Author Archives: Danny Serna

A group of migrant farm workers who claim they worked in near-slavery conditions are demanding justice — and they may soon get it. Four former farm workers at Riverside Dairy in Northford, Conn., gathered in front of the New Haven courtroom on Elm Street Monday morning to draw attention to their plight and demand that »

Two weeks from now, downtown New Haven’s food drought will be over. Supermarket chain Stop & Shop has nearly completed the process of moving into the Whalley Avenue building that once housed a Shaw’s supermarket and is well on track to its April 15 opening, store manager Anne Demchak said. In preparing for the opening, »

Nearly half of all New Haven high school seniors applied to receive one of the inaugural New Haven Promise scholarships, New Haven Public Schools spokeswoman Betsy Yagla announced in a Tuesday press release. Three hundred and sixty of the 848 public school seniors who reside in New Haven applied for the partially Yale-funded scholarship by »

The Connecticut Bond Commission formally set aside millions in funding for two key city projects last week, the New Haven Independent reported. Downtown Crossing, an effort to reconnect downtown by replacing the Route 34 connector with an urban boulevard, will receive $7.9 million from the commission. This will be in addition to $16.9 million the »

Most Yale employees like their jobs, but many are feeling less committed to the University than in the recent past, according to the results of the 2010 workplace survey released Monday. The bi-annual survey went out to non-faculty University staff last November. Eighty percent of staff completed the survey — the highest rate since the »

Downtown Crossing, the city’s effort to rebuild downtown by turning Route 34 into an urban boulevard, may receive a $7.9 million boost from the state this week. In a joint statement last week, Mayor John DeStefano Jr. and Gov. Dannel Malloy announced that the State Bond Commission had placed the $7.9 million in funding for »

Two streets that provide major pedestrian pathways through campus should remain closed to vehicle traffic, the City Plan commission voted unanimously last week. The two streets — Wall Street between College and York and High Street between Elm and Grove — have been closed to traffic since 1990, when a cash-strapped city handed the streets »

UPDATED: 7:11 p.m. Police officers involved in the controversial Oct. 2 raid on the Morse-Stiles screw on Elevate Lounge did nothing deserving of punishment, City Hall Chief Administrative Officer Robert Smuts ’01 found after reviewing the completed Internal Affairs investigation. Smuts submitted the report on the investigation along with his recommendations to the Board of »

Even if proposed changes to Connecticut elections bring more voters to the polls, Yalies may not be among them. Secretary of the State Denise Merrill unveiled exhaustive election reforms last week, including one, no-excuse absentee voting, that is designed to boost voter turnout by making voting easier. But while the expansion of Connecticut’s absentee ballot »

Nearly five months after New Haven police raided the Morse-Stiles Screw at Elevate Lounge on Crown Street, relations between Yale students and the New Haven Police Department have not seen the concrete improvements administrators had originally hoped for. Just after the raid, which saw New Haven police arrest five students and use a Taser on »

A bill restricting Connecticut employers from using credit reports in hiring decisions has pitted the University against its unions once again. State Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, who represents half of New Haven and a majority of Yale’s central campus, introduced the bill in January in response to complaints that applicants were discriminated against because »

Downtown Crossing, a plan to reconnect a city split in two by Route 34, could be in danger. Last October, University and city administrators celebrated news that the federal government had awarded New Haven $16 million in TIGER II federal stimulus dollars to tear down Route 34, the highway constructed in the 1950s in hopes »