Here are the Yale Daily News stories that defined the past year:

The post 2021 in Review appeared first on Yale Daily News.

FBI Special Agent Christopher Cieplik filed a criminal complaint against DiMassa on Tuesday. The complaint alleges that in January, DiMassa established a business alongside another individual, who the complaint calls “Person 1,” named Compass Investment Group, LLC. On Feb. 5, according to Cieplik, the business established a bank account in Waterbury’s Webster Bank. Between Feb. 12 and April 30, seven checks were made payable to DiMassa’s company from the City of West Haven. DiMassa withdrew money from the bank 21 times, pocketing $178,150. Between February and September, according to Cieplik’s complaint, checks from the city to Compass Investment Group, LLC totaled $636,783.70. The invoices that requested the payment to the investment group “refer to services provided to ‘City of West Haven, Health Department.’”

But the West Haven Corporation Counsel claims that the West Haven Health Director “never used, selected, approved, or otherwise engaged” the company concerning the Health Department, Cieplik wrote. Officials are looking into whether the funds came from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, which provided over a million dollars in COVID-19 relief to West Haven. The Connecticut Office of Policy and Management has launched a statewide audit to investigate.

U.S. attorney Leonard Boyle, FBI Special Agent David Sundberg and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Special Agent Christina Scaringi announced the arrest in a Wednesday statement. 

“It is further alleged that DiMassa made several large cash withdrawals from the Compass Investment Group LLC bank account, some of which were made shortly before or after he was recorded as having made a large cash ‘buy-in’ of gaming chips at the Mohegan Sun Casino,” the statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office reads.

DiMassa was charged with Wire Fraud and appeared in a federal court in New Haven late Wednesday morning, according to the federal officials. The representative, who has also served as an employee of the City of West Haven for 12 years, was released on a $250,000 bond. 

In a statement to the News, New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said DiMassa’s arrest “is very concerning and if true a deep violation of public trust.” Elicker noted that the state and federal government periodically conduct audits of the city’s municipal grants.

DiMassa and his media representative did not respond to requests for comment.

House Speaker Matt Ritter and Majority Leader Jason Rojas released a statement shortly after noon on Wednesday. The representatives wrote that “we have significant concerns about Rep. DiMassa’s arrest but we don’t have information on the charges or additional details.”

“Elected officials are rightly held to a high standard of conduct and trust,” Ritter and Rojas said. “Even the slightest hint of wrongdoing bruises that trust… We will be monitoring this story closely to see when and if more facts emerge.”

DiMassa has been stripped of his Connecticut General Assembly committee assignments.

On Oct. 8, West Haven Mayor Nancy Rossi told city residents via a press conference that she had been reviewing “many” of the city’s expenditures from the CARES Act.

“I have come across some large expenditures that cause me great concern,” Rossi said. “Some of these expenditures appear improper and may potentially be fraudulent.”

She added that the prospect that some of West Haven’s $1.2 million in CARES Act funding could be misused “sickens” her.

“If anyone is found guilty, they should go right to jail,” she said at the press conference.

Neither Cieplik’s complaint nor the U.S. Attorney’s Office statement mentions the CARES act. But according to CT Mirror, December 2020 West Haven City Council meeting minutes reveal that the council put DiMassa in charge of CARES Act funding. The Mirror also reported that the FBI visited West Haven City Hall on Oct. 8.

Rossi’s office could not be reached for comment by the News.

Following the West Haven allegations, Senate Republican Leader Kevin Kelly (R-Stratford) and Senate Republican Leader Pro Tempore Paul Formica (R-East Lyme) sent a letter to Office of Policy and Management Secretary Melissa McCaw requesting the state’s budget office to conduct audits of all Connecticut municipalities — which would include the Elm City. 

“We ask that your office take immediate action to investigate the use of all relief funds across our state,” Kelly and Formica wrote to McCaw. “The allegations and possible misuse of funds are deeply troubling. These funds are intended to help residents and communities recover during one of the most challenging times of a generation. To learn that officials may have allegedly diverted funding for other purposes shatters public trust. It is wrong and it is infuriating.”

According to McCaw, the Office of Policy and Management has already brought in an independent auditor. She wrote in a statement that the office will “fully investigate these claims in West Haven and wherever else there are allegations,” according to the Middletown Press.

Elicker told the News that New Haven City Hall would “certainly be open” to Connecticut conducting audits of the city’s funding.

“In addition to our own internal procedures to ensure appropriate spending controls, we implement an annual external audit,” Elicker added. “The most recent report for fiscal year 2020 showed a ‘clean opinion’ from our external auditors. We’ll continue to work to ensure that New Haven tax payer dollars are spent wisely and appropriately.”

If found guilty, DiMassa could face up to 20 years in prison, according to federal authorities.

The post New Haven-area State Rep. arrested by FBI for wire fraud appeared first on Yale Daily News.

During the last several years, New Haven and Connecticut have been hit hard financially by the economic shutdown produced by the pandemic. New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker’s administration spent much of 2020 and early 2021 trying to navigate an extensive budget crisis, and fiscal year 2020 ended with a significant deficit. The state also took a hit, and the budget Gov. Ned Lamont proposed in February was nicknamed the “COVID Comeback” budget.

