For the next several months a remarkable partnership of media organizations will take a close look at Connecticut cities. We call it The Cities Project.
Tom Condon
Tom writes about urban and regional issues for CT Mirror, including planning, transportation, land use, development and historic preservation. These were among his areas of interest in a 45-year career as a reporter, columnist and editorial writer for The Hartford Courant. Tom has won dozens of journalism and civic awards, and was elected to the New England Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2016. He is a native of New London, a graduate of The University of Notre Dame and the University of Connecticut School of Law, and is a Vietnam veteran.
Posted inNews
Despite naysayers, Larson won’t bury the tunnel idea
An early concept sketch of U.S. Rep. John Larson’s proposal to bury I-91 and I-84 underground in Hartford and East Hartford. The proposed tunnels are shown in yellow and the existing highways in blue. The cloverleaf intersection would be under Colt Park. An early concept sketch of U.S. Rep. John Larson’s proposal to bury I-91 […]
Posted inTransportation
The electric car comes of age, right when we need it
Imagine you’re mired in heavy traffic on I-95 on a steamy summer day, with plenty of time to study the car ahead of you. Something puzzles you about it, but you’re not sure what. After staring for a long minute, you realize — aha — that it has no tailpipe. It is an electric car. You are tailing a Tesla. If you’ve not yet had this experience, you soon will.
Posted inTransportation
Eat my dust, Maserati
Disabuse yourself of the notion, if your entertain it, that electric cars are elaborate golf carts that can barely get out of their own way. That is not the case, by a long shot. I took a short spin in a Tesla Model 3, driving through the streets of West Hartford and on I-84. I now see why people like Teslas.
Posted inJustice
Henning, Birch push for a new trial in decades-old murder case
Pointing to false testimony by famed state criminologist Henry Lee, two men who have spent nearly 30 years in prison for a murder they steadfastly insist they didn’t commit asked the state’s highest court on Thursday for a new trial.
Posted inTransportation
The electric car comes of age, right when we need it
Imagine you’re mired in heavy traffic on I-95 on a steamy summer day, with plenty of time to study the car ahead of you. Something puzzles you about it, but you’re not sure what. After staring for a long minute, you realize — aha — that it has no tailpipe. You are tailing a Tesla — an electric car. If you’ve not yet had this experience, you soon will.
Posted inPolitics
Hayes wins ground-breaking victory for 5th District nomination
Jahana Hayes, the political novice whose compelling life story drew national attention, soundly defeated former Simsbury First Selectman Mary Glassman Tuesday for the Democratic nomination to represent Connecticut’s 5th Congressional District.
Posted inNews
How to stop squeezing nonprofits and their clients
The task for caring for society’s most vulnerable citizens was first taken on by churches, then by towns, and now primarily by the state. So how can the state maintain its commitment to those with developmental disabilities, mental health or addiction issues and other conditions in difficult budgetary times? There are ideas out there…
Posted inMoney
CT’s two-tiered human services system: ‘One tier too many’
Oak Hill, Inc., the largest nonprofit provider of human services for the state, recently trained two group home workers, only to see them jump to the competition earlier this year. The competition is the state.
Posted inMoney
After years of cuts, nonprofits struggle to survive
The term “nonprofit organization” may well be misleading. Some might think nonprofits aren’t really businesses. Ah, but they are; indeed, some are large, intricate and highly regulated businesses. Like for-profit businesses, they need revenue to execute their missions. When that revenue falls off, they must make creative and/or hard-nosed business decisions.
Posted inJustice
Sex offender registry: More harm than good?
Public sex offender registries, created In the 1990s in response to a number of horrific crimes against children, are getting a second look as critics across the country demand changes, saying the registries are based on false assumptions, are a waste of money and do more harm than good.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Remembering Ned Coll … and Connecticut’s shameful segregation
If you were in Connecticut in the late 1960s and the 1970s, you might remember Ned Coll. He was the Hartford activist who, among other things, brought African-American youngsters from the squalid housing projects in the North End of Hartford to private beaches along the shore, which Coll believed should be open to the public.
Posted inEconomic Development, News
New movie will revive painful lesson in how not to redevelop a city
It was a fiasco, one that gave Connecticut and one of its oldest cities a black eye. Now we get to relive it as a new film tells the story of Susette Kelo, a woman who gained national publicity for her years-long battle to save her beloved pink cottage in New London’s Fort Trumbull neighborhood from a major redevelopment project.
Posted inCities & Towns
A proposal that could empower state’s metros
The Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Growth Thursday recommended giving regional councils of government or municipal consortiums an optional taxing power that would allow a new level of regional cooperation in the state. Third of three articles.
Posted inCities & Towns, Economic Development
Want to prosper? Act like a region, proponents say
The argument usually put forward for regionalism in Connecticut is that it can save money. And it can, but that may not be the best reason to consider metropolitan cooperation. Towns also can make money by developing their regional economies. Second of three articles.