State can bond for transportation if it stops diverting funds

By Scott Benjamin

BROOKFIELD – After nearly 20 years of deliberations Connecticut’s transportation plan still appears to be stuck in the mud.

The state established a transportation strategy board 18 years ago – when former Gov. John Rowland (R-Middlebury) was in his second term - to try to ease clogged highways and improve mass transit.

Former independent gubernatorial candidate Oz Griebel of Hartford, who headed that panel, says they recommended electronic tolls, a gradual increase in the gasoline tax – which about 20 years ago had been reduced in two 7-cent installments from 39 cents to 25 cents a gallon – and utilizing some funds from the sales tax.

Former Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Essex) made transportation improvements a priority during his bid for a second term in 2014. A year later, he appointed an ad-hoc committee, chaired by former state Rep. Cameron Staples (D-New Haven) that recommended the 30-year, $100 billion Let’s Go CT plan.

Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich) unveiled an electronic tolls plan this last February that apparently will never generate enough support to get it to a vote.

The interstates are congested with traffic to the point that Lamont has said some real estate agents won’t take clients out in Stamford during the rush hours. Long delays are common along Interstate-84 in Waterbury.

Nearly 20 years after the Transportation Strategy Board was established, it appears that little has been accomplished.

State Representative Stephen Harding (R-107) of Brookfield says the solution for improving Connecticut’s roads and bridges is not electronic tolls, higher gasoline taxes or utilizing part of the sales tax.

Harding - whose district includes all of Brookfield, the Stony Hill section of Bethel and a slice of northern Danbury - contends that the best method would be for state officials to put the transportation funds where they belong.

“For the past 20 years they have raided the special transportation fund,” he said. He contends that money was diverted earlier this year even though voters approved a transportation lock box when it was on the ballot last November.

Harding said in an interview that he supports the longstanding Republican plan of reprioritizing the state’s bond appropriations to tackle the transportation infrastructure.

He said that can be accomplished if the governor and the General Assembly “not exceed the bond cap, which the Malloy Administration did.”

Lamont has put Connecticut on a “debt diet.” He has only held two meetings of the state Bond Commission since taking office in January instead of having monthly sessions. He has said his goal is to trim about $700 million a year in bond appropriations in an effort to improve the state’s credit rating.

The governor has said he’s reluctant to pay for the improvements by putting them on the state’s credit card. He has noted that estimates indicated that 40 percent of the revenue from electronic tolls would be paid from out-of-state motorists.

Griebel, who is organizing meetings for this fall to address open primaries and ranked choice voting, told Brookfield Patch recently that there isn’t sufficient support to reprioritize the state bond appropriations to embark on an extensive transportation infrastructure improvement plan.

“They don’t have the votes for that,” he said. “It’s been on the table for years.”

“Besides, if you bond for it, that doesn’t mean that you still don’t come up with the revenue sources,” Griebel added regarding the need for funds from the sales tax or higher gasoline taxes.

Harding said he believes that the additional bond appropriations for transportation infrastructure improvements could be accomplished by making state government operations “more efficient.”

However, CT Hearst columnist Dan Haar has reported that the full-time state work force was trimmed by 13.1 percent during Malloy’s eight years in office.

Critics might wonder how many more jobs can be eliminated.

Harding said that many of the positions that were slashed under Malloy were working class positions. He said, through attrition, the state should seek to eliminate more higher-paying jobs, where appropriate.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Cheshire) and U.S. Rep. John Larson (D-1) of East Hartford have said on WFSB’s-Ch.3-Hartford’s “Face The State” that Connecticut should consider instituting county government.

“I don’t know that county government would create more efficiencies,” Harding said. “It may just be another layer of bureaucracy.”

The state representative said he expects the governor and the legislative leadership to discuss the transportation infrastructure plan over the coming months, However, he said he doesn’t anticipate that there will be a special session on transportation before the General Assembly reconvenes for its regular session next February.

There has been talk of a special session in the fall of 2015 after the committee that devised the Let’s Go CT proposal had completed its discussions.

He said he agrees with Greenwich financial manager David Stemerman, who sought the Republican nomination for governor in 2018, and Darien First Selectman Jayme Stevenson, who ran for the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor last year, that “some” of the proposed projects from the Let’s Go CT proposed plan “are wish list.”

