Allan Appel Photo
Armmand and Chair Cahan at Wednesday’s Council meeting.
Dear President Obama:
As you wind up your presidency, we, environmental activists in New Haven, extend thanks to you for eight years of envirormental stewardship. Thanks to your leadership, the government set aside tens of thousands of acres of national forest safeguarding it from logging and drilling. You strengthened the Environmental Protection Agency. The sea and the air are …
A letter containing general sentiments like the above will be sent to President Obama in the coming days. It’s not the only missive to policy makers that’s in the works from New Haven’s official body of green advocates.
The Times editorial that triggered the letter-writing.
A vote authorizing its composition was taken Wednesday night by members of the Environmental Advisory Council at their regular monthly meeting at City Hall.
It was one of three letters the council voted to write.
The council, which serves in an advisory function to city officials, most recently expressed itself in a resolution urging city property owners to refrain from using chemical pesticides on lawns. After much debate, particularly about wording, that resolution is now with the City Services Committee of the Board of Alders. The council’s chairwoman, Laura Cahn, said that the resolution has not yet had its initial reading there.
It was unclear Wednesday night whether the letter to be written to President Obama by council members will first have to also be approved by the alders, or it could go directly from the council members to Washington, D.C. Either way, Obama is not the only one about to hear from New Haven’s green contingent.
Hausladen with Dawn Henning of the city engineer’s office.
Dear President-Elect Donald Trump:
We members of the Environmental Advisory Council of the City of New Haven would first of all like to congratulate you on your recent election. While we appreciate that you have much on your plate especially during your upcoming first hundred days, we would like to urge you, as you proceed, never to forget the importance of safeguarding our nation’s natural resources, on the land, in the air, and the sea …
This, a possible beginning for the second of the letters voted on Wednesday night, garnered some controversy after council Chairwoman Cahn got the ball rolling by showing her colleagues a Dec. 26 New York Times editorial. The editorial’s main point: With the incoming administration, leadership and innovation in environmental protection will likely be coming from the states, not the federal government.
“Look to the states is the point,” Cahn said, underscoring the importance of work of the kind the council and similar groups are doing. “We can’t drop the ball.”
When she suggested that letters to the president and president-elect might therefore be in order, a couple of members of the council suggested the one to the president-elect should in effect stick it to him.
“Let’s be constructive,” Cahn countered.
And thus the tone was set, although another council member, Esther Armmand, said the letter to Trump should not be shy about “stating our concerns.”
The vote to draft both the letters passed with five council members voting in favor. Henry Auer abstained. Auer said he did not want to vote for a letter whose text he has not seen.
Cahn, Sarah Ganong, and other council members assured him the letters would be general and nonconfrontational. Auer still wanted to see the text and held firm to his abstention.
The third letter voted to be written pertains to tolls. It might go something like:
Dear Sen. Martin Looney, Rep. Roland Lemar, and the rest of the state delegation, names to be filled in later:
As many of you know, we, the members of the city of New Haven’s Environmental Advisory Council, are charged with keeping our eye on the whole wide range of issues, from potential bans on the use of lawn pesticides and plastic bags to creating a more walkable and bikable city, where the car is no longer king and the air is clean and fit for one.
After study and consultation with city officials, such as Transportation and Traffic Chief Doug Hausladen, we have determined that the federal gas tax and state resources, especially during these strained fiscal times, are simply insufficient to create the kind of non-autocentric infrastructure needed. Therefore, we are writing to urge you change the state law so as to permit tolls to be placed on Connecticut’s roads. Not a tax, but a fee voluntarily undertaken, and better known as congestion pricing …
Westvillian Kaminski enthusitically endorsed tolls.
The idea for the third letter emerged from a wide-ranging presentation by Hausladen on transportation achievements and challenges. Hausladen touched on emerging train/bus service to Bradley Airport, which, he said, might be in operation within a year; and a new city bike share plan, featuring 300 bikes at some 30 stations, mainly downtown but with a smattering at outposts in the Hill and Fair Haven, likely go before the alders in April and itself be operational in the spring of 2018.
The discussion then turned to whether New Haveners might one day be able to bike across the newly finished I‑95 Q‑Bridge.
After a “would that were so” sigh, Hausladen reminded council members that the “state’s prescribed route across the harbor is the Tomlinson Bridge,” not the Q.
Council member Iris Kaminski and others suggested, in that case, that tolls might be placed on the Q Bridge both to raise money to support non-driving infrastructure and to reduce congestion and pollution.
“I’d like tolls, and Iris mentioned [potentially increasing] the gas tax,” said Cahan.
Yes, the gas tax is not doing its job, and tolls, being not a tax but a user fee, garnered Hausladen’s approval.
Yet there was a hitch. A big one.
Why can’t we have tolls on the Q Bridge? Cahan pressed.
Council member Kevin McCarthy, who has extensive experience as a policy researcher for the legislature in Hartford, clarified the situation: “The existing federal highway system was built to be toll free,” he explained.
“We need to change that,” replied Cahan.
“There’s a state law that prevents tolls,” Hausladen added.
“We should change that,” said Kaminski
After some discussion as to whom to write the third letter, Sarah Ganong suggested it directed to the state delegation with a simple message: Put tolls on the table at the recently convened new legislative session. In fact, New Haven legislators are supporting a push to revive tolls at state borders on I‑95 and in the Hartford area on I‑84.
Ganong said she will draft this letter, and keep it brief and general.
The vote for this was unanimous, although Auer asked to see the final text of it, along with the other two, before the letters are sent out.