Dear friends,

This week is promising to be a good deal quieter than last week – no coliseum to demolish – but there’s still plenty going on.

Tuesday I joined local aldermen, federal housing officials, and New Haven Housing Authority officials at a news conference to announce a first of its kind job training program to begin at Farnam Court. The program, initiated by the City of New Haven, and funded through the Housing Authority, will train approximately 80 residents for careers in the building trades, this includes plumbing, electrical work, and painting. The Union involved in this collaborative effort is the UBC (Carpenters), IBEW (Electricians), IUPAT (Painters / Tapers), U (Plumbers, and the GLC (Laborers). Each of the four classes will consist of 20 people and will last for 8 weeks. Upon completion, graduates will be qualified to begin apprenticeships and apply for high quality jobs, some with the city’s school construction program. As I said at the news conference, this is a great opportunity offer people a hand up, not just a hand-out. (Visit the press release section of the website to learn more).

Also this week, the New Haven Public Schools will stage a full-scale crisis drill Wednesday at Wilbur Cross High School from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. This is part of a large, $494,746 U.S. Department of Education federal grant won in 2004 by the Social Development Department of the New Haven Public Schools. The goal of the grant is to help the schools and the City strengthen crisis management. The funding is intended to increase the abilities of all eighty six (86) public and non-public schools and emergency personnel to keep children safe and to teach parents and community members how to respond in a safe and orderly fashion in the event of a crisis.

Wednesday's school drill will involve the, the New Haven fire, EMS, and police departments; AMR the faculty and some students of the Cross High School; the New Haven Public Schools; personnel from Yale-New Haven and the Hospital of St. Raphael.

That will do it for this week’s message. I hope you have a happy and healthy week!

Very truly yours,

John DeStefano

Mayor

Contact Name: Derek Slap

Contact Email: dslap@newhavenct.net

Contact Phone: 946-7660

[1/24/2007]