Friday, July 25, 2008

"You Get Angry Sitting Here 24-7"

Keith Gaither is stuck inside, missing his freshman year of high school because there's no wheelchair ramp at his home.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
By Betsy Yagla

Just four steps separate 14-year-old Keith Gaither from the world.

Keith's mom, Rhonda, used to carry him up and down those stairs, but the petite woman—just 5-foot-2—can't manage the stairs anymore with Keith and his wheelchair in her arms.

Keith has cerebral palsy and would have started his freshman year at Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven this fall. Instead, he's spending the year at home with a public school tutor because he can't get out of his house with his wheelchair. Keith missed all of eighth grade last year because he was stuck inside an apartment that's not handicapped accessible.

Rhonda Gaither has four kids, a grandson and a Section 8 voucher worth $1,400 toward a four-bedroom apartment. The family was on a waiting list for 12 years before finally scoring a Section 8 voucher in 2003 from the Housing Authority of New Haven (HANH). Rhonda had 60 days to find an apartment before the voucher would be rescinded. The family couldn't find a four-bedroom, wheelchair-accessible apartment, so they settled for a first floor, three-bedroom on Ridge Street in the Cedar Hill neighborhood.

"We just needed something," says Rhonda, sitting in her living room with Keith beside her, aimlessly channel surfing. "I'm still looking."

Keith's dilemma illustrates a larger problem plaguing HANH: Rapid turnover, poorly kept records and a lack of affordable handicapped accessible apartments throughout the city have left some disabled tenants with unsuitable housing. The Housing Authority was reprimanded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (its funding source) this year for non-compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and for not doing enough to help non-elderly, disabled Section 8 tenants. HANH has 213 handicapped accessible units in its portfolio, but 150 of them are "elderly only."

That leaves few options for the non-elderly disabled, like Keith. Keith's family has brought a federal fair housing lawsuit against HANH in the hope that a judge will force the agency to either hire an assistant to get Keith to and from school, or provide a larger Section 8 voucher to find a bigger apartment.

HANH refused to install a ramp at the Gaithers' home, but that's a moot point now anyway. Ramps are not an option on most old properties, like the Gaithers', because the homes' stairs are too close to the sidewalk.

"They're asking for much more than HANH has ever done," says Housing Authority Chairman Bob Solomon. "They're saying the Housing Authority has more obligations, and that's not the law as I know it."

The Gaithers' three-bedroom apartment is crowded—mountain bikes and Keith's extra wheelchair hog space in the family room—with six people and all their stuff.

When he was younger, Keith could get around the neighborhood independently after school, and go down to nearby East Rock Park with friends. Keith's older brother used to help him in and out of the house but can't now because of his work and school schedule.

Keith could take the bus to school, if he could get on it. The school bus drivers were told that for liability reasons, they're not allowed to carry Keith down the apartment building stairs. School policy says it is the parents' responsibility to make their children available for school.

"I want him to go to school—he needs to go to school," says Rhonda. "He needs to learn things instead of just sitting in this house. He needs to go out and be with kids his own age." Instead he spends the day with his mother. Since Keith is confined to his home, Rhonda's had to leave her job as a paraprofessional at New Haven's Sound School to help Keith at home.

"You get angry sitting in the house 24-7," Rhonda says. "He gets angry. I get angry. It's just too much to see the same four walls every day."

Those four steps leading to and from Keith's house aren't the only obstacle Keith faces at home. The Ridge Street apartment only has one bathroom and it's too small for Keith's wheelchair.


This is isn't the first time HANH's fallen down on helping a disabled tenant. Michelle Duprey, the director of New Haven's Disability Services, says her office has fielded complaints about HANH for years. Last year, the Connecticut Fair Housing Alliance filed three fair housing complaints against HANH with the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. Greg Kirschner, CFHA's staff attorney, says he sees more complaints from New Haven than elsewhere in the state. The complaints center of HANH's lack of help in finding handicap accessible housing and the lack of help in negotiating the price of that housing, he says.

Echoing that, Duprey says, "One of the biggest problems [for people with a disability] is getting help with Section 8 to find accessible housing." Instead of helping, HANH "just sends people to my office and that's not our function. We are not a housing resource office."

HANH seems to think they are. In a May email to Duprey, HANH deputy director Sheila Allen Bell asked, "Do you know if there is a database of accessible units in New Haven and surrounding area i.e., West Haven, East Haven etc." Duprey's curt response was: "No there is no database of accessible units. In fact, HANH was supposed to create its own database of Section 8 units more than a decade ago as part of a settlement with HUD on a discrimination complaint [a 1994 agreement between HUD and HANH that said HANH would build a database of accessible Section 8 units]. Of course it never happened and my office has been struggling with the resulting problems for years," Duprey wrote.

"She's disability services. I thought she would know," says Bell in a phone interview. And anyway, Bell adds, "I wasn't asking for Section 8 units."

If a database of handicapped accessible apartments existed, it would be a very short list. On a list of nearly 500 Section 8 properties in New Haven, only one is designated as handicapped accessible. Twice in the last year, HUD has advised HANH to help the disabled find homes and to make more of HANH's programs handicapped accessible. But HUD won't tell HANH exactly what they should be doing.

"If the law doesn't tell you what to do, the regulations should tell you and if the regulations don't tell you, the policy should tell you," says Solomon. "HUD has left that role to a guessing game in typical HUD fashion."

HUD spokeswoman Kristine Foye says, "HUD requires that at the very least, they must keep a list of accessible units in the area." Other requirements about what is to be done to assist the disabled are to be "determined on a local level."


In the meantime, the Gaithers have been looking for an accessible apartment. Because there are so few handicapped accessible homes in New Haven, the market is tight and these places rarely become available, and when they do, they're expensive.

So where should the Gaithers live? "This is really a question for the private housing market," says Karen Dubois-Walton, HANH's chief operating officer. (HANH officials wouldn't comment on the Gaithers' case, only on the disabled housing conundrum generally.)

There's little to entice developers to build handicapped accessible apartments, says Joe O'Sullivan, a local landlord. He was looking for a way to reduce turnout at his New Haven apartments, and a fellow realtor suggested he create units for handicapped-accessible housing.
Making units accessible—adding ramps to the front and back entryways, enlarging the bathroom, installing a wheel-in shower, lowering counter tops and fixtures—adds up to about $30,000, O'Sullivan says. Section 8 tenants wouldn't generate enough income for O'Sullivan to break even or make a profit.

"It started out self interested—the intention to reduce turnover," says O'Sullivan. "Then I met the families. I went to their homes and saw their living conditions and saw their children and the family members who are disabled and your heart just goes out to them."

Before filing suit in April, Rhonda turned to New Haven's Disability Services and Rep. Rosa DeLauro's office for help. Both offices tried advocating on the family's behalf to no avail.

In November, the Housing Authority's Jennifer Bowlan wrote to DeLauro's office. "I believe we may have found a possible apartment for Ms. Gaither," she wrote. The only available wheelchair accessible apartment HANH could find was a two bedroom apartment for the six-person Gaither family. HUD guidelines say no more than two people should share a bedroom.

HANH has now contracted Stamford-based Housing Opportunities Unlimited to search for housing for the Gaithers. So far, that search has only turned up one home, in Hamden, and at $2,400, the rent was too high for HANH standards. HANH has contracted HOU to help find housing for over 30 New Haven disabled Section 8 tenants.

In the meantime, Keith and Rhonda will be at home waiting for resolution—if not from HANH, from the court.

No Way Jose

Another corrupt New Haven cop is caught in the feds' dragnet. How many more?
Thursday, October 11, 2007
By Betsy Yagla

Was Jose Silva an enabler or a thief? Consider the facts laid out in a quiet hearing in Bridgeport federal court last week, where the New Haven police detective and his cohort, ex-Detective Justen Kasperzyk, pleaded guilty to corruption charges.

On March 1, 2007, Kasperzyk and Silva conducted a drug raid on Fillmore Street in Fair Haven, and Kasperzyk pocketed $1,000 in drug money. Somehow, $500 of that made it into Silva’s jacket pocket. Silva kept mum about the cash until last Friday, when he pleaded guilty to depriving someone of their civil rights, a misdemeanor which carries a maximum one-year sentence.

In November 2006, the duo took part in a drug raid on Truman Street in the Hill, armed with a search warrant. A black man came out of a back bedroom. The cops found no drugs in the apartment, but Kasperzyk did find cocaine, crack and pot in the shared basement. So Kasperzyk planted the drugs in the apartment upstairs and arrested the guy. Silva filed a police report that said the drugs were found on the guy’s dresser, next to his ID.

The deep corruption that lived inside ex-Lt. Billy White’s narcotics squad is unraveling, since the FBI arrested White and Kasperzyk in March on corruption charges involving stolen bait money and a bail bonds kickback scheme.

Cops like Silva, who’d been on the force 12 years, allowed these indiscretions to continue. So did narcotics Detective Julie Raymond. Raymond has filed a sexual harassment complaint against the New Haven P.D. with the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, alleging she was targeted by her male counterparts for two years (with comments like, “Jul, are you a dirty girl?”) and paid overtime she did not earn.

Raymond’s complaint alleges that White filled out timecards for overtime she didn’t do, and says she told him not to, but White “badgered” her into it.

“I finally yielded to his request,” Raymond wrote. This in a year when taxpayers have footed the $1,843,445 bill for 79,338 police overtime hours, so far this year.

“I continually told him not to but he did anyway,” she writes in the complaint. “This made me sick because I did not want money that was not mine or that I did not earn.” She was so disgusted by making extra money that she waited four months to officially complain. Even though she cashed in those checks, Raymond is requesting relief—“compensatory damages, punitive damages, front and back pay, reasonable attorneys fees, interest and such other relief.”

According to Police Executive Research Forum, the high-priced consultants hired to audit the police department after the scandal broke, the P.D. only had 11 internal complaints, compared to 114 civilian complaints (the report doesn’t give a time frame). Raymond and Silva both knew Kasperzyk and White were breaking the law and neither spoke up. Both of them profited financially from the abuse within the narcotics department.

PERF recommends rebuilding the narcotics department with strict policies and procedures. PERF has one dissenter, Andrew Rosenzweig, who says rebuilding the department is a bad idea because narcotics officers are often allowed to bend the law while higher ups bury their heads in the sand in an effort to fight the nation’s “War on Drugs” and rope in the bad guys.

