Visioning Continues for Six Lakes

July 31 Update from the Six Lakes Coalition

…. People from all over Hamden and Greater New Haven gathered… for three public visioning sessions… to dream a future for Six Lakes. The idea was… to share a vision for the 102-acre forested wetlands tucked away in southern Hamden ….

Justin Farmer, a member of the Six Lakes Park Coalition steering committee, attended all three public sessions and a fourth for the residents of Whitney Center… Altogether about 100 people attended… All had a chance to view a stunning six-minute video of the property created by the Mill River Watershed Association and to share their desires for a future park through conversations ….

“There is a consensus that people want to see green space and accessible trails,” says Justin, adding that opinions were mixed on development. “Even people who might not live to see the completion of the project were very strong in wanting the space to be preserved….”

Not everyone was in agreement about what a future park might look like. Some people wanted access for bicycles, while others wanted just pedestrians using the trails. Some wanted picnic tables and playground equipment, while others wanted a less developed space for wildlife and quiet contemplation. Few people have actually been on the property, which has been fenced off by its owner, Olin Corporation, for decades. “Without having seen it, it’s hard to imagine what it could be like,” Justin adds….

About 175 people have filled out surveys on what they’d like to see in a park at Six Lakes… steering committee members will be focusing for the next month on getting a lot more people to fill them out by going door-to-door and by promoting the survey at public events and online… The Coalition will issue a final Vision Report based on its findings from the visioning sessions and surveys sometime this fall. That report will help inform future decisions by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) and Olin as testing and, eventually, cleanup of the property moves forward.

Check out the Six Lakes video at: vimeo.com/956769518/8314bc38d2.

For more information and to fill out the survey, email [email protected].

Hiroshima and Nagasaki Vigils – We Remember

by Millie Grenough, New Haven Peace Commission

On August 6, peace activists gathered at the New Haven Green to remember the devastation caused by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and to advocate for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Youth activist Manuel Camacho from Ice the Beef and the City of New Haven Peace Commission opened the event by highlighting the lack of awareness among his generation regarding the nuclear threat. He emphasized that the United States was the first to use nuclear weapons and continues to develop more powerful ones that could endanger the planet.

The vigil included readings of a proclamation from Hiroshima Mayor Matsui Kazumi

Youth activist Adrian Huq from the New Haven Climate Movement spoke of the two existential threats, nuclear weapons and climate change.

The vigil included readings of a proclamation from Hiroshima Mayor Matsui Kazumi, who reminded the audience of the catastrophic human toll of the bombing and the ongoing risks posed by nuclear weapons. Former Mayor Toni Harp reflected on the personal significance of August 6, as it coincides with her birthday and the tragic events in Hiroshima.

The commemoration continued August 9 at New Haven City Hall, marking the 79th anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing. Henry Lowendorf, Chair of the Greater New Haven Peace Council, stressed the importance of remembering past atrocities to prevent future ones. Mayor Justin Elicker expressed gratitude to those who work tirelessly for peace, noting that funds used for nuclear weapons could better serve community needs. Roberto Irizzary, Chair of the New Haven Peace Commission, read a proclamation from Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki, urging global action for peace.

Youth activist Manuel Camacho from Ice the Beef and the City of New Haven Peace Commission opened the event by highlighting the lack of awareness among his generation regarding the nuclear threat.

Youth activist Manuel Camacho from Ice the Beef and the City of New Haven Peace Commission relates details about the deaths, city destruction, and ongoing deaths and diseases brought on by the August 9 bombing.

Atomic veteran Hank Bolden shared his harrowing experience of being used in a Defense Department experiment to test the effects of radiation, describing the long-term health consequences he and others endured. Despite the ongoing challenges, the events were a powerful reminder of the urgent need to abolish nuclear weapons, a call echoed by many speakers, including Manny Camacho, who again underscored the horrific legacy of these bombings and the continuing dangers of nuclear proliferation.

Save the Date! Fall Community Engagement Workshops at the New Haven Free Public Library

by Rory Martorana, NHFPL Public Services Administrator for Communications and Adult Services

The New Haven Free Public Library (NHFPL)’s 2025-2028 Strategic Framework planning has begun! Every few years, the NHFPL crafts a Strategic Framework—a roadmap of initiatives designed to bring our Mission, Vision, and Values to life. These frameworks are built on the insights and ideas shared by you—the residents of New Haven and visitors to NHFPL—to meet the city’s informational, cultural, and educational needs.

