Connecticut Lawmakers; 302

Think. On Connecticut lawmaker support for Bridgeport Lloyd when a report on a plan to expand education. How long. Takers call for school choice. From Washington. The budget and the statue is the store. And city mayors seeking tax relief. I'm Bob Douglas and welcome to in this week's edition of Connecticut lawmakers. Well the debate for more gambling in Connecticut is far from over. And this week the first major week for public hearings at the state capitol heard additional support for casinos particularly and Bridgeport casino gambling in Bridgeport got a boost at a public hearing this week. The bill under consideration allows for casinos at two sites with table games only to start. But Bridgeport is clearly the first in line.

Quite simply the bill that you have before you is bridge towards jobs bill directly and indirectly. Our plan would put 8000 people to work. That's 8000 new jobs that are so desperately needed in Connecticut. That's more people that than live in all of prospect or Burlington or old lime. It's really an extraordinary number but nothing will generate an instance number of jobs of this magnitude like this bill which which is before you. Our plan would additionally create a direct payroll of 100 million dollars a year in a surge of economic development activity in the Bridgeport region. This would mean the construction of perhaps thousands of new homes or or thousands of tents up to as many as 10000 new automobiles that payroll in Bridgeport directly would obviously have a major impact on the city. But at the same time it would affect big and small businesses in surrounding towns like Stratford and Shelton and Fairfield So the be tremendous spillover benefits. Not to mention the thousands of construction jobs which again are so desperately needed. And one of the reasons that

the unions so actively support this idea because they know that it will instantly put thousands of their people back to work. The success of Foxwoods we believe makes this proposal strictly an economic issue for the state of Connecticut. As many of the myths that you have heard in the past have been dispelled. Our facility will endure against competition even though these other facilities are going to be created in surrounding states because we have an outstanding entertainment component as part of this complex. I believe it's a very positive thing and Dana thank you. And for two reasons number one because the citizens when it also we're talking about forty two hundred jobs I don't know of any other business that's bringing that many jets to the state of Connecticut right now. Last year there was no vote taken your home. Your expectations this year that

you get to vote one way or another on the House floor. Absolutely because this is no longer a patch work Bill. They came to us in final form was really a patchwork. It was things piled upon piled upon it in the laying the language of the bill was not connected in other words it didn't read like our statutes. Just one amendment after another as you recall there were 15 or 20 amendments in finance alone and they just seem to be integrated throughout the bill and this has already been taken care of. It appears that the the opposition to it the governor for example did not testify against the bill this year I don't think he's changed position on it but he didn't come out fighting on it. I think there's some concern about whether or not the governor of this legislation could be. It could be sustained. I also think the fact that they've eliminated the argument about the loss of money from the hundred million

dollars from the Indian Casino. They've eliminated that argument that gives it a better chance of passing even though it's a quieter lobbying job. It's still a very strong very powerful lobby. So I think there's a chance it may fly this year. It's interesting to me that this is a public safety committee and I have not yet heard any testimony related to the public safety of our citizens. I am here today because I am concerned about the safety of our Connecticut citizens. I'm a former Nevada resident and I witnessed first hand what legalized gambling spawns addiction child prostitution alcohol is some drugs crime. And I believe that the history of the Atlantic City gambling should warn us that casinos don't rescue decaying cities. No state money. This is private money coming to the state of Connecticut. Is that not a first. And you support it absolutely.

The bell now moves on to several other committees before or if the House or Senate gets a chance to vote on this casino measure last week in his State of the state message to the people of Connecticut governor Weicker call for more educational opportunities for young people. Lloyd when Bush has this report the Weicker proposal higher education will be a major part of the governor's euthanasia program hope it will guarantee a college education to low income students who graduate from high school. Above all I confess to you I've never been so excited about anything as long as I've been the governor. I asked. To give our neediest children hope tonight is capital it's capital O capital P capital L it's an opportunity to pursue education is what it stands for a guaranteed college education for poor kids who

work hard in school and play by the rules. The whole program calls for the creation of a seven million dollar trust fund. It would guarantee a college education to students whose family income is below 100 and 30 percent of the poverty level under the program porn academically qualified students would be able to attend Central Connecticut State University and the other state run colleges and universities if they stay in school or graduated get themselves into a public college or university in the state and apply for financial aid which is going to be available any difference between what can be supplied by the institution from its own resources or federal grants. The trust that this whole program will create will make up the difference. We are I think at a time in our society when we need to recognize that not one kid in Connecticut is expendable. Every single one of these children needs to be a productive piece of our future and to do that many of them need help

