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Sanders Releases 10 Years of Tax Returns Showing Book Bump

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Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders released 10 years of tax returns Monday evening, NBC News reports. They show the majority of his income came from his U.S. Senate salary until 2016, when his income jumped with the publication of a book on his first presidential run.

His total income popped to over $1 million in 2016 and 2017, after he wrote “Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In” in November 2016, raising his effective tax rate for those years to over 30 percent.

“I consider paying more in taxes as my income rose to be both an obligation and an investment in our country," Sanders said in a statement his campaign released. "I will continue to fight to make our tax system more progressive so that our country has the resources to guarantee the American Dream to all people.”

During his 2016 campaign, Sanders released a summary of his 2014 tax returns but this is the first time he has made his full releases public.

Sanders has been under pressure to release his returns since he launched his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in February. In a televised CNN town hall shortly after, the senator promised to release them "sooner than later.”



Photo Credit: Keith Srakocic/AP

Hartford A Hotbed For Female Entrepreneurs

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Hartford has more female entrepreneurs than nearly any other metropolitan area in the country, according to a new analysis of census data from Seek Business Capital, a financial institution out of Los Angeles.

The city ranks fourth in the nation behind only St. Louis, Missouri, Austin, Texas and Providence, Rhode Island, with nearly 500 startups owned by women employing over 3,000 workers.

“Hartford has seen the momentum that women entrepreneurs are gaining nationally,” said Milena Erwin, the program manager at the University of Hartford Women’s Business Center. “I think it’s wonderful to get recognized for the activity that’s building up.”

Erwin works with female entrepreneurs in the greater Hartford area every day. She’s excited, but not surprised to learn about Hartford’s high ranking in the Seek Business Capital report.

“I think what’s really helping is the recognition of the value in the Hartford area that women entrepreneurs bring,” Erwin said, “and the many resources that are here available at any stage and at any step of the way to help them along the way.”

Founder and CEO. of the Hartford-based company Bare Life, Ali Lazowski, says this was the perfect place to start her business.

“I was looking into where would be the best place, and Connecticut was top of the list. And it was so easy because I was there,” said Lazowski.

Ali was a junior in college at Johns Hopkins University when she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Eventually, she was also diagnosed with IBS and Lyme disease. Her doctors told her she had to stop eating dairy, gluten and refined sugars.

“I was like what am I going to eat now? So, I started playing around in my kitchen and came up with our hot chocolate mix, which is our first product,” said Lazowski.

After starting with a crowdfunding campaign in 2017, Ali sold 1,400 units in the first two months of sales. The locally-produced product is made with just five ingredients: coconut milk, coconut sugar, cacao, vanilla bean and Himalayan salt.

“It’s gluten-free, dairy-free, corn-free, soy-free, organic—I mean, could list it for an hour, but I’d sound like a weirdo,” she said.

Maybe a weirdo to the outside world, but Ali says she feels right at home in amongst the tight-knit army of female entrepreneurs in Hartford.

“Every time I run into a female entrepreneur, they’re like ‘oh, let me help you with this,’ ‘this is what I struggled with,’ ‘have you looked at this?’ and it’s just such an incredibly giving supportive community,” Ali said.

She says it’s also thanks to specialized organizations and programs in the area that make the city’s female entrepreneurs, like her, feel supported.

“There’s just a lot of institutions that are just dedicated to helping out startups, and especially women startups,” she said, “In addition to the community itself and entrepreneurs, those institutions are just incredible and so unique.”

Ali sells her clean hot chocolate online and at several locations across the state. Her goal is to someday sell it at every food store in the country.

Negotiations Continue As Stop & Shop Strike Reaches Day 5

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Negotiations between Stop & Shop and the UFCW local unions continued Monday, five days after workers first walked off the job and onto the picket line at all 90 stores in Connecticut.

Striking employees are scheduled to receive paychecks on Wednesday.

“That’s it,” said Denise Tartaglia on the picket line outside the Whalley Avenue store. “We don’t get another one until we go back to work.”

While some stores are staying open with minimal staff, the Whalley Avenue Stop & Shop in New Haven is closed except for the People’s United Bank.

“I helped bring Stop & Shop to the community because after Shaw’s closed we didn’t have any grocery store to shop,” Helen C. Powell told NBC Connecticut.

Now, Powell is joining more than 31,000 employees on strike against Stop & Shop in Southern New England.

“I’m not thinking about myself,” she said, “I’m thinking about my coworkers and my other neighbors surrounding this area.”