This summer, the city’s financial worries seemed to ease when the city secured $50 million from a new program, coined Tiered Payment in Lieu of Taxes, or PILOT, that appropriated additional state funds and helped close a $53 million hole in the budget. From Hartford, the Office of the State Treasurer began to send out press releases heralding several signs “of a recovering economy.”

But the new report, published by Connecticut Voices for Children and titled “The State of Working Connecticut,” concluded that the Nutmeg State may have dug itself into an economic hole in the years since the Great Recession from 2007-09. Recovering from the most recent COVID-induced recession will be a slow and painful process, report author Patrick O’Brien told the News.

“We’re in a deeper hole because of the Great Recession preceding the coronavirus-induced recession, but the coronavirus-induced recession itself hit Connecticut harder,” O’Brien said. “It’s this deeper hole that we’re in, and we’ve seen in 2021 that our recovery’s been slower. We’re on track to recover more slowly from our deep hole than the U.S. as a whole.”

Slower growth?

In the period between the Great Recession and the pandemic, Connecticut has ranked 49th in the nation in terms of growth of economic output. During the same period, according to the report, wage inequality has risen. Worker power, defined as the ability of workers to demand their desired pay, has also plummeted. The report correlates this trend with the decline of unions. Now, the report claims that Connecticut’s presumably slow recovery from the current recession has the power to drag down the nation’s recovery.

Connecticut State Treasurer Shawn Wooden said that Connecticut is emerging relatively slowly from the pandemic recession. Although the state’s unemployment rate has improved, it has not done so to “the same degree as the national unemployment rate,” Wooden wrote two weeks ago in a press release. Still, he expressed optimism about the future.

“As businesses continue their return to normal, helped by increased vaccinations and, more recently, full FDA approval of the vaccine, it is expected that employment will continue to grow,” he wrote. “Job opening data and wage increases are being implemented in order to attract workers back into the workforce.”

But Monday’s CT Voices report did not hint at an imminent bounceback. Rather, it pointed out that through each of the last three recessions, Connecticut has taken years to recover. This time around, O’Brien said, the case is not likely to be any different.

Plus, according to the report, it is impossible to pinpoint exactly what aspect of the job market requires increased financial stimulus to see additional growth, as recessions tend to strike Connecticut’s economy across the board.

“The striking thing was that the economic contraction has basically just — it’s been sweeping in its scope,” O’Brien told the News. “We’ve been with below-average job growth in every major sector. That has translated into below-average economic output in every sector of our economy, with one exception, which was information.”

Economic disparity and PILOT

The group’s research notes that wealth gaps in Connecticut have grown to dangerous levels. Wage inequalities, the report indicates, have risen steadily over the past three decades to rates higher than the national.

If wage rates would have risen at the same rate across the board as workers in the upper class since the 1970s, the average Connecticut worker would have earned just under $30 an hour last year instead of $24.65. The racial wage gap has also worsened, according to the report. A Hispanic worker, for example, today makes an average of $17.36 an hour. If the gap remained the same rate as in the 1970s, that wage today would be $29.52 an hour.

O’Brien said that PILOT funding could theoretically help shrink the gaps of economic disparity along lines of race and class, but that it could mean cutting funds elsewhere.

“You can make the case that increasing spending in some of the municipalities would obviously target the groups that we’re talking about,” he told the News, referring to communities of color and lower-income groups. “But the question is that if you don’t want to increase overall spending, what exactly do you want to cut?”

The Elm City has taken steps in securing additional PILOT funds. With the passage of the PILOT program this summer, the city received $90 million in extra funds from the state this year.

In response to hearing about the bleak conclusions of the state report, New Haven Budget Office Director Michael Gormany noted that the city has implemented unique policies that have lessened the impact of the pandemic on New Haven’s finances. In the winter, the city was projecting a $14.8 million deficit, but that projection has continued to drop.

“Our operating budget for fiscal year 2020 had a minimal deficit, so we were able to weather the storm financially by putting in internal expenditure control,” Gormany said. “Right now we’re working on publishing the [fiscal year 2021] pre-audit report which will show those financial results, but we’re expecting that [the city’s deficit] will be much lower than what we were projecting.”

At a Board of Alders finance committee meeting on Monday, Gormany noted that tax collections “look really strong,” and that collections are up $11.8 million compared to last year.

Still, O’Brien’s report stresses that the state’s issues are extensive and require long-term change. He did not suggest exactly where to shift funds in budgets; rather, he pointed to broader options, including a shift to a progressive tax system.

O’Brien writes in the report that Connecticut’s wealthy pay less in taxes percentage-wise than working and middle class people. In the report, he specifically calls for a child tax credit and more taxes on capital gains.

“It would boost the economy because the expansionary effect of the tax cut component is significantly larger than the contractionary effect of the tax increase component,” he wrote. “And it would support working- and middle-class families, especially families of color, by decreasing their disproportionate tax burden.”

Earlier this year, Elicker similarly called on Lamont to increase taxes on Connecticut’s wealthy, specifically its billionaires.

The 2021-22 fiscal year began on July 1.

