A no-increase education budget for the next fiscal year in Norwich is something the school board refuses to consider. The panel met Tuesday night to review some 580-thousand dollars in spending reductions put forth by its budget expenditure committee. Even with the reductions, school spending would still go up by 2-point-2 percent.. A city council preliminary budget calls for flat-funding of the schools. Board of Education chairman Al Daniels says that would force teacher layoffs and push class sizes up quite a bit, which is unacceptable. He says no increase in education spending would thwart the progress the city’s schools have made in recent years. The city council must adopt a final budget by June 12th, with the school board scheduled to adopt its final spending plan the following night.
VOLUNTOWN HIT-AND-RUN DRIVER GOING TO JAIL
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – A Voluntown driver is headed to prison in a hit-and-run that killed a Rhode Island college student. The state attorney general’s office says Jeremy Flippo was sentenced Monday in Providence to four years behind bars. Police say the 26-year-old Flippo was charged with leaving the scene of an accident with death resulting in the July 2016 crash that killed 20-year-old Christian Costigan, of Exeter. Police say Costigan was walking with friends on the north shoulder of Route 165 in Exeter when he was struck. He died at the hospital. Authorities said Flippo fled the scene toward Connecticut after the crash. The Community College of Rhode Island has said Costigan was studying music at the school.
NORWICH MAN SAY HE DIDN’T DO IT
A Norwich man pleads not guilty to two beating incidents. 26-year old Kwendell Wiggins appears Tuesday in New London Superior Court. Police say Wiggins, along with three other suspects, faces charges of severely beating the son of a dying man outside the Town Street room where the father was dying of cancer in September of last year. Police say the dispute was about funeral arrangements. Wiggins also faces charges of being one of several men to beat and rob a man near the Ravi gas station on Central Avenue in Greeneville in May of last year. He’s being held on more than 425-thousand dollars bail, and is due back in court June 7th.
HATE CRIMES BILL GETS STATE HOUSE OK
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) – Legislation that attempts to toughen Connecticut’s hate crimes laws has cleared the House of Representatives. The chamber voted unanimously Tuesday in favor of the bill, which makes the commission of a hate crime a felony and increases potential penalties upon conviction. The bill now awaits action in the Senate. Stamford Rep. William Tong, the Democratic House chairman of the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee, says lawmakers “need to send a clear and unmistakable message that we will not tolerate hate crimes in Connecticut.” The bill also makes violence and threats based on a person’s gender prosecutable as a hate crime. Additionally, it makes threats against houses of worship or other religious facilities a more serious penalty.
ADVOCATE OPPOSES STATE CHILD MARRIAGE BILL
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) – A national advocate for ending child marriage says she opposes a bill that cleared the Connecticut House of Representatives, setting a minimum marriage age of 16 years old. Fraidy Reiss, founder and executive director of the New Jersey-based nonprofit Unchained at Last, says the bill still puts young people at risk of forced marriage. She prefers the legislation die and that lawmakers try again next year. The House of Representatives on Tuesday voted unanimously for legislation allowing a parent or guardian to ask a probate court judge to allow a 16- or 17-year-old to get married. The judge would hold a hearing and determine whether the minor’s consent to marry is voluntary and informed. Reiss says most perpetrators who force children into marriage are parents. The bill awaits Senate action.
