New Haven Independent

Sept. 20, 2007

As of 3 PM, the House is briefly in recess, having held a memorial for Rep. Dick Belden this morning and adopted rules for our new special session. When we return shortly, we will take up a bill on contracting reform and Emergency Bill 1501, which is the budget bill. So far, the public dispute between the Governor and the Democrats has been about ‘earmarks’ in the budget bill. The Governor has not agreed to support the bill.

The budget bill includes many projects that benefit New Haven, but in this post I’m going to single out only two initiatives that have been already been written about in this space.

The first establishes a fund of $2 million in grants in aid to homeowners in the Beverly Hills section of New Haven and Woodbridge for repair of structurally damaged homes in the vicinity of the West River. The ‘sinking homes’ were built in the late 1930s and 1940s, and had no
problems for decades. But after massive construction upriver by the Connecticut Department of Transportation and the Army Corps of Engineers ten years ago, homes began to sink and foundations cracked.

When wetlands and flooding caused homeowners to challenge the Whalley Avenue widening and demand a public hearing in 2006, the commissioners ignored them and said no flooding would result. But apparently the commissioners were wrong. On April 16 of this year, customers needed rowboats to exit the Athenian Diner in that stretch of road.

The second initiative is a proactive policy tied to our purchase of new rail cars. This budget bill requires DOT to improve bicycle access to, and bicycle storage facilities at, existing transportation centers. In addition, the Department of Transportation has agreed to include in the
specifications for new cars a requirement that the cars include storage space for bicycles.

Other details of the budget bill will emerge during debate. But these two are positive, proactive examples of the good governement can do.