We need your help to make this project successful. Join us at one of our ten Community Engagement Workshops (presented in one of three languages) to share feedback on what our community needs. Tell us what you love, what we might do differently, and your thoughts on new and innovative programs you would like to see at NHFPL. Your input will help guide our goals and services for the next three years.
Community Engagement Workshops Schedule:

September 9, 6-7:30 p.m. at Mitchell Branch, 37 Harrison
Street (English)
September 19, 6-7:30 p.m. at Fair Haven Branch, 182
Grand Avenue (English)
September 23, 6-7:30 p.m. at Ives Main Library, 133 Elm
Street (English)
September 24, 6-7:30 p.m. at Wilson Branch, 303
Washington Avenue (English)
September 26, 6-7:30 p.m. at Fair Haven Branch, 182 Grand
Avenue (Spanish)
September 28, 1:30-3 p.m. at Ives Main Library, 133 Elm
Street (English)
September 30, 6-7:30 p.m. Virtual, Zoom (English)
October 1, 6-7:30 p.m. at Wilson Branch, 303 Washington
Avenue (Spanish)
October 2, 6-7:30 p.m. at Stetson Branch, 197 Dixwell
Avenue (English)
October 8, 6-7:30 p.m. at Ives Main Library, 133 Elm Street
(Mandarin)

Registration is required and refreshments will be served. Each workshop is limited to a maximum 25 participants. Call 203-946-8130, ext. 101 for more information and to register. Check our planning progress at http://nhfpl.org, and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok @nhfpl for the latest updates, details on Community Engagement Workshops, and more. Please spread the word to your neighbors and local loved ones. Let’s work together to create a better future for New Haven! Let’s work together to create a better future for New Haven!

Resolution 77: End the Madness of New Arms Race

by Ann Froines, CT Back from the Brink

As a representative of Back from the Brink (BftB), I spoke at the Hiroshima/Nagasaki Remembrance events this August 6 and 9 in New Haven, asking the attendees to join the campaign to get House Resolution 77 passed in the U.S. Congress. Experts are sounding the alarm that the risks of nuclear war are greater than ever since the beginning of the Atomic Age. (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has an excellent, free, online newsletter to keep up to date on the risks of nuclear war.)

The events were organized by the Greater New Haven Peace Council, the New Haven Peace Commission, and Veterans for Peace. Each organization had representatives who spoke movingly about the human suffering after the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings and the existential threats from a future nuclear exchange, whether intended or accidental.

House Resolution 77 calls for our government to actively pursue negotiations for arms control with other nuclear powers, to end the madness of a new arms race, and to take nuclear weapons in the U.S. off hair-trigger alert. Forty-four Congresspeople have signed on to the Resolution, and BftB groups are working nationwide to get support from a majority in the House.

None of the five CT members of the House of Representatives has yet endorsed the resolution, and BftB and other groups will pursue this goal into 2025, when there will be a new House of Representatives and a new administration.

We ask you to write your Congressperson and urge him or her to cosponsor House Resolution 77. You can reach Congressional offices through their switchboard at 202-224-3121. For further information on getting involved in CT, please contact Joe Wasserman at [email protected].

Visit the website of Back from the Brink at www.preventnuclearwar.org to learn more about the urgency of communities working together to stop the arms race and reduce the threat of nuclear war before a catastrophe happens that could threaten human existence on the planet.

U-ACT and the Amistad/Rosette Neighborhood Village Community Demand that Homelessness in New Haven Be Decriminalized

by Mark Colville, U-ACT and Amistad Catholic Worker

Every Friday from 12-1 p.m., the Unhoused Activist Community Team (U-ACT) hosts a community lunch and public speak-out on the New Haven Green, directly across from City Hall, 165 Church St. Our purpose is twofold: 1) To reach out with direct hospitality to our unhoused neighbors who are forced to take refuge on the street each day, and 2) To give a loud public voice to the misery and unnecessary suffering imposed on them by Mayor Elicker’s continued inaction and the policies that criminalize low-income people. The speak-out is often joined by public health experts, street medicine caregivers, tenants’ rights groups, immigrants’ rights collectives, anti-violence and anti-police brutality organizations, and Palestine solidarity folks, all demanding justice and decriminalization.