Only time will tell how many other New Haven police officers associated with the narcotics squad received stolen money or unearned overtime. U.S. Attorney Kevin O’Connor wouldn’t predict more arrests, but says his office will be “interviewing a lot of people in days to come.”

Oh, Say Can You Sue?

Immigrants stuck in federal red tape find lawsuits their only path to citizenship. How American.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
By Betsy Yagla


When Ali Abubakr Ali Al-Maqtari got off the airplane at John F. Kennedy airport last month, he knew the FBI would be waiting for him. The federal agents checked disembarking passenger's passports until they found him. They matched the name in his passport against a piece of paper they were carrying. Then they led him to an airport Homeland Security office.

This happens every time he travels, says Al-Maqtari, a legal immigrant from Yemen who resides in Greenwich. The last two times Al-Maqtari returned from Yemen he was interrogated, but this time he refused to answer questions.

"It's stupid," he says sitting outside of his office at Southern Connecticut State University, where he teaches French and Arabic. "They already know everything about me. They know my whole life." He was held in the office for three hours and was not allowed to call his lawyer. Finally they gave up and let him pass through customs.

Al-Maqtari's name appears in an FBI terrorism database because of what happened to him shortly after 9/11. Al-Maqtari married his American-born wife, Tiffany, in June 2001. The couple filed a marriage application with Hartford's U.S. Customs and Immigration Services office shortly thereafter. On Sept. 12, 2001, the couple went to Springfield, Mass., because Tiffany's National Guard unit had been called up. In Massachusetts, the Al-Maqtaris spoke French to each other and Tiffany was wearing a hejab, or head scarf.

From Massachusetts, the couple traveled to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where Tiffany was to report for duty and stay for a year. Tiffany's picture had been delivered to the camp's gates—presumably because she was wearing a head scarf and speaking a foreign language—and when they arrived, the couple was detained and their car searched. The two were questioned for 12 hours. Although she wasn't arrested, Tiffany was then taken to a barracks where three guards watched over her until nearly two weeks later, when she requested an honorable discharge from the Army.

Her husband, though, was held until late November in a Tennessee jail, initially without bail. He was only allowed to talk to his wife once a week by phone. The FBI detained him after finding box cutters and postcards of New York City in the couple's car. The box cutters, says the couple, were to help unpack after moving to Kentucky and the postcards were momentos. Still, it took two months to get Ali Al-Maqtari out of jail.

In 2002, Al-Maqtari's immigration status was finally changed and he was granted a green card. But he wants to be a citizen.

"Unless that happens, I'm not free," he says. "Every day I think about this. It's like having a test in college, but the teacher won't tell you when it is. It's like I'm just hanging in space, and why?" Federal agencies were dragging their feet in processing the college professor's immigration application, leaving Al-Maqtari no choice but to sue for citizenship.


Following the 9/11 attacks, U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) asked the FBI to perform millions of background checks on legal immigrants applying to become citizens. Legally, USCIS only has 120 days to decide whether an applicant can become a citizen after completing the interview and the naturalization exam, but FBI background checks are so backlogged that some immigrants may wait years.

"Generally, 90 percent of USCIS requests are completed within 90 days," says FBI spokesman Bill Carter.

But for those 10 percent, a lawsuit is oftentimes seen as their last remedy. In the past 18 months, 120 of these lawsuits have been filed in U.S. District Court in Connecticut, according to John Hughes, a federal prosecutor who handles many of these cases for the government.

While the rancorous national debate over illegal immigration is focused almost solely on undocumented immigrants and get-tough border enforcement, little attention is paid to people who ask permission to move here and the bungling federal bureaucracy that holds them in limbo. Immigrants playing by the book often aren't getting the help they need from federal officials.

Not all of these immigration cases go to court; many times a lawsuit will persuade the FBI to pull a citizenship candidate's file and complete the background check. After months or years of waiting—but before the court date—an immigrant will get a letter in the mail inviting him or her to a follow-up citizenship interview (which happens if two years have passed since their first interview) or to take their citizenship oath.

The FBI's Carter says files are only expedited if there's a court order to do so.

But Garri Zingman's story suggests otherwise. Zingman, 66, is an immigrant from Belarus who fled under persecution as a Jew in 1998, which ordinarily "practically guarantees you refugee status," according to Zingman's immigration attorney, Alexander Lumelsky. Zingman, who lives in Manchester, filed suit for citizenship, and just weeks before he was to appear in court he was invited to take his citizenship oath. He and his wife Zina both applied to become U.S. citizens on Dec. 26, 2002. Zina became a citizen in 2003, but her husband waited another four years.
"When she got it [citizenship], I hoped that soon I'd get it too," says Zingman with a heavy, angular accent. "I thought I'd get it in a month or so. Then it became a year, two years..." he trails off, fiddling with his wire-framed glasses. Nearly five years after he applied, he at last became a citizen.

On Feb. 11, 2004, Zingman completed an interview and took the naturalization exam. After the exam, he was given a form with an X marked next to the phrase: "Congratulations! Your application has been recommended for approval." That same day, in Hartford at the USCIS office, Zingman was told he would take the oath to become a citizen on March 5.

But the day after passing the exam, Zingman received a letter in the mail saying his March 5 oath had been cancelled because the FBI had not completed his background check. So, Zingman sued the FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, USCIS and the Justice Department in an attempt to force the issue.

"Every day you wait for them to call you," he says. "You feel like you're in a state of instability."
Zingman and four other hopeful citizens-to-be were scheduled to appear in federal court in Hartford Aug. 30 to plead their cases. But just two weeks earlier, Zingman received a letter saying he'd been scheduled for a follow-up interview at USCIS's Hartford office on September 7.

He became a citizen that afternoon.

All but one of the five cases scheduled for the 30th were resolved before their hearing.
So, on a slow morning in a high-ceilinged, wood paneled courtroom, U.S. District Judge Christopher Droney listened to the details of Ali Abubakr Ali Al-Maqtari's case.
"It's odd that so many cases, including this one, involve people from the Middle East," noted Droney.


Every year, the FBI has more than three million background checks to perform, John Hughes, the federal prosecutor, told the judge. That's something Hughes repeats to the judge in nearly every one of these lawsuits. Most are simple background checks—if the immigrant's name doesn't appear in any FBI files, the check is done. Others though, who may have the Chinese, Russian or Middle Eastern name equivalent of John Smith, have a tougher time.

People like Al-Maqtari, whose name is already in FBI files because of what happened to him after 9/11, have an equally tough time.

In court, Hughes explains that most of those three million background checks get cleared in less than two months, and 10 percent of the three million need to be investigated. The FBI won't say why they need extra time to investigate someone. They won't even tell Hughes.

"This is a concern to me," interrupts Judge Droney. "There may be a few cases where, in regards to national security, there may be something in the file you shouldn't know about. But you don't know what's going on in 32 percent of these cases?"

"They won't tell me," responds Hughes. "Think of the 32 percent," he says, throwing his hands up into the air. "That's thousands and thousands."

"So, the alternative is that the applicant waits two or three years?" Droney asks dryly.
Hughes reasons that if lawyers and judges begin asking the FBI about particular cases the whole process would be slowed down. The government would rather everyone just sit tight and wait quietly.

But Al-Maqtari has already been scrutinized by the FBI and immigration officials in a post-9/11 world to receive his green card. Why should he be made to wait again to become a citizen? "A two year wait is just not reasonable," argues his lawyer, Justin Conlon.

Conlon works for attorney Michael Boyle, a prominent immigration attorney with offices in Danbury and North Haven. Boyle says he's seen an explosion in these types of lawsuits. In one year, his office has gone from filing two or three citizenship lawsuits a year to one per week.
"With these constant delays, Immigration Services just washes their hands and says, 'It's the FBI's problem,'" says Boyle. "The FBI just says 'We're really busy.' They'll say 'We're not going to jump you in line.' But this isn't jumping the line—these are people who've been waiting for years. It's a really big problem."

The only way to get priority for his clients is to file a lawsuit, says Boyle.

Alexander Lumelsky, Zingman's immigration attorney, is also seeing more and more of these cases. Another of Lumelsky's clients, Andrei Bulygin, filed a lawsuit against the federal government and shortly thereafter received notice that his citizenship oath would take place Sept. 7. After so many delays, Bulygin didn't actually believe it would happen.

Bulygin, 72, is from Russia and resides in Hartford. Like Zingman, he, too, was persecuted for being Jewish. He had been an aeronautics professor in Russia before he lost his job due to discrimination. Bulygin moved to Connecticut with his wife, daughter, son-in-law and their son and they all received refugee status. As a refugee, Bulygin was eligible for Supplemental Security Income.

Non-citizens lose their right to benefits, like Supplemental Security Income, after seven years. Bulygin has been here for six and a half years, and his SSI benefits would have expired in February. In 2005, he, his wife, daughter, son-in-law and their son all applied for citizenship. Bulygin is the only one in his family who had not been granted citizenship due to the FBI's delayed background check.

"If I don't get my benefits, I'll have to go back to Russia again," worried Bulygin weeks before his Sept. 7 appointment. His family would not have returned with him. After nearly seven years out of the country, Bulygin felt he had nothing to go back to. But by 2 p.m. on Sept. 7, Bulygin was an American citizen and had already applied for a passport.

Without citizenship, people can't vote, they can't petition for their children, parents or spouse to come live in the United States. They're in limbo—they don't feel they belong to their birth country, but they're not fully accepted in this country either. Unfortunately, suing—something as American as baseball and apple pie—may be their only recourse.

This Old Housing Problem

It's taken 15 years to replace half the public housing apartments demolished at Elm Haven. Can another lawsuit save a floundering replacement program?
Thursday, August 30, 2007
By Betsy Yagla

The house at 759 Quinnipiac Ave. nearly bought by the Housing Authority but still on the market.

It's easier to tear down than to build up. Or to scatter, as the case may be.

