The boycott is on.

Bob Proto on the DeStefano pact:

"It doesn’t address redlining. It doesn’t prevent board members from profiting and it doesn’t give depositors a say," Proto said.

Within the next seven days, a letter will go out to thousands of council members, calling on them to withdraw money from New Haven Savings and to refuse to do business with its successor, NewAlliance Bank.

"The bank didn’t give them a fair shake. They may want to go down in groups and withdraw funds. We’re just staying the course," Proto said.

Good. The gag rule is outrageous. This is exactly what needs to happen. If you're a depositor in New Haven Savings Bank, WITHDRAW YOUR MONEY. Don't let these corporate criminals get away with legal robbery.

Speaking of corporate criminals, Yale-New Haven Hospital is the subject of another lawsuit. Remember that groundbreaking legislation Looney got passed in the state senate last year that determines how and when hospitals can initiate debt collection and protects uninsured patients from things like wage garnishments? Well, YNHH doesn't.

The suit, filed last week, claims Y-NH is continuing to garnish the wages and bank accounts of patients after the hospital was notified the patients were applying for free-bed funds.

Wet-behind the ears hospital PR exec Vin Petrini blames it all on the union. This from a guy who didn't even know that YNHH workers had struck twice in a six month period last year, because he didn't know that there were unionized workers at the hospital, because he's a freaking parrot and his only line is to blame everything on the organizing drive even as YNHH continues to destroy people's lives with the assumption that its money and power affords it impunity.

Looks like Blumenthal disagrees.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said the claims in the suit are "fully consistent with very credible ongoing claims that Yale-New Haven Hospital is failing to fulfill its charitable-care obligations."

He said the state is awaiting a hearing date for its suit against the hospital, which was filed last spring. "For some period of time there seemed to be hope that there could be some agreement, but that seems to have dissipated."

This doesn't end until the debt peonage YNHH is imposing on working people in this city is consigned to the dustbin of history.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

In today's YDN Andrea Johnson puts Yale on the carpet for both not paying what it said it would pay and for profiting from the sale of water rights in the first place. Good article, well worth reading.  ¶ 9:58 AM