The post New report: State’s recovery from pandemic to drag on for years appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The singular contested primary on Tuesday was for the Ward 20 Alder seat, which Devin Avshalom-Smith, a fellow at the Yale Law School, won resoundingly. Two unopposed Yale College students, Eli Sabin ’22 and Alex Guzhnay ’24, have earned Democratic nominations for Board of Alders seats by default. Mariam Khan ’24 won her primary for a seat on Hamden’s Board of Education.

In interviews with the News, candidates said their campaigns have consisted of countless conversations with voters and city officials. All four grew up in New Haven or Hamden, and they emphasized that their local upbringings contribute to their perspectives as candidates for public office. Some of them, like Sabin, have experience in local politics — Sabin has served as an alder since 2019, representing Ward 1. Others, like Khan, are newer to the political scene. But the 19-year-old Hamden native’s lack of political experience did not block her from success, and she ended up earning more votes than any of the seven other candidates seeking a seat on the board on Tuesday.

“I’ve been kind of numb [since the results were posted],” Khan told the News. “It was really, really surreal that a 19-year-old newcomer to politics had that much community support and has the power to do that.”

The candidates will face general elections on Nov. 2. Each of them is expected to easily beat any Republican challenger.

A young but familiar face on Hamden’s Board of Education

Although relatively new to politics, Khan is not new to Hamden’s Board of Education. In high school, she served as a student representative on the board. Back then, she did not know what she was getting into — Khan described only having “sort of an idea” about what the board did.

After she graduated, Khan saw that elections for seats on the board were open.

“After seeing that there were a lot of young folks in Hamden running, and that we had the chance to define what our schools and our leadership in our political ecosystem looked like post COVID, I knew it was time to run,” she said.

Her campaign team mainly consisted of 19- and 20-year-olds who went to Khan’s high school. The central team was around five people, she said, but the campaign included an event with over 60 volunteers attending, Also, Khan was able to enlist help from volunteers across the district and state.

The team helped her win 3,377 votes on Tuesday. Khan won alongside three other candidates — four seats were up for grabs — who ran together on a progressive slate endorsed by Hamden mayoral hopeful Lauren Garrett. But the campaign has been about more than just clinching votes, Khan told the News.

“This type of organizing, and this type of team building and relationship building, isn’t just for an election,” Khan said. “It’s not going to just, you know, build up to November 2, and then kind of fall apart. … This is about organizing when it comes to policy, when it comes to long-term change.”

The Yale sophomore has a large handful of issues she hopes to bring to the board. She said her number one priority is ensuring that the district’s COVID response is robust. Khan also said she wants to be accessible and transparent — that she plans to hold office hours and make all of her contact information easily available.

Khan also emphasized the need for an equitable school district, especially regarding the district being on the verge of shutting down several schools.

“A lot of that was due to financial reasons, but also racial reasons,” she said. “And I think we need to have a serious conversation about why those were the schools we selected.”

An upset in Newhallville

For 10 years, the Ward 20 alder seat was held by Delphine Clyburn. But Clyburn has retired from city politics and is set to be replaced by Yale Law School fellow Devin Avshalom-Smith. Avshalom-Smith has a background in community organizing and politics but has not run for public office before.

Avshalom-Smith’s biggest competition was Shirley Lawrence. Lawrence had the support of the Democratic Town Committee, but Avshalom-Smith ended up beating Lawrence 260 to 173 on Tuesday in New Haven’s only contested primary.

“I’m just extremely grateful to my neighbors in Ward 20 for bestowing their trust in me,” Avshalom-Smith told the News. “I’m really, really excited to get to work for them.”

Avshalom-Smith has lived in Newhallville for his entire life, and his family has lived in their current home for the last 61 years. Avshalom-Smith said he had “a good relationship” with Alder Clyburn before the race, but that he thought the ward could use a new face on the board — “the natural way for things to go.” With the added pressure of locals telling Avshalom-Smith he should run, he launched a campaign.

For Avshalom-Smith, the campaign trail consisted mostly of talking to voters, which consumed up to 50 hours a week of his time. The commitment meant using up his comp time from his job on top of some of his vacation time, he said.

While canvassing his neighbors’ doorsteps, Avshalom-Smith asked them about the issues that mattered to them. They spoke to him about gun violence, trash, a lack of youth recreation opportunities and trees. And those issues will be the ones he fights against in the aldermanic chamber, he said.

“Residents want results,” he said. “They would like to see these problems solved. … They understand that no one person can do that overnight. They want to see progress on the things that they’re concerned about, and they want to be informed — they want to know what’s going on in real time. And they want to weigh in.”

Avshalom-Smith is a fellow at Yale Law School through the school’s Access to Law School program, which provides 20 local students and adults with resources to eventually apply to law school.

Late Tuesday evening, Mayor Justin Elicker publicly congratulated Avshalom-Smith on his accomplishment.

“Devin is incredibly hard working,” Elicker wrote in a press release. “I spoke with Newhallville residents who said that Devin knocked on their door five or six times. His enthusiasm, positivity, and commitment will serve his constituents well. At no time in our city’s history have I been more optimistic about our future [than] I am now.”

Movement in Ward 1

The Democratic nominees for Wards 1 and 7, which did not have contested races on Tuesday night, are both Yale College students.

