, where each episode encapsulates its own story on a larger theme, like Black Mirror or The Twilight Zone. Bermudez is already working on editing, and the team is fundraising for their last leg of the project.
Part of Friday’s celebration was dedicated to live fundraising pledges, and people’s donations of $2,000, $1,000, $500, and so on were matched by an anonymous donor. This will cover the editing and production process, travel for actors from other cities like New York, and that final snowy day of filming. The team’s goal is to have Mary When You Follow Her ready for viewing by springtime.
“Feliz, feliz en tu día,” the voices of the crowd at Manjares rang out. The event was also a birthday celebration for wellloved New Haven Fair Rent Commission director Wildaliz Bermudez, who happens to be Pedro’s sister. By the time they ended with “y que cumplas muchos más,” her young niece and daughter were pressed to her knees, hugging her tight.
Pedro and Wilda Bermudez, brother and sister, creating community in their own ways. Credit: Jisu Sheen photo
The New Haven independent
CitySeed Steps Up Amid SNAP Lapse
by Christina Lee
Abel Sauri traveled from East Haven to Wooster Square Saturday to buy fresh produce with the help of a CitySeed-boosted benefit for food stamp recipients. He was one of more than 130 customers who turned to the farmers market nonprofit for help amid a government-shutdown-induced lapse of the nation’s largest food aid program.
Sauri is a beneficiary of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. He and roughly 130 other SNAP recipients visited CitySeed’s Wooster Square farmers market on Saturday, which was the first day of the food aid program’s lapse.
CitySeed Executive Director Sarah Miller, who is also an alder representing Fair Haven’s Ward 14, said that was well over the number of SNAP users who typically visit CitySeed’s farmers markets.
“We had a line down to the corner at 9 o’clock,” said Miller. “It’s a lot of new people we haven’t seen before.”
Sauri, who heard of CitySeed through his sister, was there with his children. Though CitySeed has operated year-round farmers markets throughout the city for nearly two decades, Sauri was visiting the market for the first time.
The uptick in market-goers followed CitySeed’s promise to continue to provide $50 in market tokens to SNAP users, despite the ongoing pause in the program. Last Tuesday, Miller issued an emergency response to the SNAP crisis, announcing that CitySeed would continue to support SNAP benefits. Starting Saturday, CitySeed shoppers received $50 in non-expiring market tokens upon presenting their Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card. The $50 tokens can also be doubled for up to $100 worth of produce bought at CitySeed’s farmers markets.
The tokens will continue to be distributed through the month of November, until SNAP benefits are fully reinstated.
CitySeed initially stated that $50 in SNAP tokens would be given to 50 people at the Wooster Square market. The organization wound up giving tokens to all SNAP users who visited the market on Saturday, hoping that people would donate to cover the costs.
“It’s nice. It’s been helpful because everything is going crazy right now,” Sauri said about CitySeed stepping up. “It’s very simple to work with. … A beautiful experience. The kids enjoy it.”
Asked about the ongoing shutdown and uncertainty around the SNAP program, Sauri said, “It’s frustrating and it’s stressful, especially when you’re counting on that extra food around the house. Especially when you have kids.”
members who visited the market on Saturday donated or inquired about making donations to CitySeed.
“It’s been great exposing people to our organization and the market,” she said. “It’s been really amazing to be able to offer this in such a time of need, and we only assume that for the coming weeks it will get busier and busier, and we’re going to try to accommodate.”
Currently, the organization has a private donor who is funding the token program for as long as the shutdown lasts through the month of November, according to Miller. If CitySeed needs to go beyond November, the organization will have to raise additional dollars, Miller said.
“There’s no way to fill the gap of the federal government. But it’s what we can do, and so we’re doing it.” Miller said.
The markets’ 25 vendors also appreciated the busy weekend due to the tokens.
Daren Hall, the vendor running the George Hall Farm stand, estimated a 300 to 400 percent increase in the customer base on Saturday at the Wooster Square market.
“I would say probably that for 90 percent of the customers here today, it was their first time at the market,” Hall explained.
Although CitySeed has offered SNAP benefits before this shutdown-induced lapse, Farmers Market Manager Alison Ping-Benguiat said that the current SNAP crisis drew new shoppers to the market, as well as potential new donors. According to Ping-Benguiat, around 20 community
Another vendor, Marissa Sang, representing Sugar Maple Farms, also said that the weekend ushered in many new customers taking advantage of the tokens offered by CitySeed. Seeing nearly triple the amount of usual customers, Sang said that she will be bringing more supply for her stand next week.
One concern as a vendor, Sang noted, was “panic shopping” among customers. Sang said that she had people buying two to three honeys and four to five dozen eggs, which she described as “more than
the average person will go through in a week, two weeks.”
CitySeed will be offering SNAP tokens at both weekend markets. The Wooster Square Market is open on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and their Edgewood Park Market is open on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
New Executive Director
tinuum has affected LBGTQ+ youth, many of whom lack stable housing. Summers said he wants to consider whether the Pride Center can play a direct role in housing young people.
That same question extends to mental health care. While the Pride Center currently refers people to outside providers, Summers has observed some LGBTQ+ organizations employing therapists on staff. He’s considering whether to expand the center’s mental health resources or continue primarily connecting people partner clinicians.
Given the looming threat of future federal budget cuts under the Trump administration, he’s also focused on diversifying funding sources for the Price Center so they can weather potential losses. Some financiers include individuals, foundations, and Connecticut — a state that, emphasized Summers, has been “so supportive of the LGBTQ+ community.” “I know that the next three years are going to continue to be challenging,” said Summers. “I want to make sure that the New Haven Pride Center remains sustainable: an organization that advocates for policies that empower the LBGTQ+ community and a place where “individuals can come to get the resources they need.”
Customers line up before the 9 a.m. opening of the Wooster Square market. Credit: Contributed photo
The New Haven independent
Questions about your bill?
Yale New Haven Hospital is pleased to offer patients and their families financial counseling regarding their hospital bills or the availability of financial assistance, including free care funds. By appointment, patients can speak one-on-one with a financial counselor during regular business hours. For your convenience, extended hours are available in-person at Yale New Haven Hospital once a month.
Dates: Nov. 17, 2025, Dec. 15, 2025, and Jan. 20, 2026
Time: 5 - 7 pm
Location: Children’s Hospital, 35 Park St., 1st floor, Admitting
Parking available (handicapped accessible)
An appointment is necessary. Please call 855-547-4584.
Spanish-speaking counselors available.
"Ding Dong Ditch" Rings In November With A Thriller
Nelani Mejias
The crunch of popcorn from crinkled bags and the fluttering clicks of flashing cameras greeted those walking into Flint Street Theater on the first of this month. Those attending said hello to friends and actors in the lobby, buying concessions from some of the young stars themselves before taking their seats in front of the screen.
The excitement was palpable as locations like Union Station, Woolsey Hall, and even interiors of people’s homes began appearing on the screen. It grew louder with the introduction of each new character, collective applause and cheers erupting from the crowd.
That scene welcomed viewers at the premiere of Ding Dong Ditch, a new thriller series from MaxVision Films that casts New Haven as one of its central characters. The adrenaline-laced brainchild of New Haven Fire Lt. Derrick Meade, who writes under the pen name Noz, it features several of New Haven’s first responders during their time off the clock, as actors-turned-detectives trying to solve a kidnapping case.
“All in all, everybody’s going through the same struggles inside the first responder ranks,” Meade said during an episode of WNHH Community Radio’s “Arts Respond” the day before the premiere. The series “gives hope, definitely in the time that we are right now, it reflects a lot of things that are going on within our system.”
Based on Meade’s eponymous book and the Halloween prank of the same name, Ding Dong Ditch is set in the near future in the “Big East,” a stand in for New Haven that has many of the same issues, including deadly gun violence and devastating homicide rates.
On the police force, Detective Charlie Dawson (real-life New Haven Fire Captain Troy Z. Frost) can’t let go of a cold case that has dogged him for years. He wants to know if three rookies on the force, played by Victoria Grace, Michael Smith, and Terrance Logan, can help him figure it out. Despite the fact that he’s initially skeptical of their skills, they’re what he’s got to work with—and they’re going to do all they can to crack the case.
“It is powerful to understand characters that you might not align with, in values and in background,” said Daniel B. Roderick, who plays antagonist Thomas Caldwell. “And really what I’ve learned … is learning how to empathize and seek out the entire truth, or the ‘truth,’ of a character. You have to take a step out of your own shoes and take a step in another person’s.”
Maybe because Meade is a first responder himself, he spent time teasing out the details of the film, just as he did when he was writing the book. Prior to filming, firefighters spent time with members of the New Haven Police
Department, who provided them with tips and resources and answered their questions. They mapped out New Haven, placing the series’ narrative atop a personal geography that all of them also had.
They also looked to New Haven, rather than New York, Los Angeles or Atlanta, for a talent pool that already existed within the Elm City. That fits into the mission of MaxVision, Meade said—“bringing big films to the Big East.”
On screen, the work came alive, revealing several New Haven Easter Eggs for those who knew to look for them. First Caldwell, played by Roderick, walked through Union Station, the sign outside announcing New Haven in thick, bold letters. Inside the station, the circular wooden benches and chatter-filled waiting area came into focus. There was a sense of arriving in New Haven, just as people had arrived at the theater that night.
