Harding hears strong constituent opposition to toll roads

By Scott Benjamin

BROOKFIELD -- How come only 125 people turned out at a State Capitol rally to convince Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich), an ardent Yankees fan, that toll roads are more evil than Fenway Park?

“I don’t know how much planning there had been for that rally,” said state Rep. Stephen Harding (R-107) of Brookfield about the April 13 event that featured some of the highest-profile talk radio hosts in Connecticut. Other rallies had been held in other parts of the state in recent weeks.

“I can tell you about the e-mails I get from the people in my district,” he said of the most controversial proposal that Lamont has offered since his January 9 inauguration.

Harding said tolls would put “an unbelievable burden” on Connecticut’s residents.

“There is strong opposition in my district,” said the state representative of the plan to place gantries on the Schuyler Merritt Parkway and Interstates 84, 91 and 95.

Lamont has said as much as 40 percent of the tolls would be paid by out of state motorists and Connecticut residents with E-Z passed would get discounts as they travel through the gantries.

His plan is use that money to pay for overdue improvements to the state’s transportation system. He has said some real estate agents in Stamford, the state’s third largest city, won’t show houses to clients during rush hour since they might be deterred by the traffic congestion.

CT Mirror has reported that a state Department of Transportation study indicates that tolls could generate as much as $1 billion annually.

The Republican caucuses in the General Assembly have said they would prefer prioritizing bond appropriations to improve an aging infrastructure. Lamont, who has curtailed the state’s bond appropriations, has said that would be more costly for state residents.

An ad-hoc committee appointed by former Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Essex) in 2015 recommended $100 billion of improvements over 30 years.

Harding, whose district includes all of Brookfield, a slice of northern Danbury and the Stony Hill section of Bethel, said he thought in February when Lamont presented his toll plan that there was probably a good chance that the Democratic majorities in both chambers would approve it.

“I’m not sure that’s the case anymore,” he said in an interview in an apparent reference to the impact of the anti-toll organizations.

On another topic, Harding, who is co-chairman of the General Assembly’s Bioscience Caucus, said the recent announcement by Fuel Cell Energy in Danbury and Torrington to cut 135 workers from its staff is “discouraging.”

The Waterbury Republican reported that Fuel Cell Energy stated that the layoffs were made so the company could “focus resources on long-term provision projects in an effort to reverse stagnant profit margins.”

Fuel Cell Energy’s Torrington facility added a third manufacturing shift about six years ago, although there were some layoffs in late 2016.

The most recent reductions in staff were reportedly equally divided between the Torrington facility and the administrative offices in Danbury.

Harding and other legislators from the Danbury and Torrington regions had worked to get some additional state contracts for the company last year.

“I think it’s less to do with the circumstances in the state than the fuel cell industry in itself,” he said of the recent layoffs

Not long ago, Connecticut was billed as the potential Silicon Valley of the fuel cell industry, in large part because the former UTC Power facility in South Windsor had taken the technology out of the laboratory in 1966 when it got the contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to put it in the space capsules. It lost the contract in 2010.

Since then, UTC Power was sold and, in effect, the former facility is now Doosan Fuel Cell America.

Less than a decade ago, U.S. Rep. John Larson (D-1) of East Hartford said that fuel cells would become Connecticut’s biggest export.

“I still have hope for it as an industry,” Harding added. “I think there is opportunity to grow. I hope it’s just a minor setback.”

Regarding the state budget, the state representative said he’s against Lamont’s plan to have municipalities pay a portion of the teachers’ retirement costs for the first time in 80 years.

Analysts have said costs are about to escalate and the state cannot absorb all of them.

CT Mirror budget reporter Keith Phaneuf recently said the teachers’ pensions have been underfunded for generations – noting, for example, that an inadequate amount of money was put aside during each year in the 1980s.

“It is completely unfair for the municipalities to have to pay a portion of it,” Harding said. “The state should find a way to fund it.”

Despite his differences with Lamont on policy, he said the new governor “is much more open to discussion” than Malloy was.

On a separate subject, Harding, who was initially elected in February 2015 at age 27, said he is “optimistic” that the state Department of Administrative Services will recommend funding the 22.5 percent reimbursement for the new $78.1 million Huckleberry Hill Elementary School in Brookfield.

Brookfield First Selectman Steve Dunn said the town would have to go back to the voters or build a smaller school if the reimbursement funding is slashed as part of Lamont’s “debt diet.”

The state reimbursement would reduce the local tax burden on the project to $66.3 million.

Harding said, “Everything I’m hearing from the state is really encouraging about the project.”

If those circumstances change, perhaps Lamont and Harding, who also is a Yankees fan, could go to a game together and discuss it while traveling toward the Major Deegan in a fuel cell car.

However, it’s not clear which one of them would pay for the New York state electronic toll charges.