In the early '90s, the Housing Authority of New Haven (HANH) tore down 368 units of public housing at the notorious Elm Haven project—where Monterrey Place now stands—with relative ease (mismanagement that nearly led the feds to revoke a $40 million demolition grant notwithstanding). Replacing just half of those lost units as "scattered site" apartments, by contrast, has taken over 15 years—and it's still not done! A 1995 court-ordered settlement mandated that HANH build 183 units of subsidized housing by 1998 to replace units lost at Elm Haven, and they're still 19 units short.

Integrating public housing tenants into one and two-family homes in neighborhoods, rather than warehousing them in dense developments, has taken so long, in fact, that the attorneys for the displaced tenants have gone back to court to put pressure on the Housing Authority to finish the job.

Over the years, neighborhood opposition, high housing prices and census tract restrictions (the scattered site homes can't go in neighborhoods with high minority concentrations) have slowed the pace of replacing the Elm Haven dwellings. But in a new court filing, New Haven Legal Assistance Association attorney Shelley White argues that it's incompetence on the Housing Authority's part that's hampering progress.

White's filing asks a federal court judge to force HANH to "immediately" purchase properties in non-impacted zones that would fulfill the settlement terms, regardless of the year the home was built or whether it resides within an historic district. In the last year alone, White says, HANH has eyed three properties for scattered site homes, then backpedaled in the face of neighborhood opposition.

White's motion, filed in mid-August, details what she says is the Housing Authority's incompetence. It took HANH nearly five years, she writes, to sign a contract with a private developer to build six units on Fulton Street—property HANH has owned since 1993 and which won't be finished until 2008. The authority found a developer to build on the site in 2002 but didn't sign a contract with them until 2005. By then the contractor wanted $260,000 more for the project and the contract had to be renegotiated. Construction finally started this February.
HANH's effort to build 20 scattered site homes off Dell Drive, along the East Haven border, derailed when neighbors sued in 2004 to block the construction, and again later when the zone used to approved the site was ruled illegal by the state Appellate Court. By the time the ruling was overturned and the developer got the go-ahead in 2005, HANH was forced to commit an additional $865,000 because construction costs had risen. In 2006, though, the developer withdrew its proposal and now the homes are being built for private sale.

Since May 2006, when the Dell Drive plan fell through, the Housing Authority has acquired only one unit—21 Long Hill Terrace—and did so after promising neighbors they wouldn't buy more property in their neighborhood, says White. In the last seven years, HANH has developed and occupied 30 units that were outstanding in 2000. Nineteen sites still need to be purchased and nine that the Housing Authority already owns are vacant. The court settlement agreement mandates that HANH should fill each unit within 30 days of a home being available.

Ironically, the 20 subsidized units that HANH hopes to place in the 23-story condominium tower proposed for the downtown Shartenberg site wouldn't fulfill the obligation: HANH won't own those units—it's getting Section 8 vouchers that keep them affordably priced for years—so they can't count toward the total.

It has not been easy for HANH to find housing that meets the requirements of the settlement. Scattered site homes must go in neighborhoods where minority concentration does not exceed 47 percent, and the homes can't be so expensive that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (the federal agency funding and overseeing HANH) balks at the price. The racial requirement disqualifies most of New Haven: 71 percent of New Haven census tract groups exceed minority concentration limits, according to the 2000 census.

In June, the Housing Authority asked White to agree to relax the settlement terms to allow scattered site homes in neighborhoods with 48 to 59 percent minority concentration, and to let one-bedroom units count toward the total. (The original settlement requires scattered site homes to be family units, since that's what was lost at Elm Haven.)

The Housing Authority has a backlog of people waiting for one bedroom apartments, HANH attorney Rolan Young says in a July 11 letter to White, so allowing them as scattered site housing would achieve two goals. HANH had found 13 family units and eight one-bedroom ones it wanted to purchase in neighborhoods just over the racial limits.

In a response letter, White says she'll consider homes outside the approved neighborhoods on a case-by-case basis, but that she can't allow one-bedroom apartments "under any circumstances as the class is focused on families and not single persons."

Besides, White says, HANH has refused to consider the few homes that do qualify. She says she has suggested four homes to HANH, all of which HANH rejected because they are "historic," which are presumably older homes that would cost more to heat and maintain.

Housing Authority Chairman Bob Solomon disputes that, and says White has offered little help in the way of suggesting viable propertites to purchase.

"She doesn't have any good ideas, she doesn't help us find property. She just complains when things don't happen."

White bases her incompetence claim on what she says are the Housing Authority's hit-or-miss search tactics. HANH has a database of every property in non-impacted areas and has contacted property owners to inquire about buying the homes. This has yielded no results, White writes in her new court filing. HANH has also contacted members of the New Haven Board of Aldermen to help them find suitable housing. But that has proved counterproductive, writes White, because alders are elected by the very residents who oppose adding public housing tenants to their neighborhood.

One home that fit White's criteria for exception was 759 Quinnipiac Ave., in Fair Haven Heights. At first White planned on telling HANH "No," because the home is in a racially impacted neighborhood. But when she drove by the house and saw how beautiful it was, she says, she gave her blessing.

That decision came with its own set of troubles.

Chris Olesen and Joann Gardner own 759 Quinnipiac Ave.—a tan two-story home on top of a small hill with a bright red door, floor-to-ceiling windows and a pink rosebush in front yard. They bought the home in 2004 and in 2006 put it up for sale. The couple spent a year negotiating the sale of their home to the Housing Authority, eventually dropping their price by $70,000 to meet HANH's needs. But when HANH backed out in the face of neighborhood opposition, the couple sued for breach of contract. (The couple's attorney, Melinda Powell of Hartford, declined comment on the lawsuit.)

HANH initially offered $405,000 for the property and planned to close in March of this year, but then lowered its offer to $355,000. HANH lowered its offer a second time, to $335,000, reasoning that converting it to a two-family, removing lead paint and other renovations would drive up the cost by $195,000.

Property value and curb appeal were on people's minds at the June 25 public hearing on the purchase. The home's owners were not there, but several of their neighbors were. Neighbors essentially told HANH they didn't have a problem with poor people, but that 759 is a "key home" in a "key block" of the neighborhood. If it fell into the wrong hands, it could ruin things for area homeowners. Neighbors argued that public housing tenants would turn off potential neighbors or investors.

But the home had been on the market for a year and no one other than HANH had bid on it, said Bob Solomon, the Housing Authority chairman.

"We're at least willing to put a fair amount of money into it," Solomon told the crowd.

Neighborhood activist Chris Ozyck presented a posterboard of photos of the home's interior: standing water and piles of coal in the basement. (Olesen and Gardner claim the water in the basement is Ozyck's fault: They paid him to install drainage and claim he didn't do it. He says he did.) Solomon, exasperated, told Ozyck that HANH had already paid for environmental and lead paint studies. Ozyck also brought in paint samples to show the home needed to be lead abated.
HANH has a spotty track record as a landlord, but its scattered site properties are managed privately, and scored fair on federal inspections. One scattered site home near 759 Quinnipiac Ave. earned an 83 (out of 100) on its 2006 inspection, and another scored 80. Other properties scored worse, with walls, doorways and gutters damaged at those homes.

The day following the hearing—the day before HANH was to close on the house—they backed out of the deal.

So why do neighbors oppose more public housing on the East Shore? Is it racism, as Olesen and Gardner's lawsuit alleges? NIMBY-ism? Or something else entirely? The Heights, with lower home prices than East Rock, Westville and other whiter neighborhoods, has absorbed more scattered site homes than anywhere in New Haven: a total of 114 units, compared to the second place Annex, with only 23.

"To have people who lived in our neighborhood for two years leave and call us racist, that hurts," says the neighborhood's alderman, Alex Rhodeen. Proof that the neighborhood isn't racist are all the public housing units already there, and the fact that Rhodeen suggested HANH buy other properties in his ward.

HANH backed out of 759 Quinnipiac Ave. for financial reasons, says Solomon, though at the meeting he told neighbors, "We would not have thought to acquire this building if the budget wouldn't cover it." Directly after the meeting, Solomon says he met with staff who were concerned the cost of the home and the upkeep it would need were prohibitive.

"I think it's a good thing that you're allowed to change your mind," says Solomon. But why, during the six months HANH was negotiating with Olesen and Gardner, did the issue not come up? "We rely on outside contractors, and staff make some assessments. Sometimes someone comes in with superior knowledge," says Solomon, meaning the neighbors. "Our staff is feeling a lot of pressure because of lawsuits and threats."

Maturo's Blackout

More ink on the East Haven mayor's calendar shenanigans.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
By Betsy Yagla

What was East Haven Mayor Joe Maturo hiding under all that black ink on his office calendar?

He said they were doctor's appointments for his swollen prostate, which sunshine laws allow to remain secret for privacy reasons. Turns out they were cell phone numbers, two weddings, dinner, a convention and a fund-raiser, most of which took place after work hours.

East Haven Democrats and their candidate for mayor, Councilwoman April Capone Almon, want to show Maturo's been an absentee mayor, relaxing at his Florida vacation home for weeks on end while the town struggled with raising taxes and keeping city services intact. Dems made a Freedom of Information request for his office schedule and received two schedules: his desk calendar and the printout of his Microsoft Outlook calendar, full of mysteriously redacted entries. The desk calendar had 67 redacted entries and the Outlook version had 40.

"Those [redactions] were done by my secretary who thought we shouldn't be putting them in—I didn't know it at the time," Maturo told the Advocate last month. "She blocked out my doctor's appointments and my family's doctor's appointments."

Redacting doctor's appointments is legally permissable if the redaction is accompanied by a brief explanation. But it turns out the doctor's visit excuse is only a half-truth. Or, to be mathematically accurate, a one-sixth truth.

The Advocate was forwarded an Aug. 28 email to Lisa Siegel, the FOI ombudsman working with East Haven Dems, from East Haven town counsel Larry Sgrignari in which Sgrignari details the redacted items. Maturo's 2007 calendar—up to April—shows he went to four doctor's appointments. In 2006 he went six times.

"The list says cell phone, but not the number or who [it belongs to]," says Capone Almon. "I'd like to know who he was talking to."

Capone Almon is curious and baffled by the redactions. "Why would he redact inaugural ball? Why would he redact a wedding?"

Who knows. Maturo did not return the Advocate's phone calls seeking comment. Maybe he'll speak up this Thursday when the case goes to a FOI hearing in Hartford. Maybe that's blacked out on his calendar too.