In this New Haven neighborhood, there isn’t another large supermarket nearby.

“A lot of my customers they don’t have the means of transportation to go out to other stores that may be three miles to five miles away from here, so there’s a lot of people in the community going without food right now,” said Julian Harris, who works as a meat and deli clerk at the Whalley Avenue store.

In other cities and towns like North Haven, shoppers don’t have to go far to find an alternative to Stop & Shop.

The parking Monday afternoon at the Big Y on Washington Avenue was packed compared to the many empty spots outside the Stop & Shop down the road.

“They should be parking the overflow in Stop & Shop,” Tartaglia said when NBC Connecticut showed her pictures.

Normally, Cathy Conklin from Hamden doesn’t shop at Big Y.

“I do my grocery shopping at Stop & Shop in Hamden and stop and shop in North Haven,” she said.

But Conklin explained she refuses to cross the picket line.

“I don’t want any of their benefits to be cut, if anything they should be getting an increase in benefits because of the increases in prices,” she said.

Ross Prinz is a regular Big Y customer. He said he noticed longer lines than normal on a Monday afternoon.

“It’s normally one person but they have more people in here working so that helps,” he said.

At the entrance to the North Haven Stop & Shop, customers were greeted by employee Jackie Zampaglione saying with a bullhorn, “do not shop today until we’re back inside that would be wonderful.”

Zampaglione said she’s worked at that store for a dozen years.

“We do flowers, we do funerals, we do weddings, we do deli platters, we celebrate with them, we service them every day,” she said, “so they are supporting us which is wonderful we thank every single one of them.”

Zampaglione said she is willing to stay on strike “as long as we have to.”

“They are negotiating,” she said. “We are positive that its going in the right direction we need to do this for today and for the future kids that ready to come in this door and work.”

At the Whalley Avenue store, Powell said she recognizes the inconvenience of the strike for some Stop & Shop customers in her community.

“I feel sorry for the young mothers they need Pampers, they need formula,” she said, “you got to go to the corner store.”

NBC Connecticut reached out to Stop & Shop to see what might happen to the food in its stores during the strike.

“Regarding food, we are working with our regional food bank partners, as well as local food pantries, to donate as much food as possible to our neighbors in need,” a Stop & Shop spokesperson replied.



Photo Credit: NBC Connecticut
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Photos: Inside Notre Dame After Devastating Fire

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A catastrophic fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris' soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below.

Photo Credit: Philippe Wojazer/Pool via AP

Notre Dame Cathedral Fire Ravages 'Transcendental' Cultural Treasure

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The Notre Dame Cathedral has long been regarded as a spiritual beacon, architectural marvel, monument to Parisian beauty and a towering symbol of French national pride. But the flames that engulfed the centuries-old structure on Monday threatened to demolish part of that rich cultural legacy, NBC News reports.

"It is bone-chilling. It is heartbreaking," Caroline Bruzelius, a professor of architectural history at Duke University, said of the blaze at the cathedral, built in the 12th and 13th centuries.

Notre Dame, one of the world's most visited and photographed landmarks, is inextricable from French history, Bruzelius said. Napoleon was crowned there, and it has hosted other major ceremonies in the pulsing heart of the City of Lights.

It is also a global icon: the setting of Victor Hugo's classic novel "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame," the luminous backdrop for numerous films, the subject of a somber painting by Henri Matisse, and an inspiration to legions of tourists for much of modern history.

Camille Pascal, a French writer and historian, said the mammoth blaze has already caused "the destruction of invaluable heritage." The spire ruined in the fire, like much of the cathedral itself, contained artifacts considered sacred to Roman Catholics, including a relic believed to be from Jesus Christ's crown of thorns.



Photo Credit: Philippe Wojazer/Pool via AP

1 Hurt in Fight at Berlin Motel

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One person was taken to the hospital after a fight at the Days Inn on the Berlin Turnpike Monday.

Police said they were called to the motel at 2387 Berlin Turnpike Monday afternoon and found two parties in a fight.

One person was hurt and taken to the hospital. The extent of the injuries was not immediately clear.

No other details were immediately available.



Photo Credit: NBC Connecticut

New Tax Law Sees Mixed Impact in Connecticut

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Many Connecticut taxpayers saw more money in their paychecks throughout the year as a result of the changes at the federal level.

Andrew Lattimer, a tax partner at BlumShapiro, which specializes in tax advisory and consulting in West Hartford, says many taxpayers only realized the difference later in the year.