Central to U-ACT’s demands is a moratorium on police sweeps of tent city encampments. These are a direct violation of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which authorizes economic refugees to take up residence on unused public land when the state fails to provide them with adequate and affordable housing. We further demand that the city come into compliance with the UN—to which it is bound by congressional treaty—by designating one or more parcels of public land for the development of a supported emergency encampment for our un-housed economic refugee neighbors.

Rosette Neighborhood Village, located in the backyard at the Amistad Catholic Worker at 203 Rosette St., is a private initiative that is currently providing a working model of what a supported encampment looks like, and how the city could eliminate homelessness by replicating it on a larger scale. We demand that this form of emergency shelter be immediately and permanently legally zoned before another deadly harsh winter descends. Instead, Mayor Elicker shut off the power to this vibrant backyard micro-neighborhood in June, during the hottest days of the year so far. This cruelty must stop. This mayor must be stopped.

Please come join us for lunch and speak-out every Friday and stay for U-ACT’s weekly organizing meeting from 1-2:30 p.m. in the public library across from the Green at 133 Elm St.

For more information please contact Mark Colville at 203-645-5417.

THE EMERGENCY IS TONIGHT!
“The only solution is love and love comes with community” – Dorothy Day

2024 Greater New Haven Labor History Association Conference Sept 8, 4 – 6 p.m.

by Steve Mooser, Greater New Haven Labor Association

Les Leopold, the Executive Director of the Labor Institute, is the Keynote Speaker at the Greater New Haven Labor History Association’s annual conference on September 8. He and longtime community organizer and housing advocate, Kim McLaughlin, will receive the organization’s Augusta Lewis Troup award.

For decades, Leopold has been an impassioned and articulate advocate for workers’ rights and financial well-being. He founded the Labor Institute in 1975 to work for a more equitable and just society. The Institute conducts educational programs for unions, environmental organizations and other community activist groups. Bringing diverse groups out of their respective “silos” to work together has been a priority.

In 2009, Leopold wrote “The Looting of America: How Wall Street’s Game of Fantasy Finance Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity and What We Can Do About It.” His 2015 book, “Runaway Inequality: An Activist’s Guide to Economic Justice,” focused on the causes of income inequity. The most significant impact has been caused by the growth of the financial sector. Neo-liberal austerity measures and significant cuts in corporate taxes and those of the wealthy forced communities to scramble to fund basic service needs, including incurring greater debt to financial entities.

In his latest book, Wall Street’s War on Workers, he expands on how the financial sector has strip-mined middle-class wealth. Leopold clearly demonstrates the result of stock buybacks. Venture capitalists buy up control of an economically healthy company by incurring tremendous debt. Borrowed funds are used for bonuses and to buy back stock. The once-healthy company is saddled with debilitating debts, resulting in massive layoffs.

A second theme is using polling data to debunk the commonly presented message that the blue-collar workforce and white working class are lost to extreme right-wing political forces.

We look forward to an exciting meeting, including music by labor troubadour Frank Panzarella. Admission is free; donations appreciated!

GNHLHA Conference is Sunday, Sept. 8, 4–6 p.m. at The Labor Center/NHFT Union Hall, 267 Chapel Street, New Haven. Parking is available in the back.

Pizza will be served at the conclusion of the program. For more info: Steve Mooser, [email protected].

Betsy Ross Arts School and New Haven Peace Commission Celebrate International Day of Peace

by Millie Grenough, New Haven Peace Commission

Cultivating a Culture of Peace is the 2024 theme of the United Nations’ International Day of Peace. To celebrate this theme locally, Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School will collaborate with the City of New Haven Peace Commission to host the annual planting of the Peace Tree on their school grounds, 150 Kimberly Ave., New Haven, on Friday, September 20, at 10 a.m.

For decades, the City of New Haven Peace Commission has planted a tree on the grounds of a different city school, library, or public building. The trees and plaques remind us of those killed by gun violence in our community and in wars abroad, and affirm the commitment of New Haven as a United Nations-designated Peace Messenger City, for action toward peace and justice everywhere.

At the Sept. 20 event, students will perform and will unveil an inscribed marker bearing a message that expresses their desire and commitment to work actively for peace. The plaque will be mounted near a tree that they choose, donated and planted by Urban Resources Initiative.

