City's Legislative Delegation Receives Mixed Ratings On Environmental Votes

The bipartisan Connecticut League of Conservation Voters (CTLCV) released its annual scorecard of legislative votes on Monday. Two of our State Representatives, Democrats Gail Hamm and Matt Lesser, and one of our State Senators, Republican Len Suzio, received a perfect score from the environment watchdog. Lesser has received a perfect rating each of the 4 years he has served in Hartford.

The CTLCV scored legislators' votes on 21 bills in the 2011 session. Some of these votes were in committees, so not all legislators voted on all of those bills. The full report of the CTLCV is available HERE.

Paul Doyle (D, Senate 9th) 82%
Doyle took what the CTLCV considers the pro-environment position on each of the 8 bills that reached the Senate floor. However, in the Judiciary Committee, he voted in favor of the Environmental Protection Act Rollback (SB343), which would have made it much more difficult for the public to oppose development applications (the bill passed the Judiciary Committee but died on the Senate calendar). He also voted in the General Law Committee against the Safe Pharmaceutical Disposal Act (SB92), which would have required state and local police to maintain lockboxes for anonymous disposal of unused and expired pharmaceutical drugs (The bill died in the General Law Committee).

Len Suzio (R, Senate 13th) 100%
Suzio took what the CTLCV considers the pro-environment position on each of the 8 bills that reached the Senate floor. He did not serve on any of the committees that considered other bills.

Joe Serra (D, House 33rd) 88%
Serra took what the CTLCV considers the pro-environment position on each of the 5 bills that reached the House floor. However, in the House Judiciary Committee, he voted in favor of the Environmental Protection Act Rollback (SB343), which would have made it much more difficult for the public to oppose development applications (the bill passed the Judiciary Committee but died on the Senate calendar).

Matt Lesser (D, House 100th) 100%
Lesser took what the CTLCV considers the pro-environment position on each of the 5 bills that reached the House floor. He also took pro-environment positions on two bills that he voted on in committee, the Water Conservation Bill (SB415) in the Energy and Technology Committee (this bill passed the House but failed in the Senate), and the Chemicals of High Concern for Children Bill (SB274) in the Public Health Committee (this bill died on the Senate calendar).

Gail Hamm (D, House 34th) 100%
Hamm took what the CTLCV considers the pro-environment position on each of the 5 bills that reached the House floor. She did not serve on any of the committees that considered other bills.

Christie Carpino (R, House 32nd) 88%
Carpino took what the CTLCV considers the pro-environment position on each of the 5 bills that reached the House floor. However, in the House Judiciary Committee, she voted in favor of the Environmental Protection Act Rollback (SB343), which would have made it much more difficult for the public to oppose development applications (the bill passed the Judiciary Committee but died on the Senate calendar).

Middletown's Legislative Delegation Has Mixed Record On Environmental Protection

The bipartisan Connecticut League of Conservation Voters (CTLCV) released its annual scorecard of legislative votes. One of our State Representatives, Democrat Matt Lesser, and one of our State Senators, Republican Len Suzio, voted on all environmentally important legislation and received a perfect score from the environment watchdog.

The CTLCV scored legislators' votes on 12 bills in the 2011 session. Some of these votes were in committees, so not all legislators voted on all of those bills. The full report of the CTLCV is available HERE.

Overall, the CTLV concludes that state lawmakers got caught up in the effort to weaken environmental protections that swept the nation this year. However, there were 38 lawmakers with perfect scores, and they led the effort for environmental protection. CTLV Co-Chair David Bingham said:

Connecticut’s core group of legislators who understand the necessity of a healthy environment to sustain a healthy economy were sorely tested this year. Despite the pressures of economic distress, they upheld policies that are critical to providing clean air and water and make Connecticut an inviting state to do business. But holding the line is insufficient. There is much still to do, much still at risk.

Here is how members of our city's delegation were scored:

Paul Doyle (D, Senate 9th) 83%
Doyle voted on all 6 of the scored bills which he was able to vote on. One of his votes was not considered the environmentally responsible one: he voted in favor of the Haddam land swap, which passed.

Len Suzio (R, Senate 13th) 100%
Suzio voted on all 5 of the scored bills which he was able to vote on.

Joe Serra (D, House 33rd) 71%
Serra voted on all 7 of the scored bills which he was able to vote on. On 2 of those, his vote was not considered the environmentally responsible one. He voted in favor of the Haddam Land swap, which passed. He also voted in favor of a bill which would have mandated ATV trails on State Land without providing any money to care for them, this bill did not pass.