Soon after, that sense of the city expanded before the audience’s eyes. Dawson, played by Frost, walked up the steps of Woolsey Hall, the stately, domed building transformed into a police precinct in the film. There was a cameo from Meade, visible in the frame as he walked someone down the building’s steps.
Back inside, Frost was watching his worlds collide, as his New Haven—the city that raised him, and which he has responded to emergency calls, gotten devastating news, and given back to kids and elders dozens of times over— became part of Meade’s story.
“It was thrilling—nerve wracking— because it’s something different,” said Frost, 22-year veteran of New Haven Fire Department, at the film’s premiers. For him, and for so many people who worked on the series, Ding Dong Ditch was and is as much a personal geography as it is a love letter to New Haven.
When he stepped back into Woolsey Hall, for instance, he remembered cutting through the building as a kid in New Haven—but also going as a firefighter to investigate a bomb threat. While he calls the city “third not heard,” meaning that it’s not as prominent as New York, he still considers it “full of gems.”
“A lot of times as a firefighter, we see streets as situations that we had to deal with,” he said on WNHH the day before the premiere. “They’re no longer streets. It’s like, ‘Oh, I remember this incident here. Oh, I remember this fire. Oh, I remember I helped deliver a baby here. And being born and raised in Connecticut, in New Haven, a lot of the places are places we walked, or we played basketball at. Literally, one of the houses is one of my family homes.”
“We walk these streets, and we work these streets, so we see it twofold,” he added.
As cast members noted Friday, the
filming experience itself was also an opportunity for community building, one of the goals behind a cast that is very much made in New Haven. One of the
younger actors, Jovan Morales (in the film he plays a character named Jake) said that the process of reading scripts, rehearsing and filming “took the shy-
ness out of me.” Several young actors, who are in high school, also include Roberto Carmon and Carlos Cernak.
Victoria Grace, who played Detective Emily Hunter, chimed in that Meade’s “chaotic energy is what kept us going.” Meade is not someone who easily throws in the towel—and neither were they.
After a screening of the first episode, actors fielded audience questions, from the inspiration behind the book and film to how actors got involved. After one attendee asked why acting seemed like the right outlet, Logan (or as he’s known on screen, Detective Omar Johnston), said it was basically hereditary for him. “Acting is in my family. It’s something that made me smile,” he said.
Longtime friends and family members of the actors also expressed their pride for their loved ones. Frost’s mother, Stephanie D. Frost, noted how proud she was of the series, telling her son it was like, “watching you in the backyard.” “We want to show the youth that you can do anything,” Meade said. “It’s possible. You just have to keep God first, and keep your focus on your goals and not your problems.”
“This film is just to say, ‘Hey, we’re here,’” he added. “We’re gonna give you something that you can’t look away from, and you can’t ignore.”
DJ Ryan's New Release Of The Week: Chronixx's “Hurricane”
Ryan Patrick Hooper
Forever Living Originals –buy it directly via his website!
I’m sending this new release of the week for the citizens of Jamaica, who are currently measuring the damage and recovering from the wreckage of Hurricane Melissa.
Through that lens, I’m presenting Chronixx, who just released his excellent sophomore album Exile with little to no notice. His fan base quickly picked it up, though, and critics like me are following suit.
The reason is simple. There are no misses here – just a beautiful example of contemporary reggae, in line with the powerful work I’m hearing from another Jamaican artist, ORIGINAL KOFFEE.
This generation’s Bob Marley is a fair comparison. There’s less political charge here to be sure, but the depth and delivery of Chronixx’s music cover new ground. It’s bringing in new elements, mainly thanks to his affiliations with the collective of artists known as SAULT and the producer behind that project, Inflo, who produced this new album and has worked with mega-artists like Adele.
There’s another mega-comparison I want to make, too. On the song “Hurricane,” one of the highlights on this album, I can hear Paul McCartney’s gentle delivery on “Blackbird.”
“Through the eye of the hurricane / I heard you whisper, call my name”
It’s a song of personal turmoil, of finding love when you feel lost in a sea of despair. It’s paired wonderfully with follow-up track, “Genesis,” which carries the same gentle energy and guitar strum, but works in more richness of backing vocals and a sneaky little hook from a Rhodes piano. “Survivor” is yet another stand-out. It
blends the polyrhythms of Afro-beat out of Lagos, Nigeria, with the signature stylings of Bob Marley & the Wailers’ signature reggae sound that became a crossover sensation around the world.
But if you have to start in one place, start with the quiet beauty of “Hurricane” before quickly absorbing the rest of this record, which will go down as one of my favorites of 2025.
And keep the people of Jamaica in your thoughts as they fight to recover from
Fire Capt. Troy Frost.
As Jamaica recovers from hurricane wreckage, an heir to Bob Marley's tradition offers a more hopeful "Hurricane."
Album cover of Chronixx's "Exile" album. Chronixx“Hurricane”
Arts Council of greater New Haven
• Cremation (Choose to be cremated at Evergreen.)
• Columbarium in the Most Beautiful Cremation Garden
• Reserve your Niche in a secure location pre-need.
• Reserve a Niche for family and friends or purchase at-need to safely place your Loved One in the Columbarium.
• Burial Lots (infant, single, two-grave, or four-grave)
• Monuments & Markers (black, gray, or pink granite)
• Flower placement (single or multiple placement)
• All orders can be placed at the Evergreen office or the website.
At New Haven Academy, Four Pop-Punk Hamlets Leave It All On The Stage
Lucy Gellman |
Night, somewhere in the bowels of Elsinore. Beneath sheaves of blue and purple light, a heartbeat murmured, steady and drum-like. It rolled through the space, transforming a high school gym into the Danish countryside. On stage, Hamlet’s voice—his voices—cut through the darkness, splitting into threads and then coming back together again.
“Now I am alone,” four voices called out, woven together, crisp and heavy. Breath drifted over the stage. “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!” Something was rotten in Denmark, and New Haven was infinitely better for it.
The play is definitely the thing this week, as New Haven Academy returns to the stage with a pop-punk, 90-minute adaptation of Hamlet that is more open, accessible, and biting than its three-hour source text. Spliced to feature four Hamlets instead of one, the work is judiciously edited and mined for feeling, with all the emotional heft of its language intact.
The show is a collaboration between Legacy Studios, the high school’s popular after-school drama club, and Elm Shakespeare Company, which has been able to grow its educational footprint thanks to a grant from the Seedlings Foundation. It is directed by Elm’s Liz Daingerfield and “drama poppa” Ty Scurry, who first worked together on A Midsummer Night’s Dream last year.
Performances run Nov. 6 through 9 at New Haven Academy; tickets and more information are available here.
“I’m excited. From what we’ve watched in rehearsal, the kids are ready. They’re killing it,” Scurry said at a tech rehearsal Monday night, as cast members took their places in the gym-turned-theater. Now a retention specialist at High School in the Community, he’s watched it come together in just six weeks. “Each Hamlet is one part of his emotion. It’s meant to make you ask, ‘Is he actually losing it or is he just trying to deal with his grief?’”
That starts and ends, of course, with the text itself. Written on the lip of the seventeenth century, Hamlet tells the story of the Prince of Denmark (freshman Molly Davis, seniors Cristian Ortiz and Christopher Samuels, and sophomore Olivia Tapia Ko), who is driven insane by his deep and gnawing grief at his father’s death. Visited by the ghost of the Old King (a winning Semaj Battle-Reed, a junior who has very much come into his own), Hamlet learns that his father was murdered by his Uncle Claudius (Joseph Pallo), who is now married to his mother (Michelle Cochran as Queen Gertrude of Denmark).
If you're still following, congratulations. It's about to go down.
Hamlet, furious at his uncle, flies into murderous rage from which no one and nothing is safe. Guards (Jermaine Cowan and Andy Sosa as Marcellus and Bernardo) and grave diggers (Oliver Reymond, Solimar Quintanilla and Austen Fay, who also stage manages the show) get spooked by the specter of the old king, whose soul
is not yet free. Hamlet’s wronged woman (Tomitsela Engel-Halfkenny as Ophelia), befuddled and bereft at their situationship, ends her life surrounded by flowers, a scene to which painters and poets would return for the next 400 years. Actors perform a play within a play, setting the final
devastating acts in motion. It’s all a potent reminder of the ways grief and trauma can ripple out until they have poisoned the whole ocean.
When she was thinking about the project, Daingerfield read something in the words that reminded her of a very differ-
ent moment in time: the pop-punk-emo wave of bands, mostly angsty boys with long, limp, poorly dyed hair and permanently sulking expressions, that captivated the U.S. music scene in the early 2000s, when she was coming into her own as a high school student.
At the time, “music was my escape” from the monotony of high school, with bands like Panic at the Disco, Coheed and Cambria, The Used, Taking Back Sunday and Something Corporate that got her through. Daingerfield would sit in her
South Sudan’s Anok Yai goes from Howard to being named 2025 Model of the Year
by Mildred Europa Taylor, Face2FaceAfrica.com
Anok Yai will be honored as Model of the Year at the upcoming British Fashion Council (BFC) Fashion Awards 2025. The awards, which will be held on December 1 at London’s Royal Albert Hall, will be presented by Pandora and serve as a fundraiser for the British Fashion Council Foundation.
