Stemerman says Lamont hasn't offered a vision for transportation

By Scott Benjamin

STAMFORD – Former Republican gubernatorial contender David Stemerman says Gov. Ned Lamont’s (D-Greenwich) tolls proposal was partly doomed by his failure to produce a detailed plan on how the levies would improve Connecticut’s congested transportation system.

The harshest criticism has been on Lamont’s reversal from a campaign pledge to only place tolls on out-of-state trucks to an announcement six weeks into his term that he wanted to place toll gantries on the Schuyler Merritt Parkway and Interstates 84, 91 and 95.

But additionally, Stemerman of Greenwich said the governor hasn’t told voters what they would get from the toll receipts.

Former Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Essex) assembled a committee in 2015, chaired by former state Rep. Cameron Staples (D-New Haven), which devised a $100 billion plan of transportation improvements for 30 years.

“It’s a catch-all wish list,” Stemerman said in dismissing the report.

Brookfield Patch has reported that Darien First Selectman Jayme Stevenson - who sought the Republican nomination last summer for lieutenant governor and has been chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Planning Organization for the Western Connecticut Council of Governments, the regional planning agency - has offered similar criticism.

“You have to set priorities,” said Stemerman, who met with Lamont this spring to discuss policy issues.

“I have yet to see a proposal or a vision of what projects he needs to fund to improve the functioning of our transportation system,” he said in an interview.

Lamont reportedly has been stymied by a lack of support in the state Senate. He has floated revised proposals over the recent weeks in hopes that a special session could be held to advance his tolls plan.

He said urgent action is needed, noting that some real estate agents won’t show homes to prospective customers in Stamford during the rush hours because of the traffic jams on Interstate-95.

But CT Hearst Media columnist Jim Cameron wrote recently that Lamont’s “tolling plan is dead” since he won’t be able to generate the votes needed to get it approved in the upper chamber because Republicans are entrenched against it and wavering Democrats are worried about hostile voter reaction. No Tolls rallies have been held since this winter.

Stemerman, a former hedge fund manager who is now a senior advisor at Emerson Point Capitol, said the best option would be a public-private partnership similar to the one used by Washington, D.C. where a private firm took a “novel” approach to build additional lanes and then “there is congestion- based pricing on the newly-constructed lanes” to pay for the improvements.

He said the legislation Lamont submitted during the regular session for public-private partnerships on transportation was “gutted” by the Democratic majority in the General Assembly.

For decades elected officials have said the federal government usually funds about 80 percent of most major transportation projects. For example, former U.S. Rep. Jim Maloney (D-5) of Danbury has said about 80 percent of the funding for the $105 million Route 7 bypass in Brookfield, which was completed in 2009, came from the federal government.

However, Stemerman declared, “The days of the federal government paying for a majority of infrastructure are gone. Going forward projects will be 20 percent from the federal government and 80 percent from the state.”

“The focus should be on how to develop projects that will gain local support and have local funding to provide the money to execute,” said Stemerman, who recently established a new web site with content on a range of issues.

On another topic, he said he disagrees with Lamont’s contention that Connecticut has gone on a “debt diet.”

In an effort to improve the state’s credit rating, Lamont has held only two meetings of the state Bond Commission, which he chairs, with limited agendas. Typically, the Bond Commission has met monthly.

CT News Junkie has reported that the school construction grants of $160.5 million approved in July was the smallest package in years.

Over the years, critics have said that no governor has held the line on bond spending since former Gov. Lowell Weicker (ACP-Essex), who left office in January 1995. They have complained that subsequent governors have been too willing to approve funding for such projects as playgrounds and press boxes at high school athletic facilities, which should be fully funded by the municipalities.

Stemerman, who placed third in the Republican gubernatorial primary last year, said Lamont and the General Assembly approved stretching out payments on the pensions for the teachers ‘pensions and the state employees that will place an additional combined burden of $21 billion on future generations.

He said Lamont “will go down in history as the greatest increaser in debt in Connecticut state history.”