Matt Lesser (D, House 100th) 100%
Lesser voted on all 6 of the scored bills which he was able to vote on.

Gail Hamm (D, House 34th) 100%
Hamm did not vote much on environmentally important issues, casting a vote on only 1 of the scored bills she was able to vote on.

Christie Carpino (R, House 32nd) 67%
Carpino voted on all 6 of the scored bills which she was able to vote on. She voted against a bill banning BPA in thermal paper receipts, which passed. She also voted in favor of the Haddam land swap.

Maromas: Land of Opportunities. Part I

The water for CVH originates from reservoirs east of Training Hill and Reservoir Roads, in the Maromas section of Middletown. The watershed area which protects these reservoirs includes land owned by the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS), Middlesex Community College, private landowners, and the City. The watershed land totals over 500 acres, and is a region of largely unspoiled forests, streams, and rocky outcroppings overlooking beautiful reservoirs.

This is the first installment of a 4-part series on recent city and state actions which have the potential to impact the use of land in Maromas. Parts 1, 2, and 3 are about land owned mostly by Connecticut Valley Hospital, and part 4 is about city-owned land adjacent to CVH.

Protecting Maromas and Middletown
Towards the end of the 1990s, concerned residents as well as city officials began to focus on ways to protect land in Middletown from being developed by the State or by private developers. One of the events which motivated them was the unilateral decision by the State to build a $53M Juvenile Detention Facility on state-owned land in Maromas, overlooking the Connecticut River. Despite enormous pressure from residents, neither the mayor (Domenique Thornton), nor the state delegation (led by Joe Serra) stopped this project.

Concerned residents, led by Katchen Coley, Linda Bowers, and Ellen Lukens, formed a group called the Advocates for a Maromas Plan (AMP). This group was especially concerned about the re-zoning of portions of Maromas to industrial and they resisted efforts, backed by Joe Serra in the legislature, to extend sewer service into Maromas. In recent years, one of AMP's major efforts has been to add legal environmental protection to the land owned by the State.

The City Planning Department also wanted to make it more difficult for the State to again dump another facility in Middletown. The Planning Department felt that if the State land were under a conservation easement owned by the Department of Environmental Protection, far more transparency would be required at the State level before a new facility could be imposed on Middletown. Such an easement would minimally require extensive hearings and assessments to determine the environmental impact of a new facility, or it would require an act of the Legislature to give the easements to the agency wishing to build a new facility.

State representative Gail Hamm, who represents most of the Maromas section of Middletown (as well as Haddam), took up the effort on behalf of the city and its residents. In 2009 she wrote language for a bill which would have resulted in the transfer of conservation easements from the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, the Department of Children and Families, the City, and Middlesex Community College to the Department of Environmental Protection.

However, the bill ran into an unexpected roadblock when it reached the Mayor's office this past May. Just a week before the Legislature was to vote, Mayor Sebastian Giuliano blocked the bill by telling Representative Hamm that the city was adamantly opposed to the transfer of conservation easements.

Background to House Bill 6695
Any easement conveyance is a complicated affair, but especially when it involves multiple different State agencies. During the 2007 Legislative session, preliminary discussions among interested parties took place, but there was

insufficient time in that session to bring forward any bills. However, Representative Hamm did arrange for the DEP to fund a survey of the watershed property boundaries (see map image, which comes from the Middletown Planning Department).

At the beginning of the 2009 Legislative session, the effort to introduce a conveyance bill intensified. The efforts led to a meeting to discuss the conveyance, on March 24th, at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford. This meeting included representatives from all of the involved parties, including the City's Planning Department, Representative Hamm, Senator Doyle, and representatives of the DEP, DMHAS, DCF, and Middlesex Community College. According to three people present at that meeting, both the City Planning office and the DMHAS supported the conveyance of the conservation easements around the reservoirs. Middlesex Community College and the DCF were also in favor.

With the support of Middletown Planning Department and the various state agencies, Representative Hamm arranged for the following language to be inserted into Bill 6695 ("AN ACT CONCERNING THE CONVEYANCE OF CERTAIN PARCELS OF STATE LAND"):

Notwithstanding any provision of the general statutes, the Departments of Mental Health and Addiction Services and Children and Families and the city of Middletown and Middlesex Community College shall each grant to the Department of Environmental Protection conservation easements over certain parcels of land that are the subject of the "Land Title Report, Southerly Watershed Properties, Connecticut Valley Hospital 1866-2007", as prepared by Attorney John E. Hudson. Such easements shall be granted for the purpose of preserving the reservoirs, watershed, aquifers and other water supply lands, located on or abutting the grounds and buildings comprising the Connecticut Valley Hospital in the city of Middletown.