Immaturo

East Haven's mayor is playing hooky.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
By Betsy Yagla

Would you take nine weeks’ vacation at your job? What about five? You could if you were East Haven Mayor Joe Maturo. Maturo has been East Haven’s mayor for 10 years, and the Town Hall rumor mill has it he’s out of town quite often.

East Haven Democrats decided to check up on that rumor and filed a Freedom of Information request seeking Maturo’s schedule for the past fiscal year. The mayor’s office uses Microsoft Outlook for scheduling purposes, but it told Gene Ruocco, Democratic Party chairman, they had to hire specialists at $75 an hour to retrieve and print the schedule. Maturo’s calendar from July 2005 to April 2007 cost Ruocco $265.

According to dates a Town Hall mole gave to Democrats, Maturo was on vacation in Florida from Feb. 23 to March 29, 2007—five weeks. Paper copies of Maturo’s Microsoft Outlook schedule show both of those dates labeled with “Fla.” (Matruo has a vacation home in Florida.) During those dates, items were redacted with black marker on Feb. 7, 13, 14, 17, 20 and 21. In total, 40 items were redacted from Maturo’s calendar.

In 2006, Maturo was gone from March 4 to March 24.

“We need a full-time mayor,” says Democratic mayoral candidate April Capone Almon. “This is not a part-time job. If you didn’t show up, how would it affect your job?”

Reached by phone and asked if he was free to answer some questions, Maturo said “Noooop.” He declined to discuss it, but called me right back. Vacations are not calculated by the fiscal calendar, argues Maturo, they’re done by the calendar year. “I took four weeks’ vacation one year, and four weeks’ another.” He adds that when he’s gone, he’s constantly in contact with the office either by phone or email. Plus, he doesn’t vacation during summer because he goes to East Haven’s concerts on the Green. And anyway, who wants to go to Florida in the summer?

What about those blacked out dates on his calendar? Those are doctor’s appointments, the mayor says, for his swollen prostate gland. Private things like doctor’s appointments may be excluded from FOI requests, if there’s an explanation accompanying them. Ruocco complained about the redactions and the calendar’s high costs to the state’s FOI commission and a hearing date will be set for early fall.

The East Haven town charter does not specify the amount of vacation time a mayor is allotted. However, it does say the town will pay the Town Council chairman up to two weeks to serve as acting mayor. A full day as East Haven mayor pays $288.46, according to expense records.

“The problem is he’s an absentee mayor,” says Ruocco.

“I’m glad they’re talking about my vacation time,” quips Maturo. “That just means they don’t have anything else to talk about.”

In addition to Maturo’s regular duties as mayor, East Haven mayors also serve as chairman of the Board of Finance. In Maturo’s 10-year tenure, there have been 131 Board of Finance meetings, and he’s missed 122 of those, according to Capone Almon.

Maturo doesn’t go to those meetings, he says, because “it puts political pressure” on the board. “They don’t need me there. The only time I go is at budget time and if I think there’s something really crucial.”

“He’s the chair, so he’d be leading the [finance] meeting,” says Capone Almon. “He should know what’s going on. How plugged in can he be if he doesn’t attend the meetings?”

Voices of the Immigrants

Ten immigrants swept up in the June 6 federal raids on New Haven tell their stories.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
By Betsy Yagla

In the early morning hours of June 6, white vans carrying federal immigration officers crept into New Haven. They swept through Fair Haven, the city's predominantly Latino neighborhood, barging into homes and stopping people on the street. Anyone who didn't have the proper immigration papers was arrested. In all, 32 were taken. In many cases, according to witnesses, the federal agents didn't identify themselves and didn't explain what was happening.
Fear gripped the neighborhood. Children were left at school because parents were afraid to leave their homes to pick up their kids. The Latino advocacy organization JUNTA for Progressive Action delivered food to homes because undocumented immigrants were too terrified to go to the grocery store.

Across the country immigration raids are in a stepped-up mode. President Bush announced on August 10 that the number of teams conducting these raids has grown from 15 in 2005 to 68 as of last week. By September's end there will be 75. The federal government will also begin to send warning letters to employers who have several workers with Social Security numbers that don't match their names. They'll also be raising fines for those employers.

In June, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano lambasted the federal government for the way the raids were carried out. He called the arrests retaliation for New Haven's confirming that week that the city would be offering municipal ID cards to all city residents, including undocumented immigrants.

The ID cards and the raids have put New Haven at the center of the national immigration debate, and the 32 detainees have become a symbol of a failed federal immigration policy. The Advocate sought out the detainees and their families to better understand their situations and the how their arrest and confinement has changed their lives. What follows are the stories of 10 people arrested that day, gleaned from interviews conducted during the two months since the raids.

Koikoi Guilavogui
Koikoi Guilavogui's wife will probably give birth to a baby girl while he is in jail. Wendy Guilavogui, a nurse, met her husband, who is a nurse's aide, through work. When she found out their birthdays are one day apart—they were both born in 1978—Wendy gave Koi her phone number and suggested they celebrate together.

That was in February 2004. Instead of waiting until their March birthdays, Koi called that day after his shift. Wendy already had two kids and was going through a divorce, so she was hesitant to get into a relationship. But they did, and in 2006 they had a son, Jayden, and got married.

Koi is from Guinea. Two of his sisters live in Connecticut and have political asylum here. When Koi first arrived in the United States, in 2002, he went to Baltimore and stayed with family. He applied for asylum there, then moved to Connecticut to be near his sisters. His asylum case was rejected and he appealed.

In Guinea, Koi's uncle had formed a pro-democracy organization that was brutally repressed. His uncle was assassinated and his family was persecuted. If Koi returns to Guinea, he'll be targeted.
After Koi and Wendy were married in December 2006, the couple filed papers to change Koi's immigration status. She filed a petition for alien relative and he filed an application to adjust status. "We were told the paperwork was pending," says Wendy.

So the couple was shocked and confused on June 6 when they were awoken by immigration officials. Around 8:30 a.m. there was a loud knocking on the door. From the bedroom, Wendy heard someone yell, "Police!" They entered the bedroom and told her to get out of bed, but to leave Jayden behind in the room.

The officers asked for Koi's ID, and he looked through his wallet. All he had was an expired international driver's license. Then they took him away.

Koi has no criminal history, but he did have a deportation order, which means he is not eligible for bond. After working the phones for two days, Wendy found out her husband was being held in Massachusetts. She can talk to him on the phone, but he can only call collect or use a phone card. Wendy mails him money orders to buy phone cards, because she is not allowed to mail him the cards. She makes the two-hour drive twice a week for his one-hour visiting session. Wendy and Koi sit on opposite sides of a plexi-glass window and speak via phones.

When Wendy takes Jayden to visit his dad, the boy sits on her lap and says into the phone, "I lub you, daddy. I mizz you."

Since the raids, Jayden has been acting out. "He never gave me problems before," says Wendy. But Jayden's tantrums aren't her only worry.

Wendy works the night shift and her sister takes care of the kids while she works. But she can't get anyone to sit when she has to sleep, so she gets exhausted and cranky. The household income is half of what it used to be, so Wendy's been eating at her parents' home in Stratford to save money.

Because she's going to have a C-section, she's not allowed to lift anything heavier than the baby—which will make carrying the family's laundry to the laundromat difficult. Paying bills will be harder, too, because she'll be bedridden for six to eight weeks after surgery and giving birth.
Wendy's scheduled her C-section for the last possible date, August 24, in the hope that by then her husband will be home.

Koi's job allowed Wendy to work part-time and continue studying to become a nurse. But with the loss of his income and support, she's considering reapplying for welfare. She's worried about losing her two-bedroom apartment and a van that she's almost paid off.

If Koi is deported, Wendy wants to follow—she wants to be with her husband and she can't afford to raise her children here without him. But Guinea has the world's highest rate of female genital mutilation. If the Guilavoguis don't allow their six-year-old daughter, Jackie, to be mutilated, they'd be ostracized. Wendy has filed suit against Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the Bureau of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). If the deportation occurs, the suit argues, Koi will "face violent persecution and crippling social isolation."

Gerardo and Silvino Trujillo
Cousins Gerardo and Silvino Trujillo stick together. They live together and work together. Gerardo, 21, has been in New Haven for six years; Silvino, 24, for seven.

They have an aunt and a cousin here but don't see them very often.

The only job the cousins had until they were arrested was at a Hamden bakery. They lost their jobs after spending two weeks in jail following the raid.

That's understandable, says Silvino, because it was a small bakery. The two had to hustle to find new jobs. They're still working with their hands, though; instead of kneading bread, they wield hammers working construction jobs. They took the jobs without even asking what they pay was—they were that desperate and trusting.

They cousins say they're scared to go out anymore, but they work long hours so they're too tired to do much else except sleep and watch TV.

Silvino and Gerardo are like yin and yang. Silvino talks a lot; he's animated and his face often breaks into a wide grin. His ears are pierced and he seems relaxed, comfortable with himself.

Gerardo depends on his older cousin to speak for him and needs a little prodding before he'll lift his head and open his mouth. He's shy and loathe to make eye contact.

On the day they were arrested, Silvino had been working the night shift at the bakery and left around 4 a.m. "I had just fallen asleep when around 6:45 they came into my bedroom and woke me up by turning on the lights," he says. "I was really confused, ya know, because I wasn't awake. They asked me what my name was and then they grabbed and handcuffed me. We were asking, 'What's happening?' But they didn't say anything."

The immigration agents did not ID themselves. They didn't explain what was going on and they didn't tell the cousins where they'd be taken. Silvino and Gerardo were loaded into a windowless van with eight others. "We were scared," admits Silvino. The others were scared and confused, too.

"I thought there must have been an error because I know I didn't do anything wrong," says Silvino.

"I was really scared and I couldn't figure out why they were arresting me," says Gerardo. In jail, "I couldn't sleep. You can't sleep worrying about what's going to happen to you."

No one who had been arrested understood what was happening. "I called my aunt and I was asking, 'What's going to happen to us?'" says Silvino. "I thought maybe she would have some information, but she was really scared and I ended up calming her down. She didn't have any answers for me and we couldn't talk long anyway," because phone calls were expensive.

When they heard about the rallies and protests in New Haven in the days following the raids, the cousins say they were happy to know people were supporting them.