particularly those kids who are living in poverty. Some of the students at the Fox Middle School in Hartford may be able to take advantage of some of the problems in the governor's euthanasia kit that includes expanding the summer jobs program keeping school buildings open for educational and recreational programs and hope that stands for help an opportunity to pursue education. It will start with seventh graders. Many of the students of this class are dreaming of a college education. I think I would like to go to college at that they've been as high school but they have the money together because the class and I think the government will help because people buy the most money and we didn't we but the rest is good because my parents my parents have three children and they don't pay a lot of money. They have to if I want to go to university to Hartford and my sister whatever they want to go to Toulouse will cost $60000 just for one year for three of us. So

fork again if I can get to college free. That'll be open tomorrow and they'll be very proud of me. I think is good because it takes a lot of parents back and they don't have to worry about struggling to get money to send us to college and it gives us opportunity to go to college and to learn and to see what we want to do. I like the idea that you are doing because. My grandmother she's gonna put up with me when I'm doing a number. I'm getting good grades so the Jago give me free money so I can go to college and I want to become a basketball player. I think that's a good idea. The governor's euthanasia tive is also designed to provide more opportunities for children and alternatives to gangs. The whole program was strongly endorsed by the principal of the Fox middle school so the kids will be a program that I think about then I think we need to do something to help the kids within the city and that's the big first. Though I wish that because now I think it will really be what they need. I

think the program could help eliminate a lot of the students that we have put into going to tenderest and jails because stead upin 25 for that I think the program will be used to educate kids. The whole program if approved would start with the high school class of 2000 by the year 2000 and for some 97 hundred students from low income families would be eligible for a guaranteed college education. What it means for higher ed of course is that down the road apiece all those youngsters who today would not even have a match in going to school are going to become part of the student population. And what it means to higher ed is that it faces a wonderful new challenge of taking another generation of young people lifting their hopes and aspirations and giving them the training to put them into the society as productive citizens as taxpaying citizens as people with a sense of future. I think that's what Connecticut has to go for the most part lawmakers go along with the

concept in Project Hope and the need to help low income students receive a college education. But some are concerned about the funding. In Hartford Lloyd Wimbish for Connecticut lawmakers. Still on education. A bipartisan group of state lawmakers this week offered their own proposals for educational reform. Here in Connecticut. The majority and minority leaders in the statehouse this week unveiled several proposals to improve education including a call for a school voucher plan that would permit the use of public money to help pay for tuition at even private school systems. We are here today as a bipartisan group a diverse group and a group of legislators that recognize that you know our two greatest challenges in formulating a public policy. Are of an inertia. Of government and the complexity of the challenges we

face. We are our stand here with a sense of great urgency however that those two enemies of all of us must be overcome and we must make progress this year. If you were able to read the recent reports of the mastery test scores. In Connecticut this year you will see that only 2 percent of our urban area students have managed to achieve the mastery level or above. You'll also see that only half. Of our suburban students have achieved that same level. We welcome the opportunity to work together to move the school choice proposals forward in the state of Connecticut. We think that is one of the proposals that should be built into our school system as an incentive to continue the improvement of our education system. We look forward to working with all of the different legislators that

have had an interest and have participated in in the various school choice proposals. The various integral parts of the proposal that represented Libby has indicated are obviously things that are of interest to us as well that as Republicans we're very pleased to be able to work on the school choice proposal. I'm in support of the legislation because it finally or has the inner city some options. As pointed out in the early parts of the bill this is an option an option it's going to be available to boards of education in their localities if in fact it's something that they wish to put into place charter schools that this is a particularly interest to areas like in a city in that it often is people an opportunity decide on the kinds of things that should be taught in their different communities. People should be given options. Some people obviously the education system as it's designed is not very effective. This is

not a deterrent as some people would think to what's going on around the depressed of the issues that came out of the legislature last year. As far as I can see this is another option that will take us further in educating our students. We believe we have a plan in front of you that can advance the issue of school choice which is really talking about empowering parents to make decisions as to what best meets their child's needs and that the focus should be on quality education for all children. It should be a lot around where they live. What school they currently are required to go to by our system but should empower them to make a choice as to what best meets their needs. It's been demonstrated in other districts that that improves the quality of all of the schools. The schools as they it's simply a competition. If they have to compete for students the quality goes up. We have a plan that at this point is a simple plan that goes forward and says that local school districts can opt into it. A district can say we want to track some kids we want to participate we have a way for some money to move with that child.

And what I see in the present school system is that it's failing our children. I support this bipartisan effort because I believe the American dream should be afforded to inner city children that live in my district and the state of Puerto Rico where I was born. How school choice and it started to be a good program. When the governor took a building that's 12 stories filled with administrators one to one ratio of administrators to teachers and began to reform the education school system in Puerto Rico. We can do it here in Connecticut because the true special interest should be our children. School choice plans have been introduced before but they have been defeated. Supporters plan to fight for a vote later this session from Washington the federal budget is now out. And Kathleen Koch takes a look at its impact on this state.