Eli Sabin ’22 has held the Ward 1 seat for the last two years. As an alder, Sabin helped write a letter to Gov. Ned Lamont requesting economic relief for undocumented immigrants, helped lead the Vaccinate Fair Haven campaign and worked with local businesses to close a portion of College Street to facilitate outdoor dining during the pandemic.

But Sabin, who will graduate soon, said he is ready to move away from the Yale campus, and with that, Ward 1. Instead, Sabin is seeking election to serve Ward 7 — which is adjacent to Ward 1 and surrounds Yale’s campus. The seat is currently occupied by Alder Abby Roth, who announced in June that she would not seek reelection.

“I think that Ward 7 is different,” Sabin said. “But it’s also similar. The challenges that we’re facing as a community in general, from the affordable housing crisis, to public safety and trying to provide more opportunities for folks in all of our neighborhoods, those are things that everyone in every neighborhood cares about.”

Replacing Sabin in the Ward 1 seat will most likely be Democratic nominee Alex Guzhnay ’24, who was raised in Fair Haven and said he always knew he wanted the position. Guzhnay — who is a first-generation, low-income student and the son of Ecuadorian immigrants — said his identity is an important element of his candidacy.

“Over the years, I’ve observed politics,” he said. “There hasn’t been a lot of representation in those areas and, people coming from these communities. So, that was definitely one big thing that sort of inspired me to take the dive and run.”

Guzhnay’s campaign has been a long process involving conversations with city residents and alders, he said. Right when he started his campaign, Guzhnay said he realized it would be a lot of work.

But he had help — there were Yalies on his side, and he was able to have conversations with around a third of the Board of Alders to seek advice and discuss ideas.

“It’s just been a wild ride but again, you know, I love doing the work,” Guzhnay told the News. “I love listening to people and their ideas.”

If necessary, a run-off election for the Nov. 2 general election will be held on Nov. 23.

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The ad campaign is a partnership between the New Haven Health Department, the Cultural Affairs Department and New Haven Public Schools. The campaign, according to a Sept. 2 City Hall press release, involves “bi-lingual digital, print, and broadcast public service ads that will appear on billboards, busses, radio, television, YouTube, and other social media platforms.”

At the center of the campaign are students in New Haven Public Schools — many of whom are athletes. According to Erik Patchkofsky, athletic director for New Haven Public Schools, athletes will feature in campaign’s ads because they have a special incentive to encourage youth vaccinations.

“They believe that if all student-athletes get vaccinated, it will help them all stay in the game,” he said.

The ad campaign

To shoot the campaign, the city enlisted two local artists: photographer Leigh Busby and videographer Donnell Durden. Busby described the campaign as his “best work so far” and said he tried to link his subjects’ excitement to the importance of vaccinations.

“As I’m creating the different billboards, I’m looking at how people are going to see the people on the billboard,” Busby said. “The thought that goes on in the back of my mind is, ‘What kind of emotions are we bringing?’”

Spanish-language versions of the photo and video ads feature NHPS student soccer players. In one video, a player identifying himself as Kyle calls on viewers to seize the day by getting vaccinated. A fellow soccer player suggests that those with questions on the vaccine speak to their families. 

“Return to the pitch. Vaccinate yourself,” the ad tells the audience in Spanish. 

In an English-language version, several students toss around a basketball while imagining a post-pandemic future. “Want your life back?” one of them asks.

“Get vaccinated. We did,” other students respond. The 30-second ad reminds viewers that the vaccine is free and includes a link for more information.

Tamiko Jackson-McArthur, a Black pediatrician who also serves on the New Haven Board of Education, worked to create the messaging for the campaign. The campaign, she wrote in a press release, aims to “provide the information our BIPOC communities need when making the decisions to get vaccinated.”

“Unfortunately, we know we have a lot of underlying illnesses in the BIPOC communities — high blood pressure, Asthma, diabetes, COPD, Sickle Cell Disease — and we have multiple generations under one roof,” Jackson-McArthur wrote. “We must rely on science and be educated about our decision to get vaccinated against COVID-19.”

According to the state’s Aug. 26 COVID update, Latinx Connecticut residents were 60 percent more likely, and Black residents 44 percent more likely, than white residents to have contracted COVID-19 over the course of the pandemic.

Doris Dumas, president of New Haven’s chapter of the NAACP, echoed the need for more public health advocacy directed at communities of color. Though she touted the success of the “Vaccinate Fair Haven!” campaign, she cited the rise in cases from the Delta variant as evidence of the importance of sustained vaccination efforts.

“Do I think enough is being done now?” she asked. “No, I think we should do more. Absolutely.”

Youth focus

Last May, the campaign’s door-knocking campaign reached its initial goal of canvassing each house in Fair Haven. Since then, efforts have shifted to outreach for those ages 12 to 17. Fair Haven Community Health Care continues to operate an on-site health center at Wilbur Cross High School, which serves many Fair Haveners.

Meanwhile, the State Department of Public Health and Griffin Health will partner beginning this week to run on-site vaccine clinics at all New Haven high schools. NHPS teacher David Weinreb, who also organized FHCHC’s vaccine campaign in May, explained that new focus on teenagers could increase overall vaccination rates in Fair Haven.

“There are a lot of teens who are ready to get the vaccine, even if their parents are not ready. Those families also need that connection to health services and the clinic,” he said.

