New Program Couldn’t Keep Him Alive

Liaison Jesus Garzon Ospina describes death of first LEAD participant.

Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018 - 

Two New Haven police officers found Mark Cochran, 55 — the first person targeted for help in an experimental program to keep nonviolent offenders out of jail — slumped over and intoxicated behind Trinity Church on the Green.

It was a Thursday in mid-December. The police called an ambulance, and, when it arrived, Cochran picked himself up and walked over to the car of his own strength.

As the ambulance ferried him to Yale-New Haven Hospital, Cochran, who had struggled for years with homelessness and substance abuse, coded. Medical personnel on board were not able to resuscitate him.

Cochran was pronounced dead at the hospital soon after the ambulance arrived.

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Former Refugee Takes LEAD Downtown

Jesus Garzon Ospina

Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - 

A Gateway Community College student who first came to New Haven over 15 years ago as a refugee fleeing violence in Colombia has been tapped to help low-level, non-violent drug offenders on the New Haven Green avoid arrest and receive stable housing, employment and medical rehabilitation.

At Tuesday night’s regular monthly meeting of the Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team (DWSCMT) on the second floor of City Hall, the 20-year-old political science student at Gateway Community College, Jesus Garzon Ospina, introduced himself as the neighborhood’s new community liaison for the city’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program.

LEAD is an experimental pre-arrest diversion initiative that the city launched at the end of November in the Hill and Downtown neighborhoods. The program, which was founded in Seattle and has been adopted in Albany, Baltimore, and Bangor, Maine, seeks to provide case management and rehabilitative social services instead of arrests and incarceration for low-level offenders engaged in drug abuse, prostitution and other non-violent street crimes.

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LEAD Launches

Lt. O’Neill at Tuesday night’s meeting.

Friday, Nov. 24, 2017 - 

The city’s new prospective start date for a pilot program that diverts prostitutes and low-level drug offenders from the criminal justice system and towards social services is this coming Wednesday, Nov. 29.

At Tuesday night’s Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team (DWSCMT) meeting on the second floor of City Hall, Lt. Mark O’Neill, who is the district commander for the neighborhood, updated residents on the latest schedule for the city’s new Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program.

The city is preparing to begin a two-year, federally-funded pilot next week in the Hill and Downtown neighborhoods.

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Ping Pong Bests Piano, Bikes

The five finalists.

Friday, October 20, 2017 - Wooster Square will soon be home to two public ping pong tables after neighbors voted in a spirited election to spend part of their annual citizen-controlled allotment of the city budget on tabletop tennis.

Such was the result of the most recent Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team (DWSCMT) meeting, which was held on the second floor of City Hall.

The meeting featured a “ranked choice”-style election — not over personalities seeking public office, but rather over how a community should allot public money. Advocates for public bikes and a kiosk and a piano competed with the ping pong proponent for the public’s support.

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Hundreds Rally Against Student’s Dad’s Deportation

Demonstrators march through Downtown and Yale’s campus on Tuesday night in support of a Yale undergraduate’s father who is facing deportation.

Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - Hundreds of Yale students, immigrant rights activists, and community allies rallied through the streets of downtown New Haven on Tuesday night in support of a Yale undergraduate’s father who has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Colorado and faces deportation to Mexico.

Wrapped in scarves, coats, bullhorns, and posters, around 400 demonstrators marched and chanted along Crown Street, High Street, and Elm Street from 8:30 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday in opposition to an immigration enforcement system that they said unjustly tears families apart.

The protesters then gathered on the quad outside of Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library for another hour to listen to speakers pledge their support for the immediate release of Melecio Andazola Morales, a 41-year-old construction worker who has been held for the past week at the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Denver Contract Detention Facility in Aurora, Colorado.

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Duncan Rebuilders Vow To Preserve History

The Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team.

Thursday, September 21, 2017 - The new owners of the the 123-year-old Hotel Duncan promised to preserve many of its historic architectural elements, from its manual-operated elevator to its neon-lit marquee, as it converts the building into an upscale establishment.

