File photos
New Haven state lawmakers (clockwise from top left): Gary Winfield, Martin Looney, Robyn Porter, Roland Lemar.
Clockwise from top left: Toni Walker, Juan Candelaria, Pat Dillon, Al Paolillo, Jr.
Taking city ownership of the expansive former Gateway Community College campus on Long Wharf.
Handing back to the state the detention center at police headquarters.
Increasing property taxes on Connecticut’s most expensive houses to better fund its most cash-strapped public school districts.
And — of course — making pizza the state’s official food.
Those are among the 218 proposals contained in bills introduced so far by New Haven’s lawmakers in the Connecticut General Assembly session now underway in Hartford.
New Haven’s eight state lawmakers — Martin Looney, Gary Winfield, Toni Walker, Robyn Porter, Roland Lemar, Pat Dillon, Juan Candelaria, and Al Paolillo, Jr. — have long held positions of significant influence in the state legislature.
That remains the case for the full legislative session that began on Jan. 4 and runs through June 7.
Looney is still president pro tem of the state Senate. Winfield is again Senate chair of the Judiciary Committee. Walker and Lemar have returned to their respective posts as House chairs of the Appropriations and Transportation Committees. And Dillon, Porter, and Candelaria respectively hold the roles of deputy majority leader, chief majority whip, and deputy speaker.
Now that the state legislature has started holding public hearings about proposed new laws — starting on Monday with a five-hour-long Transportation Committee meeting about speed cameras and other traffic safety measures that was helmed by Lemar and that featured the testimony of plenty of local safe streets advocates — the Independent caught up on bills put forward by New Haven state lawmakers during the session’s first month.
A review of the titles, descriptions, and texts of some of the 218 bills introduced by New Haven’s state delegation so far shows a wide-ranging list of priorities. Those bills touch on topics ranging from garnering greater local control over the future redevelopment of the waterfront Long Wharf district to ramping up fines for landlords dragged to court for persistent housing-code violations to allowing cities to separate municipal traffic authority boards from police commission boards to increasing taxes on the state’s wealthiest residents and boosting state fiscal aid to poorer school districts to prohibiting state agencies from using the term “Latinx.”
To view all of the bills introduced or co-sponsored by New Haven state lawmakers so far this session, click here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
Let's Trade Ex-Gateway For Police Lockup
Thomas Breen photo
60 Sargent Dr.
One of this session’s bills to get the greatest level of support from New Haven state lawmakers is Proposed House Bill No. 5719: An Act Conveying A Parcel of State Land to the City of New Haven. That bill was introduced by Paolillo, Walker, Porter, Candelaria, Lemar, and Looney.
If approved, it would require the state to convey ownership of the 7.23 acre parcel of land at 60 Sargent Dr. from the state to the city.
During an interview with the Independent, Looney said that Mayor Justin Elicker’s administration had asked the state delegation if city government could get back control of that parcel, which used to be home to Gateway Community College. The purpose of the proposed land transfer is to further the city’s “major development plan for Long Wharf.”
Asked for details on why exactly the city would like to take ownership of 60 Sargent Dr., city Economic Development Administrator Mike Piscitelli told the Independent in an emailed comment: “The City of New Haven is excited about the prospect of obtaining the former Gateway Community College site at 60 Sargent Drive and to reimagine how this property could be used to better serve the community as part of our larger Long Wharf Responsible Growth Plan. The current building is aged and deteriorating, and demolition would be a necessary first step, but there are many multi-use possibilities that align with new academic uses given the site’s size and strategic location. In the coming weeks and months, the City looks forward to engaging with residents, stakeholders, and our State Delegation on potential uses for this property.”
Reversing the state-to-city requested transfer of responsibility, Looney and Paolillo have also introduced a bill that would hand the local police department’s detention center from the city back to the state.
That law is called Proposed Senate Bill No. 865: An Act Concerning Control of the Union Avenue Detention Center in New Haven. If passed, the law would require the state, and not the city, to be responsible for the “staffing and administration of the Union Avenue Detention Center in New Haven.” The state did manage the 1 Union Ave. temporary detention center for decades until 2016, when state budget cuts caused the city’s police department to take control.
That police lockup “used to be under state control,” Looney told the Independent. “When the state was under financial distress, the cost shifted back to municipalities.” The same was true in Bridgeport.
“We think it would make more sense now if the costs were taken back by the state,” Looney said.
Tax The Rich, Fund The Schools
Looney and other New Haven state lawmakers have also introduced bills designed to increase taxes on Connecticut’s wealthiest residents, and then bump up aid for school district’s like New Haven’s.
One such bill, Proposed Senate Bill No. 776: An Act Concerning A State-Wide Property Tax On Certain Residential Real Property, marks a return of Looney’s so-called “mansion tax” proposal from a few years ago. If passed, the bill would establish a 1‑mill tax on residential property with an assessed value of more than $1.5 million but less than $2 million. It would also establish a 2‑mill tax on residential property assessed at more than $2 million.
“It truly is only on very, very valuable properties,” Looney said about this proposed statewide property tax. The revenue raised from such a tax, he said, would also have to be used to “speed up the phase-in of the” state’s Education Cost Sharing (ECS) formula, which would send more money sooner to school districts across the state.
