A candidates’ forum was held on October 15 at the downtown Hartford Public Library for a number of candidates in Connecticut for the state legislature. Among them were the three candidates vying for Connecticut’s first senatorial district seat, representing an area that covers part of Hartford (roughly its southern half) and part of Wethersfield. The Wethersfield Post published an informative October 9 article summarizing the views of each candidate.

Tom Condon of the Hartford Courant served as moderator for the forum. Below is a summary of questions Condon posed and the candidates’ answers. Topics included regionalizing municipal services, whether the candidates are in favor of a constitutional convention, open space development with respect to Brainard Field, and criminal justice reform. Toward the end of the forum, the candidates were invited to introduce themselves to the audience, and audience questions were taken.

For more information about candidates in the state, the League of Women Voters provides a helpful online guide. The state government also provides a number of maps of voting districts. Also, the Courant published endorsements recently for candidates for state Senate as well as those for the state House of Representatives.

With municipal budgets badly strained, and little new help expected from the state or federal governments, would you support regionalizing some municipal services? If so, which ones, and how would you bring it about?

S. Michael DeRosa of the Green Party said he is interested in “looking at regionalizing electric distribution and generation.” Dissatisfied with the recent federal bailout to Wall Street, he said, “If there’s money for that, then there should be money for regional cooperation, housing, and health care. Vote clean, vote green. More choices and more voices.” He said voters should “regionalize your head and understand who’s fighting for you.” DeRosa added that the only way to make progress is to organize politically.

John Fanfara, the Democratic incumbent, speculated that regionalization makes sense from a city’s point of view. But other towns in the state are probably scared by it, he said, because it means someone else will take control and make decisions for you, which he thinks is unpopular. “If enough towns are in financial straits,” he said, “maybe more will be open to the idea of sharing services.” The state, he suggested, could help towns in fiscal trouble, and that will encourage regional sharing, because the state would provide a necessary incentive. Fonfara said he has already been talking with his colleagues about this issue, anticipating the question.

Barbara Ruhe, a Republican, said, “Connecticut is made up of 169 stubborn and independent towns. They all have their own way of doing things. I think that as economic things become tighter, towns will look to their neighbors and say, what can we do together?” She noted that water services are already shared regionally, and charter and magnet schools attract students from across town lines. “But other areas that are pretty sacred cows,” she added, citing  education and public safety services. “I think that we have to look at it,” Ruhe continued. “I think it’s going to be hard to sell to some of the towns, and has to be done in a very thoughtful, diplomatic way. It usually works better when you don’t impose from the top, but when you get people to work together at the community level.”

This year Connecticut voters can choose to have a constitutional convention to amend the state constitution. Do you support or oppose a constitutional convention, and why?

Fonfara said he opposes a constitutional convention, arguing that the state’s representative form of government works very well. Other states that have initiatives or a form of recall are often “knee-jerk,” he said, which might not characterize outcomes of a constitutional convention, he conceded, but he doesn’t support the motives behind it. Elected every two years, Fonfara said state senators have “a very short window of time to embark on meaningful change.” Officials care about their constituents’ thoughts and their votes, he said; “the shorter the term, the more short-sighted our vision is.” If elected officials were subject to a recall because of a vote, “the vision would be even shorter,” which he said is not good democracy.

Ruhe said she supports a constitutional convention. “I have faith that the voters and the citizens are not stupid,” she said. “Very often, as a citizen, as a voter, I feel disenfranchised because we have so many entrenched incumbents at the town and the state level. It’s very hard to get new blood and new faces and new ideas. Everybody gets nervous when you want to tinker with the constitution, but there are a lot of good things that have come out of tinkering, and I think the citizens of this state should have an opportunity to have a convention.” Ruhe called such an effort “a very good conversation, it is absolutely the basis of our democracy.” She added that fear of a convention is “a fear of change, and a fear that voices might be heard that might upset old apple carts.”

DeRosa said he supports the idea of “a constitutional amendment, a constitutional change in our state, because I support initiative, recall, proportional representation, instant run-off voting, and term limits.” He said we have “the most closed club in Connecticut” at the Senate. “Only three to four people lead each session,” he continued, “and that includes retirements, deaths, and others. In the final analysis, this government belongs to you. You should have direct initiative; you should have direct ability to recall a representative of yours, if they’re not paying attention to what you’re saying, or if they’ve rigged the system so that new ideas can’t get in.” DeRosa added than an effort to initiate three energy bills last year to reduce electric rates “went nowhere.” He said, “Why are you paying the highest electric rates in the continental United States?… Why don’t we have municipal utility districts? Because the vested interests in this state don’t want it, because they believe that they can control a small group of people in the Senate and the House, mainly the leadership, and they’re able to do something that is not in your self interest.” DeRosa said as we move closer to “direct democracy, we need the methodologies to do it, and however we get there, I’m in favor of it.”

