Category: Uncategorized

Many Are in Financial Crisis Because of Exorbitant Electric, Gas and Oil Rates

There are programs that can help lower-income people with electric and heating bills. To find out about eligibility, contact the Community Action Agency of New Haven at 419 Whalley Ave.

You can call 203-285-8018, or email [email protected]. More information is on their website at https://www.caanh.net/energy-assistance.

If you live outside of New Haven, call 211 for the appropriate agency in your town or city.

Exploring Options for Voting in Elections and Primaries

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont established a working group and tasked them with reviewing options and developing a comprehensive legislative proposal that could be presented to the Connecticut General Assembly to create a system of ranked-choice voting in Connecticut. Such a system would provide municipalities and political parties with the option of using ranked-choice voting in caucuses, conventions, primaries, and certain municipal elections.

Current state law does not enable the use of ranked-choice voting in any primaries or elections.
This working group consists of members representing various political affiliations. They have been asked to develop a final report of recommendations that could be presented to the legislature in time for consideration during the 2025 regular legislative session.

“Ranked-choice voting has been used with success in other states throughout the U.S. for many years, and there is a growing consensus in Connecticut that enacting this system here will benefit our voters. I want this multi-partisan working group to review how those systems operate, ascertain best practices, and collaboratively determine the best way that it can be implemented in Connecticut so that our municipalities and political parties have this option available to them.” — Governor Lamont

CT Bills That Didn’t Pass in 2024: EV Study, Eviction Reform, More

by Gabby DeBenedictis, CT Mirror, May 13, 2024

Connecticut’s 2024 legislative session ended on Wednesday night [May 8] with lawmakers passing a bevy of bills concerning housing, elder care, K-12 education and more.

But a large number of bills never made it out of their committees, and many of those that did were never voted on by the full legislature. …

Here…[are] some of the bills that didn’t come up for a full vote this year, but that legislators will likely revisit next year.

Electric vehicles

After efforts to phase out the sale of new gas-powered cars in Connecticut by 2035 failed, the legislature considered a bill that would have created a 40-person group to assess a transition to electric vehicles in the state.

That bill — part of an effort to reduce motor vehicle emissions, Connecticut’s largest source of pollution — never came up for a vote in the House.

‘Just cause’ evictions

A bill that would have required landlords to provide a reason, or “just cause,” when they evict tenants at the end of their leases passed out of the Housing Committee but was never voted on in the full House or Senate.

Connecticut already protects against evictions without cause for senior citizens and people with disabilities. The bill would have expanded those protections to most tenants who live in apartments with five or more units.

Falsified traffic tickets

Proposed by Gov. Ned Lamont, House Bill 5055 would have made it a Class D felony for any person acting in a law enforcement capacity to knowingly make false written statements or enter false information into a law enforcement record and explicitly make those acts a basis for decertification of an officer’s policing license. …

Though it passed the House unanimously, it was not voted on in the Senate.

Tipped minimum wage

A proposal to eliminate Connecticut’s tipped minimum wage — currently $6.38 for wait staff and $8.23 for bartenders — passed the Labor and Public Employees Committee but was not voted on by the full House or Senate.

The bill would have brought wages for tipped workers in line with the state’s minimum wage, which is currently $15.69 per hour.

[See entire article here: ctmirror.org/2024/05/13/ct-2024-legislative-session-failed-bills]

Next Deadline for Newsletter Articles: Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024

Please submit copy to [email protected]. 350-word limit. Questions? Call Paula at 203-562-2798. The next issue is our September issue. Please let us know what events your group has planned. Subscription: $13 for 10 issues, check payable to PAR, 608 Whitney Avenue, New Haven, CT 06511.

Reminder: The PAR Newsletter does not publish in July or August. Your next newsletter will be the September issue. Summer updates will be on our website par-newhaven.org.

A Plan to Fight Wage Theft Is Taking Shape in New Haven

José Luis Martínez, CT Mirror, March 31, 2024

[Editor’s Note: This article is part of CT Mirror’s Spanish-language news coverage developed in partnership with Identidad Latina Multimedia.]

Some businesses employ creative tactics to avoid paying their employees. They write bad checks, misclassify workers, falsify work hours or simply not pay them at all.
Lina Segura, for example, says she worked multiple 80+ hour workweeks last year and was not paid thousands in wages. But that’s just a fraction of at least $17 million identified as stolen from workers across Connecticut since 2019 after thousands of state investigations.

John Jairo Lugo, co-founder of immigrant rights organization Unidad Latina en Acción, is fed up. For over a decade, he’s pushed for an idea: What if a city’s health department could suspend or revoke the food and beverage licenses of cafés, bars and restaurants that commit labor violations?

After advocating for the idea since 2013, a version of it could soon become a city ordinance in New Haven. Eamon Coburn, a member of the HAVEN medical-legal partnership at Yale, which provides legal services and works with healthcare providers to tackle non-medical factors that affect people’s health, presented the idea to city officials in June 2023 … Once they overcome some legal hurdles, the ordinance could be formally introduced. If it passes, New Haven would join several cities, from Boston to San Francisco, that have created wage-theft deterrents at the local level. ..

Why a City Ordinance?
ULA has long advocated for more worker protections and harsher punishments against businesses that steal wages, as far back as the early 2000s. In 2005, it advocated for ideas that would involve the city’s police department, and in 2013, it sent New Haven officials an idea that is identical to what is being proposed now…

And during those years, the number of wage complaints submitted to the state has risen while the number of staffers who investigate those claims has decreased. State investigations can lead to fines, civil penalties and possible jail time.

The department currently has about 1,000 cases that are yet to be assigned to an investigator, creating months-long waits for workers to have their cases heard… Thousands of small claims cases are pending in court. …With this backlog, Lugo is even more compelled to get this city ordinance to the finish line.