COVID-19 cases in children have recently risen in other states, coinciding with the reopening of schools. According to the NHPS COVID-19 dashboard, there have been 65 confirmed cases of COVID-19 this school year, of which 54 individuals were unvaccinated and 10 were vaccinated.

The ad campaign was paid for by a $13 million grant from the state.

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Elicker has all but secured a second mayoral term in City Hall after his only serious Democratic competitor, former Housing Authority President Karen DuBois-Walton, abruptly left the race. Now, New Haveners are already seeking commitments from Elicker for his next two years in office. At Wednesday evening’s forum, hosted by Congregations Organized for a New Connecticut, or CONECT, Connecticut residents asked Elicker specific questions about his plans for the next term. 

CONECT’s questions focused on three central demands: the diversion of funds to public school health services, attention to street safety in Fair Haven and public updates on the city’s gun violence response. In response, the mayor generally avoided locking in answers but said that public health and safety would remain central to his next term in office.

Specifically, leaders asked for policy commitments on redirecting funds to help treat public school students with asthma, completing infrastructure projects in Fair Haven and holding public meetings about the newly-proposed Department of Community Resilience, which Elicker declined to provide. He later emphasized that while he would not promise specific measures, he shares many of CONECT’s goals.

“I think we got off on the wrong foot with me answering ‘No’ to a couple of what I think were pretty specific questions,” Elicker said in his closing remarks about the questions related to CONECT’s three central demands. “I think the spirit of what we all are trying to accomplish here is aligned.”

Over 200 CONECT leaders attended the event, which was held both in person and over Zoom. Attendees also asked for commitments from mayoral candidates in Hamden, who are currently fighting a race far more contested than New Haven’s.

In their opening remarks, Rev. Philippe Andal of New Haven’s Community Baptist Church and Rabbi Brian Immerman of Hamden’s Congregation Mishkan Israel gave examples of what they think public health and safety means in New Haven and Hamden.

“When we say public health, we mean that our elected officials must address asthma, which disproportionately affects Black and brown communities,” Andal said. “When we say public health, we mean that our elected officials must protect and preserve open spaces in all communities so that people can breathe fresh, safe air and stretch their legs.”

Immerman said public safety means ensuring that visible signs and crosswalks are omnipresent across Connecticut. He also said it meant addressing gun violence while remembering that “police brutality is not public safety.” Immerman told attendees that, already this year, 23 people have died through gun violence in southern Hamden and New Haven in 2021.

Gun violence was at the heart of one of CONECT’s commitment requests. The others focused on street safety and asthma among school-aged children. For each issue, the mayor was asked a question about whether he could commit to a policy related to the issue point-blank, and he would be forced to either say “yes” or “no.”

Support for students with asthma

Tynicha Drummonds asked Elicker if he would commit to allocating $2 million of American Rescue Plan funding to community health workers supporting New Haven public school students struggling with asthma. Drummonds is a New Haven resident whose foster daughter and great niece suffer from asthma.

“[My foster daughter] loves to play and run, but sometimes she has to stop so she doesn’t have an asthma attack,” Drummonds said.

Veronica Douglas-Givan also spoke on the issue, noting that one of her brothers also had asthma and that she had to watch him “gasp for air while he was playing.” She also brought her asthmatic son up to the podium, saying that her child often felt suffocated inside his class room at Worthington Hooker School.

Although CONECT members wanted Elicker to commit on the spot to diverting substantial funds to the issue, the mayor admitted that he could not provide an answer at that time. 

“We have school nurses, and we will continue to ensure that we have school nurses in every school,” Elicker said. 

Infrastructure repairs in Fair Haven 

CONECT also asked Elicker to commit to completing several infrastructure projects around the Fair Haven area. They highlighted a survey that identified 85 useful repairs and improvements around the neighborhood. The list includes 35 intersections that do not have crosswalks and stop lines.

CONECT said they had sent the list to Elicker a week prior to the event, and they asked the mayor to commit to achieving 63 or more of them over the next two years.

But Elicker said he had not seen CONECT’s list.

“I will continue working with you, but I cannot commit to putting city infrastructure investments into a list I haven’t seen,” he told CONECT leaders.

Later in the evening, Elicker said he looked at the list during the meeting. In response, Elicker said it would be difficult for him to focus solely on Fair Haven’s infrastructure needs — he must treat all of the city’s neighborhoods equally, while prioritizing communities of high need.

CONECT interpreted that answer as a “no” on the infrastructure question.

Addressing gun violence

“Mayor Elicker, will you commit to facilitating public monthly sessions to provide updates on the status of the Department of Community Resilience and Community Crisis Response team and seek community input?” Qadry Harris of the Community Baptist Church asked the mayor. 

The Department of Community Resilience is a brand-new concept proposed by the Mayor’s office at the beginning of August. If it is approved by the Board of Alders, the department will receive $6 million a year. 

The department would serve as an umbrella organization which would also oversee the Community Crisis Response Team, a city initiative that works to ensure various professionals — not just police officers — respond to 911 calls. 

“For these programs to be successful, we need data,” Harris said. “There must be an evaluation plan to achieve the sustained funding and the long term success… The people closest to the problem are closest to the solution. They must be consulted.”