Besides raising funds for the foundation, the Fashion Awards is held every year by the British Fashion Council to celebrate global fashion excellence. A part of the award is Model of the Year, which highlights the global impact of a model who has dominated the industry over the last 12 months.
Indeed, South Sudanese-American model Yai has been busy this past year, appearing on the cover of Vogue France, working for Versace, Alaïa and Saint Laurent campaigns, and being the face of Mugler’s Alien fragrance.
Yai was born in Egypt and is of South Sudanese descent. She and her family emigrated to the United States when she was two years old. While studying at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire for a degree in biochemistry, a decision to go to Howard University’s homecoming weekend gave her the opportunity of
a lifetime.
Steve Hall – a professional photographer and alumnus of Howard University — was just indulging in his passion for snapping black culture and fashion when he took an image of 19-year-old Yai. Hall planned to shoot as many images of beauty as he could lay his eyes on. He noticed Yai having her photo taken by someone else and asked if he could do the same. He did and asked for Yai’s name and Instagram handle. He also posted her pictures on his IG page – @thesunk. He told The Washington Post: “I told her ‘I
don’t know what you’ve been doing, but you should definitely be photographed and you should be modeling.’”
Turns out, Yai’s following on IG grew from 300 to 50,000 in a few short days.
The picture of her at Howard received 22,218 likes. Soon, she started receiving calls. Yai got an e-mail from a modeling agency; she was sent on various interviews and as they say, the rest is history.
Speaking on the British Fashion Council honor, Yai said: “Being named Model of the Year is such an honour. My journey – from Egypt to South Sudan to the U.S.
is one of resilience and community.
“This recognition is for everyone who’s ever seen their story in mine. Thank you for celebrating us.”
In the past, five models were nominated for the category, but this year, industry experts assembled to crown the winner, with no nominations announced beforehand. This year’s industry experts who chose Yai included Emma Matell, Julia Sarr-Jamois, Kacion Mayers, Pat Boguslawski, Rosie Vogel, Sophia Neophitou-Apostolou, Anita Bitton, Aston Em, Campbell Addy, and Carlos Nazario.
Anok Yai/Photo credit: Anok Yai via Instagram
Tomitsela Engel-Halfkenny as Ophelia and Cristian Ortiz as one of four Hamlets
Solimar Quintanilla as the Player Queen Lucy Gellman Photos.
Elm’s Liz Daingerfield and “drama poppa” Ty Scurry.
Senior Jaileen Sowell as Horatio.
Arts Council of greater New Haven
Michael:
The King of Pop’s Story Returns to the Big Screen
By Stacy M. Brown Black Press USA Correspondent
The curtain has finally lifted on one of Hollywood’s most anticipated films. Lionsgate has unveiled the official trailer and release date for “Michael,” the sweeping biopic about Michael Jackson that has been years in the making. Directed by Antoine Fuqua, the film will arrive in theaters on April 24, 2026, with the singer’s nephew, Jaafar Jackson, stepping into the spotlight to portray his legendary uncle.
The trailer wastes no time rekindling the aura of Jackson’s genius. Opening with a studio scene between Jackson and his longtime producer Quincy Jones, played by Kendrick Sampson, the clip builds from a quiet, familiar rhythm to the electrifying pulse of “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’.” Viewers catch glimpses of the singer’s childhood, flashes of “Thriller,” and the silhouette that redefined pop culture. Each frame reminds fans of why Jackson remains unmatched in artistry and influence.
The cast surrounding the late pop king’s nephew, Jaafar Jackson, reads like a who’s who of Black entertainment and music history. Colman Domingo plays Joe Jackson, Nia Long portrays Katherine Jackson, and Larenz Tate takes on the role of Motown founder Berry Gordy. Laura Harrier portrays music executive Suzanne de Passe, while Kat Graham embodies Diana Ross. Miles Teller plays attorney John Branca, a towering entertainment lawyer and longtime Jackson confidant who later became co-executor of his estate.
The film’s journey to release has been as complicated as the icon it portrays. Production wrapped in 2024, but legal hurdles over depictions of past controversies forced extensive reshoots and editing delays. Even so, Fuqua’s film now appears
HEAD START PROGRAM ENROLLMENT
ready to reclaim the narrative, focusing on Jackson’s creative ambition and humanity beyond tabloid noise. IndieWire reported that the film had faced “a massive legal snafu” over a disputed storyline but was retooled to center the music and legacy that defined generations.
“Michael” promises more than a chronological retelling. It aims to explore how a child star from Gary, Indiana, became the world’s most influential entertainer.
The script, written by Oscar-nominated John Logan, traces Jackson’s early years with the Jackson 5 through the triumphs and isolation of global superstardom.
With Fuqua’s cinematic eye and producer Graham King—who brought “Bohemian Rhapsody” to life—joining forces with estate executors Branca and John McClain, the film is positioned as both a tribute and a restoration of Jackson’s cultural truth.
Branca’s work behind the scenes has long shaped Jackson’s posthumous success.
After the singer died in 2009, Branca and McClain took control of the estate burdened by debt and turned it into a global powerhouse worth billions. Under their stewardship, Jackson’s projects have generated more than $3 billion in worldwide ticket sales and landmark deals, including a $600 million joint venture with Sony earlier this year.
At its heart, though, “Michael” is a story about artistry that transcends scandal. It offers a reminder that, despite the noise surrounding his life, Jackson’s music still bridges continents and generations. The trailer’s closing moments capture that spirit. As the beat of “Billie Jean” swells and Jaafar Jackson moonwalks into a spotlight, audiences are left with a familiar feeling—the awe of witnessing something timeless return home.
“Michael” opens worldwide in theaters April 24, 2026.
Available spots for Pre-K3 and Pre-K4 at Dr. Reginald Mayo, John S. Martinez and other neighborhood schools, for the 2025-2026 school year To apply visit 54 Meadow Street New Haven or online at nhps.net.
Children must be age 3 by September 1,2025
Play Base Learning Curriculum
6 hour day program
New Haven Residents Only
Michael: The King of Pop’s Story (Photo courtesy of LionsGate)
Trump Team Takes Aim at State Laws Shielding Consumers’ Credit Scores From Medical Debt
by Noam N. Levey, KFF Health News
The Trump administration took another step Tuesday to weaken protections for Americans with medical debt, issuing new guidance that threatens ongoing state efforts to keep that debt off consumers’ credit reports.
More than a dozen states, including Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Maryland, New York, and most of New England, have enacted laws in recent years to keep medical debt from affecting consumers’ credit.
And more states — including several in conservative regions of the Midwest and Mountain West — have been considering similar protections, spurred by bipartisan concerns that medical debt on a credit report can make it harder for people to get a home, a car, or a job.
Nationwide, about 100 million people have some form of health care debt, with millions burdened by $10,000 or more in unpaid bills.
But in the new guidance, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau asserts that federal law bars states from restricting medical debts from credit reports, arguing that only the federal government has this authority.
“Congress meant to occupy the field of consumer reporting and displace state laws,” the bureau concluded in an “interpretive rule” signed by Russell Vought, the White House budget director and acting head of the CFPB.
The guidance, which offers a new interpretation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, reverses policies advanced under former President Joe Biden that sought to empower states to expand protections for people with medical debt.
The Trump administration’s latest move will not immediately roll back existing state protections.
But advocates for patients and consumers warn that the new guidance may stall progress elsewhere, just as millions of Americans are poised to lose federal aid that helps them buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. The aid is tied up in the current budget showdown between congressional Republicans and Democrats.
“You’d be hard-pressed to find a crueler regulatory interpretation,” said Elisabeth Benjamin, a vice president for the Community Service Society of New York. The nonprofit has pushed for medical debt protections in that state.
Lucy Culp, who oversees state lobbying efforts by Blood Cancer United, formerly known as the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, warned that the Trump administration’s guidance could reverberate across the country. “This rule will have a chilling effect on states’ willingness to pass these critical patient protections,” she said.
The CFPB did not respond to a request for comment.
The new CFPB guidance might spur more litigation challenging state restrictions on medical debt credit reporting. Trade groups representing credit reporting agencies and debt collectors went to court early this year challenging regulations issued by the Biden administration that would have removed medical debt from credit reports nationwide. They argued that the administration exceeded its authority in issuing the credit reporting restrictions.
The federal restrictions would have helped an estimated 15 million people. But the Trump administration chose not to defend the new regulations, and a federal judge in Texas appointed by Trump ruled that the regulations should be scrapped. They never went into effect.
The Consumer Data Industry Association, which represents credit bureaus, did not respond to a request for comment about the new CFPB rule, but the industry group has argued that regulating medical debt should be left to the federal government.
“Only national, uniform standards can achieve the dual goals of protecting consumers and maintaining accurate credit reports,” Zachary Taylor, the group’s government relations director, warned lawmakers in Maine this year before that state barred medical debts from credit reports there.
Louise Mandumbwa Recognizes
oncile the things you remember and how things change.” Landmarks had shifted. Memories mapped unevenly onto reality. “Lulu,” the nickname Mandumbwa used to go by as a child, now meant Luwi and Luyando, the cousins she painted in (An Etymology for) a Namesake.
At some point in her time away, Mandumbwa had become Louise, like the maternal grandmother she was named after.