"I know there's a lot of people that are upset because they feel like they owe a lot of money and if they look at where their tax liability actually is, they'll see it actually might be lower,” said Lattimer.

Lattimer explained that the main reason was that the federal withholdings tables were changed, which led to more people having less money set aside for federal tax payments.

“It's just that the decreased withholdings during the year they probably had more one during the year so now it's managing that expectation of, ‘last year I got $5,000 but this year I actually owe $500, how did that happen?’ So it's understanding what happened during the year and now as you're looking at 2019, you might want to adjust your withholdings so you're not stuck in the same situation."

Where many Connecticut taxpayers saw a lost benefit was the capping of state and local tax deductions at $10,000. Previously, Connecticut taxpayers could deduct the local property taxes and their individual income taxes from the federal taxes. With the cap in place, that meant many would have to pay more in taxes on their homes which are often valued high, and then lead to higher tax bills.

“If you think about, most people who have a house in Connecticut, most people are close to that $10,000 just in property taxes alone, you know, between the car and the house alone, now your state and local income tax really gets you to that $10,000 and you're well above it,” Lattimer said. He added, “because you're capped at the 10, a lot of the people I saw this year actually were using the standard deduction, might mean some charities or that mortgage interest, maybe that doesn't, it becomes not deductible whereas in the past it was."

Senate Democrats in Connecticut criticized the federal tax changes, arguing that wealthier residents received breaks that the middle class did not.

"There's something wrong in the United States of America when Middle Class families are struggling so to meet their obligations to take care of our society and I think the transfer of wealth to the very wealthiest in our state and in our country is a huge mistake,” said Sen. Julie Kushner, (D – Danbury).

Sen. Len Fasano, (R – North Haven), responded to the Democrats’ press conference, saying the event was a distraction.

Fasano said, “It’s no surprise that Connecticut Democrats want to talk about the politics of Washington D.C., which no state lawmaker on either side of the aisle has a say in or can control.”

Zuckerberg Leveraged FB User Data As Bargaining Chip: Docs

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg oversaw plans to consolidate the social network’s power and control competitors by treating its users’ data as a bargaining chip, while publicly proclaiming to be protecting that data, according to about 4,000 pages of leaked company documents largely spanning 2011 to 2015 and obtained by NBC News.

The documents, which include emails, webchats, presentations, spreadsheets and meeting summaries, show how Zuckerberg, along with his board and management team, found ways to tap Facebook’s trove of user data — including information about friends, relationships and photos — as leverage over companies it partnered with.

In some cases, Facebook would reward favored companies by giving them access to the data of its users. In other cases, it would deny user-data access to rival companies or apps.

Facebook denied that it gave preferential treatment to developers or partners because of their ad spending or relationship with executives. The company has not been accused of breaking the law.



Photo Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, File

Downed Tree, Power Lines Close Route 20 in East Granby

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A downed tree brought down power lines and has closed part of Route 20 in East Granby on Tuesday morning.

State Police said Route 20 is closed between East Street and Kripes Road.

The closure is expected to continue through the morning commute and may end around noon, according to State Police.

Drivers are urged to detour using East Street to Nicholson Road to Bradley Park Road while Route 20 is closed.

State Police Investigating Officer-Involved Shooting in New Haven

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State police are assisting in the investigation into an officer-involved shooting and several blocks of Dixwell Avenue in New Haven are closed amid the investigation.

Officers from the New Haven Police Department and Hamden Police Department are at the scene and Dixwell Avenue is closed between Munson and Gibbs streets. Drivers can detour on Shelton Avenue.

State police said the Connecticut State Police-Central District Major Crimes is assisting in the investigation. No additional information was immediately available.

Witnesses said they heard several gunshots and one of the vehicles at the scene on Argyle Street appears to have bullet holes.

Police have put up police tape and evidence markers.



Photo Credit: NBC Connecticut
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Daughtry to Perform at Mohegan Sun

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Daughtry is coming to Connecticut this summer and will take the Mohegan Sun Arena stage in August. 

The band will perform on Saturday, Aug. 24 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets will sell for $55, $40 and $30 and go on sale Friday, April 19 at 10 a.m. 

Throughout his career, Chris Daughtry has released several albums, and recorded many hits, including "It's Not Over," “Home” “Waiting for Superman” and several others. 

He and his band have been performing together for more than a decade and released their latest album, "Cage to Rattle," in 2018. 