The Bill was approved by the Government Administrations and Elections Committee on March 30th, and scheduled for a vote in the full House and Senate. [The CVH easement conveyance was only one of many unrelated conveyances in the bill. For example, two small houses on Wadsworth Street, formerly owned by DCF as part of the Long Lane Correctional Facility, were also to be conveyed to the city in the same bill (many properties in other towns were also in the bill).]

Mayor kills bill
However, the CVH watershed conservation easement conveyance went no further. As is customary, prior to voting on a bill which would impact land in the City, Representative Hamm faxed a copy of its language to Mayor Giuliano, sending it to his office on the Friday before Memorial Day. Mayor Giuliano's response was swift and certain -- on Tuesday he phoned Hamm's office and according to the intern who fielded his call, said, "The city administration and me absolutely oppose this bill."

In an interview with The Eye, Mayor Giuliano said that he supported the preservation of land in Maromas, but that there was not enough time for him to analyze the effects of this particular bill. He said the bill came to his attention, "at the 59th minute of the 11th hour." Giuliano said he consulted with Representative Joe Serra, with Ralph Wilson, an attorney who lives in Maromas, and with Larry McHugh, president of the Chamber of Commerce. He did not apparently consult with Representative Hamm or with AMP.

After these consultations, Giuliano said he was simply unsure of the effects that HB6695 would have on the interests of the City. He said he needed more time to analyze the bill than he was provided, "It may be the greatest deal in the world, but I had no way of knowing that at the time."

With very clear instructions from the Mayor to block the bill, Hamm had no choice but to oppose the language regarding the Middletown land conveyance. When Bill 6695 was raised on the floor of the House June 3rd, an amendment which stripped the relevant paragraph was introduced and passed. With that language removed, the Bill was passed by the House, and then the Senate.

Speculations about the failure of this bill
In speaking with city workers, citizen activists in AMP, Rep. Hamm's office, and others about this story, one of the persistent questions that came up was, "Why did the Mayor kill this bill?" To me it seems that there are two broad categories of explanations for his action.

The first possible reason for the Mayor's "veto" is that it resulted from a series of failures by elected and unelected government officials. Communication between the Department of Planning and the Mayor's office was incomplete, and the communication between Rep. Hamm and Rep. Serra may also have been less than it should have been for a topic of such importance to the city they both represent. In addition, it seems clear that Rep. Hamm did not notify Mayor Giuliano until the very last possible moment, after a time when it would have been possible to arrange a meeting. The language of the bill was filed on April 16th, and yet Hamm did not share it with the Mayor until May 22nd. In addition, the conveyance is without question complicated, some of the meetings involved 30 different people, with each agency bringing their director, a finance person, and other staff. This legislation may have moved forward if there had simply been better communication and better coordination between agencies, the city, and the politicians. If this explanation is correct, a renewed effort in the next legislative session may yield a different result.

Alternatively, it may be that any conveyance of a conservation easement on any land in Middletown to the DEP is doomed to fail, no matter how much communication there is. It may be that some elected officials, or the people that they consult with on important issues, would block any attempt to restrict the use of land in Middletown, no matter how it was handled. This may reflect a belief that the City government is the best entity for determining the use and preservation of land in Middletown.

I repeatedly contacted Rep. Hamm, to get her insights into these possibilities. However, her legislative assistant, Rosemarie Hice, told me that Hamm would not be available to answer any of my questions about HB6695.

Epilogue to HB6695: In July, Governor Rell vetoed the bill, so even if Mayor Giuliano had not blocked the Maromas passage, its future would have been uncertain. I will discuss this and more in Part III of this series. Part II will cover a proposed change in the CVH water supply.

Testifying at the State Legislature

Decisions by Governor Rell and the State Legislature have enormous impacts on Middletown, a fact that is brought to the fore during the current budgetary discussions. Impelled by curiousity about the actual functioning of the State Legislature, I traveled to Hartford on Tuesday to observe our legislature in action.

