Parole Holds A Key To Reentry Puzzle

Cynthia Farrar (left) with Criminal Justice Insider hosts Jeff Grant and Babz Rawls Ivy.

Tuesday, January 23, 2018 - 

Cynthia Farrar and her colleagues at the documentary production company Purple States knew that they wanted to make a movie about prison reentry.

What she and her colleagues did not know until they started putting the movie together was that any documentary about the challenges of leaving prison, reintegrating into society, and avoiding recidivism inevitably needed to focus on the day-to-day realities of life on parole.

“Most people leaving prison now are on parole,” Farrar said on the latest episode of WNHH FM’s “Criminal Justice Insider with Babz Rawls-Ivy and Jeff Grant.” “And the public doesn’t know anything about what happens on parole, and that story needed to be told. The single most frequent reason why people end up back in jail is parole violations.”

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Yale Div School Eyes East Rock Home

Stephen Brown shows neighbors a map and photographs of 320 Canner St., a two-story, single-family home that Yale is interested in purchasing and converting to academic use.

Tuesday, January 23, 2018 - 

The Yale Divinity School is interested in purchasing a single-family home near its Prospect Hill campus and converting it into an academic building, thereby removing over $18,500 from the city’s annual property tax rolls.

At Monday night’s regular monthly meeting of the East Rock Community Management Team (ERCMT) at the mActivity Gym on Nicoll Street, Karen King from Yale’s Office of New Haven and State Affairs and Stephen Brown from Yale’s Planning Administration informed neighbors that the university is exploring a potential purchase of the two-story, single-family home at 320 Canner St.

The home, built in 1986, is privately owned and occupied and has an assessed value of $481,810 as of 2016. At the current mill rate of 38.68, annual property taxes on the home would be $18,636.

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Film Fest Brings Latin American Directors To Town

Latin American filmmakers come to town for LIFFY. From left to right: Juan Gomez, Carlos Barba Salva, Luis Alberto García, Deyma D’Atri, and Jean Jean.

Friday, November 17, 2017 - 

After decades of cool antagonism, the United States restores full diplomatic relations with Cuba, and a New Yorker returns to the island nation of her birth to look after her ailing father.

Cut to four men playing dominos as they speculate on the political future of Cuba. Or to the story of the first transgender woman to be elected to Venezuela’s National Assembly. Or to the challenges faced by a Haitian woman who has lived in the Dominican Republic for 30 years, but still falls between the cracks as a “non-resident.”

These are just a few of the stories on display this weekend at the Latino and Iberian Film Festival at Yale (LIFFY), an annual celebration of contemporary Spanish and Portuguese-language cinema that takes place in downtown New Haven, at the Whitney Humanities Center at 53 Wall St.

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Harp Crushes Paca 3-1

Kim Edwards, Sarah Ofosu embrace after their primary.

By by PAUL BASS, ALLAN APPEL, MARKESHIA RICKS, THOMAS BREEN, & MICHELLE LIU

Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - New Haven Democrats gave an overwhelming vote of confidence Tuesday to Mayor Toni Harp, as she clobbered challenger Marcus Paca in a party primary in which she won all 30 wards in the city.

Final returns showed Harp with 74.5 percent of the vote to Paca’s 25.5 percent. Counting absentee ballots, Harp received 5,788 votes to Paca’s 1,977.

Both camps had anticipated a closer race because of Paca’s energetic campaigning, contrasted with Harp’s lower-key style. Both sides in effect made the primary election a referendum on Harp’s first two terms in office, from her leadership style and budgeting record to her housing and criminal-justice and pro-immigrant policies.

City Says No To Pesticides

Wednesday, September 6, 2017 - You can still legally use toxic chemicals to keep your lawns green — but now the city officially would rather that you not.

Such was one of the decisions of the Board of Alders on Tuesday night, when it voted unanimously during a regular meeting at City Hall to approve a resolution in support of the voluntary non-use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers on lawns and gardens in New Haven.

The nonbinding resolution recommends that residents first consider the health and environmental consequences of such actions with the hope that more people will choose safer lawn care alternatives instead.

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Concrete Revelations

Hopkins describes some of the architectural details of Church Street South.

Monday, August 21, 2017 - Jonathan Hopkins stood on a grassy hill overlooking a nearly vacant housing complex and pointed out some of its buildings’ distinguishing architectural characteristics.

A mixture of smooth and rough concrete blocks at the end walls mimicked a Colonial brick feature called quoining. The two-over-two double-hung windows with lintels and protruding cornices recalled a popular type of Georgian window design. The individual staircases and private outdoor spaces provided a modicum of privacy for tenants when the 301-unit complex was more fully occupied.

This coherent and innovative architectural design is still visible, Hopkins argued, if you look closely at the buildings themselves that comprise Church Street South, the notorious subsidized housing complex near Union Station that has been almost completely vacated after decades of mismanagement, crime, and neglect have reduced the complex to a dangerous state of disrepair for its recently-evacuated, low-income tenants.

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Right Space, Team To Make A Movie

Gavin, Blau, and Marra on set at Lyric Hall.

Monday, July 31, 2017 - The cameras were in focus, the actors in position, the lights and furniture in the antique barroom rearranged in preparation for the next scene of the movie.

But just as the various players on the set were about to launch into their respective roles, 9-year-old non-professional actor and assistant-director-for-the-day Isaac Blau shouted out to the group, “Wait, wait, wait! I forgot to say, ‘Action!’”

Director Anna Marra smiled at Blau and flashed a wink towards the cast and crew as she said, “Of course, you are right. Thank you so much, Isaac. Where would we be without you?”

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City Prepares For More Floods

Water resources consultant Murphy with a FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) of downtown New Haven.

Friday, July 21, 2017 - Anticipating higher sea levels, harsher hurricanes, and more frequent floods in the not-too-distant future as a result of climate change, officials are embarking on an outreach campaign to inform residents in flood-prone neighborhoods about how best to protect themselves against the threat of rising water.

They are also pointing residents to a 15 percent, nationally-subsidized discount on flood insurance that New Haveners are now eligible for thanks to the city’s recent efforts to bolster and protect its floodplains.

The latest stop on the city’s floodplain awareness tour came this past Tuesday night, as City Plan Department staffer Susmitha Attota and water resources planning consultant David Murphy presented background information and flood protection tips to the Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team (DWSCMT) during its regular monthly meeting at City Hall.

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