In the elder Louise’s garden, yucca grows alongside guava, mangoes, and lime. Plants serve as material evidence of contact, migration, and care. The elder Louise speaks Mbundu, from her birthplace of Angola, and Nyanja, a common language in Zambia, where she lives now.
Born and raised in Botswana, the younger Louise speaks English but neither Mbundu nor Nyanja. This doesn’t stop the grandmother-granddaughter pair from having conversations in the garden.
“There’s something really earnest about trying to reach out to someone without words,” Mandumbwa said.
She approaches the gap in language, like the gap between the viewer and subject in (An Etymology for) a Namesake, not as a limitation but as rich soil for possibilities:
“There’s a kind of knowing that’s built into your body, that starts where language stops.” Shared emotion, family characteristics, and relationships with the land allow Mandumbwa to speak with her loved ones across all barriers.
Broader health insurance protections could prevent more Americans from sinking into debt and depressing their credit scores.
But millions of Americans are expected to lose health coverage in the coming years as a result of the tax and spending bill signed by the president in July.
“Millions of Americans are avoiding medical care, putting off needed surgeries, skipping essential treatments,” said Allison Sesso, president and chief executive of Undue Medical Debt, a nonprofit that buys up and retires patients’ debts and advocates for broader patient protections.
“This isn’t just a health care issue,” Sesso added. “It’s an economic crisis that’s keeping families from building wealth and fully participating in the economy. When credit scores are dinged by medical bills, everyone loses.”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing. This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
follows in her maternal grandmother’s footsteps across generations and geography. She told me about her growing collection of drawings, studies, and paintings and said, “I’m creating my own garden of things I want to hold onto.”
Yasmin Essafi’s Summers. Rebecca Fowke’s Mother.
At Woolsey Hall
out “This light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine!” The right willfully replied: “We got a right to the tree of life!” Voices lifted in contrasting harmony, sopranos wailing from the left and tenors emoting from the right. Fripp commanded the stage and the moment.
In the final performance, one powerful note after another filled every square inch of Woosley Hall. “I want Jesus to walk with me; All along my pilgrim journey, I want Jesus to walk with me,” Fripp sang. With outstretched arms, she gave the audience all of herself; tears rolled down her cheeks.
“She took me to church," New Haven educator Dee Marshall said of Fripp’s mountain-shifting delivery. "If you missed church this morning you got it here.”
“We’re experiencing the world in very different contexts,” Mandumbwa said of herself and her namesakes. Her middle name is also her late paternal grandmother’s name, and the two younger Lulus are small enough that Luwi was the flower girl at Mandumbwa’s wedding. Mandumbwa told me about naming practices that intend to bestow a person’s traits on the new generation. Some of these similarities aren’t noticeable until years down the line, or until they are viewed with the right eye. There are pieces of Mandumbwa’s grandmothers that other family members are able to see in her, the gaps in life experience filled in by a network of remembered contexts.
“I come from a part of the world that is still writing its history books,” Mandumbwa said. Her own endeavor to collect memories, whether from herself or others, is not one she takes lightly.
Mandumbwa takes a thorough, multi-modal approach to the research behind her art. She makes audio recordings of the people she paints, asking them questions about home, language, and associative meaning. Then she listens to the conversations as she paints.
When I asked what she is excited about, research was Mandumbwa’s first answer—seeing “if there really are multiple ways of knowing, multiple access points.”
The act of painting, too, can be a practice in remembering. Mandumbwa told me she has poor recall of faces, but that after painting someone, she is better able to hold the memory of their face in her mind.
Through her art process, Mandumbwa
Irshad agreed. “She really touched my soul,” she said.
Fortified souls, good music, and community made this Sunday an afternoon to remember. Or as Bryan herself said, “My introduction to the New Haven community has been warm and overwhelming musically. I’ve enjoyed the experience, and I am looking forward to a lot more musical experiences in New Haven.”
After 7-Hour Debate
“Bipartisanship is a good thing, even if it isn’t applied in every single space that we operate in,” he said.
The other three bills on the House special session calendar were not expected to generate nearly as much debate. The three bills propose to fund the purchase of Waterbury Hospital by UConn Health Center; create a $500 million reserve to address potential cuts in programs by the federal government; and a larger bill that would, among other things, codify in law courthouse restrictions on federal agents taking people into custody and limit information sharing about individuals between public state agencies and entities that are not public state agencies.
The Senate, which has its own special session scheduled for Thursday, would also have to pass and Gov. Ned Lamont would have to sign any legislation the House approved.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was updated after the bill passed the House.
Immigrants Are Vital Community Members. Let’s Start Acting Like It
Dr. Andre M. Perry says America can’t keep depending on immigrants while denying them the right to belong.
by Andre Perry November
10, 2025
Somewhere between the wrenching ICE raids that separate families from places they call home and the fierce debates they ignite lies a question we have failed to adequately address: What should it mean to truly belong? And what are our obligations as citizens to those who are substantively no different, with the exception of a piece of paper that says they are citizens? Our immigrant neighbors occupy a precarious space that should feel hauntingly familiar to anyone who knows American history — they are members without membership, participants without protection.
Like Black Americans who built this nation’s wealth while being denied its promise, like women who shaped our democracy while being barred from its ballot box, many undocumented immigrants fulfill nearly every expectation of citizenship—they work, pay taxes, send their children to our schools, worship in our churches, and volunteer in our communities — yet remain vulnerable in ways that even our most marginalized citizens have never been.
A History of Exclusion, Repeated
The current immigrant story is not a new American story, but it is an urgent one. We need comprehensive immigration reform that acknowledges what our eyes can plainly see: that the line between “not yet a citizen” and “second-class citizen” is not as distinct as we may think, and that we have a moral obligation to those who have already woven themselves into the fabric of our communities.
Since our country adopted citizenship as its model of membership, we have debated the conditions for entry, who counts as a legal resident, and who deserves rights and privileges. Migration — both voluntary and forced — has always prompted us to redefine immigration policy and citizenship itself. Today’s demographic shifts have triggered familiar tensions about fairness and belonging, raising urgent questions about who merits communal benefits and resources. Historically, rights were conferred by citizenship status in a nation-state. Citizens and non-citizens received different rights and benefits, with attitudes toward the latter shaped more by legal designation than actual community participation. Citizenship influences the distribution of social and political goods to manage economies and social orders. As scholar T.H. Marshall observed, “citizenship has itself become,
in certain respects, the architect of legitimate social inequality” — the very institution meant to ensure equality is used to justify inequality.
De Facto Americans Deserve De Jure Citizenship
However, the post-war era rightfully elevated human rights, expanding our understanding of citizenship. Global discourse forced countries to provide basic security and welfare to all residents. As philosopher Michael Walzer puts it, members are those “committed to dividing, exchanging, and sharing social goods, first of all among themselves.” Whom we recognize as members, Walzer argues, determines with “whom we make those choices, from whom we require obedience and collect taxes, [and] to whom we allocate goods and services.” Society is morally obligated to provide resources to those it recognizes as members. It is well past time that we recognize that many undocumented immigrants have become entwined within the educational, economic, and social fabric of American society. Many are de facto Americans and should have de jure benefits of citizenship. Through the lack of immigration reform, we have created another group of unrecognized members in a country where women
and Blacks were similarly situated.
Problems They Didn’t Create
Much of the political tension surrounding undocumented immigrants stems from fears that taxpayer dollars are being siphoned away to cover healthcare, education, and services for people who haven’t “paid into the system.” This narrative taps into anxieties about fairness and reciprocity. But it rests on a misconception: that undocumented residents don’t contribute to our tax base and instead drain public resources.
The reality is more complex and ironic. Many undocumented immigrants work using falsified Social Security numbers, meaning payroll taxes are automatically deducted from their paychecks. These contributions — estimated in the billions annually — flow into federal and state coffers, including Social Security. Yet because the numbers don’t match real records, these workers can never claim the benefits they’re funding. They pay in but cannot draw out, subsidizing a system designed to exclude them — contributing members supporting citizens who may never acknowledge their membership.
But what is also at play is blaming
outsiders for national economic hardships that immigrants didn’t create. They didn’t write the tax and trade policies that have made housing, healthcare, and everyday life less affordable for working-class families while concentrating wealth at the top. Yet that blame is squarely laid at the feet of perceived outsiders — immigrants and people of color — whom we continue to signal, through our actions, don’t belong.
Toward a More Coherent Definition of Belonging
The popular debate reduces belonging to a simple binary: legal or illegal. But that framing obscures more urgent questions: Are undocumented immigrants already fulfilling our expectations of membership? What role have we played in fostering their integration? Should those who have demonstrated commitment be offered a pathway to permanent residency?
And most importantly: If we have millions of unrecognized members living among us, how can we protect the integrity of citizenship itself? Ignoring membership that exists in practice doesn’t preserve our national community—it erodes it.
National citizenship has a legitimate and necessary place in democracies.
It protects rights, allows members
to shape their country’s future, and serves as formal recognition of belonging that validates commitments already made. Many immigrants are motivated by this promise. But when we deny citizenship to people who have already become members in every meaningful sense, we erode the principle that citizenship is based on mutual benefit and reduce the idea to a shallow form.
