Who Poured Cement In The Drains?

The latest mystery in town: Who trashed a city-created job-training school now at the center of a corruption investigation?

The school is the Construction Workforce Initiative (CWI) training center at 316 Dixwell Ave.

The school building closed on March 19 after the city official in charge of it, Nichole Jefferson, was placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation into how millions of government job-training dollars were spent. The city has been working with federal investigators on the probe. Jefferson has consistently and adamantly denied any wrongdoing, saying the Harp administration has pursued a political vendetta against her. (Read a full story about the matter here.) Until her suspension Jefferson simultaneously served as the city’s equal-opportunities director, oversaw companies’ compliance with rules on hiring women and blacks and Latinos on government-funded projects; and was the director of a city-spawned, quasi-public not-for-profit agency that ran the CWI center with the help of contractors’ donations.

The city owns the 316 Dixwell Ave. building. It rented the building to Jefferson’s agency, but did not renew the lease.

Until two weeks ago, though, according to city Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson, the city didn’t have access to the building. He said that a crew led by Livable City Initiative (LCI) chief Serena Neal-Sanjurjo broke a lock to gain entrance to the building, setting off an alarm. Jefferson’s daughter showed up and took photos of the visitors (whom Nichole Jefferson Thursday described as ​“trespassers”).

Nemerson said the crew had gone to the building to assess it because the city planned to use part of the space to house the staff hired to administer a new $1 million federal ​“Byrne” grant to reduce violence in Newhallville.

But the city visitors discovered that that plan needed to change, Nemerson said.

“It was trashed,” Nemerson said of the building. ​“All furniture, all sinks and toilets and mirrors and fixtures, had disappeared.” Walls were reportedly damaged, along with a fuse box.

Then, he said, the city visitors made another discovery: ​“The pipes had all been filled with concrete.”

Besides the Byrne grant offices, the city had hopes of launching a new version of the training school, which would prepare city residents for apprenticeships as sheetrockers, plumbers, electricians, pipefitters, and painters. But now the building ​“is not fit for use. We have to start from scratch. Everything was taken.”

Newhallville Alder Alfreda Edwards accompanied LCI on the July 2 visit.

“We went in. The alarm was going off. And we looked around briefly. It was a disaster inside. There was nothing there,” Edwards said. ​“I asked: ​‘What happened to the place?’ Nobody seemed to know what happened. Serena was shocked to see the place in the condition it was in.”

Edwards said the group went into at least three bathrooms. One did have a toilet, she said. The other two did not, she said; instead ​“something white” covered the hole where the toilet would have been.

LCI subsequently shut off power to the building.

The city has since launched an investigation into who committed the vandalism.

“It’s obviously a mystery” who would have trashed the premises, Nemerson said. ​“Other than that night you saw people going in there,” he knows of no one who has had access to the building.

He was referring to the night of March 18, when, after being informed of her suspension, Jefferson and colleagues loaded U‑Haul trucks with furniture from the building. At the scene Jefferson said she was removing only furniture that she personally owned. (Click on the video to watch portions of the conversation.)

On Thursday Jefferson said she too has no idea who trashed the building.

She did offer a theory: ​“I presume they did everything.” ​“They” are the Harp administration.

“The city has been truly terrible to me and discriminated against me,” Jefferson said. ​“This administration — it’s a sad day that they would hurt an organization that helps residents.”

She noted that the city owns the building. ​“If any harm has really happened to 316 Dixwell, it is Matt Nemerson’s lack of concern for what has meant so much to me and the residents of New Haven,” Jefferson said. ​“We have changed countless lives.”

LCI also visited the property on April 24. It’s not clear if they went inside.

“They did illegal entry [onto the property] with no paperwork. No eviction, no call. We have all the photographs.” She provided the Independent with the above photos of LCI vehicles, which she said were in the building’s parking lot on April 24; as well as the photo at the top of this story of the July 2 ​“unlawful entry with bolt cutters and drills.”

She also provided these files of photographs of the building’s condition before her students (pictured above and at left) renovated it; and then the condition she said she left it in.

“I would never hurt the building,” Jefferson added. ​“I built the building. No one I know would do that. We would never tear down anything we built.”

Prior to the July 2 visit, the city had never been inside the building, Nemerson said. The only people he knows of who had previously been inside were those shown in the March 18 Independent video.

LCI’s Neal-Sanjurjo refused to comment, referring questions to city Corporation Counsel John Rose Jr. Rose did not respond to requests for comment. Mayoral spokesman Laurence Grotheer said that because of pending ​“legal issues,” the city can’t comment further.

Meanwhile, Nichole Jefferson claimed that ​“soon” she plans to reopen the training school at another location. She said her agency has continued finding positions for members who graduated from the last class last fall. She said a new class will be convened in the fall.