It's the most popular reading in Washington this week. President Clinton's new one and a half trillion dollar budget. And Connecticut lawmakers divide right down party lines over whether it does or not. That's a very tough budget I think the president recognizes the very difficult situation we're in he's trying to cut spending without doing damage to some of the very necessary programs that I think the president was very disciplined. I agreed to keep the deficit going in the right direction and it is it's almost a hundred billion lower than we had anticipated a year ago. I'm glad he stayed within the debt. The discipline of last year. But it's absolutely inadequate. I hope he would come in and do what Weicker did in Connecticut and what well did and in Massachusetts they say shut down the state. We need gridlock when it comes to the budget we need to get our financial house in order. She's this week prodded administration budget leaders on why the White House hasn't cut more. He and others in a bipartisan group had planned to cut 90 billion dollars

from budget deficits over the next five years and it just blows my mind that we would play such a dangerous game. We need to cut more. You had a bipartisan effort to do it. And I really regret the administration turned its back on this bipartisan effort. Best judgment of our conversation that this is as far as we can go without endangering recovery we simply don't think that further cuts in discretionary spending at this moment would be good for the economy. The new budget does reduce or eliminate hundreds of programs. Hard hit the low income heating inner GI assistance program which most lawmakers is just is vital to Connecticut. The point is that in Connecticut we have a good state program. And what the federal program does is subsidize a state program and it could mean the difference of having your heat turned off. Others are worried about cuts in defense and education. When you see that 47 percent of the defense cuts hitting at. Sikorsky. That is very difficult for a company and one company

to bear. We knew that there were going to be difficulties at a Textron Lycoming and in the last budget the president did not put any money in for the engine development and we fought very hard in order to gain back. Some money and that in that effort. There is no money in this budget again so we're going to have to make a fight there again. The good news for a town like Groton is the students in the communities those that directly have the facilities are actually to get a little more money. But a community like legit is actually going to lose all the support for what they used to call the B students. That's you know the range of three hundred thousand dollars so that's a big hit. He also changes formula in such a way that the smaller towns of Connecticut will have a very hard time getting the money they need for disabled children for children with learning disabilities for what we call Chapter 1 children who come in not prepared to learn at the pace we need for them to learn. So there this is there are some judgments behind the spending

cuts that I strongly disagree with and that will be the stuff of the controversies the next few months. Still some give the president high marks for spending a billion plus to put more cops on the street and for launching new job retraining programs that will help the state. This 1.6 billion really gives us a chance to apply to say that we really are doing community policing that gives us a chance to really take care of our needs and we need more police on the streets so that that's very good. This very big concentration on dislocated workers the school to work effort to try to get our young people ready to go into the workforce. These are these are critical areas. Connecticut given our economy at the moment. So like most budgets this one holds both pain and promise for Connecticut. But the proposals are not set in stone and the Congress will spend months chiseling away at them before a final budget compromise is unveiled in Washington Kathleen Koch for Connecticut lawmakers.

Still in from Washington. And thanks to the efforts of a Connecticut woman and a Connecticut company of famous statue has been restored. It was just before dawn when the Statue of Freedom was lifted from her pedestal two hundred eighty seven feet above the capitol grounds. After 130 years she was showing her age. Pollution was corroding the Brawns and the Connecticut expert hired to refurbish her used radiography to find many iron support rods inside were rusting went through different areas and we found some of these internal casting rods. And now what we're doing is going through in evaluating how much of that can we remove without it being so interesting to the statue. That you're doing more damage trying to fix a problem. We're going to go through and we're going to remove a certain amount and then create drainage in there and space so that it won't be a problem for at least another hundred years.

Left alone the deteriorating bars would continue ripping the statue apart. It's all iron inside their corroding and it's just you can see physically how it's ripping the metal apart. Pretty dramatic in the middle of the restoration when the merc Gould gave Senator Joe Lieberman and the media a close up look at the process. One problem they found tiny gas bubbles from the original pouring created holes that were holding water and rusting the surface. Any that would naturally drain because of the angle or the shape of them were just leaving but the ones that are holding water and causing more corrosion were going to fill with the bronze make to match the bronze that was used on the statue. Another task removing the signatures of painters who regularly cleaned the statue of Freedom's pedestal. And there are some places where those painters either put tags with their name stamped into the tags and also some places where they wrote their name in part. We are so much but I doubt it. We're saving it. All those tags with the painter's