RELATED: We Are the Resistance: Black America and the Fight for the Future
Countries, cities, and towns are incubators of membership. We shape residents into community members through shared experiences, mutual obligations, and daily interdependence. We need immigration reform that recognizes all members of society. To deny formal citizenship to those we have effectively made into members is not just unjust — it’s incoherent. It dismisses our own role in creating the bonds we now refuse to honor. If we continue down this path, we risk losing an essential component of what binds a community together: the belief that commitment and contribution will be recognized and reciprocated. Andre M. Perry is a senior fellow and director of the Center for Community Uplift at the Brookings Institution.
Immigrants from Haiti, who crossed through a gap in the U.S.-Mexico border barrier, wait in line to be processed by the U.S. Border Patrol on May 20, 2022 in Yuma, Arizona. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) Posted inOpinion
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING FOR THE ELM CITY COMMUNITIES/HOUSING
AUTHORITY OF NEW HAVEN (ECC/HANH)
MOVING TO WORK (MTW) FY2025 ANNUAL REPORT
Section II and Section VII of the Authority's Moving to Work Agreement {the "Agreement") requires that before the Agency can file its Approved Annual Moving to Work Report and Report to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (the "HUD") that it must conduct a public hearing, consider comments from the public on the proposed amendments, obtain approval from the Board of Commissioners, and submit the amendments to HUD.
The thirty (30) days comment period begins on Monday, November 3, 2025, to Tuesday, December 2, 2025. Copies of the Moving to Work (MTW) FY2025 Report, will be made available on the agency website www.elmcitycommunities.org, via Facebook www. facebook.com/ElmCityCommunities or via Instagram, elmcitycommunities_hanh.
You are invited to provide written comments addressed to: ECC/HANH, Moving to Work FY2025 Annual Report, Attn: Evelise Ribeiro, Director of Compliance and Moving to Work Initiatives. 360 Orange Street, New Haven, CT 06511 or via email to: eribeiro@ elmcitycommunities.org.
Pursuant to said Sections II and VII), a public hearing where public comments will be accepted and recorded is scheduled for Thursday, November 20, 2025, 3:00pm, via TEAMS:
Meeting ID: 265 634 263 754 1
Passcode: Ng6E4ny9 Dial in by phone
+1 872-240-4494,361153891# United States, Chicago Find a local number Phone conference ID: 361 153 891#
Any individual requiring a Reasonable Accommodation to participate in the hearing may call the Resident Compliance and Support Manager at (203) 498-8800, ext. 3170 or at the TDD Number (203) 497-8434.
AVISO DE AUDIENCIA PÚBLICA PARA LA AUTORIDAD DE VIVIENDA/ COMUNIDADES DE ELM CITY DE NEW HAVEN (ECC/HANH) INFORME ANUAL DE TRABAJO (MTW) DEL AÑO FISCAL 2025
Las Secciones II y VII del Acuerdo de Trabajo de la Autoridad (el "Acuerdo") exigen que, antes de que la Agencia pueda presentar su Informe Anual Aprobado de Trabajo e Informe al Departamento de Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano de los Estados Unidos (el "HUD"), realice una audiencia pública, considere los comentarios del público sobre las enmiendas propuestas, obtenga la aprobación de la Junta de Comisionados y presente las enmiendas al HUD. El período de treinta (30) días para presentar comentarios comienza el Lunes 3 de Noviembre de 2025 y finaliza el Martes 2 de Diciembre de 2025. Se publicarán copias del Informe de Movilización Laboral (MTW) del año fiscal 2025 en el sitio web de la agencia, www.elmcitycommunities.org, en Facebook, www.facebook.com/ElmCityCommunities, o en Instagram, elmcitycommunities_hanh. Le invitamos a enviar sus comentarios por escrito a: ECC/HANH, Informe Anual de Movilización Laboral del Año Fiscal 2025, a la atención de: Evelise Ribeiro, Directora de Cumplimiento e Iniciativas de Movilización Laboral, 360 Orange Street, New Haven, CT 06511, o por correo electrónico a: eribeiro@ elmcitycommunities.org.
De conformidad con las Secciones II y VII, se ha programado una audiencia pública para el Jueves 20 de Noviembre de 2025, 3:00pm, donde se aceptarán y grabarán comentarios del público, a través de TEAMS: ID de la reunión: 265 634 263 754 1 Código de acceso: Ng6E4ny9 Llamar por teléfono +1 872-240-4494,361153891# Estados Unidos, Chicago Buscar un número local ID de la conferencia telefónica: 361 153 891#
Cualquier persona que requiera una adaptación razonable para participar en la audiencia puede llamar al Gerente de Cumplimiento y Apoyo a Residentes al (203) 498-8800, ext. 3170 o al número TDD (203) 497-8434.
ELM CITY COMMUNITIES
Request for Proposals
The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven d/b/a Elm City Communities is currently seeking Proposals for Pay Per Use Laundry Services
A complete copy of the requirements may be obtained from Elm City’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on
Monday, November 3, 2025 at 3:00PM
360 Management Group
Invitation for Bids
Agency Wide Snow Removal Services
360 Management Group is currently seeking bids from qualified contractors to perform snow removal services. A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from Elm City’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing. cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on
Monday, November 3, 2025, at 3:00PM.
ELM CITY COMMUNITIES
Request for Proposals
Brokerage/Agent of Record Consulting Services for Insurance Benefits
The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven d/b/a Elm City Communities is currently seeking Proposals for Brokerage/Agent of Record Consulting Services for Insurance Benefits. A complete copy of the requirements may be obtained from Elm City’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on
November 3, 2025 at 3:00PM
Elm City Communities dba The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven (ECC/ HANH) is seeking quotes from qualified contractors to perform snow removal services. A complete copy of the requirements may be obtained from ECC/HANH’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on Monday, November 3, 2025, at 3:00PM.
REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS – DUE 11/18/25
The New Britain Housing Authority (NBHA) is seeking proposals from licensed contractors to inspect, repair, and restore an office trailer to a safe and fully functional condition. Work includes roof, chassis, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, flooring, and interior repairs. Contractors must provide all labor and materials and comply with all applicable regulations, including Davis-Bacon and HUD Section 3. For full details and scope of work, visit www.nbhact.org.
PUBLIC WORKS MAINTAINER II
The Town of Wallingford Department of Public Works has openings for Maintainer II. Applicants should possess 2 years’ experience as a laborer in construction work involving the operation and care of trucks and other mechanical equipment, or 2 years training in one of the skilled trades and 1 year of experience in construction operations, or an equivalent combination of experience and training. A valid (CDL) Class B or higher is required. $24.87 - $29.16 hourly plus retirement plan, paid sick and vacation time, life insurance, 13 paid holidays, family medical & dental insurance, and promotional opportunities. To apply online by the closing date of September 12, 2025, please visit: www.wallingfordct.gov/government/de partments/human-resources/. Applications are also available at the Department of Human Resources located in Room #301 of the Town Hall, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492. Phone: (203) 294-2080; Fax: (203) 294-2084. EOE
Galasso Materials LLC,
a quarry and paving contractor, has positions open for the upcoming construction season. We are seeking candidates for a variety of positions, including: Scalehouse Dispatcher/ Equipment Operators and Laborers. NO PHONE CALLS. Please mail resume and cover letter to “Hiring Manager”, Galasso Materials LLC, PO Box 1776, East Granby CT 06026.
Galasso Materials is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status
The Glendower Group
Request for Qualifications
Project Architect for the Redevelopment of George Crawford Manor
The Glendower Group is currently seeking proposals from qualified firms for Architectural & Engineering Services for the Redevelopment of George Crawford Manor. A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from Elm City’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on Monday, November 10, 2025, at 3:00PM.
Listing: Technician Apprentice
Opening for a full time HVAC/Oil/Heating Technician Apprentice. Candidate must possess a technical school certificate in heating, ventilation, air conditioning, oil, propane and natural gas. Send resume to: HR Manager, P. O. Box 388, Guilford, CT 06437 or email HRDept@eastriverenergy.com
**An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer including Disabled and Veterans**
METERING SUPERVISOR
The State of Connecticut, Office of Policy and Management is recruiting for a Criminal Justice Grants and Contracts Specialist (Grants and
Custodian
Maintenance workers needed for the Wallingford Public Schools to work the 2:00 P.M. to 10:00 P.M. shift. Hourly rate: $20.27 to $26.41. Requires some experience in building maintenance work. The closing date will be October 20, 2025. To apply online, please visit: www.wallingfordct.gov/government/departments/human-resources/. Applications are also available at the Department of Human Resources located in Room #301 of the Town Hall, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492. Phone: (203) 294-2080; Fax: (203) 294-2084. EOE
THE HOUSING AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF NORWALK, CT IS REQUESTING PROPOSALS FROM QUALIFIED INDEPENDENT PUBLIC ACCOUNTING (IPA) FIRMS OR INDIVIDUALS TO PROVIDE AUDIT SERVICES FOR ITS PORFOLIO OF ASSISTED HOUSING AND RELATED PROGRAMS. TO OBTAIN A COMPLETE COPY OF THE REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL DOCUMENTS,
CONTACT GUILLERMO BENDANA, PROCUREMENT SPECIALIST AT GBENDA@NORWALKHA.ORG PROPOSALS ARE DUE AT 2:00 P.M. ON 11/19/2025.
