Author Archives: Sarah Nutman

Last week, I watched with the throngs on the mall as Barack Obama stood on the steps of the Capitol and became president of the United States. The significance of the day — enhanced by its juxtaposition to Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the symbolism of the many inauguration-related events — was lost on »

Last week, the Tweed-New Haven Airport Authority submitted a DeStefano-backed request to the Board of Aldermen for an additional $160,000 to help keep it running this year. The airport, which carries only one commercial airline and generates most of its revenue from private planes, faces a $322,431 budget deficit even with significant subsidies from the »

New Haven has long been a city of refuge; it mandates that new development include affordable housing, it has spent more on funding for services for the homeless than the other municipalities in the state combined according to city officials, and in 2007 it launched the Elm City resident card program to protect its immigrant »

In the past week, politically active Yalies have wondered how much their efforts affected the outcome of the election. The research of Yale professors Donald Green and Alan Gerber has argued that contacting voters only marginally affects vote turnout. But recent analysis by blogger Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com based on exit poll data has suggested »

Question 1 on the Connecticut ballot next week — “Shall there be a Constitutional Convention to amend or revise the Constitution of the State?” — has received a lot of attention in recent weeks. And rightfully so. The ballot measure appears automatically every 20 years, but a convention this year threatens to reverse the recent »

Last week, Mayor John DeStefano announced he was going to run for an unprecedented ninth term, which would make him the longest-serving elected mayor in New Haven history. Although he already has one opponent, the chance that someone will be able to mount a successful campaign against him is slim. And unfortunately, without formidable opposition, »

Conflict over the Elm City Resident Cards is nothing new. Since the program’s inception in the summer of 2007, anti-immigrant groups have spent hours protesting the program and significant amounts of money filing lawsuits and then appeals against the state FIOC. The national government has had its say, too: Just after the Board of Aldermen »

“When you arrive on campus for your first term at Yale, many people will be ready and willing to offer advice about your academic choices,” claims Yale on its freshmen Web site which cites residential college deans, freshman faculty advisors, and freshman counselors. It wasn’t kidding — there were countless meetings with frocos, advisors, and »