New Haven Independent

Candidates for state offices joined a forum Thursday morning hosted at 900 Chapel St.’s 10th floor (Chamber of Commerce headquarters) by the 1,000 Friends of Connecticut, a non-profit group that aims to bring people together to talk about statewide smart growth — the idea of towns and cities working and planning together to preserve small-town life and revive urban life.

Heidi Green, 1,000 Friends’ president, gave a PowerPoint on the agency’s goals: Less reliance on the property tax. Better public transit to reduce gridlock. Instead of sprawl and car-dominated transit, public transit and growth that respects open space. “Reclaim our downtowns,” “remagnetize our communities.”

The conversation began about what Connecticut could do to attract more jobs.

John Cirello, a Republican attorney who was so frustrated with Q Bridge traffic that he decided to run for state rep in the 97th district, suggested highway gridlock was losing Connecticut jobs.

Just look at New Jersey, he said. South of Manhattan, you have a six-lane highway each way. A similar distance away from Manhattan in Connecticut, you’re lucky to get three lanes each way.” To make the state more attractive, Connecticut needs “wider highways like they have in New Jersey,” said Cirello, who’s from the Garden State.

More highways to shuttle people to suburbs and pollute the air? That’s not smart growth! retorted agency friends.

“I’m not sure that I’d use northern Jersey as a model for what Connecticut should be,” remarked Democratic Hamden State Rep. J. Brendan Sharkey, who also grew up in Northern N.J. “What draws people to Connecticut is that we’re not northern Jersey,” where car-dominated strip-malls abound.

Ken Krayeske (pictured at right, with Cirello), a bicycling advocate and campaign manager for Green Party gubernatorial candidate Cliff Thornton, jumped in. “Building highways is not going to solve it.” How about getting 400,000 people out of their cars, onto bikes and feet and into car pools? How about a tax structure that doesn’t subsidize sprawl? he offered.

“How does a town like North Haven compete? We get three cents for every $1 we send to Hartford,” cut in Republican State Sen. Len Fasano, who represents East Haven, North Haven and Wallingford.

Then the Greens took the conversation off script by mentioning an issue rarely discussed in business-oriented conferences on suburban sprawl and urban redevelopment.

“We’re wasting money on a runaway war on drugs,” said Krayeske. If we want to revitalize our cities — as everyone in the room agreed they’d like to do — we need to tackle drugs, Krayeske said. “Nobody’s going to move back to our cities until we deal with crime and violence.”

“Is the war on drugs a culprit of sprawl? I’d have to say, yes!” said Thornton, the gubernatorial candidate. The war on drugs wastes state money, fills our prisons and destroys the neighborhoods that we should focus on revitalizing by, among other things, sending a huge chunk of young African-American males into the criminal justice system.

“The drug war is connected to everything. We have to bring the drugs within the law.”

Fasano was intrigued. “If you don’t send people to prison, won’t people say, That’s the crime-ridden neighborhood, and people will want to move away?’”

No, said Thornton. “Once you bring these drugs within the law, crime and violence goes away overnight.”

Wouldn’t that expose children to cocaine and heroin?

“Children are exposed to alcohol, without the crime and violence that goes along with the other drugs,” replied Thornton.

Heidi Green, the forum moderator, cut in. “This conversation is very interesting, but does anyone have a question about smart growth?”

“Oh, I was enjoying this,” said Fasano. He and Thornton met at the muffin table to introduce themselves and whisper a few more words.

The conversation resumed on tax reform, Greens got a few words in about education: How can we get people to move to cities unless the education system works better?

After the hour-long meeting, Cirello and Fasano approached the Greens to talk more about how the drug war relates to smart growth.

Cirello, a private attorney who does work as a public defender in New Haven court, wasn’t quite convinced by the Greens. He said he thought the criminal justice system was “very tolerant” on drug users, with options to avoid prison time through community service and rehab.

“Have you ever met a serious drug addict?” said Cirello. “Taking them out of their environment — that’s all you can really do. A lot of these people have had rehab, been through intervention.” He said the figure Thornton mentioned — 70 percent of those incarcerated in the state are there on mostly nonviolent drug charges — is “horrendous. But legalizing the drugs? I don’t think that’s a feasible solution.”

Thornton, who’d gotten an unexpected chance to engage state elected officials on an issue central to his gubernatorial campaign, maintained after the talk that the issue was also central to smart growth. “What causes sprawl? White flight, crime and violence. People don’t want to talk about that.”

1,000 Friends

Heidi Green, the 1,000 Friends president, said even though only 15 people showed up to Thursday’s forum at the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce, the group has a list of 3,400 members statewide.

This year, the agency’s goal has been to push the issue of smart growth to the forefront of the gubernatorial campaign.

Green feels she’s had success: Gov. M. Jodi Rell released Executive order 15, establishing an Office of Responsible Growth.

Pushing smart growth wasn’t hard with Democratic candidate John DeStefano, who was one of the founding members of 1,000 Friends and is a strong proponent. (He withdrew membership from the board after announcing his candidacy, so the non-profit agency wouldn’t be confused with his campaign, said Green.) DeStefano just released a smart growth plan. Click here to read it.