NORWALK HOUSING IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER. ADAM BOVILSKY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR.
The Town of Wallingford, CT is accepting applications for Metering Supervisor. Wages: $115,203 to $144,003 annually. For additional information and to apply online be the November 4, 2025 closing date, please visit: www.wallingfordct.gov/government/departments/human-resources/. Applications are also available at the Department of Human Resources located in Room #301 of the Town Hall, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492. Phone: (203) 294-2080; Fax: (203) 294-2084. EOE
Looking for a full-time welder in our shop-Skills include but not limited to MIG/TIG welding, plasma ARC-Structural steel and miscellaneous metals. Please send your resume to: Jillherbert@gwfabrication.com
Garrity Asphalt Reclaiming, Inc seeks:
NOTICE
AVISO DE AUDIENCIA PÚBLICA PARA
NOTICE
NOTICE
LA AUTORIDAD DE VIVIENDA DE NEW HAVEN (ECC/HANH)
Construction Equipment Mechanic preferably experienced in Reclaiming and Road Milling Equipment. We offer factory training on equipment we operate. Location: Bloomfield CT We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits
VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE
INFORME ANUAL DE TRABAJO (MTW) DEL AÑO FISCAL 2024
VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE
Contact: Tom Dunay Phone: 860- 243-2300
VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE
Email: tom.dunay@garrityasphalt.com
Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply
Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer
La Sección II y la Sección VII del Acuerdo de Trabajo de la Autoridad {el "Acuerdo") exige que antes de que la Agencia pueda presentar su Plan y Informe Anual de Tra bajo Aprobado al Departamento de Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano de los EE. UU. (el "HUD"), debe realizar una audiencia pública, considerar los comentarios del público sobre las enmiendas propuestas, obtener la aprobación de la Junta de Comisionados y presentar las enmiendas al HUD.
Garrity
Asphalt Reclaiming, Inc seeks:
HOME INC, on behalf of Columbus House and the New Haven Housing Authority, 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 request by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours. Completed preapplications must be returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange Street, Third Floor, New Haven, CT 06510.
HOME INC, on behalf of Columbus House and the New Haven Housing Authority, 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 request by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours. Completed preapplications must be returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange Street, Third Floor, New Haven, CT 06510.
Reclaimer Operators and Milling Operators with current licensing and clean driving record, be willing to travel throughout the Northeast & NY. We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits
HOME INC, on behalf of Columbus House and the New Haven Housing Authority, 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 request by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours. Completed preapplications must be returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange Street, Third Floor, New Haven, CT 06510.
El período de comentarios de treinta (30) días comienza el viernes 1 de noviembre de 2024 y finaliza el sábado 30 de noviembre de 2024. Se pondrán a disposición copias del Informe Moving to Work (MTW) del año fiscal 2024 en el sitio web de la agencia www.elmcitycommunities.org o a través de Twitter, www.twitter.com/ECCommunities o a través de Facebook www.facebook.com/ElmCityCommunities.
Contact: Rick Tousignant Phone: 860- 243-2300
NOTICIA
NOTICIA
Se le invita a enviar comentarios por escrito dirigidos a: ECC/HANH, Moving to Work FY2024 Annual Report, Attn: Evelise Ribeiro, 360 Orange Street, New Haven, CT 06511 o por correo electrónico a: eribeiro@elmcitycommunities.org. De conformidad con las Secciones II y VII mencionadas, se ha programado una audi encia pública en la que se aceptarán y registrarán los comentarios públicos para el lunes 25 de noviembre de 2024 a las 3:00 p. m. a través de RingCentral: https://v.ringcentral. com/join/185686287?pw=d7db4e4f735df6289ed5adfb24f3f113
NOTICIA
Email: rick.tousignant@garrityasphalt.com
Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply
VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES
VALENTINA
MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES
VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES
Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer
Union Company seeks:
ID de la reunión: 185686287
Contraseña: yaw6Zk28PK
O marque:
HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 julio, 2016 hasta cuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) en 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
Contact Dana at 860-243-2300
+12679304000 Estados Unidos (Filadelfia, PA)
HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 julio, 2016 hasta cuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) en 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 .
Tractor Trailer Driver for Heavy & Highway Construction Equipment. Must have a CDL License, clean driving record, capable of operating heavy equipment; be willing to travel throughout the Northeast & NY. We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits
HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 julio, 2016 hasta cuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) en 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
Email: dana.briere@garrityasphalt.com
Código de acceso/ID de la reunión: 185686287
Contraseña de acceso telefónico: 9296952875
Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply
Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer
Números internacionales disponibles: https://v.ringcentral.com/teleconference
NEW HAVEN
Construction
Cualquier persona que requiera una adaptación razonable para participar en la audien cia puede llamar al Gerente de adaptaciones razonables (203) 498-8800, ext. 1506 o al número TDD (203) 497-8434.mber (203) 497-8434.
NEW HAVEN
NEW HAVEN
242-258 Fairmont Ave
Seeking to employ experienced individuals in the labor, foreman, operator and teamster trades for a heavy outside work statewide. Reliable personal transportation and a valid drivers license required. To apply please call (860) 621-1720 or send resume to: Personnel Department, P.O. Box 368, Cheshire, CT06410.
2BR Townhouse, 1.5 BA, 3BR, 1 level , 1BA
242-258 Fairmont Ave
242-258 Fairmont Ave
All new apartments, new appliances, new carpet, close to I-91 & I-95 highways, near bus stop & shopping center
2BR Townhouse, 1.5 BA, 3BR, 1 level , 1BA
Listing: Mechanic
2BR Townhouse, 1.5 BA, 3BR, 1 level , 1BA
All new apartments, new appliances, new carpet, close to I-91 & I-95 highways, near bus stop & shopping center
Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer M/F/V Drug Free Workforce
All new apartments, new appliances, new carpet, close to I-91 & I-95 highways, near bus stop & shopping center
Pet under 40lb allowed. Interested parties contact Maria @ 860-985-8258
Immediate opening for a full-time mechanic; maintenance to be done on commercial diesel trucks and trailers. A valid driver’s license is required in order to run company errands efficiently and safely. Send resume to: HR Manager, P. O. Box 388, Guilford, CT 06437 or email hrdept@eastriverenergy.com
Pet under 40lb allowed. Interested parties contact Maria @ 860-985-8258
Listing: Commercial Driver
***An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer, including disabled and veterans***
Pet under 40lb allowed. Interested parties contact Maria @ 860-985-8258 CT. Unified Deacon’s Association is pleased to offer a Deacon’s Certificate Program. This is a 10 month program designed to assist in the intellectual formation of Candidates in response to the Church’s Ministry needs. The cost is $125. Classes start Saturday, August 20, 2016 1:303:30 Contact: Chairman, Deacon Joe J. Davis, M.S., B.S. (203) 996-4517 Host,General Bishop Elijah Davis, D.D. Pastor ofPitts Chapel U.F.W.B. Church 64 Brewster St. New Haven, CT
Continuum of Care, New Haven, Connecticut –
Senior Sales Representative Wanted
241 Quinnipiac Avenue, New Haven which are two bedrooms and rent from $1,950-$2,000 and include heat, hot water and cooking gas, private entrance, off street parking and onsite laundry. I have a couple with washer/dryer which are $2,000. Please bill 241 Quinnipiac Avenue, LLC, 111 Roberts Street, Suite G1, East Hartford, CT 06108.
Also, I have a 3 bedroom unit at 254 Fairmont Avenue, New Haven. They rent for $2,050 and the tenant pays all the utilities. Off street parking and private entrance. Section 8 welcomed.
LEGAL NOTICE INVITATION TO BID
Full Time Class B driver for a fast-paced petroleum company for days and week ends. Previous experience required. Competitive wage, 401(k) and benefits. Send resume to: HR Manager, P. O. Box 388, Guilford, CT 06437 or email HRDept@ eastriverenergy.com
CT. Unified Deacon’s Association is pleased to offer a Deacon’s Certificate Program. This is a 10 month program designed to assist in the intellectual formation of Candidates in response to the Church’s Ministry needs. The cost is $125. Classes start Saturday, August 20, 2016 1:303:30 Contact: Chairman, Deacon Joe J. Davis, M.S., B.S. (203) 996-4517 Host,General Bishop Elijah Davis, D.D. Pastor ofPitts Chapel U.F.W.B. Church 64 Brewster St. New Haven, CT
CT. Unified Deacon’s Association is pleased to offer a Deacon’s Certificate Program. This is a 10 month program designed to assist in the intellectual formation of Candidates in response to the Church’s Ministry needs. The cost is $125. Classes start Saturday, August 20, 2016 1:303:30 Contact: Chairman, Deacon Joe J. Davis, M.S., B.S. (203) 996-4517 Host,General Bishop Elijah Davis, D.D. Pastor ofPitts Chapel U.F.W.B. Church 64 Brewster St. New Haven, CT
SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY
Also, I have a 2 bedroom at 248 Fairmont Avenue, New Haven. They rent for $1,950.00 and the tenant pays all the utilities. Off street parking and private entrance. Section 8 welcomed.