On the inside, they aim to reimagine the design of the rooms and lobbies to reflect New Haven history and culture and to create a communal space that is welcoming to both visiting hotel guests and members of the community.

Such was the pitch that Graduate Hotels president Tim Franzen made to the Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team on Tuesday night during its monthly meeting on the second floor of City Hall.

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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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“Participatory Budgeting” Takes On Olive Street Speeding

Friday, May 19, 2017  - Olive Street will be the beneficiary of a new mobile, radar speed sign next year as the result of an annual exercise in “participatory budgeting”: a democratic decision-making process that empowers a neighborhood to decide how to spend a small share of the city budget.

During its monthly meeting at City Hall this week, the Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team (DWSCT) voted to dedicate $5,000 of its annual $10,000 in “Neighborhood Public Improvement Program (NPIP)” allotment towards traffic calming on Olive Street.

For the past three years, the Livable City Initiative (LCI), the city’s anti-blight agency, has distributed $10,000 in NPIP money to each community management team in New Haven to spend as it chooses. The program allows community members themselves to debate and decide on which quality-of-life issues they would like to address in any given year.

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Zoning Overhaul Hearings Postponed; Criticism Aired

Wednesday, May 17, 2017  - Two hearings scheduled for a plan to dramatically change how New Haven makes major zoning decisions have been postponed, and the proposal ran into some initial public criticism Tuesday night.

The Legislation Committee’s proposed amendment to the zoning ordinance governing “Community Impacts” came under sharp criticism from members of the Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team (DWSMT) on Tuesday night during their monthly meeting at City Hall.

The plan would create a new “high impact” category of zoning approval that would require Yale University to go through a new layer of review — and detail a wide-ranging list of “community impacts” — before it builds anything in New Haven. (Read a previous full article about the proposal, and arguments for and against it, by clicking here.)

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Plans Revived For Wooster Sq. Apartments

Wednesday, May 17, 2017 - A historic industrial building in the Wooster Square neighborhood that has sat vacant for years may soon be home to nearly two dozen new apartments and a street-level café or microbrewery.

Real estate developer Peter Chapman presented this vision for a building he owns at 433 Chapel St. during the Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management team’s monthly meeting at City Hall on Tuesday night.

Chapman first bought the building at the corner of Hamilton Street — just on the other side of where I-91 bisected the historic neighborhood into residential and industrial zones back during urban renewal — from the city in 2002 with the intention of converting the six-story brick warehouse into 14 apartments and a street-level commercial space. After years of delayed development and political troubles stymied his first attempts to rehab, and then to sell, the building, Chapman told the management team on Tuesday night, he is now on firm financial footing. He said he has a plan for the building that fits well within the city’s zoning requirements; and that he, just like everyone in the neighborhood, is eager to see it once again occupied.

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Garage Eyed As Temporary “Commons”

Powers presents to neighbors.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017 - As Yale closes up its “Commons” for a $150 million rebuilding, it’s looking to a York Street garage to serve as a temporary replacement for student dining and big events.

The university is seeking city permission to convert the former dialysis center-turned-parking garage at 150 York St. into a temporary event space that will host both town and gown functions. The university already owns the building, and is waiting on City Plan Commission approval of its updated site and usage plans before beginning construction.

On Tuesday night, two Yale representatives presented the university’s latest plans for 150 York at the monthly meeting of the Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team on the second floor of City Hall. The university has already submitted its new plans for the building to the City Plan Commission, which is scheduled to vote on the proposal later this week.

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More Cops On Foot? Or In Cars?

Anderson (center) pushes for more motor vehicle enforcement.

February 22, 2017 - Sometimes, Sgt. Sean Maher told Wooster Square and downtown neighbors, they may need to choose between more walking cops and more traffic cops.

Maher made the observation while reoprting good news — and then getting some pushback in response — at Tuesday evening’s monthly Downtown Wooster Square Community Management team meeting at City Hall.

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