Energy and Technology Committee Public Hearing

I was particularly curious about the process for providing testimony to the legislators during a public hearing, and I decided to testify on a topic of interest to me, namely Legislative act 5995, An act concerning the freedom to dry. As reported on Monday, the Energy and Technology Committee held hearings on this act on Tuesday.

Since I had never even set foot in any State Government building, let alone actually addressed legislators, I phoned Martin Mador, the Legislative and Political Chair of the CT Sierra Club, for advice and guidance. After a long sigh which made it abundantly clear that I had no idea what I was in for, he explained the process for speaking in a public hearing of the Energy and Technology Committee.

1. 11:00AM: Go to committee room, in person, to sign up to speak.
2. Deliver 50 copies of testimony to committee staff for distribution to legislators.
3. 1PM until the end of the hearing (perhaps 4 or 5PM, depending): Be in the hearing room, to not miss name being called. With experience, one can guess when your name will be called, but still best to be available.
   
4. Keep remarks to 3 minutes, STRICTLY ENFORCED!
   

Now, I don't know about your boss, but mine does not encourage me to hang at the State Capitol for the entire day. I had a very limited window of the afternoon in which I could be away from work. Fortunately, Martin came to my rescue. He said he would slip my name onto the sign-up sheet, and see if the chair would allow me to testify between 2:30 and 3:30.

When I arrived at the Legislative Office Building (LOB), I entered into a hearing room that was packed with people. The legislators sit around a circular desk/podium facing each other across a large circle (see photo). Matt Lesser was present at the hearing (the photo shows his back), James O'Rourke (also on the committee) was not present while I was there. At one side of the circle is a desk where testimony is given.

Several different bills were being discussed in this public hearing, ranging from heating oil regulation to broad band access to the clothesline bill that brought me out. I heard testimony from industry representatives (aka lobbyists) and from directors of State agencies regarding heating oil and broad band.

Martin's machinations worked, and Rep. Vickie Nardello, chair of the commitee, called my name about 45 minutes after I arrived. I sat at the desk facing Nardello and urged committee members to support the Freedom to Dry Act, listing the benefits that clotheslines bring to the Middletown community. After my testimony, the ranking Republican on the committee, Sean Williams, engaged me in a long back and forth. He argued, as have some comments on my earlier piece on this, that this act would take away the freedom of people to live in an area devoid of clotheslines. My response was simply that the legislature would have to balance the loss of an absolute right to a clotheslines-free life against the increased costs (in pollution, power plant construction, and/or expense of pollution mitigation) that such a life shifts to the entire community.

However, after this extensive discussion, Williams came to what I think really troubled him about my testimony. With a puzzled expression, he asked, "Why are you here? Are you part of any group or are you here as an individual?" I think he could not fathom why and how a regular citizen would come to Hartford to testify to his committee (about CLOTHESLINES!). I told him, "I am passionate about clotheslines"; after much laughter (I wasn't trying to be funny, I really do love laundry drying in the breeze, ask anybody), the Chair assured me that nobody had ever said this in that room before. I assured Rep. Williams that I had followed the legislation and was there as an individual. He looked unconvinced, I bet he is still trying to figure out my 'angle'.

The Appropriations Committee Public Hearing

During the course of the afternoon, I learned that the Appropriations Committee would be holding a hearing that evening about the impact of the Governor's proposed budget on funding for the Arts and for the Environment, and also on the impact of her proposed elimination and mergers of State agencies. With my children away at their Vermont Oma's (no school this week), and no municipal meetings of note to attend, what was I to do? I returned to the LOB at 6:30 for the Appropriations Committee public hearing.

Fortunately, at the Appropriations Committee hearing, I ran into Middletown's own indomitable Katchen Coley, who was there to testify on behalf of the plants. She filled me in on the procedures for speaking at an Appropriations Committee Public Hearing.

1. 9AM: Go to the Committee office and enter a lottery to see if and when you will be allowed to speak.
2. Drop off 50 copies of testimony to Committee staff.
   
3. 4PM: Examine the sheets of paper outside the hearing room to see what order you will be speaking.
4. 6:30PM to whenever: wait to be called to speak.
5. Keep remarks to 3 minutes, STRICTLY ENFORCED!

This night, because there were so many people who wanted to speak, they had split the Committee in half, so that 50 speakers (the odd-numbered lottery numbers) could address part of the Committee at the same time as another 50 speakers (evens) addressed the other part of the Committee.