CT Mirror budget reporter Keith Phaneuf has stated that state officials did not save any money for the teachers or the state employee pensions between 1939 and 1971 and very little between 1971 and the mid-1980s. He has said that about 85 percent of the current payments on retirement benefits are due to “sins of the past.”

Even though Connecticut is the only New England state that has not recaptured all of the jobs it lost in the 2008 Great Recession, Stemerman is optimistic, in particular, about the economies in the New Haven-Milford area and in metro Stamford, both of which are attracting millennials.

MSN.com reported in June that, per capita, New Haven-Milford ranked second in the country in attracting millennials and the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk metro area was 29^th.

Stemerman, who graduated from Yale, said that for about 20 years “there has been a very impressive improvement in the quality of life in New Haven that has resulted from a vibrant partnership by the city of New Haven and its largest employer, Yale, that has produced a lot of high-paying jobs in health care and the life sciences.”

He said New Haven and Stamford each have a lower cost of living than in Manhattan and some of the innovation hubs.

On a related topic, The Greenwich Time has reported that JLL, a professional services and management firm, ranked Greenwich Avenue, the central business district in Greenwich, in 2018 as the fifth most expensive street in the United States, based on average square footage rent costs.

Yet, the real estate market in Greenwich is stagnant.

CNBC reported this spring that through the first quarter of this year sales were down 25 percent and the median price had declined 17 percent in Greenwich compared to the first quarter of 2018.

CNBC reported that sluggish real estate market in Greenwich was “all about changes to the tax laws,” since President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax reform reduced the state and local tax deduction to a maximum of $10,000.

The cable network stated that some homeowners pay taxes of $100,000 to $125,000 a year.

“The underlying cause of declining value throughout the state is the exodus of people and businesses,” said Stemerman, who is expected to make another bid for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2022.

Donald Klepper-Smith, the economist for Liberty Bank, told Brookfield Patch recently that on average a net of 428 residents leave Connecticut each week.

Stemerman acknowledged that the lower federal mortgage deductions also are having an impact on higher-priced homeowners in Fairfield County.

Regarding economic development, he recommended that Connecticut follow in the path of former Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who is now in his first term in the U.S. Senate.

Stemerman said Scott, who some years ago lived in Greenwich while operating a venture capital firm in Stamford, would sell the state of Florida to businesses by coming to Connecticut and other states and tell their executives that Florida had no personal income tax; they could point to a map where they wanted to locate in the Sunshine State; a local college would have a curriculum to train potential workers for the company; and help them expedite the land-use approval process.

“That is a radically different perspective than what we have had in Connecticut,” said Stemerman.

On the national economy, Klepper-Smith said recently that there is a “70 percent chance” of a recession before the end of 2020. He said it will largely result from high personal debt, particularly related to college student loans and overdue auto payments.

“There are increasing strains on the economy from a build-up of debt over the course of the most recent economic cycle and a slowdown of the global economy,” said Stemerman, who believes that the record economic expansion that began more than nine years ago can continue.

“So long as the Federal Reserve adjusts its monetary policy to reflect the global growth outlook, I believe that the U.S. economy can continue to grow,” he said.

CNBC has reported that the Federal Reserve Board is expected to announce during the week of July 29 whether it will cut interest rates.

Stemerman says Republican President Donald Trump has taken steps to “relieve regulatory costs and to improve our tax system to be more competitive globally has kept the U.S. economy stronger and more robust than just about any other in the developed world and provides a strong underpinning for sustainable growth.”

However, Ray Dalio – the owner of Bridgewater Associates in Westport, the largest hedge fund in the world – told CNBC earlier this year that he is concerned that are fewer tools for the federal government to utilize during a recession, particularly since interest rates have remained low.

Stemerman said that is a valid point.

He added, “The significant deterioration in financial markets in the fourth quarter of 2018 illustrated the concern in the markets of the lack of policy tools to combat deterioration in the U.S. and global economies.”