Tomorrow evening (6pm) at the St. Augustine Church you can see all the candidates speak to why they think they are most qualified for the job. This forum is sponsored by the South End Neighborhood Revitalization Zoning Group and the Maple Avenue Revitalization Group. The church is at 10 Campfield Ave.
The other night there was a huge commotion outside, but that could have been anything. People around here like to argue over dumb things, and rarely is it serious. After eavesdropping (it was after midnight and I was in pajamas…not time to meet the neighbors unless I *have* to) all I could get from it was that a “firetruck hit someone.”
Well, there was a firetruck in sight, and later an ambulance drove through. But there was nothing in the paper about this.
But then I see today’s news article about an armed robbery. A few months ago there was an armed robbery of a pizza delivery guy in the neighborhood.
Just now, as I was reading and enjoying the peace and quiet of an afternoon, there was a knocking on my back door. When I went to answer it, nobody was around. I went to the front, to see if perhaps they had grown impatient. Not a person in sight. When I returned to the back, thinking maybe they had stepped out of my vision, I saw two little boys, about five or six years old, walking around my garage and toward a nearby apartment building.
A minute later, my neighbor’s doorbell was rung by an invisible caller.
I welcome this harmless brand of mischief. Bring it! When the alternative is something like kids throwing rocks at cars, leaving garbage on the ground, and then, the more serious violence (like the person who was shot in the chest and killed a block away from me last week), a couple of children getting their laughs by disturbing my peace is no big deal.
The last time that I had health care was in 2001. Since the age of 16, the longest amount of time that I have spent unemployed has been two months. I show up to work on time, don’t cut corners, and am relatively efficient. I’ve never stolen from an employer, unless you count ballpoint pens.
For me, my American Dream is to enjoy my work, have friends, be a productive member of the community, be healthy and safe, and not have my power shut off.
The full report is over at Undercurrents.
About 35 people from CT were at the forum. There’s also coverage in a Philadelphia paper.
Tomorrow morning (6:30) a bus will be leaving from the Hartford ACORN office (621 Farmington Ave.) for Philadelphia. The trip is free and will take passengers to a presidential forum with Clinton, Edwards, and Kucinich (confirmed), and possibly also Obama and Dodd.
If interested, email marisa.lindsey[at]gmail.com
It’s about time that CCC employees got vocal. The past few weeks, we’ve seen several articles and letters to the editor regarding the college. Then, there’s the backlash– people saying nasty things along the lines of “There shouldn’t be a college in Hartford anyway.” Several years ago, when starting employment with CCC, a friend remarked that he’d heard it wasn’t a good college. No doubt many of these comments are made by people who’ve never been to CCC, have a vision that every college must have a sprawling green lawn (grass is part of the environmental problem!), or, and I hesitate to say this, harbor racist or classist ideas about who deserves access to higher education. In today’s Courant, another CCC employee responds:
Cost Of Parking In Hartford
Gone are the lofty days when education and the arts were revered and measured not by cost, but by the enrichment bestowed on community and self.
Now it’s all about the money.
The Courant’s June 27 editorial “Be Fair To Downtown College” cited parking for faculty, staff and students at the Morgan Street Garage as an unreasonable cost of having Capital Community College in downtown Hartford.
If the city, through the Hartford Parking Authority, feels the need to charge such an exorbitant rate, perhaps the state should tighten up usage of its own parking lots and no longer allow free parking to the patrons who frequent the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, myself among them.
Quid pro quo, Mayor Perez?
Anne Romus
Newington
The writer is a staff member at Capital Community College.
