Five-million bucks for the expansion of the Legislative Office Building? Forgetabout it. The Walnut Beach pavilion in Milford? Nope. A public video-surveillance system in Bridgeport? Dead. $250,000 for Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo and $300,000 for the Discovery Museum? Nada.
Those are among the items that have been lingering before the State Bond Commission and were ordered cancelled, under legislation approved Monday in the Finance, Revenue & Bonding Committee. It next heads to the state Senate. In all, $412.7 million was recommended cut, including:
* $500,000 for cleanup and preservation of an estuary at Stamford’s Cove Island park.
* $6 million for a state bike, walkway and greenway grant program.
* More than $400,000 from Bridgeport flood-control projects.
*$2.8 million for the Rooster River flood control project in Fairfield
* $500,000 for Milford beach replenishment.
“Clearing and reducing this bond package by over 400 million reflects our return to fiscal accountability as well as allowing this and future administrations in moving bond items of real value to the state,” said Rep. Carlo Leone, D-Stamford, co-chairman of the committee’s bonding subcommittee. “I applaud all those who were willing to participate in the process.”
“I’m glad there was bipartisan agreement to hold the line on state borrowing,” said Rep. Livvy Floren, R-Greenwich, ranking member on the subcommittee. “The bonding package reflects the priorities of the state while still recognizing that Connecticut is in a fiscal crisis and can’t fund every worthwhile project.”
Most of the projects have lingered for years on the bond commission, despite their approval from majority democrats in the General Assembly. Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell controls the commission agenda and during her February budget address, asked lawmakers to kill off the items that have remained before the commissionon because they may affect Connecticut’s Bond rating.