YALE DAILY NEWS · THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 2014 · yaledailynews.com
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NEWS
“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” HENRY FORD FOUNDER OF FORD MOTOR COMPANY
Tweed plan not taking off
DANIEL BETTS/WIKIMEDIA
Resident concerns about airport safety have stalled state and lawmakers plans to make New Haven’s Tweed Airport runway longer and bring more airlines to the airport. BY DAVID BLUMENTHAL STAFF REPORTER Current plans to expand New Haven’s Tweed Airport will not be coming to fruition anytime soon. State and local lawmakers are currently pushing a bill to lengthen the runway of the airport from 5,600 to 6,000 feet long. The expansion is considered a key platform of Mayor Toni Harp’s Economic Development Plan, essential for attracting additional airlines — US Airways Express is currently the only one at the airport. However, the bill is stuck in committee because residents are concerned about safety, especially after a plane crash near the airport in August 2013. City Hall Communications Director Laurence Grotheer said that an expansion of airline companies at Tweed Airport has been a priority of Mayor Harp’s since her Feb. 3 State of
the City Address. But he added that the issue has not progressed as quickly as she would like. Grotheer said Harp’s administration has communicated by mail with residents in the areas of New Haven and East Haven adjoining Tweed New Haven Airport, in order to learn how to improve soundproofing and find out how to mitigate the impact of a future expansion. Grotheer declined to comment on how successful reaching out to area residents has been, and said that other levels of government will need to get involved in order for the project to be successful. “This is a project that’s being addressed on the municipal, state, and federal levels,” he said. “Certainly the FAA gets involved in approving flights and airports, the state has to apporve these runway-improving components and the city is doing its part to soften the impact for area residents and to leverage funding from federal support.”
Southern Connecticut’s federal elected officials have also been front-and-center in the fight to expand Tweed. Rep. DeLauro said in an email that she is proud of her office’s previous success at winning federal grants for Tweed and that her work on Tweed’s expansion will continue. “I have been engaged on this issue for many years and am proud of my office’s efforts to successfully win federal money to upgrade safety measures at Tweed,” she said. “I will continue to work with area residents and the cities of New Haven and East Haven to come to a solution that is agreeable to all parties.” However, the airport’s potential expansion provokes unease in the City of East Haven, where Tweed’s proximity has been both an economic boon and a safety hazard. Most recently, on Aug. 9, 2013, a plane crashed near the airport—killing four and raising concerns about
Transgender inmate sparks debate BY APARNA NATHAN CONTRIBUTING REPORTER The status of one transgendered teen in the custody of the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF) has triggered questions of both juvenile justice and transgender rights. The teen, whose name is not being released because she is a minor, spent the past six months in a residential placement facility, a rehabilitative center for juvenile delinquents. Due to her recent violent behavior within the facility, the teen has been transferred to an adult women’s correctional facility while the state weighs whether to transfer her case to the state Department of Corrections (DOC), which handles adult offenders, and what type of facility should house the teen. Adult correctional facilities historically separate inmates by gender based on their biological sex, rather than by the gender with which they identify. Accordingly, the DOC originally petitioned to place the teen in a male facility, but the court ordered that she be housed at the all-female York Correctional Institution for the time being. “Allowing anyone to be incarcerated without even being charged with a crime is a frightening precedent in itself,” said Sandra Staub, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut. “When the result is that a transgender teen is housed with adults, the implications are also terrible for children’s rights and transgender rights.” On Feb. 4, the DCF filed the motion to move the teen from the Connecticut Juvenile Training School, a rehabilitation center for troubled minors. She has been in DCF custody since she was five years old and was first admitted to a juvenile facility as a juvenile delinquent in Nov. 2013. The motion was subsequently granted on April 8, ordering her