John Levi Lewis, a pastor in New Haven, said his New Haven church is the one he grew up in. The church is supposed to be a place of comfort for its members, he said, but now members did not always feel protected within its walls. 

“It used to be a safe place where the congregates could come,” he said. “Now, it’s not always a safe place to worship. There have been shootings in front of the church and behind the church… the safe environment has been threatened by gun violence.”

However, Elicker once again said he could not commit to the specific guidelines of the monthly sessions. He said it was not that he could not commit to community engagement but that the new Department of Community Resilience is broad and each agency under it has its own form of community engagement. 

“I will commit to a public process and continued engagement,” he said. “There has been a community hearing that the public was welcome to participate in; we had a lot of good feedback.”

Elicker will face a Republican challenger for New Haven mayor in a November election.

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Karen DuBois-Walton, who became Elicker’s first major challenger in his quest for reelection when she entered the race in March, immediately made a splash in the race. The head of Elm City Communities, New Haven’s Housing Authority, raised an unprecedented sum of donations in her first month of fundraising.

Then, at the New Haven Democratic Town Committee meeting on July 27, DuBois-Walton unexpectedly announced her departure from the race.

“I wanted to run a campaign for equity and justice — a campaign that works to transform what’s possible in New Haven in a way that our forebears here have done so many times,” she said. “It has become evident that the city is not ready for that kind of leadership.”

Earlier in the summer, DuBois-Walton had lost most of the city’s Democratic Town Ward Committee straw polls, picking up only four out of 25.

Minutes after that announcement, Elicker accepted the party’s nomination.

“I’m proud of our city and how we’ve responded to this crisis that none of us have experienced in our lifetime,” the mayor said at the Town Committee. “We’ve done so in a way that follows the science but that invests in equity … I am so grateful that you have given me the opportunity to continue leading the city.”

Elicker faces a vote in the city’s primary election on September 14, which he is primed to win, followed by a general election on Nov. 2. He could face off against one of several Republican candidates.

Summer campaigning

Before DuBois-Walton’s announcement, the hot summer days were filled with door-to-door campaigning.

Elicker centered his campaign around the achievements of his first term, touting a prompt response to the COVID-19 pandemic and his handling of the Elm City’s budget crisis. The mayor took an active role in the fight for a statewide tiered Payment in Lieu of Taxes program. That program, which saw a victory in June and helped ensure that the city could pass Elicker’s proposed “Forward Together” budget without the tax hikes or cuts to city services required by his “Crisis Budget”, ensured the state would provide additional funding to municipalities with high quantities of tax-exempt property.

DuBois-Walton’s campaign called for increased attention to police accountability, an issue which she claimed the Elicker administration neglected. With Elicker in office, DuBois-Walton said, communication between police leadership and the rank and file continued to deteriorate amid a national reckoning on race that placed law enforcement throughout the country under increased scrutiny. She also criticized the administration’s budgeting decisions, in light of Elicker’s unprecedented double budget proposal.

Despite DuBois-Walton’s best attempts to make herself a formidable candidate against a popular mayor, straw polls conducted by ward committees among New Haven Democratic groups consistently leaned in Elicker’s favor.

A Republican challenger

For months, New Haven resident Mayce Torres’ candidacy in the Democratic primary failed to gain traction. But on July 22, as first reported by the Independent, Torres changed her party affiliation to Republican, meaning she could potentially still face off against Elicker in a general election.

However, to qualify for the Republican primary ballot she will have to file a petition with at least 129 signatures from local Republicans.

The more cemented Republican candidate is John Carlson, who earned the support of the New Haven Republican Party. Carlson has focused his campaign around improving poor test scores in the New Haven Public School system, criminal justice and promoting fiscal responsibility in City Hall.

“Unlike the Democrats, I won’t handcuff the cops,” Carlson said at a local Republican convention, according to the Independent. “I’ll let the cops handcuff the criminals.”

Elicker’s team has used the presence of “a serious Republican challenger” in several campaign emails as a motivator for donations.

“We can’t be complacent — we’ve got a serious Republican challenger for the first time in years,” Elicker’s campaign manager Kim Agyekum wrote in an email to supporters. “Raising the funds necessary to defeat our serious Republican challenger requires support from residents just like you,” she wrote in another.

New Haven Republicans will decide who will challenge the Democratic nominee on Sept. 14.

The post Lots has changed in New Haven’s mayoral race. Here’s what you need to know appeared first on Yale Daily News.

For the past several weeks, officials have educated local businesses on how to comply with the citywide mask mandate that has been in place since Aug. 8. But now, establishments that are seen not following the mandate or other safety protocols could face hundreds of dollars in fines, and, if the infringements continue, a forced shutdown, city officials shared at a Wednesday morning press conference. This means business owners will be responsible for requiring that patrons wear masks while inside.

“Businesses were notified properly, and given posters and even masks, so that we can support reopening,” New Haven Health Director Maritza Bond said at the press conference. “While we do support reopening, we will not tolerate individuals that disregard the lives of the larger population. It is a tough position that I’m in. … We have to think about the health and well-being of the overall population that we serve.”