“The only benefit of the property tax is that it is a reliable tax,” Looney said. Otherwise, it’s a regressive one, and entirely at the control of municipal governments. Such a statewide levy would make sure that the wealthiest residents in the state pay a bit fairer of a share in taxes based on that wealth when it takes the form of real estate, and not just income.
That tax-fairness motivation is also what’s behind another of Looney’s bills, the senate president said, which is Proposed Senate Bill No. 770: An Act Increasing The Uniform Assessment Rate For Property Tax. If passed, the bill would increase the assessment rate for property tax from 70 to 75 percent of a property’s “present true and actual value.”
Since properties are currently assessed at 70 percent of their appraised market value, Looney said, “there is a bigger exclusion of value for owners of wealthy property than owners of more modest homes.” A $2 million house, for example, is currently taxed at $1.4 million, while a $600,000 is taxed at $420,000. That’s a $600,000 break in taxable value for the first house and a $180,000 break for the second.
More such locally backed tax-aid bills include Proposed Senate Bill No. 775 (introduced by Looney), which would send the revenue raised from a recent 1 percent statewide sales tax hike on prepared meals to local governments; Proposed House Bill No. 6175 (introduced by Paolillo, Walker, Porter, Candelaria, Lemar and Looney), which would boost aid to boards of education for the cost of special education services; and Proposed House Bill No. 6173 (introduced by Paolillo, Porter, Lemar, Candelaria, and Looney), which would increase aid to school districts by accelerating the full funding of the ECS grant; and Proposed Senate Bill No. 351 (introduced by Hamden State Sen. Jorge Cabrera and co-sponsored by Porter, Winfield, and Lemar), which would, among other provisions, establish a 5 percent capital gains tax for the state’s highest-income residents, establish a 10 percent tax on digital advertising businesses that make more than $10 billion a year, and establish a refundable child tax credit of $500 per child for up to three children.
Rent Cap, Right To Counsel, "Latinx," Pizza+
What else has made the cut so far for New Haven-lawmaker-backed laws this session?
In the realm of local public-safety and traffic-infrastructure upgrades, Proposed House Bill No. 6237 — introduced by Dillon, Walker, and Winfield — would have the state fund a redesign of upper Whalley Avenue. Proposed House Bill No. 6340 — introduced by Dillon and Winfield — would have the state fund the installation of lighting fixtures in the city’s West River neighborhood.
Looney and Porter along with a trio of Hamden state lawmakers have introduced Proposed House Bill No. 5353, which would authorize municipalities that have at least 50,000 people to establish a traffic authority independent of that municipality’s board of police commissioners.
Meanwhile, Proposed Senate Bill No. 146, introduced by Looney and co-sponsored by Porter, would guarantee the right to emergency medical services for someone who experiences an “emergency medical condition” or who is “medically unstable” while in the custody of a “peace officer.”
In the realm of housing, Porter and Winfield have introduced Proposed Senate Bill No. 138, which would limit rent hikes to no more than 2.5 percent per year and which would restrict landlords’ abilities to file so-called “no-fault” evictions. Candelaria has introduced his own separate rent-stabilization bill, Proposed House Bill No. 6422, which would cap annual rent increases at 4 percent plus any annual increases in the regional consumer price index.
Proposed House Bill No. 6391, introduced by Lemar, would raise the maximum fine for municipal ordinance violations from $250 to $1,000. That would allow state prosecutors in criminal housing court to seek significantly larger fines from landlords who are dragged to court for persistent housing-code violations. Proposed Senate Bill No. 81, introduced by Looney, would have the state provide continued funding for the “Right to Counsel” program, which guarantees legal representation for income-eligible tenants facing eviction in certain zip codes.
Looney has also introduced Proposed Senate Bill No. 861, which would allow fair rent commissions to recognize tenants unions and their designated representatives. And Porter has introduced Proposed House Bill No. 6109, which, among other provisions, would prohibit landlords from harassing tenants and bar landlords from filing to evict a tenant if that tenant declined to renew a rental agreement because the landlord sought to raise the rent by more than 15 percent.
Another New Haven-specific legislative proposal comes from Candelaria: Proposed House Bill No. 5263, which would have the state pay $150,000 to establish a pilot bilingual curriculum for a certified nursing assistant (CNA) program in New Haven. Candelaria has also co-introduced Proposed House Bill No. 6384, which would bar state agencies from using the (controversial) gender-neutral term “Latinx.”
Dillon and Winfield have also introduced Proposed House Bill No. 6307, which would establish standards for the removal of trees, shrubs and other vegetation from state highways. And Proposed House Bill No. 5532, co-introduced by Dillon, would have the state fund free meals for all students for the 2023 – 24 and 2024 – 25 school years.
And what’s the bill that has been introduced by the most New Haven state lawmakers?
That would be Proposed Senate Bill No. 390, co-introduced by Winfield, Porter, Dillon, Looney, Walker, Candelaria and Paolillo. If passed, that bill would designate pizza as the official state food of Connecticut.
Most of these sound like good ideas.
But if the LGBTQ+ community prefers Latinix to Latino or Latina, then that should be left up to them to decide what they would like the term to be used, and the government should respect that.