Advertising and the cultivation of existing and new advertising clients is key to the growth and continued success of The Inner-City News. The paper is delivered weekly to businesses, schools, shopping outlets and wherever newspapers can be found. This is a remote sales position.
Work closely with the Publisher and editor to create a successf
SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY
SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY
360 Management Group
Invitation for Bids
Sealed bids are invited by the Housing Authority of the Town of Seymour until 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 Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour.
Sealed bids are invited by the Housing Authority of the Town of Seymour until 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 Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour.
Please bill the Fairmont Avenue to 258 Fairmont Avenue, LLC at the same billing address as 241 Quinnipiac Avenue. I will be the contact person for them to call at 860-231-8080, ext. 161.
Listing: Technician Apprentice
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.
Sealed bids are invited by the Housing Authority of the Town of Seymour until 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 Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour.
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.
Bidding documents are available from the Seymour Housing Authority Office, 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579.
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.
HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran, S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified Businesses Haynes Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 AA/EEO EMPLOYER Salary (base pay) + Commission to be discussed Potential local travel. Senior Sales Representative Qualifications and Skills: Communicates well and has strong written and verbal communication skills. Knows effective ways to market products and services and learns about new offerings quickly.
Bidding documents are available from the Seymour Housing Authority Office, 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579.
http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage
Fax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372
LEGAL NOTICE INVITATION TO BID: CONTINUUM OF CARE, NEW HAVEN is requesting licensed and insured contractor bids for their property located at 979 Quin nipiac Avenue, New Haven. Complete first floor kitchen renovation. Scope to include new kitchen layout. Owner to supply new cabinets. Scope to also include new flooring of area. Job also includes complete first floor bathroom renovation. This includes a complete gut (down to studs) of the bathroom. Environmental testing will be conducted by the owner. Scope includes supplying and installing new step in shower stall, vanity, toilet, tile flooring and wall finishes, tile 4ft wainscot is desired, lighting, grab bars by toilet and showers, exhaust fan with motion sensor, and baseboard heating. The scope of work to include floor drain for the bathroom. Scope to include replacement of existing windows, entry doors. Owner to select tile style, colors, and style of faucets and light fixtures. Further detailed information will be given on the scheduled site visit. GC price should include dumpster and permit feeds. Minority/women’s business enterprises are encouraged to apply. A bidding site meeting will be held at 979 Quinnipiac Avenue, New Haven on 11/22/2024 at 1pm. All bids are due by 12/6/2024 at 10 am. All bids, W9, work scope timeline and copy of license and questions should be submitted in writing to Monica O’Connor via email moconnor@continuumct.org or delivered to 109 Legion Avenue, New Haven.
The Housing Authority reserves the right to accept or reject any or all bids, to reduce the scope of the project to reflect available funding, and to waive any informalities in the bidding, if such actions are in the best interest of the Housing Authority.
Bidding documents are available from the Seymour Housing Authority Office, 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579.
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
The Housing Authority reserves the right to accept or reject any or all bids, to reduce the scope of the project to reflect available funding, and to waive any informalities in the bidding, if such actions are in the best interest of the
POLICE OFFICER POLICE
Opening for a full time HVAC/Oil/Heating Technician Apprentice. Candidate must possess a technical school certificate in heating, ventilation, air conditioning, oil, propane and natural gas. Send resume to: HR Manager, P. O. Box 388, Guilford, CT 06437 or email HRDept@eastriverenergy.com
September 23, 2024, at
HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran, S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified Businesses Haynes Construction Company, 32 Progress
Colorado’s the latest state to make school meals free for students, a move that could boost grades and improve health.
What Happens When Every Child Gets to Eat at School?
by Alvin Buyinza
Tuesday night, voters in Colorado made a decision that could change what being fed looks like for kids across the state — they approved Proposition LL and MM, which fund free meals for all public K-12 students. And they’re going to do it by taxing the state’s wealthiest residents.
It’s a bold move at a time when the nation faces the longest federal shutdown in U.S. history, and food insecurity, especially among students, is coming into sharper focus. If similar legislation gains traction nationally, it could ensure kids across the United States no longer go hungry or rack up lunch debt because they can’t afford a meal at school.
How Do Free School Meals Reduce Educational Inequality?
Free school meals are essential to improving the health and education of Black students, as they represent a much higher share of children who are living in poverty, according to the Food Research & Action Center, a nonprofit that advocates for equitable policy solutions to fight against hunger.
In 2020, during the height of the pandemic, about 66% of Black children and teens received free and reduced lunch compared to roughly 43% of white children and teens, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, participation was much high-
er that year because Congress granted school waivers, which allowed them to provide free meals to all students regardless of their income. Congress ended the program once schools reopened. Research indicates that access to free school meals can be a contributing factor in improved academic performance and health. And when every child gets a
meal — no questions asked — stigma can disappear.
Can Free School Meals Help Students Burdened By Lunch Debt?
Free school meals can also put an end to lunch debts, or unpaid balances for school lunches. The national public school lunch
debt is about $194 million per year, according to an August report from the Education Data Initiative. Some students have to go to extraordinary measures to pay off their lunch debts — or that of their peers.
In 2023, Missouri teen DeJuan Strickland made headlines for raising thousands of dollars through a GoFundMe campaign to pay off lunch debts for students at his former elementary school.
“You know with my experience in fourth grade, and not having enough money to pay for my lunch and having to sit at a table, watch other kids eat their food, while I couldn’t eat anything, it was rough for me. And I don’t want other kids to experience that,” he told Essence.
In addition to Colorado, eight other states — California, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, and Vermont — have passed laws that ensure free school meals for all K-12 public students.
Experts in Colorado estimate families in the state will save $1,250 per year by having the cost of school meals covered by the new taxes on the state’s wealthiest residents — folks earning $300,000 or more per year — will also be put toward pay raises for school cafeteria staff and support district efforts to purchase locally-sourced food. Any remaining funds would be used to cover new state expenses for administering the SNAP program, which is expected to cost states more due to federal budget cuts earlier this year..
Nneka Ogwumike is first to join new league offering WNBA stars multimillion-dollar salaries: report
by Mildred Europa Taylor, Face2FaceAfrica.com
WNBA champion and current Seattle Storm star Nneka Ogwumike has become the first known player to sign with Project B, a new global women’s basketball league that is getting ready to launch in the fall of 2026.
“A new chapter built on purpose, partnership, and possibility. Proud to join @ projectb_global not just as a player, but as a partner and owner, to help shape the future of global sport,” the 10-time WNBA All-Star, 2016 WNBA MVP, and 2016 WNBA champion wrote on Instagram.
The report has surprised many in the league, including women basketball lovers. And it has since emerged that Project B has already signed other active WNBA stars. Project B is a 5-on-5 league that will feature six, 11-player teams and will take place during the WNBA offseason.
The new league has arrived at a time when WNBA players and the league office are negotiating about a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), which is expected to pay players better salaries than they are receiving now.
Analysts have said that one of the ways that Project B could compete with
By April Ryan
The Trump Brand took a significant hit as it was swept up in the Democratic blue wave of the election last night.
Chris Jones, Democratic candidate for U.S. House of Representatives (AR-02), says, “Last night was electric, and it was unquestionably a wave.”
Democrats won big in what is widely considered a repudiation of Trump’s 9 months at the White House in his second term.
In the state of Virginia, which produced the first big election night win and saw the election of the first woman governor, Democrat Abigail Spanberger, 56% of Virginia’s residents disapprove of President Trump. In New Jersey, 55% of state residents disapprove of the president; in New York, 69% disapprove; and in California, 63% disapprove of the president.
The Trump brand or his support for any candidates did nothing to benefit those he endorsed in this election. They actually lost in each race he publicly put his name behind. Trump endorsed former New York Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo, who lost the New York mayor's race in his run as an independent. And New Jersey Republican Jack Ciattarelli, who ran for governor with the presidential endorsement, also lost his prospective race.
the WNBA is by giving salaries that are greater than the WNBA’s. A recent report by Front Office Sports stated that the new league is doing just that.
“Multiple stars are being offered seven-figure salaries starting at $2 million annually, with their earnings for multiyear deals reaching eight figures. In addition, players will receive equity in the league, similar to Unrivaled [new league],” the report by Front Office Sports said.
Project B is founded by former Facebook executive Grady Burnett and Skype cofounder Geoff Prentice. They collaborated with Sela, an entertainment company owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, to introduce the league.
Experts say that its promise of multi million-dollar salaries puts pressure on the WNBA amid the CBA negotiations. Also, Ogwumike, who is the face of the WNBA players in terms of negotiating the new CBA, is the first person to make it public that she had joined Project B, putting extra pressure on the WNBA.
Project B is not a direct threat to the WNBA at the moment but the situation could change any time. This depends on which superstar decides to join the new league and if its salaries would be bigger than what players receive from the WNBA, analysts said.
The next question is, will the democratic momentum be sustainable? Jones further explained, “This can become a 2026 tsunami, but turning a wave into a tsunami takes energy. A lot of energy. It doesn’t just happen. The conditions are there. Now we have to work!”
Some Democrats would argue that the work is already underway. The pushback against Trump’s national redistricting efforts received a thumb in the eye from California voters. Prop 50, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s counterbalance to President Trump’s redistricting efforts, passed in California last night.