names are being saved in anything removed from the statue is being saved and going to the Curator's office and they're going to do a whole display of this material. These aren't the first repairs ever made on the 19 and a half statue this is a patch where they probably had a lot of holes right there. So originally they cut. The surface out made a patch and put it in and painted it and will be using the same techniques and technology. The statue was also hit occasionally by lightning but all in all Mark Gould says freedom is held up well and she's proud her company was the one chosen to give freedom a new lease on life. There's a deep sense of honor that goes with it. It's not the oldest piece that we've worked on but we approach each project to try to maintain the artist's original intent. The Capitol dome and the statue that has topped it for now more than 130 years are such an important symbol of American democracy that I was very proud that somebody from Connecticut was chosen to to restore the

symbol to its full luster. I am taking off the pollution of the fans to revive the muster workers are scrubbing nearly 15000 pound statue by hand and with fresh water just. Exactly a new development in technology. There used to be on Article blasting that was done but this is a much more thorough and it allows one to go down further down through the broken layer and give the much longer presentation value to the work. Freedom is now back on her pedestal and Mother Nature has been giving her an icy welcome this winter. But Connecticut restorer say the repairs they made Plus a new coat of paint and two layers of protective coating should keep the statue looking good for generations to come. In Washington Kathleen Koch. Well Connecticut lawmakers. The League of Women Voters of Connecticut urges citizens to be informed and active to find out who your legislators are contact the league at

2 8 8 7 9 9 6 or 2 4 0 0 2 2 2. If you would like to see the legislature in action and tour the state capitol and legislative office building call 2 4 0 0 0 2 2 2 legislative tours are conducted by the League of Women Voters. Finally some of the state's big city mayors came to the state capitol this week looking for tax relief. And here's what they have to say. We want to make sure that we preserve our neighborhoods. And I think revaluation is causing a tech shift from commercial industrial property to residential and it's being forced on us by the state in the current current state law. And we need to adjust that I think there's consensus on that issue. If you were to do a poll among voters residents of a city the number one issue they'd identify Senator Maloney talked and we talked about it was problems to property tax in the state of Connecticut. And I think for much of us what it is it's a it's a quality of life issue for the whole state of

Connecticut This isn't an urban problem what you see here. From different political parties were in this meeting from different towns so yeah it's different in New Haven and we have a lot of tax exempt property and Harford has a lot of commercial property and Waterbury has the highest personal property tax rate in the state of Connecticut. So we all have different problems but at its root is the fact that the property tax which is the engine of financing state and local government doesn't work anymore and we need a better system. I think we've reached a consensus that we should propose a bill to freeze in place the assessment statewide at local option because obviously different communities are faced with different phases of the revaluation but that will give the local level on the state level a level playing field is frozen. And until we develop a statewide assessment and pointing out that 96. That line and that would give us a window of

opportunity to try to address the overall funding problems for the cities and funding problems for various programs state wide. So I think the consensus starts with the freezing of assessment statewide with with the local option in each community deciding themselves but giving them the option and looking to statewide values being put in place by 96. The concern is among us as mayors is that one that with this revaluation will be a further shift an immediate shift down from commercial business to residential. We want to catch that before it happens because we think that adds to the problem. And addition of that frankly I feel and I think others do that we need some if we can at least some relief and beginning the process to get the homeowners middle class homeowners who bear a big brunt of property taxes and not just in the cities but in towns as well. This isn't just a large city or if you can see from the number of mayors that we have it's a smaller town it's medium sized towns it's the largest cities as well.

We do want real estate relief and one of the things we can do is the governor has put the issue on the table and I commend him for that. But I think what we need to do is make sure that the relieve ends up as real estate property tax relief. That's one of the things we will do. The mayor has brought a very substantial proposal set of proposals here today. We're going to take that up very seriously. We're going to do that which we can in this short session we will do what we can. This short session and I join the mayors in saying that there needs to be a comprehensive approach and look at the property tax relief problem in the state and I am going to be supporting the freeze on the revaluations to give a commission a property tax review commission the opportunity to take a look at the overall problem. Would there be a timetable on that freeze for what kind of period of time we're talking about a permanent freeze or five years or what Senator. We're talking about giving the commission which would in the usual course act for about a year until the next session of the general assembly which would be the first long session and then for a shorter period after that for implementations we're probably talking about 18 months and we're talking about a

defined period of time. We want the business community to have an opportunity to participate in this. They are major real estate holders in the state of Connecticut. But we want the citizenry and the mayors of the state to participate also set up a schedule that everyone agrees to and would hear with. And that's this week's edition of the Connecticut lawmakers. And we do thank you for joining. Us.