Wednesday, February 7, 2018 -
Parks Director Becky Bombero asked the dozen skaters, skateboarders and bikers assembled before her what day of the week they would be available to come to help pull weeds as their sweat equity contribution to a new skate park.
“Almost everyone has Sundays off,” BMX rider Justin Kearney said, “since a lot of us in retail have to work on Saturdays.”
“OK, what time on Sunday?” Bombero asked.
Marisol Orihuela and her dog Rigoberta at Edgewood Park on Sunday.
Monday, October 2, 2017 - Feeling depressed after the election of Donald Trump, Yale Law School associate professor Marisol Orihuela decided this January to get a dog: a chihuaha mix that she planned to bring to local protests.
She named the dog Rigoberta, after 1992 Nobel Peace Prize recipient and Indigenous Guatemalan rights activist Rigoberta Menchú.
“She’s lived up to her name so far,” Orihuela said this Sunday afternoon outside of the Edgewood Park dog park. “We’ve gone to immigrant rights protests and universal healthcare demonstrations. If there’s a good protest happening in New Haven, she’s there.”
Harris: This is all about giving local decision making power back to local residents.
Monday, June 26, 2017 - When Lisa McKnight first moved to Rosette Street almost 50 years ago, her family’s and her neighbors’ yards were lush with grapevines, apple trees, pear trees, and rose bushes. Now she may get to see such splendor reappear on the long-vacant, overgrown lawn across the street from her home.
Or it may become a dog park, playground, or public plaza.
The city is getting control of that vacant Rosette Street lot and 15 others from the state Department of Transportation (DOT). And it’s asking neighbors like McKnight to help decide what to put there.
Andrea Konetchy with picture of recent tire dump in East Rock Park.
Wednesday, May 24, 2017 - The city can fine you for not shoveling your sidewalk or for dumping bulk trash outside your property. But until now, there has been little it can do to enforce those fines.
That’s about to change, now that the city has finally found a qualified person willing to volunteer time to adjudicate appeals to fines.
Neighborhood groups have been waiting for that change and pushing for help in tackling illegal dumping and other public-space violations.
Edgewood basketball court, among those slated for resealing.
Friday, April 7, 2017 - New Haven basketball players can look forward to smoother surfaces and clearer three-point lines at courts throughout the city. Wooster Square will be better lit at night. And more security cameras may pop up in city parks.
City parks director Becky Bombero outlined those and other planned improvements during a presentation at a hearing held by the Board of Alders Finance Committee at City Hall on Thursday night on the Harp Administration’s proposed $554.5 million operating budget and $68.7 million capital budget for the coming fiscal year.
Bombero, joined by Deputy Director of Parks & Squares Bill Carone and Deputy Director of Recreation Bill Dixon, went through nearly each item of her department’s propsed $4.29 million city capital budget for fiscal year 2017-2018, zeroing in on the various improvement projects, both big and small, that are already or are about to be under way. The parks department’s proposed city capital budget marks a $1.395 million increase over this year’s; its proposed general fund budget is flat at $5,293,300.
Tuesday’s night’s meeting.
Tuesday, January 25, 2017 - David Moser offered a simple choice to the group of skaters and bikers and rollerbladers gathered in a circle before him Tuesday night: “Concrete vs. asphalt.”
“How critical is that difference?” the city’s landscape architect asked, flipping through his notes on the ideal design of an urban skate park.
“Very!” Nearly everyone in the room shouted at once, voicing their unanimous support for concrete.