Restaurants across the state were ordered to pay back more than $3 million to almost 2,000 employees since 2012 after federal law violations, according to a review of federal wage claim data by The Connecticut Mirror last year. …

“Employment and income will also affect your health,” said Coburn, adding that having one’s wages stolen can lead to homelessness, hunger and lack of access to medical care and transportation. “That public health lens is what is under-neath this proposal.”

[Article can be read in its entirety at https://ctmirror.org/2024/03/31/ct-wage-theft-new-haven/]

HazWaste Central at 90 Sargent Drive Opens for the Season on May 18, 2024

HazWaste Central is co-sponsored by the Regional Water Authority and the South Central Regional Council of Governments. Visiting HazWaste Central is convenient and easy because visitors never have to leave their cars, and all hazwaste is off-loaded by professionals. HazWaste Central helps residents in member towns protect local waterways and natural environments by providing a location for the appropriate and safe disposal of household hazardous waste. HazWaste Central is free to residents whose towns are active members of the HazWaste Central Municipal Planning Committee only.

Register
Please pre-register for the collection event you would like to attend. Attendance to multiple collection events throughout the Hazwaste season will require registration for each visit.

Registration Form:
https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/a69c2c00e2674223a7438dbff47679c2.

What to Bring
Check here for a list of all acceptable items: acceptable-list-2023-03-a.pdf (rwater.com).

Future Collections at 90 Sargent Dr.: June 1, 8, 15, 22; July 6, 13, 20, 27.

50th Annual People’s World Black History Month Event Feb. 25, 2024

BLACK VOICES FOR PEACE – GAZA TO CONNECTICUT

You are invited to a special celebration on Sunday, Feb 25 at 4 pm (doors open 3:30) at the Peoples Center 37 Howe St. New Haven and live streamed: “Black Voices for Peace – Gaza to Connecticut” marking the 50th annual People’s World Black History Month event.

The occasion will include prizes for the Arts and Writing Competition Grades 8-12, a workers’ rights panel with 1199 and 4 C’s union members, and guest speaker JOE SIMS co-chair CPUSA and lifelong civil rights and peace activist.

Drumming by Brian Jarawa Gray and friends will also highlight the program.

The event is hosted by the CT People’s World. Donations will be accepted for the 100th Anniversary Fund Drive.

Please circulate this invitation widely. Attached are the event flier and the arts and writing competition announcement. For more information leave a message at 203 624 8664 or reply to this email at ct-[email protected].

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A poet, musician and writer, Ed Sanders edits the Woodstock Journal. His books include “The Family,” “Sharon Tate: a Life,” and the novel “Tales of Beatnik Glory.”

New email service, newsfeed, rss service ….

Hello PAR subscriber,

This post, and hopefully, the corresponding email that we hope you receive, is evidence that the new FollowIt service is working. Hopefully, everything switches over seamlessly, and you will once again receive your PAR-NewHaven.org updates shortly after they are posted on parnewhaven.org.

Additional features are available, e.g. on https://follow.it/par-newhaven-org?action=followPub&filter you can now define filters and more delivery channels, e.g. to receive PAR news via Telegram, news page etc. (many others to follow soon, we’re assured).

Please forward this email to anyone you think may also be interested in receiving PAR New Haven updates via email and urge them to sign up for the best progressive news and events calendar around.

Medicare for All CT Alert

Please telephone or send a letter or email to your representatives in the Connecticut General Assembly asking them to amend SB 10 to prevent a harmful capitation payment model that would shut out the voices of people with physical, mental and/or developmental disabilities and others. For more information: [email protected].

First Official Tenants Union Recognized

by Noel Sims, New Haven Independent, Dec 7, 2022

A group of Blake Street renters delivered a 31-name petition to City Hall — and officially became New Haven’s first legally recognized tenants union. Tenants of the 311 Blake St. apartment complex took that legal-recognition step on Nov. 23.

City Fair Rent Commission Executive Director Wildaliz Bermudez confirmed that 31 tenants from the 311 Blake St. complex signed on to the petition that was delivered late last month to her office.

Because only 45 of that 70-unit complex’s apartments are currently occupied, Bermudez said, the petition clears the local legal threshold that a tenants union include signatures from — to quote directly from New Haven law — ​“a majority of the tenants listed as lessees within the housing accommodation.”

“As more tenants become involved in tenants’ unions, it can provide us with a better picture regarding the housing stock that is available,” Bermudez said in an email comment sent to the Independent on Tuesday, ​“and for discussions to occur regarding better ways to maintain properties and have a good well-maintained housing stock when items are needed to be addressed.”

The Blake St. Tenants Union is now the first officially, legally recognized tenants union in the city. ….
311 Blake St. renter Jessica Stamp is one of the lead organizers of the newly recognized Blake St. Tenants Union.

“I want to stay,” she told the Independent in a recent interview about her current apartment. Her rent is affordable, which allows her to save money, and she enjoys her ​“fabulous closet space.”

She said that she and her neighbors organized a tenants union partly because of a lack of response from her landlord, an affiliate of the mega landlord Ocean Management, when Stamp and other tenants have complained of rodents, disruptive construction, and other safety issues. ….

Stamp said she is excited that the union will help her neighbors that have been anxious about rent hikes, safety issues, and possible evictions. ​“This will give them relief,” she said. Having filed the petition, tenants are now protected from rent hikes and evictions for at least six months under
state law.

Now that their union is legally recognized, Stamp hopes this will ​“empower people to speak up.” Before, she felt that tenants withheld their complaints out of a fear of retaliation by 311 Blake’s landlord.

Read more at www.newhavenindependent.org/article/blake_st_tenant_union

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