A proposal was made a few years ago to close Brainard Field and develop the land. Though it did not go forward, it may be proposed again, presumably when there is again money available. Do you support the idea? Why or why not?

Ruhe said she hadn’t much thought about closing the field, “although people in Old Wethersfield would probably appreciate it.” She said she gets nervous when there’s talk of open land and development, she said. “Depending on how it’s done,” she noted, “[development] can be more costly than beneficial.” Housing may be needed, for example, but if there is no more room to build new schools, it can cause a problem. “I look at the current number of vacant, dilapidated buildings in Hartford,” Ruhe said, “and down Silas Deane Highway in Wethersfield, and I’m thinking, why would we want to develop more open land, or land that’s being used, when we have a lot of cluttered-up land that needs fixing?”

DeRosa said he “would like to approach the issue from the developmental point of view. You have to ask yourself why two billion dollars is being spent in Hartford, Connecticut to gentrify downtown. How come people don’t have decent housing in this city?” He wondered aloud why citizens don’t all have health care, and why we lack the resources to take care of providing it. “It’s because [of] this particular system that we live under,” he continued, “this regime that we have in the state of Connecticut, [which] believes that profits are more important than people.” DeRosa asked if citizens wish for “democracy for the few” or “development for all people, irrespective of their race, creed, religion, or national identity.” Proper development, he said, with his voice rising passionately, should balance various interests, and he is disappointed in how Hartford legislators have approached the issue. Good jobs should be the first issue, he added, and the rest will flow together. What DeRosa sees as a coming depression “will shake the foundations of this society,” he said.

Fonfara said he has “historically and strongly supported changing and developing Brainard Field” which he called “the most underutilized, massive tract of land probably anywhere in the state,” given the needs of Hartford and Wethersfield. “I think it’s a red herring in a way, and that it distracts us from the real issue,” Fonfara continued, wondering how the land can be better used without getting into a battle about closing it down. “I think we can better utilize portions of the field,” he offered, “and maintain the airport at the same time.” He said he is interested in revisiting proposals in the next few years, and in building private sector support among businesses as well as public sector support among the two municipalities and the state, which owns the airfield. Currently, Fonfara said, “We’re not generating the tax dollars we could; we’re not generating the jobs or the development we could on that tract of land.”

Many critics say that our criminal justice system is ineffective. Overcrowded prisons and recidivism continue to be the norm. Instead of piecemeal solutions and huge expenditures on additional prisons and personnel, what can Connecticut do to reduce recidivism, and bring about deterrents of crime and violence?

DeRosa said the answer is to look at the multifaceted causes of crime. He cited drug laws, saying 50 to 60 percent of the people jailed in the state are there directly or indirectly because of drugs. “Are drugs good for you? No,” he said. “There are alternatives to throwing people into jail, three times you’re out, all this garbage. This is not dealing with the real issues.” He encouraged citizens to vote for him to send a message and to consider alternatives, to prison, to raise children and youth “to understand peace, and justice, and the idea that everybody has the right to live and participate in this democracy.” He expressed weariness with solutions to crime that appear deceptive.

Fonfara said the Democratic caucus in the legislature debated criminal justice reform a few times in the last year, including in the wake of attention-getting tragedies in Cheshire and New Britain. “You know, those tragedies happen every day in my city, in the city you live in,” he said. “You don’t see special sessions being called when those tragedies take place,” he added, noting that it was actually Ruhe who brought that up in a debate they had the prior day. “Short-term,” he said, “the answer is investing in people coming out of prison, and not just dumping them in shelters and saying, figure it out yourself.” A long-term solution is education, he said, noting that kindergarten is still not requiring in the state, let alone pre-school. He advocated for universal pre-school education in every urban and some rural communities in the state. “Give young people a chance from day one to be even with their competition. Because when they come out of high school or college, they’re going to have to compete in the real world.” Short of Stamford, he said, strides toward better education are inadequate in the state’s urban areas.

Ruhe began by saying, “It costs $55,000 a year to incarcerate someone. We could send them to Yale for less. I believe that we need to look at the whole problem differently. Serious violent criminals need to be locked up in secure facilities. We need to work with the children who come through the Department of Children and Families, because I suspect that many of those children end up in the criminal justice system. We need to see that they get the mental health and other services they need as soon as possible.” Ruhe said juvenile offenders need treatment and it requires investment. More drug and community courts are needed, she said, adding, “Our criminal courts are cluttered up with junk. I’m not talking about drugs, and I’m not talking about people; I’m talking about stupid crimes that create problems in a community, but are not heinous.” She added that new strategies are needed as well for people who are incarcerated to emerge “educated, with skills, and are not stigmatized within the community, so they truly can say that they have paid for their mistakes, and are redeemed.”

More from the candidates’ forum still to come.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 at 12:39 pm and is filed under City corridors, Community building, Demographics, Development, Downtown, Events, Hartford, Housing, Planning and design, Public spaces, Urban Compass, Urban design.