February 24, 2021

For residents of the Naugatuck Valley, whether you ride the train or not, increased rail service will directly and positively affect your life. Increased and reliable rail service means increases in property values.

The last several years have thrust racial injustice against Black people not only into the media spotlight, but also into our emerging public consciousness about the continued consequences of our nation’s legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation.

Despite many challenges, Congressional committees in both houses remain steadfast in their belief that state standardized testing should be administered this spring.  They cite the recent announcement that NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) testing will not be conducted this year as adding to this “moral imperative.” Better would be for state departments of education to use the myriad data that administrators and teachers have naturally collected since March to allocate resources that will allow for student learning to be recovered, and for historic structural inequities to be addressed at long last.

A move is afoot to extend the privilege of sitting on a jury to released felons and non-citizen long-term residents. According to a recent report, supported by Connecticut Chief Justice Richard Robinson, making this change would increase Black and Latinx representation. This is a laudatory goal. But it undermines the very foundations of jury participation as a key aspect of citizenship.