The speakers to the Committee ranged from citizens whose lives, or those of their children, were turned around by arts experiences that were funded by the State, to agency directors who were concerned about the effects of consolidation on environmental protection, to executive directors of conservation groups (for example the CT Farmland Trust). The stories of past success that they relayed were heartwarming, and the possibility that the funding for future successes would be cut was clearly of great concern to both legislators and the speakers. The amount of anxiety over these programs was disproportionate to the actual amount of money given to these programs, which account for a relatively tiny portion of the State's budget.

Citizen input into the legislature

I set out to explore the workings of our state government, and although one day cannot reveal all the secrets, I returned to Middletown with a better understanding of part of the legislative process. The most startling thing for me was how much more difficult it is to speak at a public hearing in Hartford than it is in Middletown. At municipal meetings in Middletown, any member of the public can speak at a moment's notice and for virtually unlimited time during scheduled public hearings. Contrast that with the State Government, where one needs to either take two separate trips to the Capitol, or spend the entire day there, and is STRICTLY limited to 3 minutes.

Nearly as startling was the fact that the public hearings were packed with people, that most of the speakers were articulate and informed about the issues, and were able to say a lot in 3 minutes. At the Appropriations Committee hearing, many of the speakers were well-spoken members of the public, there for the first time. However, many of the speakers clearly were quite experienced in speaking to legislators, and accustomed to lobbying on behalf of a cause (for example environmental protection or heating oil laws).

The time commitment that is required just to get on the list of approved speakers is daunting for anybody who is not full-time at the legislature building (without the assistance of Martin Mador, there is no conceivable way that my testimony would have made it into the Energy and Technology Public Hearing). In addition, the scheduling and announcement of public hearings are typically only available 3 days before a hearing. Clearly, these conditions make it much easier for lobbyists and state employees to participate in public hearings than for volunteer community activists interested in one particular issue. Anyone interested in testifying at a public hearing would be well-advised to enlist the help of a sympathetic full-time lobbyist.

Finally, I was startled by how little focus the legislators seemed to have on the public hearings. At any given time, whether there was a speaker or not, legislators would get up and wander out of the room. Even when present, most legislators appeared to be multi-tasking between listening to the speaker and working on their computer. Most disturbingly, only a small minority of the legislators on the Appropriations committee even bothered to come at all. Representative Gail Hamm, of Middletown, who serves on Appropriations, was not in attendance on Tuesday evening.

Right to Dry law public hearing to be held Tuesday

News and Commentary

The energy committee of the state legislature is holding a public hearing on a proposed bill which would bar any statutes or covenants which restrict the right to use solar power to dry laundry. The bill, entitled "An act concerning the freedom to dry," is one of the first bills sponsored by Middletown's Representative Matt Lesser. Gail Hamm and James O'Rourke, representing parts of Middletown, are also sponsoring the bill.

Currently several Middletown Homeowner's Associations effectively ban clotheslines and drying racks. The Old Farms Neighborhood policy is, "Clothes lines and drying racks shall be screened or so located as not to be visible from any point on adjacent Lots." Wesleyan Hills has an even more restrictive policy: "Clotheslines must be in rear yards and screened from the view of other properties, the public streets, and common open space. Clotheslines are seasonal can be put up April 1 and must be removed by October 31." Very few houses in either neighborhood are so completely screened from all neighboring properties that nobody else could ever see a clothesline. Those policies thus effectively ban the use of low-cost solar and wind energy to dry clothing.

Air drying of clothes saves energy (about 1/6th of domestic energy use in the US is for dryers), it saves about $25 per month off electric bills, clothing lasts longer when air dried, sunlight bleaches and disinfects, and air drying conserves the environment. Many communities throughout the United States are recognizing that it makes no sense to ban clotheslines and have eliminated any restrictions on clotheslines. In these times of economic difficulties it seems particularly inappropriate to ban the use of a free means of drying clothes.

Outdoor clotheslines do more than just provide a free and clean way to dry clothes, they promote health and community. So many of our neighborhoods have developed in ways that remove residents from view. The frequency of seeing somebody on the porch, or walking from the curb to house has decreased. A visible clothesline can restore some of what has been lost. When the weather breaks and the laundry comes out, the profusion of colors is like a blossoming of flowers swaying in the breeze, adding color and humanity to the neighborhood.

For all of the Doonesbury cartoons on Clotheslines, go HERE.

The Connecticut Chapter of the Sierra Club is lobbying to help pass this bill, contact Marty Mador for more information. The bill itself is quite simple. Project Laundry List is a nationwide group that promotes solar powered drying.