Bond said the crackdown would start Thursday morning. Discipline can happen on multiple levels: first, establishments will be met with a verbal warning — the city has issued 28 of those already. Then, they will get a written warning — Bond said there have been two so far. After the written warning, businesses will be fined $100 per infraction, meaning that one visit could result in a several hundred dollar fine if inspectors notice multiple people without masks.

Members of the New Haven Fire Department will be present at the enforcement visits, officials noted. At the press conference, New Haven Deputy Chief Fire Marshall Jen Forslund said the department would help the city set occupancy limits.

New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker joined Bond in saying the rising level of enforcement is the result of a rapid uptick in cases and hospitalizations over the last two months, both in New Haven and the state as a whole. Connecticut’s positivity rate has increased tenfold since July 1, when it was 0.43 percent; now, it has risen to 4.65 percent. During the same period, the number of hospitalizations statewide jumped from 37 two months ago to 363 on Tuesday.

Elicker stressed that the Elm City must remain vigilant and continue to raise the city’s vaccination rate. The city’s 430 pop-up clinics and government canvassing efforts since February have helped keep vaccination rates steadily above the national average.  

As of Monday, just under 69 percent of eligible New Haven residents have been vaccinated, Elicker said, compared to 53 percent nationally.

“It is clear that if you get vaccinated you are much, much more protected from getting COVID,” he said at the press conference. “It could not be easier to get vaccinated.”

The city continues to prioritize publicizing the efficacy of COVID vaccines, Elicker said, but he also said that it also needs to continue convincing Elm City residents that masks are an important and effective mechanism against the spread of the virus.

“I’ve received one or two emails from people that cite a couple of studies that say that masks are not effective,” the mayor said. “The overwhelming majority of studies indicate that masks are very, very effective.”

If the city does shut down noncompliant businesses in the coming days, it will mirror actions it took earlier on in the pandemic. 

In the summer of 2020, at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic, Bond said the city shut down over 13 businesses for COVID restriction infringements.

It is important that the public does not become complacent, Bond said. She added that assuming that the worst of the pandemic has passed is inadvisable. Indoor activity and the return of university students to the Elm City could increase infection rates.

Enforcement of the restrictions will include monitoring New Haven’s nightlife, which is expected to rise in the area surrounding Yale, officials said. In response to questions on the feasibility of enforcing mask mandates at nightclubs, Bond said it is the responsibility of the establishment to enforce mask mandates, and that they should contact the city to brainstorm ways to ensure compliance.

On Wednesday, Elicker also spoke about the recently announced vaccination and testing policy for city employees. Each worker is required to either be fully vaccinated by Sept. 27, or submit to weekly testing.

“Employees will have 24 hours to correct the situation by either getting tested or uploading their vaccination information” if they are found to not be in compliance after that date, Elicker said. “If they do not do that, they will be deemed unable to work and be put on unpaid leave.

Almost 100 percent of cases in New Haven are of the Delta variant, Elicker said at the press conference.

The post City to warn, fine and potentially shut down businesses for mask mandate noncompliance appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The storm was downgraded from hurricane status to a tropical storm, and then from a tropical storm to a tropical depression. Despite concerns over the potential impact of the storm, one Elm City monitor recorded just 0.7 inches of rain on Sunday afternoon, when Mayor Justin Elicker also said there have been no power outages so far across the city.

“We were very concerned about the storm coming straight toward New Haven as of 12 hours ago,” Elicker shared at around 2:30 p.m. Sunday in a press update. “Thankfully, we were spared a lot of that, because the storm moved to our east. Frankly, we’re quite lucky.”

In preparation for the storm, city officials met Saturday night at Pardee Seawall Park and canvassed the Morris Cove area, recommending that residents evacuate their homes. The city set up one major storm shelter at Hill Regional Career High School and three other evacuation centers at Benjamin Jepson Magnet School, King-Robinson Interdistrict Magnet School and Nathan Hale School.

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro and Rick Fontana, the Elm City’s emergency operations director, both noted that preparation for the storm has been a strong collaborative effort across the city and state.

“We’ve been preparing for the last three days, getting ready for Tropical Storm Henri,” Fontana said. “We were very fortunate. We’ve been saying since it’s on the map that we’ll prepare for the worst and hope for the best. We got the best.”

On Sunday, officials also responded to concerns that calls to evacuate homes had been an overreaction to the storm.

Fontana said New Haven always errs on the side of over-preparing. The mayor also urged residents to take storm preparedness seriously, and continue to follow official guidelines even though Henri was milder than expected. The mayor stressed that areas to the west of New Haven had been hit harder by the storm and experienced flooding.

On Monday, Director of Public Health Maritza Bond ordered the city’s Lighthouse Point Park closed due to elevated bacteria levels following the storm.

“Elevated bacteria levels are common after rain events,” Bond said. “The city tests water at our beach three per week to ensure contaminant levels don’t exceed safety guidelines — as soon as we’re able to confirm the water is safe we will reopen the beach.”

Outside of New Haven, Connecticut has hardly been spared from power outages. At an early afternoon press conference on Sunday, Gov. Ned Lamont reported 24,000 outages across the state. He noted nearby states like Rhode Island — which had recorded 75,000 outages — have gotten the worst of it so far, but that the 24,000 figure “is concerning.”

