Top Ten Stories
Top Ten Stories of 2023: #1: Concerned Voices Confront New Britain City Council About Homelessness
As we get ready to start 2024, the New Britain Progressive looks back at some of the important stories we covered in 2023. This is among the articles we consider our Top Ten Stories of 2023. Best wishes for the New Year!
Top Ten Stories of 2023: #2: Neighborhood Near CCSU Hit By Flooding, Overflows Into Homes Multiple Times Since July
As we get ready to start 2024, the New Britain Progressive looks back at some of the important stories we covered in 2023. This is among the articles we consider our Top Ten Stories of 2023. Best wishes for the New Year!
Top Ten Stories of 2023: #3: Far Right Student Group’s Anti-BLM Film Disrupted At CCSU Campus
As we get ready to start 2024, the New Britain Progressive looks back at some of the important stories we covered in 2023. This is among the articles we consider our Top Ten Stories of 2023. Best wishes for the New Year!
Top Ten Stories of 2023: #4: Fair Rent Commission Holds First Hearing On Rent Hike Complaints
As we get ready to start 2024, the New Britain Progressive looks back at some of the important stories we covered in 2023. This is among the articles we consider our Top Ten Stories of 2023. Best wishes for the New Year!
Top Ten Stories of 2023: #5: Pastor From New Britain Subjected to Apparently Threatening Comments Online in Ansonia
As we get ready to start 2024, the New Britain Progressive looks back at some of the important stories we covered in 2023. This is among the articles we consider our Top Ten Stories of 2023. Best wishes for the New Year!
Top Ten Stories of 2023: #6: Democrats Appear to Win Council and Board of Education Elections
As we get ready to start 2024, the New Britain Progressive looks back at some of the important stories we covered in 2023. This is among the articles we consider our Top Ten Stories of 2023. Best wishes for the New Year!
Top Ten Stories of 2023: #7: Zoning Changes Proposed For Downtown, Other Areas Across The City
As we get ready to start 2024, the New Britain Progressive looks back at some of the important stories we covered in 2023. This is among the articles we consider our Top Ten Stories of 2023. Best wishes for the New Year!
Top Ten Stories of 2023: #8: Mount Pleasant Slated for Demolition and Redevelopment
As we get ready to start 2024, the New Britain Progressive looks back at some of the important stories we covered in 2023. This is among the articles we consider our Top Ten Stories of 2023. Best wishes for the New Year!
Top Ten Stories of 2023: #9: Leaders Show Solidarity With Ukraine On First Anniversary Of Invasion
As we get ready to start 2024, the New Britain Progressive looks back at some of the important stories we covered in 2023. This is among the articles we consider our Top Ten Stories of 2023. Best wishes for the New Year!
Top Ten Stories of 2023: #10: New Britain Nets $65,940 From “Nickel Per Nip” Anti-Litter Program
As we get ready to start 2024, the New Britain Progressive looks back at some of the important stories we covered in 2023. This is among the articles we consider our Top Ten Stories of 2023. Best wishes for the New Year!
Top 10 of 2022: #1: Federal COVID Aid to City Boosts High Profile Capital Projects
The quantity of federal aid given to the city as part of the federal pandemic relief, and how it was spent, may have seemed mundane news in the moment, but its impact in terms of local projects — and politics — has been profound. In 2022, Republican politicians attributed federal spending in the form of […]
Top 10 of 2022: #2: Attorney Bill Rivera Is First Hispanic Elected To Probate Court
New Britain appears to have made history in the state by electing the first Latino as Judge of Probate. It is a proud moment, not just for Attorney Bill Rivera, but for the New Britain community, as well as for Berlin. Judge-elect Rivera, who was, in the past, the Majority Leader of the New Britain […]
Top 10 of 2022: #3: Property Revaluation
Property tax revaluations in Connecticut communities are producing higher than ever appraisals for tax purposes. New Britain is no exception and the impact on city residents and the municipal budget will hit home in 2023 when they take effect. Connecticut’s main system for local taxation, property taxes, are regressive, meaning that people tend to pay […]
Top 10 of 2022: #4: CCSU Honors DeFronzo’s Public Service To City And State
In October, CCSU recognized former Mayor, State Senator and State Commissioner Donald DeFronzo for his public service career, a history of service that deserves to be recounted and honored. DeFronzo’s long career of leadership, spanning decades, includes union leadership in AFT, leading the city as Mayor, representing New Britain, Berlin and neighborhoods in Farmington as […]
Top 10 of 2022: #5: Hayes, Other Democrats Win Big in New Britain
What Republicans sought and Democrats feared never happened. The anticipated 2022 Republican wave victory fizzled out and Democrats rolled to big wins in New Britain. Republicans had high hopes nationwide. Buoyed by predictions of the “red wave”, they were blaming President Joe Biden and Congressional Democrats for the runaway inflation that was much more caused […]
Top 10 of 2022: #6: More City Debt To Pay For Stewart Annual Budgets
On topic, again, of a newspaper’s role as the first draft of history is what is probably the most historically enduring legacy of Republican Mayor Erin Stewart — annual budgets being floated by debt to be paid for by taxpayers long after she is no longer Mayor. It has been called formal-sounding terms, like, “debt […]
Top 10 of 2022: #7: Charter Changes: New City Power Jobs, Transparency Concerns and Minority Party Council District System
Republican Mayor Erin Stewart and her newly elected Republican City Council supermajority set right away in 2022 to change the City Charter in a raft of different ways. Some of the changes were widely viewed as innocuous, while Council election changes raised concerns and new, powerful appointed positions and other changes, encased in an opaque […]
Top 10 of 2022: #8: Council Districting Raises Racial Gerrymandering Concerns
It is said the journalism is the first draft of history. And part of the mission of any real newspaper, including the New Britain Progressive, is to record contemporary events well for the future judgment of history. In 2022, the city hall of Republican Mayor Erin Stewart approved a plan for new City Council districts […]
Top 10 of 2022: #9: A New Schools Superintendent
In 2022, New Britain saw the retirement of Schools Superintendent Nancy Sarra and the selection and installation of Anthony Gasper as the new head of the city’s school system. In April, the Board of Education named Dr. Anthony J. Gasper, Ed.D as the new schools Superintendent, who came to lead the New Britain school district […]
Top 10 of 2022: #10: New Britain Support for Ukraine
The suffering of the Ukrainian people has been a major concern for many people in New Britain as Russia carried out a war of aggression against its neighbor. The invasion has drawn widespread condemnation from people across New Britain, as well as support for the people of Ukraine affected by the largest war in Europe […]