"That helped a lot," says Gerardo. "It made us feel less alone."

But they say, "We don't leave the house unless it's to work. We're very tired, but we're also nervous," explains Silvino. "You're not the same person after spending time in jail. It's just not the same anymore. It changes you knowing that one day you can wake up and be sent to jail. Maybe in a little while I won't be so scared anymore."


Orlando Rodriguez Casetelan
Orlando Rodriguez Castelan, 25, has only been in the New Haven area for five months. He has a wide, round face with soft features. He keeps his mustache neatly trimmed and he has a tiny mole between his eyebrows. He's shy and quiet, but quick to smile. He's a mechanic, and he's got black grease-rimmed fingernails to prove it. His hands are covered in a constellation of scars and scabs that he gets from working on expensive cars at a body shop.

He spends his days under the hood of cars like Ferraris and Lamborghinis. He began working with cars at the tender age of 10 and fell in love with them, although he doesn't own a car himself.

Instead, Rodriguez Castelan rides the bus to work. On Monday, June 11, he was waiting for the bus in the morning when a car pulled up in front of him. Rodriguez Castelan noticed the passenger was talking on his cell phone. The bus would arrive in less than five minutes.

Rodriguez Castelan waited patiently, not paying much attention to the car in front of him. As the bus pulled up, the passenger hung up his cell phone, got out of the car and approached Rodriguez Castelan. "Do you speak English?" he asked. "Do you speak Spanish?" he asked next. Yes, said Rodriguez Castelan. The man grabbed Rodriguez Castelan's wrists, handcuffed him and shoved him into the back of the car.

"What's going on?" asked Rodriguez Castelan. "I'm the police," responded the man in civilian clothes.

Rodriguez Castelan keeps to himself. He lives with his brother-in-law and his nephew, but they rarely see each other because of their different work schedules. When Rodriguez Castelan was taken to jail, he met others in his situation and became fast friends with Amilcar Soto Velasquez.
They speculated on whether they would ever get out of jail, what their families were doing or talking about. They gave each other hope. "I thought I'd never get out," says Rodriguez Castelan.


Amilcar Soto Velasquez
Amilcar Soto Velasquez has been in New Haven for five of his 22 years. Most of his family is in Florida, he says, but a friend brought him to Connecticut.

As a landscaper, Soto Velasquez practically has the winters off: He works one or two days a week, if at all. But he just shrugs his shoulders when I ask what he does during all that free time. After a while, he says he likes soccer, but he doesn't play during the winter. During the summer he makes up for time off by working long hours six days a week and sometimes on Sundays.

Soto Velasquez is a man of few words, but when he does speak it's rapid-fire. He spits his words out quickly; they trip over each other in an avalanche of sentences. He has an angular face with wisps of a mustache stretching towards his lips.

Soto Valasquez says his bosses didn't mind that he was absent two weeks after getting arrested because he has been a reliable employee for four years. Immigration officials didn't come to his house; they showed up at Teresa Vara's house, where he was visiting and staying the night. Vara and Soto Velasquez are dating.

There were several people in the house, and Teresa's friend Norma Sedeno was the only one who wasn't arrested. The immigration agents allowed Norma to stay behind so that she could take care of the children, Norma says.

"I was extremely worried the first few days in jail," says Soto Velasquez. "I thought I'd be deported without the money for my bond." Friends ended up loaning him the $7,000 he needed to get home.


Teresa Vara
Teresa Vara, 32, has no family in New Haven. Instead, she lives with a woman who has lots of family, Norma Sedeno, 27, who has two brothers, a cousin, a husband and three children.

There were seven adults in Vara and Sedeno's home (Amilcar Soto Velasquez was visiting), none of whom speak English, when the raids occurred. "When ICE (Immigrations Customs and Enforcement) came in we thought they were police," remembers Vara. "They came in without saying anything or identifying themselves."

Vara speaks rapidly and confidently. Words aren't enough for her: She waves her arm, shakes her head and scrunches up her face to make a point. Vara's quick to laugh and quick to cry. Its easy to assume that being arrested for the first time and being separated from the few people she knows in Connecticut has pushed her to emotional extremes.

When Vara saw ICE that morning, she was in her pajamas and wearing flip-flops. She wanted to use the bathroom. They didn't let her change and they didn't let her go to the bathroom.

"There's one person in our house who speaks a little English, and I said to him, 'Ask them what they want.' But they didn't tell us anything," says Vara.

All the men were handcuffed and the immigration agents asked the women if they had kids. "I don't have any kids here, so they handcuffed me and took me off," she says. It was two or three hours before Vara was allowed to use the restroom.

Norma Sedeno was left alone with her three children and a part-time job. Her normally bustling home was quiet. Her brothers Luis and Cirilo and her husband Apolinar had all been arrested. Luis, who has deep dimples, has been in New Haven since 1999. Cirilo was the first family member to arrive in New Haven.

Shortly after the raids, Norma was the voice and face of those left behind. She has a long thick rope of black hair and a wide face with upwards slanting eyes. She spoke at a few rallies through translators. When she spoke, her eyes were full of tears and her voice wobbled insecurely.

Norma's husband and brothers provide for Norma's kids. During the two weeks while she waited to see her family again, Santa Rosa de Lima helped her financially. JUNTA for Progressive Action donated food to Norma and other families in her situation. Her oldest son kept asking when everyone would come home. Sedeno kept asking herself and anyone who would listen, "Why my house?"

The day after the raid, Vara was transferred to Boston, where she met Damiana Reyes, a Dominican who was picked up while working at Chick's in West Haven. Reyes' sister Antonia and her husband have green cards. Her husband had already filled out the paperwork to apply for Reyes' green card when she got picked up. They have children in the Dominican Republic whom they'd like to bring here too.

Reyes and Vara spent a lot of time together in Boston. "We were going through the same thing," says Vara.

Vara had two jobs before the raids, but she lost both of them. She secured a low-paying job after she got out, but she's looking for a part-time job to complement that, or a better paying full-time job.

Reyes' bond was reduced from $15,000 to $1,500 and Vara's to $3,500. "But I only have $4,000 saved up, total," says Vara.


José Efraín Solano Yangua
José Efraín Solano Yangua, 26, was the first of 15 accused-undocumented immigrants to appear before a federal immigration judge June 14 in Hartford. Pro bono lawyers from Yale representing the group painted a picture of Solano Yangua for the judge.

Solano Yangua moved to New Haven in 2000, and since 2003 he's paid taxes to the federal government. Many immigrants who'd like to be naturalized are told they should pay taxes in case a future law requires them to show proof of time spent here. Paying taxes would prove that; it would also show the immigrant is devoted to the United States.

Solano Yangua has had no prior contact with immigration officials, lawyers told the judge. He owns a car, has a bank account and he takes English classes at Springs Learning Center. He's been with the same employer since he moved to New Haven.

He has close cropped hair and he was clean shaven for his day in court.

Lawyers told the judge that Solano Yangua has a brother, Edison Fernando Yangua Calva, who was also picked up in the June 6 raids. The two are the sole source of income for their diabetic father and four younger brothers in Ecuador. Their mother is dead.

The immigration agents found a Michigan driver's license at Solano Yangua's home. Does that mean he's mobile, or a flight risk, or he's not interested in staying in Connecticut?, the judge wanted to know. Solano Yangua works in landscaping—a seasonal job, explained lawyers. From November 2003 to March 2004 he went to Michigan to look for winter work. At that time Michigan allowed undocumented residents to get a driver's license. He took advantage of the opportunity.

The following week in court, both of the brothers' bonds were set at $6,000.


Eduardo Diaz Bernal
Eduardo Díaz Bernal, 39, is a short and stocky man with puffy cheeks and closely cropped hair spiked with gel. His mouth is framed by a thin mustache and a small triangular soul patch.

Díaz Bernal has been living in Fair Haven for six years. He has cousins here, but he's not very close with them. They see each other a few times a month and go to church together at Santa Rosa de Lima, but that's it. Otherwise, he's alone.

Díaz Bernal lives with friends, but they're not very close: He's not even sure where they work. But they cook together, and Díaz Bernal and roommate Diego are regularly trying to convince their other roommate Washington Colala to eat foods laced with chiles. Colala would rather just eat rice, says Díaz Bernal with a shake of his head.

The three single men have been learning to cook. They're experimenting. That's what men do, Díaz Bernal says, when they're on their own. Díaz Bernal is divorced and it clearly pains him to think about it. He and his wife were married 13 years and together they have two daughters, 11 and 18. But the woman remarried quickly and she's had several other children since.

Instead of dwelling on family, Díaz Bernal focuses on cars. He works at a motorcycle store on the shoreline. He's been there for two years, and beforehand he worked in a car wash. He's gone through four cars in his six years here. Recently a friend borrowed his car, got into an accident, and never paid anything for wrecking his car.

Díaz Bernal's thinking about getting a new car—it would make the 40-minute bus ride to his job easier—but he doesn't want to dole out that kind of cash if he'll end up deported. "I don't know what's waiting for me," he says.

On June 6 around 6 a.m., Díaz Bernal was in the bathroom about to take a shower. He heard the doorbell ringing a lot but thought nothing of it. Then someone was persistently knocking on the bathroom door. Strangers were calling his name in a gringo accent. "I came out of the bathroom and they were already in the house. They said they were federal immigration agents. I was in my pajamas and flip-flops and they wouldn't let me change my clothes. They handcuffed me, and then I saw Washington sitting on the floor handcuffed too," he says.

The agents wanted to know where Diego was, but he had already gone to work. They wanted to know where he worked and Díaz Bernal told them he didn't know. He was taken to a private jail in Rhode Island and was held there for two weeks. His bond was reduced to $1,500. Father James Manship of Santa Rosa de Lima church paid the bond and Díaz Bernal says he's working to pay it back.

"I'm not a bad man. I just work," he says. "If I've done something wrong and the police come for me, I deserve it. But, is it wrong to work? I've always wanted to work. If you're not working, you're not doing anything."

Díaz Bernal spent two weeks looking over his shoulder after getting out of jail. He says he's paranoid and worried. Several police officers are regular customers where he works. He used to hang around and chat when the officers came in, but now Díaz Bernal hides when they come to the shop.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

The IDs of August

Will immigrants be scared away from New Haven's city ID cards?
August 02, 2007
By Betsy Yagla

Southern Connecticut Immigration Reform, the anti-immgrant group of suburbanites leading the crusade against New Haven's Elm City Resident Cards, is demanding the city reveal the names of those who apply for them, and has filed public records requests for the information.

