Lt. Gov-elect Susan Bysiewicz named the longtime spokesman for the state Senate Democratic Caucus, Adam Joseph of New Haven, to be her chief of staff.
December 2018
Posted inJustice, Money, News, Politics
Blumenthal expects Congress will restore pay for Coast Guard
NEW LONDON – U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal pledged Monday to introduce legislation to restore wages for all U.S. Coast Guard personnel, about 43,000 individuals whose pay will be suspended Tuesday as part of the ongoing federal shutdown.
Posted inPolitics
Yes, there will be a Democratic state senator from Greenwich
Alex Bergstein joins the Connecticut Senate next week as a curiosity in the huge new class of Democrats: She is a Greenwich Democrat, the first elected to the state Senate since the mid-term elections of 1930, when Republicans were wounded by a deepening Depression and an unpopular Herbert Hoover.
Posted inHealth
Starting the conversation, parenting through the opioid crisis
Ginger Katz founded The Courage to Speak Foundation in 1996, shortly after her son died of a drug overdose. With support from the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services’ $22 million State Opioid Response Grant (SOR), Katz will be delivering her message, “Parenting Through the Opioid Crisis and Beyond,” at numerous events scheduled throughout the coming year.
Posted inPolitics
Potential New Haven mayoral challengers emerging
Two 40-something New Haveners —a former alder who runs the Land Trust and an ex-federal prosecutor who targeted government corruption — are “seriously considering” challenging incumbent Toni Harp for mayor in 2019. The two, Justin Elicker and Liam Brennan, have been meeting with community leaders and activists to build support for Democratic mayoral primary challenges.
Posted inHealth
Staffing levels, culture challenge quality of nursing home care
It isn’t often that the Department of Public Health mandates staffing or requires nursing homes to hire consultants, but an order issued last spring to one facility reflects a broader emerging problem affecting the care provided at many nursing homes: insufficient staffing levels and caregivers who lack training.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Criminal justice reform will not be easy
Woe be unto a state whose governor-elect issues wishy-washy statements about criminal-justice reform. When Ned Lamont says, “For me, criminal justice reform is so important. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s the smart thing to do,” what does he mean? He wants to continue Malloy’s policy of giving people a “Second Chance” with capital letters. Where have I heard that before?
Posted inPolitics
Lamont names former HPD chief Rovella to oversee public safety
Gov-elect Ned Lamont named a public-safety team Friday that will be led by former Hartford police chief James Rovella, who will oversee the state police, homeland security and state crime lab as commissioner of the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Nuclear wins big in clean energy competition – and not just Millstone
The final clean energy competition of the Malloy administration on Friday handed the Millstone Nuclear Power Station the lifeline it has sought for nearly two years claiming the plant was at risk of closing otherwise. In a blow to the environmental advocacy community, renewable power projects were awarded fewer than 20 percent of the total power production up for bid.
Posted inJustice
Connecticut to get $5.2 million in Wells Fargo deal
Wells Fargo will pay $575 million under a 50-state settlement led by Connecticut and three other states relating to fraudulent mortgage and insurance fees, as well as the scandal in which millions of accounts were created without consumers’ consent, Attorney General George Jepsen announced Friday.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
The Yale Bowl and Yale students deserve better than plastic grass and toxic infills
The New Haven Planning Commission recently sadly approved Yale’s proposal to put a synthetic turf field, infilled with ground-up rubber, into the Yale Bowl.
There were many reasons for the Commissioners to turn the application down — but that is not what happened.
Posted inNews
Immigrant crackdown targets Vietnamese who’ve lived in U.S. for years
The Trump administration is pressuring Vietnam to uphold a 2008 agreement and take back refugees who came to the United States before 1995. Many Vietnamese who came to the United States before 1995, some of them fleeing the Vietnam War, have lived in a gray area of immigration law. If they had a criminal record, they could not attain legal status, but they could not be deported either.
Posted inNews
Segregated Hartford schools await next governor
New data released Thursday shows that more than half of Hartford’s school-aged children still attend segregated schools some 22 years after the Connecticut Supreme Court ordered the state to eliminate the educational inequities caused by the isolation of the city’s overwhelmingly black and Hispanic school population.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Politics
PURA chair Katie Dykes named DEEP commissioner
In naming Katie Dykes as commissioner of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, Gov.-elect Ned Lamont has chosen a person who is well known at DEEP. But she comes with much more of an energy than strict environmental background.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Immigration, the protracted conflict
My grandfather had a scar on his face. It extended across his right cheek, from his ear lobe to his lower jaw. It was thick, ragged and ugly; as it had never been surgically repaired. The coal miners in the Scranton area of Pennsylvania went on strike in the early 1900s. This was at a time when there was no safety net. If you didn’t work, you didn’t eat. The workers at the mine could barely support their families; thus the strike.