Although Trump's name was not on the ballot last night, his Republican policies were. The United States has now entered the longest government shutdown in its history. Forty-two million Americans are not getting SNAP benefits. Economists are acknowledging that the government shutdown is contributing to the rise in delinquent debt in the student loan, automotive, and credit card industries. These items are among the negatives Americans are protesting against.
Compounding Trump’s political problems is a tariff battle that’s directly impacting pocketbooks. The day after the elections, the Trump administration was arguing before the US Supreme Court in favor of the president's tariff powers.
Meanwhile, President Trump‘s poll numbers are underwater, standing at a 37% national disapproval rate
Donald Trump is the biggest loser
Students eating lunch at school Credit: Ariel Skelley
Photo: Wikimedia Commons/John Mac
A Sleepy Start In Ward 16
INSCRIPCIÓN AL PROGRAMA HEAD START
Hay cupos disponibles para Pre-K3 y Pre-K4 en las escuelas Dr Reginald Mayo, John S Martinez y otras escuelas del vecindario, para el año escolar 2025-2026. Para aplicar, visite 54 Meadow Street, New Haven o en línea nhps net
Make that Fair Haven’s Ward 16, where between 6:00 and 7:30 a.m. only 13 people had voted Tuesday morning according to the moderator Caleb Negron, who sat inside the John Martinez School’s cozy gymnasium off of James Street in Fair Haven, while outside the cold if sunny weather might have kept people away from the polls.
Negron said he expected more at noon and an influx in the later afternoon when people may be better able to come after work.
But there was another kind of sleepiness: Of the ten voters this reporter spoke to all referenced Mayor Justin Elicker, the three-term incumbent Democrat whom they voted for in his race against Republican challenger Steve Orosco. When asked, about half of the voters the Independent spoke to were not even aware of the race between Democratic candidate Magda Natal and Independent Party candidate Rafael Fuentes to fill the aldermanic seat of incumbent Jose Crespo, who is not running this year.
For those who were aware of the aldermanic race, however, Nadal elicited enthusiasm for her years of helpfulness to people in the Fair Haven community.
“I was a single mom,” said Germaine Lyde, “and she was involved in housing things and helped me with resources. She’s always for the community.”
Likewise Ed Rodriguez and his daughter Lindsey were proud of their votes for Natal. “We made the right choice,” he said. “She’s a person who answers my calls.” But there was more: Rodriguez has lived
in the Fair Haven neighborhood for 58 years and knew Natal’s father. “I liked the father, and the daughter,” he said
Of the issues particular to Fair Haven that he would like his candidate to work on, Rodriguez struck a theme that several other voters echoed: “Fair Haven has been neglected,” he said. “We need the city to be more aggressive to bring cleanliness to this area.”
He clarified that he not only meant cleaning the streets of litter, physically. He referenced unwanted behaviors especially late at night: prostitution and “running bikes in the summer at two in the morning. That’s no good.”
It may be of interest that neither the Rodriguezes or the other voters this reporter spoke to appeared to be even aware of the city’s current proposal to convert English Station, which literally looms over the voting location, into a public park and pool.
When apprised of it, however, Ed Rodriguez was enthusiastic. It addresses, he said, another of the issues that matter to him: more and better activities for Fair Haven’s kids.
Voter David Feliciano said he actually would not have voted in this election at all had he not, as it turned out, been driving his mom to cast her vote.
He, however, was glad he did. His vote for Mayor Elicker was enthusiastic, he said, citing the manner in which the mayor has been “standing up to Trump, who is taking away SNAP.”
Regarding the aldermanic race, he said, “I don’t know who they are. I’m not a political person.”
Los niños deben tener 3 años para septiembre 1,2025.
Plan de estudios de aprendizaje basado en el juego
Programa diario de 6 horas
Solo para residentes de New Haven
Para más información Sitio web: www nhps net Teléfono: 475-220-1440 o 475-220-1464 Correo electrónico: NHPS Headstart@newhaven k12 ct us
Rafael Ramos (center) with Ed Rodriguez and his daughter Lindsey Credit: Allan Appel photo by Allan Appel
A new EdTrust report shows states could halve their chronic absenteeism rates by the 2027-2028 school year if they follow these suggestions.
Fewer Black Students Missing School as Attendance Slowly Rebounds
by Alvin Buyinza
Chronic absenteeism rates in K-12 schools, which skyrocketed after school reopened following the COVID-19 lockdown, have fallen over the last few months nationwide and it’s possible that some states could see their rates cut in half within two years.
That’s according to a new report from EdTrust, a nonprofit that advocates for racial equity in education. The report analyzed attendance records and policies, investment plans, and disciplinary policies and practices across 22 states and Washington, D.C.
The report’s findings show that chronic absenteeism rates from the 2022-2023 academic year can be reduced by the 2027-2028 school year if states continue to follow suggestions made in the EdTrust report.
RELATED: Chronically Absent: Why Black Kids Are Still Missing From Classrooms
Those include conducting early interventions, where students and parents are made aware of risk of missing too many school days, after-school tutoring and using wraparound services that address students’ mental health.
The report and its recommendations are especially important for curbing the disproportionate share of Black students who are missing from school.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, Black students made up about 37% of students nationwide who were chronically absent — defined as missing at least 18 days of school — during the 2022-2023 school year. That’s compared to around 22% of white students and 33% of Hispanic students.
RELATED: Why Are So Many Black Students Absent?
Experts say Black students make up a larger share of chronically absent students because they tend to face a wider combination of challenges at home and in the classroom, including lack of transportation, food insecurity, poverty, suspensions and lack of school engagement, according to Attendance Works, a
nonprofit that works to reduce chronic absenteeism.
Research shows that Black students who are chronically absent from school are less likely to graduate and more likely to struggle academically and socially compared to peers with more consistent records of attendance.
Carl Felton III, an EdTrust policy analyst and the report’s author, says chronic absenteeism is not just a reflection of a school’s environment. He says it also reveals “the state of our students’ experiences and that they need some support, and [that] support looks like more than just making them go to school.”
RELATED: Want Kids to Achieve?
Heal Racism’s Wounds
Research shows that Black students who are chronically absent from school are less likely to graduate and more likely to struggle academically and socially compared to their peers with more consistent attendance.
Part of what states and school districts have to do to lower their chronic absenteeism rates is to monitor school attendance data, Felton said. States that collect data are better positioned to direct resources to address issues among students who are the most chronically absent.
Most of the states profiled in the stateby-state report are making progress toward EdTrust’s five-year absentee reduction goal, according to their 2024-2025 school-year data, Felton says. Those states — Alabama, California, Delaware, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Rhode Island, Washington, and West Virginia — used at least one of EdTrust’s recommendations.
RELATED: Schools and Black Students’ Mental Health: The Kids Aren’t Alright
But some states may not be improving as quickly as EdTrust projected to meet the goal.
Felton said he knows many people are worried that chronic absenteeism rates are still abnormally high. But he notes that even slower-than-expected progress in reducing absenteeism nationally represents thousands of students resuming their education and taking it seriously. “That should not be taken lightly, but that should show us that the right things are happening, even if it’s not happening as fast as folks want to see it,” he says.
A Week Later: A Dire Need in Jamaica
By April Ryan
The United Nations reports that Hurricane Melissa has scattered nearly 5 million tons of debris across Western Jamaica, hindering crews from delivering aid and restoring critical services promptly. According to reports, crews are still working to clear roads, attempting to reach 27 communities cut off by landslides and flooding. Many of those communities are still without power and WiFi. The category five storm killed at least 32 people in Jamaica and another 43 in nearby Haiti, where 13 people remain missing. Here in the United States, the head of the Congressional Black Caucus, New York Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, is working feverishly with the State Department to ensure help is coming from the United States to the affected Caribbean nations, particularly Jamaica. Both of the New York Congresswom-
an’s parents immigrated to the United States from Jamaica. Clarke has been a strong advocate for Caribbean issues and serves as co-chair of the Congressional Caribbean Caucus. According to a State Department website, “Within hours, Secretary [Marco] Rubio deployed a regional Disaster Assistance Response Team, including urban search-and-rescue teams, to assess needs and provide search and recovery assistance.
The State Department also indicates it “is collaborating with UN agencies, NGOs, and host governments to deliver food, water, medical supplies, hygiene kits, temporary shelter, and search and rescue support.” Iconic and award-winning actress, activist, and Jamaican native Sherly Lee Ralph said on The Tea with April, “It is exactly one week later, and there are some people who have not had anybody come to help them, nobody!” Ralph emoted,” It’s rough. We need
help there now.” She is calling on all the people who have “enjoyed the beaches in Jamaica” to help by finding trusted places you know and making a donation, as the storm's destruction has halted the normalcy of life on the island.” Ralph provided an update on some areas that hold personal significance for her. “The school that my parents helped build lost their roof. They're trying to figure out where we’re gonna put these kids, how we're gonna get them back into school, all of these things, and it’s like I can see where we’re going afterwards, but how do we start to get the help there now?”
The actresses' children have also started a donation center at their facility, Walk Good LA, to help address some of the dire needs in Jamaica. Her family used the same space for donations to help the victims of the L.A. fires earlier this year.
"wooden houses in negril, jamaica"
IMAGINE THE NBA
Sports Zone
Every
Xfinity Fan View
Live
Multiview
Watch