So what will they do with the names once they have them? Well, they're not really sure.
SCtIR organizer Dustin Gold of Northford (that's North Branford, where undocumented immigrants are still living in the shadows) says, "We're just trying to show that if we can get it, other people can get it."

Although the wait at City Hall for the cards is several hours long, there's some evidence the fear campaign is scaring at least a few people.

Eduardo, from Mexico, says he'd like a card but he's hesitant. "Like my friends say, the mayor is trying to help us [by issuing these cards] but it could be good or it could be a bad thing," he says.

At JUNTA for Progressive Action, Eduardo spoke with John Jairo Lugo, director of Unidad Latina en Acción, about his fears regarding the card. By buying a card, Eduardo worries that immigration officials would know where he lives. What could happen to him, he wanted to know, if he filled out an application and handed over his personal information to the city?

The immigrant community was shaken to the core after federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided Fair Haven and arrested 30 undocumented immigrants on June 6, the day after the city ID cards were approved.

Lugo showed Eduardo the card application and explained there is nothing on the card to indicate immigration status or nationality. "[With a Spanish name] You could be Puerto Rican, you could be Mexican-American born here or you could be an immigrant. They don't know," Lugo said.
So Eduardo filled out an application.

New Haven Mayor John DeStefano's office has received at least three public records requests from SCtIR, says Kathleen Foster, assistant corporation counsel. Kica Matos, whose office is handling the cards, and lawyers with the Yale Law Clinic are reviewing the requests.

But the information SCtIR is seeking is just an extremely long list of names, addresses and birthdates. They won't know who's an undocumented immigrant and who's not. And that's the point: The city's new ID cards are supposed to make people safer by allowing them to open bank accounts and prove who they are to police or other officials when necessary, not to spotlight their immigration status.

Losing Control: Bringing Maydelle Home

Maydelle Trambarulo's expected 30 to 60 stay in Connecticut has lasted over three years. August 02, 2007
By Betsy Yagla

Maydelle Trambarulo's family has spent the last three years fighting to free the elderly New Jersey woman from Connecticut.

Maydelle is 76 years old and suffers from dementia and Parkinson's disease. Ralph, her husband of nearly 52 years, lives in New Jersey. The Connecticut probate court system has essentially divorced the two by dividing their finances and not allowing Maydelle to go home. Her grandchildren think she's been kidnapped by the courts and her husband thinks she's dead. Maydelle thinks she's being punished. Ralph is 80, and is too ill to travel the five hours it takes to come visit her.

Maydelle's problems started after she fell and broke her hip in 2004. Ralph and Maydelle had recently moved from New Jersey to Delaware to be near their son, Paul. Visiting nurses helped the aging couple. So did Paul and his partner Brian Pincin, who lived just six blocks away. Ralph and Maydelle had lived in a large two-story New Jersey home for 47 years. Their four children worried about their safety, so the couple downsized and moved closer to family.

Teresa Sirico, an East Haven realtor and Ralph's niece, visited them in their new Delaware home after several years of no contact. The Trambarulo family had gathered to celebrate Maydelle's August birthday and help out after she broke her hip.

Sirico told the Trambarulos that Maydelle should go to Connecticut with her to get care from Yale doctors. The family says Sirico told them she would take Maydelle to Connecticut for 30 to 60 days and then return her to her Delaware home. Maydelle was only semi-lucid; she didn't fully understand what was going on. But after some discussion, the family agreed the trip would be a good idea and helped their mother grant Sirico power of attorney over Maydelle.
"That sounded good, we wanted the best for her," says Alice Wright, Maydelle's daughter, in a phone interview from her Florida home.

But three years later Maydelle is still in Connecticut. She missed her husband's 80th birthday. She missed their 50th wedding anniversary. She's missed her grandchildren's birthdays and several graduations. She doesn't understand why her family has to keep coming to Connecticut to fight Sirico and the Probate Court system to bring her home to New Jersey.


Maydelle was brought to Connecticut in August 2004 but was never taken to Yale as Sirico proposed. Instead, she was deposited at an assisted living facility in Woodbridge, and in 2006 she was transferred to Mariner's Point in East Haven after a brief stay in Derby. When she did have hip surgery it was at the Hospital of St. Raphael with a doctor who works both at Yale and St. Raphael. On Sept. 15, 2004, Sirico filed for conservatorship over Maydelle.

There are now two lawsuits going on to bring Maydelle home. There is an appeal at the Superior Court in which her family says Connecticut has no jurisdiction over a New Jersey woman. And there is a motion in the Probate Court to overturn the conservatorship and return Maydelle to her family.

In Superior Court last month, Sirico testified that she notified Maydelle's family of what she was doing. The family gasped and called her a liar. The judge told them to quiet down.
Maydelle's oldest daughter, Anne Haines, says she received notice of the application two days after Sirico filed it.

In 2004, control of Maydelle and her finances was handed over to attorney Mark Dellavalle, who specializes in foreclosures and car accidents. In granting conservatorship to Dellavalle, the judge divided the elderly couple's assets, worth upwards of $1 million, as if they were divorced—Ralph only has access to half of their money, while the other half is being spent by Maydelle's lawyers.
When Ralph decided he wanted to return to New Jersey and buy a home, he had to take out a mortgage.

Dellavalle charges Maydelle $200 an hour for his services. Maydelle also has a court-appointed attorney, Paul Whitaker (who also specializes in foreclosures), and a guardian ad litem, Robyn Berke, a Bridgeport attorney who is supposed to tell the judge what is best for Maydelle. They're also being paid by Maydelle.

All medical and financial decisions concerning Maydelle are made by Dellavalle, with input from Whitaker, Berke and Sirico.

"How can these perfect strangers know what's best for our mother?" asks Haines, the eldest of Ralph and Maydelle's three daughters. "It seems to us to be a tremendous conflict of interest. Is it what's best for my mother or what's best for their checkbook? They're getting paid. If she leaves Connecticut, that's the end of their gravy train."

For the 18 months between Nov. 10, 2004 and May 5, 2006, Dellavalle charged Maydelle $48,555. Maydelle's husband and her four children are fighting their mother's lawyers in court to bring her home. Maydelle's money is paying the lawyers who keep her here.


Maydelle needs help dressing, washing and with personal hygiene. She's depressed and confused. She's told Sirico and her lawyers she wants to stay in Connecticut. But she cries to her children that she wants to go home. "Every time I talk to her she says 'Why am I being punished? Why am I in prison?'" says daughter Alice Wright.

"Every time we're visiting she'll say 'I'm ready, let's go.' We have to say, 'Mom, we're working on it.' She doesn't understand why she just can't go home to New Jersey," says Wright.

"The key question from our point of view is, what does the woman want? And what kind of care is she getting?," says Judge James Lawlor, the state's Probate Court administrator. "I was satisfied that her wishes were being respected and her care is good. I certainly wouldn't ship the woman off to New Jersey just because someone else wants her there."

After hearing both sides' arguments on Monday, New Haven Probate Judge Jack Keyes says he will visit Maydelle to ask her himself what she wants. But Maydelle does not like probing questions from strangers. Maydelle is warm and sweet with family members. She smiles, laughs and make jokes. But when I visited her she fielded questions from strangers with a "Why do you ask?" instead of an answer.

Theoretically it doesn't matter what Maydelle says, because legally she is considered incompetent. Her lawyers are supposed to do what she wants and what is best for her. Yet how much weight can a lawyer give to statements made by someone who's legally incompetent? Maydelle could say she wants to live on Mars for all the law cares.

There's another legal conundrum here—a vagueness to the current law that allows cases like Maydelle's to go forward. A conservatorship is supposed to be filed in the district in which the conservee, or ward, resides or has domicile. A domicile, legally speaking, is a permanent place of residence. In Maydelle's case, that would be New Jersey, where she lived at the same address for 47 years. A residence is merely where you are living currently. Sirico filed for conservatorship in Woodbridge, where Maydelle had been for less than a month.

Is Maydelle a Connecticut resident? Her family certainly doesn't think so.

The changes to the conservatorship laws might rectify this. Starting in October, when a conservatorship is placed on someone whose domicile is not in Connecticut, the conservatorship must be reviewed every 60 days. It must be canceled if the person hasn't had an opportunity to return home. Maydelle hasn't been given that option yet.

Two of Ralph and Maydelle's children live in New Jersey and two are in Florida. On a good day, it's a five hour drive from the Haines' New Jersey home to their mother's new East Haven residence. Wright and brother Paul fly from Florida when there's a court date. The families rent cars to travel between their mother and their father and pay for hotels in Connecticut.
"This has probably cost our family $250,000" in travel costs and lawyer's fees, estimates Haines.

Sirico was reached by phone but would not agree to be interviewed. Her only comment was: "What I've done is what's in the best interest of my aunt. The court record speaks for itself."
In court, Sirico said she rescued Maydelle from a "despicable" household. Sirico visits Maydelle once a day, sometimes more. She takes her to doctors' appointments and to water therapy.


This isn't the first time Sirico has applied for conservatorship over someone.

Court records show that in 1996, Sirico applied for conservatorship over her mentor, Fred Devita, after he had a stroke. She was denied, but she did get power of attorney. Sirico had worked for Devita until he invited his daughter Mary to work full-time in his realty office. Mary and Sirico did not get along, so Devita asked Sirico to leave. Devita's wife and his other daughters also did not get along with Sirico, according to court documents.

After Devita had a stroke, Sirico began showing up at the hospital and also at the family home. Sirico began to manage Devita's rental properties. She also took him grocery shopping, to doctors' appointments and to water therapy.

In court testimony, family friend and attorney Frank Grazioso says Sirico told him Devita's daughters were neglectful and didn't want to be involved.

But the three daughters took care of their ailing mother who had Alzheimer's and cancer. Daughter Mary even had her mother move in with her. After her mother moved, the locks on the family home were changed.

According to court documents, Grazioso, who was friends with Devita for 45 years, says Devita told him Sirico "was doing this as a favor. It was one of his justifications to me for having her do it. This isn't going to cost the girls anything."