Learn more and purchase tickets here. 



Photo Credit: Getty Images

Notre Dame Before, During and After Its Catastrophic Fire

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Notre Dame is one of the most iconic monuments in Paris, if not the world, and countless tourists and photographers have snapped photographs of the Gothic cathedral in the heart of France's capital.

The devastating fire that erupted Monday claimed Notre Dame's spire and parts of its roof, though it spared the huge bell towers that face out onto the place du Parvis-Notre-Dame, the point from which all French roads are measured.

Below, compare pictures of the landmark at its pomp with ones showing it during and after the blaze.



Photo Credit: Bloomberg via Getty Images
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False Call About Student With Weapon Brings Police to West Hartford’s Conard High School: Principal

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Police responded to Conard High School in West Hartford Tuesday morning after a call was made reporting a student had weapons in the building and they said it turned out to be a false claim.

Police said they received a 211 call just before 8 a.m. from a teenage boy who said he was at Conard High School with weapons and wanted to harm others and himself.

The school resources officer was already at school when the call came in and more officers immediately responded, police said.

Officers checked and secured the school and found nothing unusual.

Police said they have reason to believe the phone call came from outside the United States and they are looking at a juvenile suspect.

Police said no one at the school was in danger.



Photo Credit: NBC Connecticut

Stop & Shop Adds Security at Stores as Strike Continues

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As Stop & Shop workers in Southern New England enter the sixth day of a strike, the supermarket chain has added police presence and additional security officers across stores in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

The security and police officers have been added to "ensure the safety of our workers and the safety of our customers who continue to shop at our stores," Stop & Shop spokersperson Jennifer Brogan said.

More than 31,000 Stop & Shop employees from more than 240 stores in the three states are on strike and some of the 90 stores in Connecticut are staying open with minimal non-union staff.

One exception is the Whalley Avenue Stop & Shop in New Haven, which is closed except for the People’s United Bank.

“Our 31,000 members who work at Stop & Shop work incredibly hard to provide the great customer service that has made the company billions of dollars in profit and the top grocery store in New England. Instead of a contract that recognizes the value and hard work that our members provide every day, Stop & Shop has only proposed drastic and unreasonable cuts to health care benefits and take home pay, while replacing real customer service with more serve-yourself checkout machines,” a joint statement from the five locals of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union that are striking says.

After the strike began, officials from Stop & Shop released a statement that said, in part: “Given that negotiations with assistance of the federal mediators are continuing, we are disappointed that the UFCW chose to order a work stoppage in an attempt to disrupt service at our stores. Stop & Shop has contingency plans in place to minimize disruption,” a statement from Stop & Shop says.

Officials from Stop & Shop said negotiations are continuing with the UFCW union locals, again with the support of federal mediators.



Photo Credit: NBC Connecticut

Deported Widower of Soldier Back In US After ICE Reversal

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The husband of a U.S. soldier killed in Afghanistan was allowed to return to the United States Monday after immigration officials deported him last week and put their daughter at risk of losing another parent, NBC affiliate KNPX reported.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 30-year-old Jose Gonzalez Carranza on April 8 in Phoenix, Arizona, as he was headed to work and then deported him to Mexico three days later, according to his attorney, Ezequiel Hernandez.

Gonzalez Carranza's late wife, Army Pfc. Barbara Vieyra, was killed on Sept. 18, 2010, while serving in Afghanistan. She was 22. Gonzalez Carranza shares custody of the couple's 12-year-old daughter with Vieyra's parents.

Hernandez said in a news release that his client — who had entered the U.S. illegally in 2004 at the age of 16 — had been granted a "parole in place" (PIP) in 2017 after his wife was killed. PIP authorizes certain undocumented family members of U.S. military personnel — active and veterans — to stay and work in the U.S. without fear of deportation, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

In 2018, an immigration judge had stopped deportation proceedings against Gonzalez Carranza because of his PIP status.

Gonzalez Carranza told KNPX that he told the arresting ICE agents of his rights based on the PIP and claimed they replied, "I don't care."

According to Hernandez, ICE refiled a deportation case against Gonzalez Carranza last year and after failing to appear in court for a hearing in December, a judge ordered him deported. 

However, Gonzalez Carranza said he never received a notice of a court appearance from USCIS and Hernandez also contends in his news release that his office was not sent any paperwork. 

