Rotary Club of Avon-Canton president Christine Lamadrid introduced State Representative Eleni Kavros-Degraw. A freshman state legislator, Ms. Kavros-Degraw serves on the public health committee and the finance, revenue and bonding committee. She noted, "I'm not here as often as I'd like to be, but am glad to be here today."
Referring to the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks, Ms. Kavros-Degraw explained that her parents were both "in the air" that day. Her mother is a flight attendant and her father, a pilot. She characterized aircrews as the "very first responders" that day.
Ms. Kavros-Degraw had previously distributed a summary of this year's legislation, which included over 300 individual items. Going into specifics, she noted a large difference among states in their teaching requirements regarding 9/11/2001. Unlike many of the eastern states, many western states' educational systems seem less inclined to include it in the curriculum. She promotes inclusion of that history wherever and whenever she can.
A few highlights from the recent session include the paying down of about a billion dollars of the pension fund deficit, saving many hundreds of millions of dollars in future interest debt. This was a bipartisan effort and in general, members of both parties work well together. Constituents of legislators of both parties want bipartisan collaboration.
The car theft issue, which is very concerning to many local constituents, is being worked on in a bipartisan way. She sees her role as bringing her constituents concerns to her colleagues and to the Governor. Car theft cases are left unresolved 92% of the time, with no arrests even when cars are recovered. Recently they have closed a legal loophole that allowed one municipality's juvenile arrest to be hidden from other municipalities, so that serial juvenile offenders were repeatedly released, often leading to repeat offenses. Now they can be more easily identified and judges advised to hold the individual, rather than allow immediate release. She noted that "when the economy goes down crime goes up", emphasizing the economic causes aspect for the problem more than the personal responsibility for one's behavior aspect of the problem. "When school is closed and kids are sitting at home, they get into trouble. Idle hands, and all that. Putting kids in jail doesn't work." We need innovative solutions to juvenile crime and in that vein, Ms. Kavros-Degraw conferred with the Avon acting police chief and the Canton police chief, who noted that vehicular crime is already decreasing. The chiefs also noted that for 95% of cars stolen, the key fob is in the car, showing that keyless technology creates a temptation and is therefore is an unexpected underlying "cause" of the problem.
She also helped with the law requiring removal of the date of birth from employment applications to lessen age discrimination.
She advanced bicycling and walking interests and raised the bottle deposit amount from $0.05 to $0.10.
The Connecticut DMV now includes far more online services than ever before. The DOL website has been improved and continues to be.
With respect to the overall economy, 67% of our just pre-pandemic jobs have been recovered. State pandemic unemployment benefits ended 9/4 and we will have to wait and see what happens to the jobs market now. Our restaurants and small businesses were assisted by making it easier to have outside dining and patio space. Finding employees remains challenging.
Covid impacts are ongoing. She has asked but as yet does not know if the Governor will ask for a further and controversial extension of his so called "emergency" powers. Finally, the legislature has eased the use of telehealth services and also and specifically for nursing home telehealth services in which patient safety is even more fraught.
She remains glad she ran for office and looks forward to cutting more red tape and make common sense decisions. She believes she and her colleagues from both sides of the aisle will continue to work cooperatively to benefit the state.
Questions:
Gary Roman: How big is the (pension) hole? EK-D: She doesn't know the exact number but it is huge. Gary heard it was $70 billion dollars, made more glaring when held against an annual budget of $25 billion dollars. EK-D: Most of the debt is teacher's pension related.
Rollie Sterrett: Any thoughts on the defund-the-police and police liability legislation? EK-D: The legislature has modified the law already. Further, Canton's Chief Arciero raised an issue with police department accreditation, asking for approval for departments to receive departmental accreditation from not just one of the existing certifying entities, but from either of them, allowing more flexibility for different departments with different needs and priorities. This was approved. Ms. Kavros-Degraw also noted no one here is advocating for "defund-the-police." Further, and unexpectedly, our chiefs did not request removal of the personal liability aspect of the law. She, and apparently they, feel that, that element will be a very minor and rarely exercised aspect of the law, as there are so few so called "bad apples."
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