Harding said it should be “more focused on our actual needs.”

On another topic, Harding said he disagrees with Danbury Democratic mayoral nominee Chris Setaro that there should have been more instances in the recent years where impact fees should were paid by developers on high-density housing projects on the Hat City’s West Side.

“There was only one project that had any impact fee, and that was within the last year and the fee was seemingly inadequate for what that project was,” Setaro recently told Danbury Patch.

The News-Times of Danbury reported in December 2018 that the 400,000-square-foot project at the 1.2 million-square-foot The Ridge - the former Matrix Center that once housed Union Carbide - would have a “student impact fee” associated with the costs of increased enrollment. Summit Development would pay an annual ascending fee starting at $550,000 that would continue through 2039. Danbury Mayor Boughton, a Republican who is seeking a 10^th term this fall, called it the first agreement of “its kind in Connecticut.” He also said the developer would not receive a tax deferral.

“It’s a relatively unique idea,” Harding said of the developer impact fee. “I think it’s a great idea. But it has just been invented.”

As for Setaro’s contention that there has been too much high-density housing in Danbury under Boughton, who was initially elected in 2001, Harding said, “I think it’s a local zoning issue.”

Harding acknowledged that the increase in high-density housing in Danbury “could be” part of the reason for the “odd economic dynamic” in the Hat City that he discussed with Brookfield Patch earlier this year.

The Chamber of Commerce has reported that Danbury ranks first in the state in sales tax revenue – largely due to the Danbury Fair Mall - and first per capita in Connecticut in restaurants. The city also has an AAA rating with some of the credit agencies.

Yet, Boughton told Patch.com last October that half of the students in the city’s public schools are on reduced lunch. State Rep. Bob Godfrey (D-110) of Danbury has told Patch.com that he was “shocked” last September when a United Way report indicated that 31,000 households, about half of those in Danbury, were just above the poverty line or at some point below that measure.

Regarding a separate subject, Harding said he is still confident that the state Department of Administrative Services will decide in December to send the proposed $78.1 million Huckleberry Hill Elementary School project to the state Bond Commission.

Brookfield Patch has reported that Brookfield First Selectman Steve Dunn believes that state grant could reduce the local costs for the project to just $63.3 million.

Harding said that he and his wife, Kelly, a school teacher ,collected more than 30 back packs, along with notebooks and other items during their drive for needy students at the August 9 Brookfield Parks & Recreation Department concert. It was the second year for the project, which he hopes will become a permanent fixture.

In Bethel, Harding said that some time ago the town received grants for constructing a new Rockwell and a new Johnson Elementary School and he anticipates both of those buildings will be open in about a year.

Also, Harding said that he is pleased that Bob Stefanowski, the 2018 Republican gubernatorial nominee, agreed to be the featured guest at the Brookfield Republican Town Committee fund-raiser held on August 17 at Cadigan Park to support the municipal election ticket, which is led by Mel Butow, the GOP candidate for first selectman, and Selectman Harry Shaker, who is seeking a second term on the Board of Selectmen following a long tenure on the Board of Education.

Gary Rose, the chairman of the Government Department at Sacred Heart University and the author of a book on the 2018 gubernatorial campaign, recently called Stefanowski “the face of the Connecticut Republican Party.”

“I wouldn’t disagree with that,” Harding said.

Over the recent months, Stefanowski, who lost by about 45,000 votes to Lamont, has written columns on issues, attended No Tolls rallies and become a member of the Madison Republican Town Committee.

On national government, Victor Davis Hanson, a senior fellow at the Herbert Hoover Institution at Stanford University, stated in his recent book, “The Case For Trump,” that unlike many presidents, Republican Donald Trump “attempted to do what he said he would.”

“He has gone to great lengths to accomplish what he campaigned on,” said Harding. “However, I don’t agree with some of his proposals.”

Hanson also wrote that the president, who is already campaigning for his 2020 re-election, relates better to the working class than some other recent presidential nominees, such as Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Harding said, “I think that is evidenced by the victories that he produced in the Rust Belt states where Republicans hadn’t been winning.”

Hanson praised Trump for not engaging in optional military interventions in countries that are ungrateful to the United States.

Said Harding, “I think there has been a consensus since we went into Iraq and Afghanistan that the thought process should be more cautious.”