They’ll Be Our Properties Now

As the state legislature’s adjournment clock approached midnight:
• Lawmakers voted to turn over 15 neglected state-owned properties to the city.
• Robyn Porter’s police-misconduct bill didn’t make the cut.

A ​“conveyance” bill to make that happen passed both the state House and Representatives and Senate as the legislature raced Wednesday night toward the midnight end of its regular annual session. Now the bill just needs the signature of the governor to become law.

Bills that legislators and advocates have worked on for months live or die amid of a flurry of votes in those last hours of the session. The biggest issue in Hartford — passage of a new two-year budget — remains on the table, to be dealt with in a special session. That’s not looking pretty.

The conveyance bill would transfer 15 parcels of state-owned property to city control: one parcel at 25 Kendall St. for fair market value and the rest for ​“cost equal to the administrative costs.”

In addition to the parcel on Kendall Street, the rest of the parcels include .45 acre at 41 Dwight St.; .088 acre at 999 Ella T Grasso Boulevard; .45 acre and is identified as 283 Legion Ave.; .13 acre at 786 Legion Ave.; 4.36 acres at 38 Miller St.; .025 acre at 45 Miller St.; .65 acre at 203 Orchard St.; .34 acre at 41 Sherman Ave.; .15 acre at 7 Waverly St.; .29 acre on Fayette St.; 1 acre on Orchard Street; .05 at 16 Rosette St.; .07 acre at 18 Rosette St. and .195 acre at 195 Derby Ave.

With the exception of the Kendall Street property, the parcels are to be used for open space.

The city and state had been at odds over the matter, the city claiming that the state’s neglect was blighting neighborhoods. (Click here for a background story on the controversy.) The two sides reached agreement on the matter as part of a broader deal announced Wednesday about the future of Union Station. (Click here to read about that.)

That was probably the highlight Wednesday night for bills backed by New Haven lawmakers, several of which died when the clock struck midnight and the 2017 regular legislative session adjourned, including a bill that would have started the process of the legislature moving forward on early voting and a bill that would have provided stronger penalties for police officers found to have used excessive force.

Senate Pro Tem Marty Looney of New Haven counted consumer protections on pharmacy sales and insurance practices and a bill that reforms the pretrial bail system as among the big bipartisan wins for the session, along with the Union Station deal the city was able to work out with Office of Policy and Management Secretary Ben Barnes.

Looney said he would have liked to have seen his colleagues move forward with bills to legalize marijuana and require employers to provide paid family and medical leave.

“That is still an issue for the budget,” Looney said of the marijuana legalization bills. He said the budget special session will take place before the current fiscal year ends June 30. ​“I’ve been around long enough to know that what you don’t do in one session comes back in another.”

Police Opposition Kills Misconduct Bill

Another bill important to New Haven legislators — to create stiffer penalties for officers who use excessive force — failed to make it past the finish line this year.

Backer State Rep. Robyn Porter of New Haven said she worked with opponents of the bill, but knew it was dead earlier this week after it was debated Monday night and then tabled.

She said opponents — led by the police and police chief’s associations in the state, and individual police unions from suburban departments — objected to nearly every part of her bill, from the title on down to who would be appointed to a study group to develop model practices. The opponents claimed the bill punished accused cops by placing them on unpaid leave and requiring too quick a turnaround on independent outside investigations of misconduct.

Supporters of the bill disagreed but agreed to compromises that still failed to win the day, given the Democrats’ slim 79 – 72 House majority. House Republicans were uniformly opposed the to bill, Democrat Porter said.

Vulnerable Democrats like State Rep. Liz Linehan, who represents Cheshire, Southington and Wallingford, credited Porter with getting the bill to address the concerns that police from her community raised. She said she was prepared to vote and support the final version of that bill despite a great deal of pressure not to do so.

“It was very difficult getting all the moving players together, and she did it so wonderfully and she came out with a piece of legislation that was able to address the concerns of so many different parties which is incredibly difficult to do up here,” Linehan said. ​“She did it wonderfully and I’m proud to have worked with her on that.”

House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, who represents Berlin and Southington, had similar praise for Porter’s work to get a compromise bill that more people could support. But at the end of the day, the votes were not there.

“It’s a tough issue,” he said. ​“It’s one of those things where everyone understood the problem, but as with everything else, finding a solution that works for everybody is hard. I wanted to bring it to the floor for a debate. I was proud of my entire caucus that spoke on it and I’ve committed to the officers and to [the caucus] that we’re going to work on it in the off-season.”

Porter said she believes that her colleagues were intimidated by police representatives who she said would tell her to her face that they could support the bill if she made certain changes while simultaneously spreading misinformation about what the bill did. (Attempts to reach the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association and a lobbyist for the Police Officers Association of Connecticut for comment were unsuccessful.)