When the General Assembly of the United Nations initiated the Day of Peace in 1981, it stated that peace “not only is the absence of conflict, but also requires a positive, dynamic participatory process where dialogue is encouraged and conflicts are solved in a spirit of mutual understanding and cooperation.”

Betsy Ross teachers and students are known for their creativity in music, dance, theatre, and the visual arts. We are eager to see how they will highlight their vision of peace. Expect creative performances by students and a few peace-loving grown-ups.

Photos of earlier peace monuments and dedication ceremonies: www.PeaceCommission.org. Put the date on your calendar now: Friday, Sept. 20, 2024 at 10 a.m. at Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School, 150 Kimberly Ave., New Haven 06519.

Up-to-date info: http://www.PeaceCommission.org and http://www.rossarts.org

Social Media: http://facebook.com/newhavenpeacecommission and Instagram: @nhpeacecommission

Contact: Principal Jennifer Jenkins, Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School, email: [email protected], phone: 475-220-5300 and Fred Brown, City of New Haven Peace Commission, email: [email protected], phone: 203-415-1370.

Unemployment Is Largely an Unrecognized and Underestimated Problem in Connecticut and Nationwide

by Sarianna Sabbarese, Jobs and Human Rights Task Force

Official Unemployment: 3.9% or 72,573 CT workers
Hidden Unemployment: 47,808 (working part-time because they can’t find full-time work)
Want Jobs But Are Not Currently Looking: 58,760 (left out of most statistics)
Full, Accurate Count Of Un- And Under-Employed Workers In CT: 181,141

Many not included in the official “unemployment” statistics grapple with underemployment. For instance, those who are not currently looking for work, those who string together multiple part-time jobs to make ends meet, and those who work “under the table” because they aren’t granted access to stable, life-supporting opportunities through the labor market.

The Jobs and Human Rights Task Force is a CT-based group working under the auspices of the National Jobs For All Network. The nationwide long-term goal is to advance and advocate for a policy plan that radically reimagines the existing labor system. We seek a Federal Job Guarantee for all people that recognizes access to meaningful, living wage employment as a human right to which all who wish to work are entitled. We believe that systemic inequality and injustice make all people poorer.

We work at the state level to lay the groundwork for this human rights-based employment framework. Connecticut contains both soaring wealth and deep poverty within its borders. The economic disparities found here mirror those seen across the US. Thus, it can serve as an ideal state in which to push for, test out, refine, and model interventions that address the root causes of this unjust and unequal system — interventions that can then be applied on the national level.

Help us reach our goal of establishing a job creation program that will employ 10% of un- and underemployed people in Connecticut! We meet on the second Wednesday of each month. Our next meeting will be held on Wednesday, September 11, at 8 p.m. via ZOOM. Email Sarianna Sabbarese at [email protected] for the link, or for more info about the Task Force.

Brian Tokar To Give the 2024 Shafer Lecture

by Stanley Heller, Administrator, Promoting Enduring Peace

The annual Shafer Lecture, presented by Promoting Enduring Peace, will feature Brian Tokar, author of “The Green Alternative,” “Earth for Sale,” “Toward Climate Justice,” and “Climate Justice and Community Renewal: Resistance and Grassroots Solutions.”

This free event will be held on Saturday, Sept. 14 at 3 p.m. at the Unitarian Society of New Haven, 700 Hartford Turnpike, Hamden. Please see the enclosed insert for more information.

To learn more about Promoting Enduring Peace, please see PEPeace.org or @pepeace on social media.

Northeast Electric Vehicle Symposium (NEEVS)

On Sunday, Sept. 15, noon to 4 p.m., and Monday, Sept. 16, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., at Hotel Marcel, 500 Sargent Drive, get charged up at NEEVS, the ultimate gathering for EV enthusiasts, policymakers, and those seeking trusted guidance on driving electric. Sunday is dedicated to educating and informing consumers as they meet and talk with a variety of EV owners showcasing their cars and as they participate in a ride and drive event to experience EVs on a 1.5-mile route. The NEEVS symposium is a fantastic opportunity to immerse yourself in the world of electric vehicles and network with industry experts. Discover the latest incentives, policies and advances in zero-emission vehicles and pathways to decarbonizing the built environment. Register at https://tinyurl.com/4uvn7hva.

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