transfer to York Correctional Institution, a prison for adult women. The motion is under a statute that allows for the transfer of juveniles who are “dangerous to [themselves] or others or cannot be safely held at the Connecticut Juvenile Training School,” according to court documents. This case marks the second time the statute has been invoked in Connecticut, said James Connolly, the public defender for the case. The transfer was initiated following an incident at the teen’s previous facility in Massachusetts, where she was involved in an altercation with a staff member that temporarily left that staff member blind. Her record bears multiple other assaults on peers and staff at several programs, according to a written statement from the DCF. While the teen’s legal team acknowledges the teen’s aggressive nature, they attribute this to past trauma. In an affidavit to the court, the teen details the sexual, physical and emotional abuse that she has experienced. The incident at the Massachusetts facility, for example, was the teen’s response to a male staff member suddenly restraining her from behind, which she misinterpreted due to her past trauma, said Aaron Romano, the teen’s court-appointed attorney. “She responded to protect herself,” Romano said. “Residential facilities should know more than anyone else that children who have suffered trauma are sensitive.” The teen is currently being held at York in the mental health unit. Although she is not in solitary confinement, she is not permitted to leave her cell due to laws that keep juveniles in adult prisons out of sight of adult prisoners. In her affidavit, she stated that she can hear the screams of other inmates and cannot sleep at night. The move to an adult prison has incited outrage among
activists, who point out that the teen was not charged with an adult crime and, rather, is being moved to the adult prison due to a lack of the right facilities to treat her. Additionally, when making her initial plea as a juvenile delinquent, she was told that her maximum sentence would only be at a juvenile residential facility, not an adult prison, Connolly said. “We’re punishing a victim,” said Abby Anderson, executive director of the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance. The original motion for transfer called for a move from the teen’s juvenile residential facility to the Manson Youth Institution, a high-security male facility for juvenile offenders. The counsel for the DOC has stated that there are currently no plans to move the youth to Manson, but there is still some chance that she will be placed in a male prison, Connolly said. The teen is receiving hormone treatment to develop female features and fears that she would be physically harmed in a male institution, according to her affidavit. Her gender identity has contributed to her alienation in the prison system, Romano said. “[The original motion to transfer to an adult facility] was filed because of her transgender status,” Connolly said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that, if she were identifying as male, she would be at the Connecticut Juvenile Training School now.” The teen’s legal team now aims to facilitate her removal from York and move her into a different, more appropriate facility. One appealing possibility is the recently constructed institution at Solnit South, Connolly said. This residential center was built to house aggressive or assaultive girls. As of April 1, Connecticut prisons house 16,568 prisoners. Contact APARNA NATHAN at aparna.nathan@yale.edu .
whether the airport’s safety regulations are adequate. East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo, Jr. announced in an April 10 press release that he will begin reviewing the bill to expand the runway and proceed with extreme caution.
I think that a Tweed expansion is good for the region and good for the city. ROLAND LEMAR State representative, Connecticut “East Haven understands and embraces the economic importance of Tweed Airport and the Town does not intend to obstruct reasonable, mutually beneficial operation of the facility,” he said in a statement. “However, in light of the impact on area residents of paving the
runway safety areas, I have asked the Town’s legal counsel to undertake an immediate review of the proposed legislation,” State Rep. Roland Lemar conceded that the bill to reopen negotiations between New Haven and East Haven faces too many obstacles to advance during the General Assembly’s current session, which will end in under three weeks. Lemar said he was disappointed given the economic boon Tweed could be for the region. “I think that a Tweed expansion is good for the region and good for the city, small companies in New Haven and for the region,” he said. “Trying to be smart and grow Tweed’s air service without growing the footprint is the goal.” Back on campus, Yalies interviewed agreed with Lemar’s assessment. Allan Hon MUS ’15 said that,
as a music student who frequently travels with equipment, it would be helpful to have more airlines because it would give him more options when flying out of Tweed and fewer transfers. Hon added that he would also use a revamped Tweed to travel to his native California. “It’s going to require a much longer, more public conversation before we can get to that point,” Lemar said. “Right now, I’m sensing very little support for the Tweed bill in the legislature until we all come together — City of New Haven, City of East Haven, residents of East Haven residents of Morris Cove — and agree that this is in our best interest.” Tweed Airport was constructed in 1931 and was named for its first-ever manager, the late John “Jack” Tweed. Contact DAVID BLUMENTHAL at david.blumenthal@yale.edu .