“The thing that upsets me is that I’ve had people say that they have an issue with the title of the bill which is an act concerning police misconduct but that was the impetus for the bill,” she said. ​“This bill was born out of incidents that happened in Waterbury with the 18-year-old kid who got shot and, thank God, didn’t die, the 15-year-old Jayson Negron who got shot and killed in Bridgeport and laid out in the street for almost seven hours.

“It’s always been, ​‘This isn’t happening in Connecticut. This is not Ferguson, this is not New York,’” she added. ​“But now it’s happening in Connecticut. This has been an effort on my part to get in front of a Ferguson. To stop something like this from happening because people on the street they’re upset.”

She said she was frustrated and disappointed by the behavior of police representatives from communities that don’t have the same trust problems that police in urban center’s like New Haven have to deal with daily. But she said she doesn’t plan to give up.

“This bill was about police accountability and police transparency, and giving administrators the power and the information they need to either discipline or terminate officers to correct the bad actions,” she said. The reporting piece [alone] is important. Shouldn’t we know when officers are using excessive force in this state? Shouldn’t we know when people die in the custody of cops?”

Following is a status report on bills of particular interest to New Haven before the state legislature this session:

The 2017 Agenda

Bill #	Status	Summary	Sponsors
SB11/ HB5539	Committee Denied	Would legalize, tax recreational use of marijuana.	Candelaria Dillon Lemar Walker Porter et al
SB 17	Committee Approved	Would make certain undocumented immigrant students (DREAMers) eligible for state college financial aid.	Looney
HB 5434	Committee Approved	Would have CT join with other states to elect the President based on popular, rather than Electoral College, vote.	Winfield, Porter Albis Elliott D’Agostino et al.
HB 5458, HB 6058	Committee Approved	Would establish electronic tolls on state highways.	Genga
HB 5575/HB 7126	Passed Senate	Would regulate companies such as Uber and Lyft.	Scanlon
HB 5589	Passed House	Would expand disclosure requirements for contributions to campaign funds.	Dillon Lemar D’Agostino Elliott et al.
HB 5591	Passed House	Would require equal pay for employees doing comparable work.	Dillon Walker Lemar Albis D’Agostino Elliott et al.
HB 5703	Committee Denied	Would have CT enter into an agreement with other states to limit ​“poaching” of each other’s businesses.	Lemar
HJ 13/HJr 95	Passed House	Would amend the state constitution to permit early voting.	Lemar
HJ 16	In Commitee	Would amend the state constitution to permit absentee voting for all voters.	Lemar
SB 1/HB 6212	Committee Approved	Would require employers to provide paid family and medical leave for their employees.	Looney
SB 2	Committee Approved	Would make the education funding formula more equitable.	Duff
SB 8	Committee Denied	Would allow municipalities to adopt a 0.5% sales tax.	Looney
SB 10/HB 5743	Passed Senate	Would strengthen hate crime laws.	Winfield
SB 13/HB 6208/HB 6456	Committee Approved	Would increase the minimum wage.	Looney Winfield et al. Albis Candelaria D’Agostino Elliott Lemar Paolillo Porter Walker
SB 137	Committee Denied	Would expand birth-to-three and provide universal pre-school, among other things.	Gerratana
SJ 5/HJ 1	Passed House	Would amend the state constitution to create a ​“lock-box” for transportation funding.	Duff
HB 5588	Committee Denied	Would limit certain bond allocations.	Dillon Lemar Albis Walker Elliott et al.
HB 5912HB 6127	Committee Denied	Would establish a 1‑cent/ounce tax on sugared beverages.	Lemar Elliott et al.
HB 6554	Committee Denied	Would tax carried interest as ordinary income.	Porter Albis Lemar Elliott Winfield Candelaria Dillon D’Agostino et al.
HB 5831	Committee Denied	Would provide bonding for transitional housing for NH female ex- offenders.	Porter Candelaria Lemar Winfield Looney Paolillo
SB 631	Committee Denied	Would provide bonding to make structural improvements to the Shubert Theatre.	Winfield Looney Walker Porter Lemar Candelaria Paolillo
HB 6863	Committee Denied	Would authorize bonds for renovating the Barbell Club as a youth/ community center.	Canelaria Porter Paolillo Lemar Winfield
SB 649	Committee Approved	Would allow local building officials to impose fines for building w/o a permit.	Looney Winfield Walker Candelaria Lemar Porter Paolillo Et al.
SB 590/591	Committee Denied	Would limit police ccoperation w/Immigration and Customs Enforcement (590); establish an immigrant’s bill of rights	Winfield
SB 20	Committee Denied	Would require affordability to be considered in reviewing proposed health insurance rate hikes.	Looney
HB 6352	Committee Approved	Would establish a deposit system for car tires.	Ritter Gresko McCrory
HB 6901	Committee Denied	Would impose a surtax on large employers that pay an average wage less than $15/hour.	Elliott
HB 7278	Passed Senate	Would convey various parcels to New Haven, among other things.	Gov’t Administration and Elections