"I never received any kind of paper," Gonzalez Carranza told KNPX. "The first time this happened, the judge gave me an opportunity to be a United States legal and I do my best. I never missed anything, any kind of information, any kind of paper, any time I needed to be in front of an immigration judge, I was always there. I’ll always be on time to renew my permits, everything. But I never received anything to tell me I have a new hearing."

Hernandez said a Motion to Reopen (MTR) Gonzalez Carranza's case was filed the same day he was detained, "triggering an automatic stay" on his deportation proceedings. The attorney also said ICE's field office in Phoenix was provided with a copy of the pending MTR, but the agency deported him anyways.

ICE did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.

Gonzalez Carranza's case sparked widespread outrage and attracted the attention of U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz. A spokeswoman for Sinema told the Arizona Republic that her office had reached out to help. 

On Monday, Gonzalez Carranza was told to go to the Nogales/Mariposa Port of Entry where he would be allowed to cross the border into the U.S. 

Citing several errors made by ICE, Hernandez believes that Gonzalez Carranza has a strong case for the court to rule on his client's motion to reopen the case. KNPX reported that if the court agrees, they will then have to again fight to terminate the deportation proceedings. 

"As it stands, [being a widower of an American soldier] is not enough to have legal permanent status in the United States," Hernandez told KNPX.

Sinema spokeswoman Hannah Hurley told the Republic that the senator's office "is in communication with Mr. Carranza’s attorney and we will assist the Carranza family in this process."



Photo Credit: KPNX/Jose Gonzalez

Large Brush Fire Visible From I-91 in New Haven

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There is heavy smoke showing from traffic cameras on I-91 in New Haven, near exit 8.

The New Haven Fire Department Tweeted there is a large brush fire on I-91 North near exit 8.

State police said there are lane closures on I-91 North at exit 8. Two right lanes are closed.

The fire is also affecting Amtrak. Acela Trains 2158 and 2165 were stopped because of the fire, according to the Twitter account for Amtrak Northeast.

There are also delays on Shoreline East.

The fire danger for today is high, according to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Division of Forestry.



Photo Credit: Connecticut Department of Transportation
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Federal Fugitive Found in Willimantic

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A man accused of escaping from a federal prison facility in Georgia was arrested in Willimantic Tuesday.

According to the US Marshals Service, 43-year-old Israel Rodriguez-Zayes escaped from a Federal Bureau of Prisons Facility n Jessup, Georgia on March 2. He was found working as a part-time mechanic in Willimantic.

Rodriguez-Zayes was serving a 15-year sentence for a combination of federal offenses including selling crack cocaine, heroin, and marijuana and a firearms offense. He was first sentenced in August 2013.



Photo Credit: NBCSanDiego

Hartford Mural Aims to Keep Children Safe, Unite Community

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Kids helping other kids stay safe.

On Tuesday a project was underway in Hartford to improve the walk to an elementary school and organizers are hopeful it provides a little inspiration to the students too.

With a little pep and some paint, students and community members set out to transform an intersection and the sidewalks near Fred D. Wish Elementary School in Hartford.

“For hope and joy and keep people out of the streets and stuff,” Nevaehn Stevens said.

One of those helping to organize this project at Barbour and Kensington Streets was Tania Banks.

“I feel like it gives them a confidence boost. It lets them know they can be part of something bigger,” Banks said.

Banks tells us they’ve been sketching out this idea for months. It took different groups coming together to pull it off.

“Because a lot of violence and bad things have been going on in the community and we feel like the first step is with us,” Banks said.

With each brush, they hoped the art and clean-up serves as an inspiration. There will be school-related images, as well a message in the intersection that “You are loved.”

It’s all about creating a sense of pride, according to Courtenay Jackson, who is with the North Hartford Promise Zone.

“It’s going to feel like one step. Let’s move onto the next project. You know. How can we keep and maintain things? So it’s all about how we can grow and learn together,” Jackson said.



Photo Credit: NBC Connecticut

Perez Defends Tax Hikes as Mayor

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Former Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez raised taxes multiple times during his time as Hartford mayor, leading to some businesses closing due to an increased tax burden.

Even though local property tax rates are enforced differently in Hartford compared to other municipalities, with varying rates of effective tax for corporations, homeowners, and small business owners, with the rate going up, that meant higher prices for businesses, and by extension, consumers.

Perez told NBC Connecticut in a statement, “During the nine years I was Mayor our property tax levy was modestly increased on an average of 3% each year. These increases were to make up for cuts to Hartford aid under two Republican Governors and the needs brought on by the Great Recession.”

