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I'm Mark Sudal. Welcome back to power and politics. The cost of owning a home in Connecticut is among the highest in the nation with property taxes. The primary driver that pushed Connecticut close to the top. Connecticut came in fifth highest in a study by bankrate.com state. Senator Ryan Fazzio joins us now on your busy schedule on your phone today. Thank you so much. Great to be with you, Mark. Thanks for having me now, Ryan, you have focused on making Connecticut more affordable in your legislation this year in our state. On average homeowners will pay about $8000 a year in property taxes alone. That's a big number. Yes. And it's one of the most important variables in affordability uh to live in Connecticut. But it's a conversation we don't often have in state policy making, especially around housing. Connecticut has the second or third highest property tax burden in the entire country. That's a regressive tax. It's especially burdensome for working class, middle class families and seniors as well who don't necessarily, they have that much cash coming in the door. We need to be proactive in the state government about tackling high property taxes, even uh neighbors who aren't very good on tax issues. Generally, like New York and Massachusetts have implemented property tax caps. We should look at doing the same thing in Connecticut that limits the property tax increases that can be imposed every year as well as relieving all the burdens the unfunded mandates that the state places on municipalities which drives up those costs of property taxes on the local level. I think a reform package should be a priority in the coming year to reduce future increases of property taxes and limit the number of unfunded mandates that the state is imposing on our municipalities. And what else do you think is driving up the cost of owning a home here in Connecticut? Well, energy costs are a major factor as well. All the utility bills that we pay in Connecticut are much higher than most states in the Continental US. By some counts, we have the third highest electricity bills in the entire Continental US. Uh Two years ago, Senator Needleman and I and others co-authored a major energy reform bill that will I think strengthen the oversight of the utilities by eversource. They need a strong regulator and consumers need someone to defend them. But also we need policies that in the long run will drive down the cost of generating electricity. We need an all of the above energy strategy. I've introduced legislation that I'm confident will cut the cost of electricity bills by 10% in the short run. And by more in the long run, you could look that up on Senator fazio.com. We have a five or six point plan as Senate Republicans and House Republicans that I believe will cut energy costs. Uh This is another factor. When we talk about affordability of housing in Connecticut, we don't talk often enough about in the Capitol partially because the state government, I think bears a lot of responsibility as is for the high cost of electricity. Now, of course, if you're buying a brand new home, it's gonna cost you and then if you buy uh say a fixer upper, you still have to put the money into it to fix it up. So you got a home maintenance cost. Besides. Exactly. And, and so, you know, when we're looking at expanding the housing costs, there's a lot of investment that's gonna need to be made and that's gonna increase the cost of uh uh of housing for any new stock. So we should look at when it comes to expanding the existing housing stock, rehabilitating real estate. Um we should look at what's practicable. So I think things like accessory dwelling units, things like middle housing, workforce housing. Um not just necessarily the large dense, you know, uh high income developments but but things in the missing middle of our housing market, I think those at a lower cost um can be rehabilitated or built. Um We need to bring make sure it's affordable for uh laborers to work here in Connecticut. Uh It's easy to get a license. There are so many cost drivers as you say as well that need to be looked at that aren't often the topic of our conversation surrounding housing in Hartford. All we talk about in Hartford it seems like is, is how to impose more upon the municipalities and, and all we talk about is zoning, but there's many other cost drivers of housing in Connecticut that need to be a primary topic of focus for policymakers. So do you think the pandemic has played a role in driving up some of these costs? Yeah, absolutely. Because you've seen a major shift in the housing market uh and demand in particular, since COVID, uh you see a major shift of demand from uh from commercial to residential as more and more people work from home or work one or two days a week from home. And so we also need to look at ways to make it easier for commercial and retail space to be um morphed into residential space. So things like making it easier for mixed use, kind of commercially in retail zoned areas to adopt and uh do more residential in those areas, but also allowing them to power is to take the lead in that process. The problem is that a as you point us to be employed by developers, um It's 20 or 30% probably of the value of a commercial property on average to turn it into uh residential. Um but the the pandemic played a role and you know, may maybe the, maybe the fever will break eventually in the housing market because it is a national trend, seeing housing prices go up. It's not just a Connecticut thing, it's not just Fairfield County thing. So in the process of this kind of five year period, we all don't want and want to make sure that we don't upset kind of the concepts of home rule and local control of our towns and cities because what we give away, we're not often likely to get back. So I think there's ways we can improve affordability in the state while also respecting local decision making for our towns and cities. State Senator Ryan Fazio, thanks for joining us on the fence about who to vote for. Why Governor Lamont wants to bring ranked choice voting to Connecticut.

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Big changes could be coming to Connecticut elections. Governor Lamott wants to explore rank choice voting. I think it makes good sense, but that's why we have a task force to weigh it. Is it too complicated for people? Is it necessary to help us guide where we want to go? Will candidates be a little more likely to move towards the center because they want to get that second chance Lamont is forming a task force to look at implementing rank choice voting. That's where the ranked candidates. If you first choice doesn't get enough support, your vote goes to your second pick. Voters are split on the idea. I'm a moderate. Um And I oftentimes think about the independent, but usually they don't have a, a great shot. So I don't, isn't the whole point to vote for one person and then that person is going to win and then whoever gets the most votes wins right now, ranked choice voting could help third party candidates. The last one to win a statewide race was Joe Lieberman in 2006. Now, this is a major election year. But how secure are Connecticut's polling sites this week? Election officials from 100 and 47 communities held a drill at the State Emergency Operations Center in Hartford State Police and the FBI participated too. The scenarios range from an online disinformation campaign to a natural disaster defining white powder at a polling place. We considered everything from physical security at a polling location to um uh cyber security issues in Connecticut. Voting machines are not connected to the internet, but this week's drill looked at what would happen if the state's centralized voting registration system went down. That's all our time. I'm Mark SUDOL. Thanks for watching.

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