Mary testified she once heard Sirico telling her father's therapist that he didn't want to see his children until after an upcoming court date. "He doesn't want his kids visiting," Mary says she overheard. She entered the living room where Devita, Sirico and the therapist were. "Is that true? Do you not want me here?" she asked her father. He said no, and then took her hand.

The daughters also say that Sirico told Devita that daughter Karen Connolly had poisoned him.

After Devita died Nov. 1, 1999, Sirico tried to remove Mary as the executor of her father's will. After a judge wouldn't let her, Sirico sent the family a bill for $25,000 for services she had provided Devita. The judge ruled in favor of Sirico.

Maydelle's family knows what happened between the Devita family and Sirico. They've talked to his daughters and they've read the court files. But they say they're not going to worry just yet about whether Sirico will sue. Right now they're concentrating on getting their mother back.

Shock and Flaw

Did New Haven police rush Tasers onto the streets before the kinks were ironed out? The answer might stun you.
July 26, 2007
By Betsy Yagla

It took nearly two years of bickering about whether or not the New Haven police should carry Tasers, and when and why they should use them, before 46 Taser-armed cops hit the streets on July 10. And just four days later, one was used.

Maybe things shouldn't have been so rushed.

The first use shows that City Hall and police brass still have some kinks to work out. Floyd Haywood, 22, was shocked with a Taser at 3 a.m. in front of 76 Day St. after he punched an officer. The aftermath of the first Taser use was nearly as chaotic as what lead up to it.

Haywood's been abusing the mother of his twins, according to police reports, and in June the two got into an argument that ended with Haywood punching her in the mouth. Police secured a warrant and found Haywood July 14 on Day Street. He started throwing punches at cops. No cop on scene had a Taser, so they called for backup. Officer Steve Silk arrived on scene and subdued Haywood with the stun gun.

At that point, fire personnel or American Medical Response technicians should have removed the Taser probes, according to the city's general order governing Taser use. It says, "qualified medical personnel, i.e. AMR/NHFD will remove any probes embedded in the skin."

But firefighters on scene wouldn't do it. They're not supposed to, says Pat Egan, the fire union president. Firefighters haven't been trained to remove probes. After a back-and-forth between police and firefighters, Haywood was sent to Yale-New Haven Hospital by ambulance.

Then another problem surfaced: No police supervisor on duty had been trained to download the Taser video automatically recorded by the machine. Police had to call in an off-duty training officer to download the video. The general order says the video must be downloaded by the end of the shift it was used on by either the chief, a certified instructor or a designated supervisor.

Overtime coming from the understaffed police department is already a problem: Between July 2006 and May 2007, more than $5 million was spent on police overtime. So why not train all supervisors on duty instead of paying overtime for someone to download and watch a Taser video at 3 a.m.? Assistant Police Chief Herman Badger says only a few people are approved to download to "maintain the integrity of the evidence." City taxpayers are footing the overtime bill for what seems like a lack of trust and organization in the police department. And that's shocking.

Banking on What

New Haven's giving immigrants city IDs so they can open bank accounts. But some banks say the card won't suffice.
July 25, 2007
By Betsy Yagla

New Haven municipal IDs are supposed to help undocumented immigrants—and any other city resident without an ID—open a bank account. Makes sense, since without banks, immigrants are forced to carry around large wads of cash or stash it under their mattress, becoming easy prey for robbers and burglars.

But the list of commercial banks that will accept the card as valid ID to open an account is short. Webster Bank requires state-issued documents. New Alliance Bank says it's on the fence about whether to honor New Haven IDs. Same with People's Bank. Several other banks—Wachovia, Bank of Southern Connecticut, Citizen's Bank, Bank of America—wouldn't even return the Advocate's telephone calls.

Of the half-dozen banks contacted by the Advocate, only two institutions committed to accepting the card: Sovereign Bank and the not-yet-opened First City Fund Corporation, the community development bank born from the ashes of the old New Haven Savings Bank.

Why the cool reception?

Kica Matos, head of New Haven's Community Services Administration and one of the brains behind the IDs, says she's not sure what the banks' hesitations are. She's been working closely with the Connecticut Bankers Association and will be meeting with local banks next week, she says.

"Once one major bank signs up, we think the others will come around," she says.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Chillin in Class

New Haven's new high-tech schools require teachers to electronically submit a request for maintenance to adjust the heat.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
By Betsy Yagla

It was too cold too often last winter in at least seven of New Haven’s new multimillion-dollar schools. While daffodils were shooting up early in an unusually warm January, teachers and principals were complaining of classrooms, or entire wings, that were too cold—sometimes day after day.

Maintenance reports for the Aquaculture Sound School, Celentano, Clinton Avenue, Edgewood, Fair Haven Middle, John C. Daniels and John S. Martinez schools all showed lots of complaints relating to heating and cooling systems. These seven schools are all new, built between 1999 and 2006, at a combined cost of $243 milliom to city and state taxpayers.

The new schools use complicated HVAC control systems manufactured by Honeywell International that oversee heating and cooling in the buildings. They cost between $65,000 and $75,000 to install in each new school. From a small office on Chapel Street, a few computers can monitor and regulate room temperatures in each classroom, humidity levels in the pool room and CO2 levels inside and out.

The centralized system allows snazzy remote access climate control, but means that teachers can’t just walk over to the wall and adjust the thermostat—instead they need to electronically file a maintenance request and wait for an off-site technician to correct the problem.

School maintenance requests from these seven buildings reviewed by the Advocate reveal a chilling trend. Take Celentano School, completed in 2005 at a cost of $32 million: On January 3, it was too cold in the school’s D wing. It was reported fixed on the 8th, but again on the 18th it was “still too cold in D-building.” The next day’s request says there was still no heat in D wing, or in rooms 306, 307 and 308. Then on the 22nd, it was too cold—56 degrees—in the main office suite. On the 25th it was only 56 degrees in room 110. Outside that day, it was in the 40s, according to the National Weather Service’s webpage. On the 31st, the heat was out in rooms 111 and 112. Again on February 20 and March 6, Celentano Principal Laura Russo told maintenance it was too cold. And on March 19, once again, there was no heat in the school’s D wing.

Celentano had the most temperature problems, records show, but the pattern repeated in each of the six other schools.

New Haven (and state) taxpayers are shelling out a lot of money to pay for new public schools—12 percent of last year’s $413 million city budget went to pay down debt, a large chunk of which comes from the city’s $1.5 billion school construction program.

Robin Golden, New Haven schools chief operating officer, argues that some maintenance requests simply stem from the fact that not everyone agrees on what’s a comfortable temperature. Golden says many requests are generated automatically, often during overnight hours, when temperatures are set lower to conserve energy. When the temperature dips below the set level, a report is generated automatically through a Honeywell center in Georgia, then sent to someone in New Haven.

One January request originating from Honeywell said that rooms 304, 321 and 325 at Fair Haven Middle School were too cold. But when those rooms were checked at 7:24 a.m., the temperatures were between 69 and 70 degrees.

School officials see the system as a preventive maintenance tool. “Ten years ago we had to close schools on Mondays because of problems that occurred over the weekends,” says Susan Weisselberg, school program coordinator. The flip side is now there’s more work to do.

“There’s been huge improvements,” in the system, says Golden, “but now there’s more maintenance.” About $19,000 in overtime was paid last year to three Board of Education employees who work on the HVAC system. The more bells and whistles a system has, the more that can go wrong with it.

Immigration: Shackles and Bonds

The New Haven 30 have their first day in court.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
By Betsy Yagla

Rosa Mendez waited patiently in the Hartford immigration courtroom. Each time another black-haired shackled man entered the courtroom, her eyes looked up at him hopefully. She was hoping to see her cousin, Alejandro Alvarez.

Alvarez was not in court last Thursday. Alvarez, 23, was taken from the deli where he works in North Haven along with his father. Another man waiting at the bus stop in front of the deli was also picked up by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, just days after 30 undocumented immigrants were arrested in New Haven. Mendez does not know where her cousin is.

But she did know most of the 15 immigrants who filed into the courtroom one by one on Thursday wearing khaki prison garb. Many are from Mendez's native Tlaxcala, Mexico. Their family members in Mexico are uncertain of what's happened to those in New Haven; many have only heard rumors, says Mendez.

The immigrants were shackled at the ankles and a metal chain around their waist was attached to their handcuffed hands.

"That's not necessary," says Mendez of the chains. "It's not logical" to have them so restrained. They're not criminals—they're immigrants, she says.

Some men smiled at the audience sitting in the small blue room. Others kept their eyes down. All were told that their cases would be postponed until June 20.

The first man to appear had been put on the court's calendar mistakenly. He sat down next to a group of Yale Law School lawyers. Then he was removed from the courtroom. "Will I be able to speak with my wife?" he asked in Spanish before leaving the room. His case was heard that afternoon, and his wife was there to see him.

The immigrants' law team was headed by Yale Law professor Michael Wishnie. Law students played musical chairs with the seat next to him, depending on the client. The judge, Garry Malphrus, had been brought in from Arlington, Va. Malphrus is a politically connected lawyer who was appointed to be an immigration judge in 2005. He has straw-blond hair and an accent reminiscent of Dana Carvey doing George H.W. Bush.

Lawyers argued that ICE committed "egregious violations of constitutional rights." Everyone at trial that day had been arrested without a warrant, says Wishnie. Some had been picked up on the streets, and lawyers say they were singled out because of their race.
Malphrus asked the lawyers to focus on the bond issue.

The majority of the men have bond set at $15,000. Unlike criminal proceedings, they need to pay the full $15,000 to get out of jail. This was their first court appearance, and they were asking for the bond to be reduced. Two immigrant women who were also arrested in the June 6 raids had their bond hearings June 13 in Boston. The women, Damiana Reyes from the Dominican Republic and Teresa Vara Gonzalez from Mexico, had their bonds reduced significantly—to $1,500 and $3,500 respectively.

Wishnie told the court about those reductions.

"I don't care what happened in Boston," snapped ICE's lawyer, Leigh Mapelback.

