Lawmakers move toward requital for storm outages

Lawmakers are likely to bring a bill that would revamp electric utilities’ obligations in storm recovery in a special legislative session as soon as next week. But despite pleas from Republicans, the General Assembly is unlikely to discuss sweeping revisions to the controversial police-accountability bill that was approved last month.

As majority Democrats shape the special session, Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney of New Haven said the top of the agenda would be a socalled take-back-our-grid bill in response to Isaias, the recent tropical storm that knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of residents.

Looney and Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz of Berlin both said Tuesday that reimbursement for the spoilage of food and medicine is high on the list of provisions, as the bill takes form. Many lawmakers were rankled by the unwillingness of the state’s electric distribution monopolies — especially Eversource Energy and also United Illuminating — to provide paybacks to customers.

“I cannot see a way that covering the cost of lost food because of the multiday outage isn’t included in this,” Aresimowicz said. “When you’re a family living on the edges and you’ve spent a couple hundred dollars on food that you had to throw way because you were without power for seven days, it hurts.”

Aresimowicz said Eversource is participating in crafting the bill. Eversource CEO Jim Judge said last week that a preliminary version of the bill, setting deadlines for restoration after mass outages, would have “inintended consequences,” and “will come at a massive cost.”

Judge said he did not oppose a move toward a performance-based reimbursement for Eversource, which is favored by Gov. Ned Lamont and Marissa P. Gillett, chair of the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority.

Sen. Paul Formica, REast Lyme, ranking Republican member on the Energy & Technology Committee, which oversees utility law, agreed that utilities should face some kind of penalty if they fail to restore power within a reasonable period of time. Electric providers in other states, including New York, have to reimburse consumers for lost food, he noted.

Formica also believes that the 2021 General Assembly has to revisit the 1998 legislation that restructured the state’s electric landscape, in which providers were separated from the generator side of the business. “Times have certainly changed since then,” Formica said. “We have the luxury of hindsight.”

Also on tap for the special session would be the annual school-construction legislation; judicial appointments including the state Supreme Court nomination of Judge Christine E. Keller, whose son, Matt Ritter, is House majority leader; and allowing condominiums into the program that assists owners of homes with failing foundations due to a flaw in the minerals used in eastern Connecticut in the 1980s.

Under a scenario currently under consideration, the state Senate would convene on Thursday, September 24 to consider bills, followed by the House the week afterwards, possibly on Tuesday the 29th or the day after.

No reworking police accountability

Looney said that requests from Republicans and police groups to revise the police accountability bill won’t be brought up, despite a lengthy critique of the law Monday by Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven.

Fasano claimed the legislation is discouraging to active officers and potential recruits alike. The bill may be linked to a recent uptick in crime statewide, he asserted.

Fasano said that the entire bill must be revisited because he believes it undermines confidence in law enforcement. His complaint turned political, charging that a recent vote of noconfidence in Gov. Ned Lamont, by the State Police Union is also repudiation of the Democratic majorities in the legislature.

“It's clear that the damage caused by this bill is already being felt in our communities,” Fasano wrote. “Police officers do not have confidence in the administration. Delaying action on all problematic pieces of the new law will only create more publicsafety issues.”

The major portions of the bill would ban choke holds and create a statewide system where officers found to have acted wantonly and maliciously could become decertified and ineligible for jobs in other cities and towns.

Looney likened Fasano’s “wholesale opposition” to the bill as similar to complaints that arose in 1966 over the so-called Miranda law from the U.S. Supreme Court, requiring that law enforcement read aloud the rights of suspects, which is now routine and uncontroversial.

“He wants to basically dismantle the legislation,” Looney said Tuesday. “That’s a nonstarter for all of us. It just demonstrates an interest in trying to repeal the bill.”

Naugatuck Detective Sgt. Amanda Devan says she and other cops from around the state are discouraged by the new law and want lawmakers to amend certain sections.

“The majority of us who are good cops believe there needs to be a fix,” said the 20-year veteran officer, in an interview. “Certain sections are very ambiguous.”

A definition of “undermining confidence” for disciplining police is “vague and undefined,” Devan said, leaving open the possibility of a car crash resulting in the dismissal of an officer. She is also wary of the 45-day time limits on investigations of officers.“Is that time enough?” Devan asked. “It’s not clear.”

During last month’s debate, lawmakers in favor of the legislation stressed that only officers who display “wanton and malicious” behavior would be in danger of decertification, or exposed to civil lawsuits for brutality.

She said that even though the new law doesn’t take effect until next summer, it’s already causing veterans like her to contemplate retirement, representing a potential wide-ranging loss of institutional knowledge. “Now we have problems hiring people,” said Devan, stressing that the mostexperienced are often in charge of field training.