“I tried everything I could to steer away from the rocks and just kept coming, you know,” said Darrell Sullivan, the longtime owner of Lena’s Pizza and Sully’s, which were adjacent to each other on Park Street in Hartford, close to the West Hartford line.

Sullivan admits his business faced internal issues including multiple expensive workers’ compensation claims, insurance issues, and overall business struggles. But Sullivan said multiplying tax bills year after year, made making ends meet nearly impossible.

“I kept falling behind,” he said of his tax payments.

“I went from $8,000, $8,600 a year to near $40,000 in a rapid succession you know, my taxes went up 600 percent a year. Perez’s reign really started it.”

Eddie Perez’s first year in office, the city’s property tax mill rate was 52.92. By the time Perez left office, the rate had jumped to 71.79, after peaking at 72.79 in 2009.

The next mayor of Hartford, Pedro Segarra, oversaw the last of the city’s tax increases to the current rate of 74.29.

Perez added, “When I left office we had an 'A' bond rating, our budget was balanced and our pension fund was close to fully funded. During my time in office Hartford was not a candidate for bankruptcy, did not require a state bailout, nor did its debt reach junk bond status.”

Sullivan says he felt the time was right for him to close his business, between tax and other factors. But, he says, he is not happy to see Perez running again.

“I think anybody that’s been caught for corruption should be ineligible to run again for public office,” he said. “You know, I just think that’s the most obvious thing we should put in the books. If you get caught running shenanigans, you shouldn’t have your chance again.”

Perez is seeking to be reelected as Hartford mayor. He is taking on current Mayor Luke Bronin in the September Democratic Primary.

Connecticut Residents in France React to Notre Dame Fire

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Connecticut residents who are currently in Paris are reacting to the devastating fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral. They say it's something they will never forget witnessing.

“What were the chances of being here when something so tragic happened? It was a moment you’ll never forget,” said Plainville resident Maryellen Fillo.

Her travel group was supposed to tour the Notre Dame Cathedral today.

“We literally checked in and somebody came in and said, ‘Notre Dame is on fire’ and we thought it was a joke. We’re staying less than a block from Notre Dame. And all of sudden, there were fire engines and police,” she said.

One of the world’s most beautiful treasures up in flames in front of her, “the soot and the ash. it felt like it was snowing on us.”

Just Thursday, Wethersfield travel consultant Melissa Albright toured the cathedral. It was the highlight of her family trip.

“When I told my 10-year-old when I picked her up from school, she couldn’t believe it. It’s very disappointing because it was so close and exhilarating for us just a few days ago.”

While she’s heartbroken by the news, she says it’s a reminder for all of us, “What does it tell us? Get up and go because with anything you don’t know what’s going to happen.”

In France, Fillo says in the wake of watching the fire, she’ll soak up ever site she sees with even more appreciation.

“I’m Catholic and it was Holy Week. What was God thinking? I mean you don’t question it. Maybe it was to draw people together. We take so much for granted perhaps this will make you take less for granted in our lives,” she said.

With many school vacations underway, some Connecticut students are currently seeing the sights in Europe.

Studying abroad is expected to be an immersive experience, but Quinnipiac University student Amy Thorpe didn’t expect to bear witness to something this historic.

Thorpe has been studying abroad in Paris since January.

“I immediately realized the gravity of the situation when I saw the smoke at the end of the street rising above the buildings,” she said.

The sophomore lives just blocks from the world-renowned cathedral. “It’s so beautiful. Such a beautiful cathedral. It’s just such a shame that this happened to it, but luckily France just has some amazing firefighters who were able to put out the fire and save a lot of the important relics that were in the church.”

French students from East Catholic High School in Manchester toured the cathedral Thursday.

We spoke to a group of juniors abroad over the phone.

“It was a lot bigger that I had imagined. I mean I’d seen pictures, but seeing it in person all of the details it was really magnificent,” said student Vanessa Tolidoro.

Their teacher, Chantal Gagne, can’t believe her future students won’t see the same site, “It’s just unbelievable.”

“Especially now because of the tragedy that just happened, it’s even more of an opportunity to have seen it before it burnt down,” said student Alexandra Parsons.

While Thorpe’s study abroad program goes through May, she’s already looking forward to the cathedral’s future, what it looks like when it’s rebuilt. “There’s a really strong atmosphere of hope, I recognized and I thought that was really powerful in the face of such a horrific event like that.”



Photo Credit: Melissa Albright
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