Good morning. A temporary election monitor for Bridgeport may be appointed in time before Election Day next week.
The urgency for a state-appointed election monitor comes after surveillance video showed alleged stuffing of absentee ballot dropboxes in the city's Democratic primary for mayor in September.
State lawmakers in a special session last month approved $150,000 for Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas to hire a Bridgeport election monitor for the next two years. Tara Chozet, a spokesperson for Thomas, said a wide search is ongoing but it’s not easy finding an attorney with election law experience willing to take the job at the rate offered.
“We do believe it’s more important to have the right person, not just any person,” Chozet said, noting a temporary fix would be likely. “It would likely be someone who would operate as an election monitor solely for this election. And then we would find someone to fill the position for the remaining elections through ‘24.”
Here is a bite-sized look at what else we’re hearing.
New York has launched an online tool to track emergency spending on asylum seekers. The tool shows state agencies have spent more than $316 million this fiscal year on resources for migrants. New York City has spent nearly $2 billion on services like housing, transportation and emergency response. State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli said the tool provides transparency and will help demonstrate why New York needs additional federal funding and logistical support.
CVS Health plans to lay off another 70 Connecticut employees at the end of this year, in addition to about 500 layoffs the company announced in August. Many of the job cuts will take effect Dec. 30 in engineering, database administration and human resources, according to a CVS letter required by federal law. The original announcement had scheduled layoffs to begin this month. CVS plans to cut 5,000 positions across the company. The company has 9,000 employees in Connecticut.
Amityville schools are the latest district to sue New York over its Indigenous mascot ban. Thirteen Long Island districts were affected by the state Board of Regents rule to withhold funding for schools that kept using Indigenous school mascots, names or imagery after June 2025. Amityville has already rebranded its “Warriors” logo to retire any Native American imagery. Connetquot, Massapequa, Wantagh and Wyandanch schools have filed similar lawsuits.
Longshoremen went back to work at State Pier in New London on Thursday, ending a three-day strike against offshore wind company Ørsted. The longshoremen are working side-by-side with contracted union members from the building trades to load wind turbine blades and parts onto barges for the South Fork Wind project off eastern Long Island. The longshoremen said left unresolved is a dispute with Ørsted over whether other unions have jurisdiction to work at State Pier.
A helicopter crashed at Long Island MacArthur Airport on Saturday morning. The Robinson R22 helicopter had a "hard landing," according to the Town of Islip. No one was injured. Suffolk County Fire Rescue & Emergency Services said the occupants refused medical attention. Federal regulators are investigating.