Later on Sunday evening, Lamont reported 28,000 outages. As of late Monday, almost all of the outages were resolved.

On Saturday, Lamont signed a ban on I-95 travel for empty tractor trailers, motorcycles and tandem tractor trailers. That ban expired Sunday at 5 p.m., but the governor still urged Connecticut residents to stay off the roads.

“We’re still just getting started. We’ll have to track this very closely going forward. … Don’t get complacent,” Lamont said at the Sunday afternoon press conference.

DeLauro said that after Lamont requested a pre-landfall emergency declaration from President Joe Biden — which would make additional relief resources available in the state — she and the Connecticut congressional delegation sent Biden a letter in support of the request. The request has since been approved.

The congresswoman said she has been working with all the municipalities in the district she oversees to make sure that funds available via the declaration are accounted for.

“I’m asking New Haven to keep track of all the expenses that we’re incurring so that it becomes part of the emergency declaration,” DeLauro said. “What I also will be doing is reintroducing something called the Debris Act, which we’ve been working on for a long time, which would help homeowners in terms of the removal of debris.”

Fontana emphasized that “no injuries, no loss of life, no property damage” is “a win for the city,” and that New Haven officials will continue to track and respond to the threat of heavy rain.

DeLauro reminded New Haveners to stay safe until the storm ends.

“Don’t be out if you don’t have to,” she said. “Don’t ignore streets that are flooded, you never know what the depth of that water is. We will work together as we have in the past.”

The storm has caused over 135,000 power outages from New Jersey to Maine, according to the New York Times.

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New Haven currently faces a $66 million projected deficit, which forced Mayor Justin Elicker to present two proposed budgets to the Board of Alders in March: a “Crisis Budget” that would cut various services and implement a tax hike, and a “Forward Together Budget” that would require an extra $53 million from the state or Yale to maintain existing programs. This week, the Board of Alders passed an amended version of the “Forward Together Budget” on the assumption that the Elm City would receive these funds.

“We’re having positive conversations with the University, and I’m cautiously optimistic that those conversations will lead to something,” Elicker told the News. “I am optimistic that we will be able to land closer to the ‘Forward Together Budget’ and not need to make some of the dramatic cuts and suffer the significant tax increase in the ‘Crisis Budget.’”

The Elm City is forecasted to receive around $49 million from the state this summer from the new tiered Payment in Lieu of Taxes program, which prioritizes funding for municipalities like New Haven with high proportions of tax-exempt property.

That leaves a $4 million gap for the city to reach the $53 million required to avoid all cuts and implement the “Forward Together Budget.” This year, Yale gave a $13 million direct contribution to the city, and it’s not yet clear whether that will rise to $17 million. In an interview with the News this past fall, University President Peter Salovey stressed that Yale already pays more to New Haven than peer institutions pay to their cities.

“We are number one in the country in the size of the voluntary payment we make to our host city. We are number one,” Salovey told the News. “And I’m not saying we can’t do more. But what I am saying is these budget problems are structural and deep. And they need to be solved in a far more complex way, in a far more sustainable way than just the University every year having to write a bigger and bigger check.”

But many New Haveners disagree, and city residents have protested the size of Yale’s contribution to the city all year.

Some of the commentary occurred at the Board of Alders Finance Committee public budget hearings, in which city residents submitted and read testimony on how a more significant contribution from Yale could address serious problems in the Elm City.

“I love the Edgewood neighborhood where I live,” New Haven resident Joelle Fishman said in her testimony. “Neighbors have looked out for each other with food supplies, snow shoveling, and all kinds of mutual aid. And we should expect no less from our largest neighbor and employer, Yale University, and Yale New Haven Hospital. That’s why I join with my neighbors in every part of New Haven to send a loud and clear message that it’s not okay to hoard millions and expect families like mine to pick up their tab so the city can function.”

More recently, labor activists have led protests demanding that Yale “Respect New Haven.” This month, they painted a “YALE: RESPECT NEW HAVEN” mural on the street in front of Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall on Prospect Street. 

On the bike lane, the activists painted a 670-foot blue line stretching from Grove Street to Trumbull Street, representing Yale’s $31.2 billion endowment. Meanwhile, Yale’s $13 million annual voluntary contribution — an amount labor organizers call a “drop in the bucket” — was represented by a red stripe just a few inches wide.

“Today is not just about union workers — it’s about every citizen of New Haven,” Ward 8 Alder Ellen Cupo said at the event. “It’s about Yale respecting the people who live here and reinvesting into the city in a real way, in a monetary way.”

University officials held that Yale not paying more to the city is about its “obligations” to future generations of Yalies.

“This is as much as we can responsibly spend without unfairly taking from those who will come after us,” said University spokesperson Karen Peart in a statement to the News this past fall. “The strength we are experiencing derives from the generosity and care of those who came before us, and we have similar obligations to the future students, faculty, and staff of this university.”

But Elicker told the News this fall that Yale’s $4.2 billion operational budget means it has $330,000 to spend on each student, while New Haven’s budget means it has $4,600 to spend on each resident. “We want the University to be successful,” Elicker said. “But something is just not right.”

The fiscal year 2021-2022 budget will go into effect on July 1.

Owen Tucker-Smith | owen.tucker-smith@yale.edu

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