Connecticut’s urban centers are shackled by unemployment, homelessness and other poverty indicators that dwarf those of surrounding suburbs, the state’s chief municipal lobbying group wrote Monday in a bulletin to state legislative candidates.
New Haven
Posted inEducation, Money
Moody’s: School funding reform would boost cities’ credit standing
A major Wall Street credit rating agency weighed in on Connecticut’s school funding crisis this week, saying an overhaul would improve the credit standing of the state’s poorest cities.
Posted inNews
After two decades, it’s New Haven’s SoHo
Conceived in the 1980s and completed in the mid-1990s, there were no more daring or comprehensive preservation projects in Connecticut than Ninth Square in New Haven. Now, two decades after its completion, Ninth Square is a vibrant urban neighborhood, a place for art, food, tech start-ups and street fun.
Posted inTransportation
CT split on rail overhaul; Malloy says repairs should come first
WASHINGTON — There is split opinion in Connecticut on ambitious proposals to overhaul rail service in the Northeast Corridor, with some preferring to put resources into a coastal route to Boston and others backing an inland route that runs through Hartford with a new stop near Storrs.
Posted inHealth
16 overdoses, two dead in six hours in New Haven
A toxic batch of heroin laced with fentanyl appears to have hit New Haven, with firefighters and cops rushing to rescue 16 different people who overdosed on drugs — at least two of them fatally — between 3:30 and 9:30 p.m. Thursday.
Posted inEducation, Money
One bill to tax Yale moves forward, another dies
The legislature’s tax-writing committee Thursday approved a bill that would allow New Haven to begin taxing commercial property owned by Yale, but let die a controversial bill backed by the leader of the state Senate that would have allowed the state to tax the earnings of the Ivy League university’s multi-billion-dollar endowment. Yale has opposed both bills.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Feds say CT cities had little economic growth in 2014
WASHINGTON – How healthy is the state’s economy? It’s a tale of two Connecticuts, and the subject of widely different viewpoints. But a recent federal report shows Connecticut’s big cities lag most others in the nation when it comes to economic growth.
Posted inPolitics
New report: CT traffic is bad — and likely to get worse
WASHINGTON — Connecticut has some of the worst traffic in the nation, with snarls that cost drivers about 20 gallons of wasted fuel and dozens of hours of lost time each year – and things are likely to get worse, a new report says.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
CT schools must set a higher standard of achievement
When scores from Connecticut’s new statewide test, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), are released to the public later this month, Connecticut districts, school leaders, community members and families will have a more accurate representation of where our children are with regards to their college and career readiness. As a former educator and Connecticut public school student, I know all too well the importance of standards that effectively prepare for life beyond high school.
Posted inPolitics
Republicans in Congress target state, local immigration policies
WASHINGTON – Local and state immigration policies, including Connecticut’s, are under scrutiny by congressional Republicans as a reaction to the July 1 killing of Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco by an undocumented immigrant with an extensive criminal record.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
In Connecticut, there is no ‘achievement gap’
Before students of all colors can succeed equally in Connecticut’s public schools, we must be bluntly honest about why disparities exist. An achievement gap would exist if we gave every student equal opportunities and some children still failed to achieve. In a myriad ways, we do not give all our children the same opportunities. Nowhere is this more apparent than in school discipline policies that exclude children from the classroom.
Posted inPolitics
John Daniels, New Haven’s first black mayor, passes
John C. Daniels, who served as New Haven’s first black mayor and brought community policing to the city, died Saturday after a long illness. He was 78.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
To reduce gun deaths, focus on Connecticut’s drug trade, gang life
The killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School were horrible, but Connecticut is overlooking the dozens of individual gun deaths that take place with little notice in the state’s largest cities.
Posted inNews
Op-Ed: To reduce gun deaths, focus on Connecticut’s drug trade, gang life
The killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School were horrible, but Connecticut is overlooking the dozens of individual gun deaths that take place with little notice in the state’s largest cities.
Posted inPolitics
State, local governments hire lobbyists for influence in D.C.
WASHINGTON – Despite tight budgets and Congressional gridlock, Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, other Connecticut municipalities and the state continue to hire Washington lobbyists to seek federal dollars, keep them informed about national issues and help the state’s congressional delegation address their needs.