Rowland indicted for corruption BY ABIGAIL BESSLER STAFF REPORTER A former Connecticut governor is currently under indictment by a federal jury, bringing the state’s anticorruption system into question. John Rowland, who was elected as governor for a record three four-year terms from 1995 to 2004, allegedly solicited congressional campaigns to secretly hire him as a consultant. Rowland, a former Republican congressman, asked Republican candidates Mark Greenberg in 2010 and Lisa Wilson-Foley in 2012 to hire him. Both candidates ran and lost in Rowland’s old fifth district seat. He has been indicted under seven charges, including conspiracy and two counts of falsifying records to thwart a federal investigation. The charges come just 10 years after he was convicted of corruption in another investigation, a case that forced him to resign as governor. Last March, Wilson-Foley and her husband Brian Foley admitted that her campaign paid Rowland $35,000 for political consulting by labeling the money an expense for Foley’s health care company, according to indictment documents. “This is another sad chapter in a story that Connecticut knows all too well,” said Andrew Doba, a spokesman for Governor Dannel Malloy, in a statement last week. “Law enforcement should be commended for their diligence on this matter. Governor Malloy hopes for a quick resolution.” Rowland had previously served 10 months in prison after the investigation in 2004 that forced him to resign, which showed he had received gifts from state contractors. For this reason, Rowland acknowledged that he had to “stay under the radar as much as possible” in helping Wilson-Foley two years ago, since her campaign rivals at the time included an FBI agent who had pursued Rowland’s 2004 case, according to an email from Rowland published in plea documents. “We’ve been down this road with John Rowland before, and I think it’s an embarrassment,” said Cheri Quickmire, Executive Director of Common Cause Connecticut, an organization that advocates governmental transparency. Quickmire said the state reevaluated its anticorruption measures and passed stricter campaign finance and disclosure laws after Rowland’s resignation and eventual impris-
onment in 2004. She said the Republican governor who followed Rowland, Jodi Rell, worked with the legislature to address corruption. “I am glad to see that we take prosecuting these crimes seriously in this state,” Quickmire said. “We did learn a lot from 2005, but apparently [Rowland] didn’t learn quite as much as he needed to.” Common Cause has been advocating recently for tighter campaign finance rules, which Quickmire said have been loosened in the last session. “The public deserves to know who’s spending money on candidates,” she said. Greenberg, who came forward two years ago to publicly reveal Rowland’s proposal to help with his campaign, is now running for Congress again and will likely receive GOP nomination. His campaign manager, Bill Evans, wrote in a statement that the candidate has offered up all the information he knows about Rowland and is confident in the U.S. Attorney’s office to handle the case. Evans added that Greenberg’s campaign message has not and will not change in the aftermath of the indictment. “Mark believes that the system is broken and that too many people have lost faith in Washington D.C.,” Evans wrote. “Corruption on either side of the aisle is unacceptable.” Robert Wechsler, the director of research for the City Ethics blog and former administrator of the New Haven Democracy Fund, a public campaign-financing program, agreed that institutional corruption can lead voters to lose trust in government. He cited the fact that around 30 to 40 percent of registered voters in Connecticut are unaffiliated with a party and therefore cannot vote in a primary as evidence that people no longer feel loyal to either party. However, Wechsler said Connecticut had one of the better transparency programs in the country. “It could be improved, like everything,” he said. “But we have good campaign finance rules and good ethics at the state level. And it was because of the whole Rowland thing that public financing was finally embraced.” Jury selection for the trial will begin June 10. Contact ABIGAIL BESSLER at abigail.bessler@yale.edu .