José Efraín Solana Yangua sat silently through this back-and-forth. He clenched and unclenched his jaw. He kept his eyes cast downward while his lawyers told the judge that he has had regular employment at a landscaping company since moving to New Haven in 2000. He's paid taxes since 2003, he owns a car and has a bank account. He takes weekly English classes. He's only had one run-in with the law: He was caught driving without a license, but then he appeared in court and promptly paid his fine. To his defense team's surprise, Mapelback produced Solana Yangua's drivers license from Michigan, something which she says calls into question his ties to New Haven.

Solana Yangua and his brother, Edizon Fernando Yangua-Calva who was also in court that day, are the sole bread-winners for their diabetic father and four younger brothers, who live in Ecuador.

Malphrus wanted proof of Solana Yangua's work history. He asked for pay stubs and tax receipts. The hearing was continued until June 20, to give the lawyers time to dig up this type of paperwork for all their clients.

Rosa Mendez was the only family member in the courtroom that day, hoping for a glimpse of her loved ones. The other immigrants' family members, she said are "too scared of the authorities," to go to court.

Failed Disclosure

For city appointees, answering a few simple questions proves harder than you'd think.
June 12, 2008
By Betsy Yagla

City Hall says it's serious about how it does business. Last year, the Board of Aldermen created a code of ethics, and in early 2007 Mayor John DeStefano's department heads signed a related ethics pledge. Too bad that seriousness doesn't seem to apply to the city's more than 45 boards and commissions.

Sean Matteson, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano's chief of staff, instructed appointees on Dec. 14 to fill out a simple one-page ethics disclosure form. But a records search shows that more than 100 board and commission members have yet to do so. Many others filed late.

Boards and commissions in New Haven hold real power: The Police Commission votes on the firing, hiring and retiring of police officers. The Civil Service Board shapes the tests given to hire and promote city employees. The Board of Zoning Appeals decides the physical fate of the city—which buildings get built and which are denied.

As such, the volunteers that serve on these boards are asked to complete a modest form that asks such innocuous questions as: "Are you related to anyone who works for the city?" and "Does your organization contract with the city?"

The form was due Jan. 18 and Matteson warned non-compliance "could result in removal from commission or board." But, four months later, nearly half of the forms haven't been filed. More than 100 of the city's 265 board and commission members (discounting aldermen and city employees, who fill out different forms) failed to act, but no one has been removed.
How can the DeStefano administration claim to take ethics seriously when there's such a high non-compliance rate?

DeStefano spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga says, "We expect people to turn in these ethics forms," adding that another round of "please-fill-it-out" letters will soon go out to these appointees.

Other cities and states require disclosure that is far more involved than New Haven, says Rob Wechsler, an expert on municipal ethics. Those forms ask board members and employees to disclose financial interests, for example—a topic the New Haven form ignores. In several Oregon towns, employees and public officials resigned recently rather than fill out an eight-page financial disclosure form required by state law.

In New Haven, where the form isn't so invasive, "people probably just forget," says Wechsler. If city government wants people to comply they could ask committee chairs to remind their members, or impose a late fee, he says.

"You're not going to dismiss 100 people [from boards], but you can fine them $20," suggests Wechsler.

Ironically, one person who would face such a fine is a member of the two-person Board of Ethics, Rev. Samuel Ross-Lee of Immanuel Baptist Church, who did not return several calls for comment.

Told that even the ethics board wasn't in compliance, Mayorga says, "This is something that also needs to be dealt with."

Another form scofflaw is Rev. Boise Kimber, a fire board commissioner and politically connected minister who set off an investigation into city towing practices when his car escaped towing back in April.

Asked why he hasn't filed, Kimber says, "I don't know if I didn't. I'll have to check." He was told he hadn't. "If I didn't," Kimber said, "I'm sure I'm planning on it."

A few of the questions on the form: Is Kimber related to anyone who works for the city? "What's the next question?" he asks. Does his church contract with the city or apply for grants through the city? No, he says.

Men of the cloth aren't the only ones who couldn't be bothered with the short form. Of New Haven's 45 boards and commissions not one has a 100-percent compliance rate.

Only one member of the four-person civil service board filed. Not one member of the Building Permit Appeals board did. Of the six-person Greater New Haven Water Pollution Control Authority only one—a Board of Education employee—filed. The list goes on and on.

Matteson doesn't have authority to remove all non-compliers. City charter gives the mayor power over some boards and the Board of Aldermen power over others. It's a complicated matter to remove someone from a board or commission, Mayorga says. Much more complicated than filing out a simple form.

Maintenance Deferred

New Haven schools are suffering, but is Aramark to blame?
published: June 19, 2008
By Betsy Yagla

New Haven's older schools don't have air conditioning. Neither did the one-year-old Beecher School last week, which lost both its AC and its ovens. As temperatures soared above 100 degrees, technicians arrived to fix the air conditioning—and ended up shorting out the ovens. Students at the $40 million school were left to eat cold picnic lunches.

AC and other problems are occurring all over New Haven, and it's finger-pointing time when it comes to school maintenance. "The teachers were all complaining on Monday and Tuesday because they had no AC," says Rob Montouri, a Ross/Woodward school custodian and head of the custodians' union, Local 287.

Montouri blames Aramark—the Philadelphia-based company hired to oversee school maintenance in New Haven. Aramark picked out and installed the newer schools' high-tech, centrally controlled HVAC system, which has caused problems in several schools. Students and teachers freeze during the winter and sweat out the summer in classrooms with windows that don't open. ("Aramark has saved NHPS $100,000 annually by bringing HVAC contracted services in-house," says Aramark spokeswoman Karen Cutler.)

Aramark's been in New Haven for 14 years, running food service and maintenance, but this year NHPS custodians and cafeteria workers waged a months-long campaign asking the Board of Education to give Aramark the boot.

And it worked—at least for the cafeterias. Aramark will no longer oversee the schools' lunch program (it's going in-house this summer), but no decision has been made yet on the maintenance side. Aramark's $1.4 million contract has it overseeing city supervisors, coordinating contractors and ordering supplies like dust mops and toilet paper.

The current contract runs out June 30. The Board of Ed has interviewed two companies out of the four that bid for the job. Both bids under consideration are lower than Aramark's current $1.4 million maintenance contract, says Will Clark, the Board of Ed's chief operating officer. All options, including taking the work in-house, are on the table, he says.

Still, custodians are anxious to know if their—and the children's—situation will change in the next school year. Aramark's alleged mismanagement creates safety hazards, say the unions, for employees and students. A decision is expected next week, school officials say.

The unions are making one last push to rid their employees of Aramark management. Council 4, the AFCSME umbrella organization that oversees Local 287, is deploying union reps into New Haven schools to interview members to gather and organize complaints about the company. They'll use the data, they say, to present their case to New Haven Mayor John DeStefano and school Superintendent Dr. Reggie Mayo. Or maybe, they say, they'll send it to Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who's investigating the company after learning Aramark didn't share school lunch discounts with Detroit schools.

The union's valid complaints may not all be Aramark's responsibility. Some problems seem to be a result of a tight budget, and others can be attributed to flaws in new buildings.
Dead mice weren't removed from the High School in the Community cafeteria stockroom until a grievance process was resolved: There was a three-way dispute with Aramark, custodians and cafeteria delivery drivers about whose job it was to clean the stock room. Custodians and delivery drivers say it was the drivers' jobs, but the delivery drivers couldn't do it, they said, because their hours had been cut and they didn't have time. The drivers won their grievance and removed the mice.

At some schools, roof leaks are common: White ceiling tiles are stained brown from rain water. In those schools, custodians who tire of waiting for Aramark to call a contractor rig up elaborate make-shift drainage systems to avert leaks from ceiling lights. Others settle for buckets.
The way Aramark spokeswoman Karen Cutler explains it, Aramark's hands are tied when it comes to things like roof leaks: Aramark manages and oversees school maintenance, but they can't decide who fixes a roof, or even if it gets done. "It's up to the district to decide if an item gets fixed."

Sort of. The district creates the budget, but Aramark is supposed to oversee and manage that budget. During the first few years a school is open, leaky roofs and other problems are under warranty. Then, it's turned over to Aramark. So only older leaky roofs can be pinned on Aramark.

Another common complaint: When a custodian is out, only two hours of their eight-hour shift is replaced, but the same amount of work is required. They have to make a choice: Do they clean school toilets or mop floors in those two hours?

In an Oct. 17 letter to their union president, about 40 teachers at John S. Martinez complained: "We are writing to inform you of the health and welfare of the students and staff at John S. Martinez School." There was only one daytime custodian at the new, large school, and he couldn't do all his work in the time allotted. Teachers were sweeping their classrooms and cleaning their classroom bathrooms until the school was given an extra custodian. But in a tight budget year when city employees face concessions or layoffs, its unlikely custodians will be given extra hours, or new employees.

New Haven's new schools are gorgeous architectural feats of glass and soaring ceilings. But the Lexington Street "swing space," where children wait one or two years for their new school, feels neglected.

The parking lot curbs are crumbling from wintertime encounters with snow plows. Inside, the building is hot and humid and the hallway air feels stagnant. An oscillating fan buzzes in each classroom. Up the stairs, the second-floor exit sign is held together with masking tape, and exposed wires dangle from a wall where a fire alarm used to be. Down the hall, above the blue lockers, there are more exposed wires and an uncovered light bulb reachable by any jumping student. A classroom's broken window is covered with duct-taped plywood, and a crack is forming in a contiguous window. The boys' bathroom door and the cafeteria door are both missing door handles. If the door shuts, it locks everyone inside.

A custodian here says he's made several complaints that have gone unanswered. (Aramark's Cutler says there are only five open maintenance work orders at the swing space.)
School building czar Sue Weisselberg says some things may have to wait to be fixed, like broken glass. Aramark has a glass replacement budget and if it runs out, the glass will be fixed under the new fiscal year's budget that begins July 1.

Not everything, it seems, the unions are complaining about falls under Aramark's purview. If Aramark is ousted, the custodians may end up in a similarly frustrating situation with slow responses to work orders like broken windows. Things they long for, jobs that have been contracted out, like snow plowing and grass mowing at many schools, may or may not be given back to them.

But if the city were to take the job in-house, New Haven may save some money. Before Aramark came to New Haven, city management employees oversaw school custodians. They still do, says management union president Larry Amendola, but his supervisors are being supervised by Aramark: "It's a duplication of services."