The New Britain Common Council held its regular meeting on January 14, 2026, at 7:01 PM. The meeting included public participation, adoption of a consent agenda, reports on personnel and infrastructure projects, and unanimous passage of several resolutions. Key topics included parking concerns for a new business, a transitional housing proposal, city debt, the Allen Street reconstruction project, and recognition of Muslim American Heritage Month.
Okay, yeah. You can come up when you can. Sorry. Welcome to the January 14th regular meeting of the common council. Happy New Year to all. Uh we will begin the public participation portion of the meeting. And the time is now seven oh one. I have a uh a list of folks I'll call upon. Uh and then anybody else who wishes to speak and address the council. Please remember to state your name and address clearly for the record. Limit your speaking time to three minutes. Um if anybody again has not signed up, anybody who wishes to speak may do so. The first name on the list is Michelle Ramos. Hi. Good evening, all my name is Michelle Ramos, located at 41 R Street in O'Brinton, new business owner to a grocery store. I do get a little nervous talking in public, but I'm here in reference to concerns of parking. I just opened my business on December 20th. I was raised in the area in Glen Street and R Street, and I decided to do business. As of today, I saw that we were getting tickets outside of the business. So we can run our business, but we cannot pay for tick for parking every 30 minutes, two hours, pay attention to the ticket if it's expiring, wherever we're getting a ticket as we're running a business. We can have customers in the store. We can't leave the store unattended to run outside to move a car or pay for more parking, more parking to stay longer. I run my business. I don't judge nobody, everybody has their downfalls, but they do a lot of break-ins, stealing cars, they told cars back there. So it's very concerning, especially me not having entrance from the back of the building. My interest is in the front, so I prefer to park in the front. If there's a possible way we can have like a reserve parking for business owners, or if something can be done in reference to parking for us. It's kind of difficult. It's a lot of out of pockets. Well, thank you, Michelle, uh, for calling to our attention. Uh, when everybody's finished speaking, uh, all the persons may wish to respond to what you said. Perfect, thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Our next speaker is Anthony Jonice. Anthony. Good evening. I'm Anthony Janice, 292 Eddie Glover Boulevard. Senior Pastor Solid Rock Spiritual Center here in New Britain. Reason why I'm here is I guess to give my three-minute pitch of a proposal. Our church is trying to do here in the city. We have a program, Fresh Start Program is a nonprofit human and social service initiative run by HPN International, an integrated auxiliary of Solid Rock Spiritual Center in New Britain. This program aims to address transitional housing needs for clients at Samaritan House East in New Britain, pending the approval, of course, of Mayor Sanchez and New Britain City Council and Office of Planning and Development. Solar Rock Spiritual Center is currently working with Pastor Michael Casey of St. Francis Parish and the Archdiocese of Hartford to procure one of their vacant properties located at 655 East Street and Newington Avenue. Fresh Right is a program that provides academic vocational education, life skill training courses, mental health education counseling, physical health training, transitional housing emergency sheltering during the winter months, and credit counseling. Debt repayment is crucial for rebuilding our clients' creditworthiness and social score. In addition, our program aids clients with children and family reunification, if at all possible. Eligibility is open to those who have served 30 to 60 days in a state certified halfway house. This program is uniquely designed to be the only academic vocational base facility providing long-term transitional housing and wraparound services for former inmates who were enrolled in college degree or certified vocational curriculum under the second chance pale program while incarcerated.