Champion of reform.
For years, Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin has been steadfast that the city was not at fault for construction delays and contract disputes…with a new court trial though, the City of Hartford could be responsible for tens of millions of dollars in damages.
The atrocity of May 24th has shocked me out of that complacency. At the time of writing this, 21 people were slaughtered in a school, including 19 children. I found out through text — I knew it had to be something uniquely awful to get a text instead of stumbling across it on Twitter. I felt the same pit of my stomach as with Sandy Hook.
Given all we know about the structure of the system office, Connecticut’s deeply entrenched system of political ties, friendships, and cronyism, is this how we want to safeguard one of our state’s most important public institutions — our community colleges?
Maybe it shouldn’t trouble us if a company that makes television sets or shoes or dish detergent is under a legal duty to put its profits ahead of everything else. But here, when it comes to baby formula, we are seeing what happens when a human necessity becomes a commodity.
Connecticut is not a place where we have to convince people that climate change is real, but there is still work to be done to show how serious the situation is. Decreasing carbon emissions and making a more serious effort to shift to renewable energy sources are now a matter of our survival.
The NFL and NBA didn’t start off as the professional sports behemoths they are now and someday we’ll look back on this era as the moment when eSports began its ascendancy to similar heights of popularity. Hartford’s students need to be a part of building the future of the next great competitive sport.
Unless we start to balance the courts away from its current corporate and prosecutorial bias, we will never have a judiciary that truly works for the people.
Conversations about cultural norms are important and we should continue to have them, but let’s also remember to celebrate our diversity, to value each other’s perspectives, and to stand up to those who seek to control us.
We are the threads in this larger fabric of society, each of us providing our own measure of strength, commitment, and values that weave together a beautiful tapestry of democracy and civic responsibility.
Our students do not have a hard time reading and writing. They have a hard time reading and writing in a stilted, academic format, under pressure, for two hours at a time. Failing these tests does not mean they’re unprepared for a world that will never ask them to write that way again.
“Special Parole” is overused against people of color in Connecticut, specifically against Black people who are sent back to prison over special parole violations at disproportionate rates. As reported by the ACLU in 2019, from 2008 to 2018, while the number of people sentenced in Connecticut overall declined by 34%, the number of people on special parole increased by 142%.
The LGBTQ+ Nutmeggers recognized this year provide a symbol of queer visibility, determination, and courage from every corner of the state. Despite immense hardship, the 19th Annual Dorothy Awards showcased the unfailing pluck and creativity of the queer community, an enduring beacon of hope during troubled times.
Hartford residents deserve to drive on safe, well-maintained roads that don’t sap money from their pockets in the form of car repairs. City dwellers and those in surrounding towns shouldn’t have to deal with sewage spilling into the streets as the inevitable results of climate change douse the city with bigger, more intense storms.
It’s no secret that Black American churches have been the heart of countless neighborhoods for generations. They were often the only civic space where local politics thrived in Black communities since electoral politics were near impossible in political machine cities. Black pastors were and remain significant leaders especially in urban America.
The reality of negative outcomes for Black residents is often papered over because Connecticut is a “blue” state, and Democrats are given more credit for being progressive on matters of race. However, when you dig into the actual outcomes Black residents face here, it becomes clear that the Democrat’s reputation has not been earned.
The existence of the Network serves as a groundbreaking step forward for a historically underserved community (in Connecticut and beyond). Importantly, LGBTQ+ individuals can no longer be forgotten by lawmakers both as a population with unique needs as well as a resource for the state itself. Money allocated to the Network will allow the skills and talents of the LGBTQ+ community to flourish, subsequently giving back to Connecticut at both the state and local levels.
Solitary confinement is torture, and it is torture that the State of Connecticut engages in regularly. In 2019, Connecticut was ranked worst in the nation for disproportionately assigning Black men to solitary.
Connecticut has a nasty habit of overlooking how wealthy and overwhelmingly White our suburbs are, while we have so many poorer and majority minority cities. Our school districts reflect our divided communities and the Sheff case was attempting to address this social and economic phenomenon.
Whatever limited political will there was for true police reform after Floyd’s shocking murder has dissipated. We’re left with the pre-2020 status quo of constantly expanding police budgets and tough-on-crime sloganeering during election years.
COVID-19 has provided us an opportunity to consider the issues that may have been not as visible before the pandemic. One of the largest issues that we have learned is the divisiveness in our communities, which like all other issues, is further exasperated by technology.
In 2008, Angel Arce Torres was struck by a car on Park Street as he was crossing the road. The accident, and alleged indifference of those who witnessed it, made national headlines. He died a year later.
Civically engaged parents leading for and on behalf of their children bring about the change — the much-needed change in Connecticut and through every neighborhood in the Capitol region.
While our state laws clearly state that the transition to a clean energy future should be inclusive, the continued lack of representation of black and brown leaders in our state’s energy and infrastructure planning has led to lack of information and lack of equally distributed fiscal support for efficiency, clean energy, and resilience in our communities.
The current system bleakly promises “make an investment and personal sacrifice now and maybe you will be rewarded later”, the new trend in technology reinforces the intrinsic value of each youth’s time and through this iterative personalization-at-scale, greatly increases the likelihood of future success across various sectors.
Hartford has some political promise because there’s more competition within its Democratic Town Committee and there’s a viable Working Families Party getting candidates elected to the city council. Party competition could lead to more candidates for public office and more political reform initiatives.
If we have learned anything in the past two years, it should be that radical community care is the only thing that can help us in the fight against COVID-19.
Imagine in a worst-case scenario that 60% of the people currently suffering through the omicron surge in Hartford are now missing wages for up to two weeks. That’s a staggering loss of wealth, for both the individuals and the region as a whole.
The contribution of Connecticut’s immigrant population is undeniable, yet many cannot fully participate as Connecticut citizens because the State of Connecticut does not provide full language access to its government agencies.
