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RTCTPowerPolitics11222025BBlock230pm_2025-11-22-15-06-16

I'm Mark Suddall. Welcome back to Power and Politics. Joining me now is state rep Tony Scott. Welcome to you. Thank you. Appreciate you having me. We had a lot to talk about here. Uh, first of all, let's talk about, uh, pure rejecting the Aquarian water sale. What do you stand on this one? Yeah, you know, I, I stood strong with a lot of folks from across the aisle saying this is something we really need to look at a little bit, a little bit closer. The process the way it was done was not done properly. Did not go through the energy committee. It kind of stuck in a bill late in the session, um, and something we shouldn't have had had done. So the idea that we had a chance to talk about it a little bit since then, um, and Pura listened and heard us, um, heard the people heard the legislators saying this wasn't right, they, they, they, they did the right thing. Now speaking of Pura, uh, we just heard this again that I think the, uh, possibility of monopoles again is coming up, um. The folks in Bridgeport and Fairfield were were glad that this was maybe pushed aside, but it just seems like this is kind of not going away. Yeah, yeah, it's not going to go away. I think people have to keep using their voices. The legislators are standing strong on both sides of the aisle on this, and it's something that we need to keep doing and keep pushing. But again, people have their voice. Let's make sure we have it here heard and hopefully Perra listens to that. Uh, let's talk a little bit about this latest, uh, special session. A lot of things, uh, we talked about here, including the, uh. Affordable housing bill, uh, on the floor you had a little rant on this, uh, call it lipstick on a pig. Give me your thoughts on on where you are with this housing bill. Yeah, two big things. Number one, the process. The process was broken. Well, I understand elections have consequences and Republicans are in a super minority. I understand that we really didn't have a seat at the table all along the way here throughout the process of this bill since it was vetoed back in June by the governor and because of that we end up not seeing the final bill. Until 9:51 a.m. on the day that we went into session, they got posted to the public and us legislators. It was 104 pages, uh, more than what the preview bill that they gave us, um, and we went, we went into session at 10:30 in the morning. That's not the process we should be doing. We should be leading better and be more transparent with what's in the bill and what's going on. Talking about the bill itself, I think. The bill itself was, as you mentioned, lipstick on a pig, right? It just did not change much. I was really surprised the governor end up deciding to move forward with this bill and is supporting this bill when it's not much different than what we saw in session in 5002. Same things with local control being stripped away, um, same things with with fair share, I call it fair share light there. A lot of things that are still very similar to the bill just watered down slightly than what we saw in session. zoning, right? Yeah, zoning, changing anything or not anything, but commercial to residential is something that's still going to be allowed through this without having a public hearing. So if the commercial property is there and someone buys that property and wants to change into residential, it could happen and no one in the town can really do anything about it. So on top of this, how do you think we make Connecticut more affordable? Yeah, and it starts housing is a piece of that, right? It's a big puzzle and it's a big pie, and we need to figure that out. But you know, you see we're just talking about electric costs, um, you, you know, aquarium is gonna, you know, take off and that costs are gonna go up we see electric prices, uh, we see labor prices, everything's going up in Connecticut, um, and we need to tackle it from that so that's the source of the problem, not housing, we need to get to the problem of let's make it affordable. Why do kids leave out. College, right, because they can't afford to live in the state, not just because they can't afford housing, they can't afford to live in the state you know you have property taxes that are through the roof. We proposed the Republicans proposed a property tax relief, not huge, but enough to give a little bit of money back into the pockets of those of those folks who need it the most. And unfortunately that was not something taken up by the Democrats, but the idea is that we have ideas and we can keep talking about those ideas to make it affordable for everybody, seniors, kids, all the way up to everybody included and hopefully we can do that as we continue next session starting in February. Now, as you know, Connecticut has a pretty big surplus. What should the state be doing with this money? How should the state be spending this money? Yeah, we need to make sure that we're paying down our debt first and foremost. We have a, you know, billions and billions and billions of dollars of money that we're going to owe ultimately to to union folks, people who have expected that money to come in and understand that they need that money. To survive when they retire, so those pensions need to be filled. We have taken that and stole that money in the past. We can't keep doing that. We got to keep replenishing that and we've been doing a good job of that. We need to keep doing that first and foremost. But when there are things that come up like if SNAP benefits whether the government shut down, we need to maybe potentially fund SNAP benefits. I understand that's what the rainy day fund is for, but now that the government is back open, the federal government, we can take that money, put it back away, and hopefully put it back into the pensions and pay down that debt. As a Republican, where do you stand on some of President Trump's policies? I mean, there's some of the policies that I do love and I appreciate. I don't love the way he goes about his way of doing things. It's not my style for sure. Maybe you know, I'm a little bombastic last time when we were talking during special session, but that's not my style. I'm more just let's hunker down and get the work done and we don't have to boast or brag or post about it. Let's just go in the back room and get things done and do what's best for the people, and I think there are some policies that he does. The economy is doing better than what anyone anticipated after tariffs, they said that we're going to go into recession didn't happen, right? So I think we're doing fine and we need to keep plugging along and doing what's best and hopefully keep the rhetoric down as much as possible. Now this year you you shared a very personal story about uh throat cancer that you went through. Uh, tell, tell us about that. Yeah, it's been a crazy year. Um, one year now from here we, I was in the middle of chemo and radiation. Um, I'd been diagnosed in September of having a throat cancer and, um, I was immediately into 7 weeks of chemo and radiation every day. And I got, you're not a smoker. No, I'm not a smoker. I know it's crazy. I was so it came out of the blue, came out of the blue, um, but I had a sore throat. That's what I had all summer long. I had a sore throat and I couldn't get an answer from any doctors like what the problem was. So I kept pushing and pushing. So what I would say from this, I finally got the answer I wanted. It wasn't, well, it wasn't the answer I wanted. I got the answer at least, and the idea is because I kept pushing and if I didn't keep pushing and figuring out what the. Sore throat was who knows what would have happened, but I have a very clean bill of health right now. I'm in good shape. It's been basically almost a year now since my last, my last treatment, and doctors have utmost experience of you're gonna be fine, you're gonna be good and I'm gonna live hopefully a long healthy life. But I would say make sure you figure out there's something wrong with your body, speak up. Yeah, in about the 30 seconds we have left, what message do you have for folks about what you went? Yeah, you know your body best, yeah, right, you know it best. If there's something wrong that's not clicking, that's not right, make sure you're going finding the doctor that's gonna do the diligence and make sure that they find out what's wrong with you because there's a lot. I have twin girls, 16 years old. I wanna see them live their life. If I didn't put the action in, who knows? it was stage 2 cancer, but it could have been stage 3 or 4 if I didn't, um, act on it quicker. Tony, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Well, next, Pure denies the sale of a quarrying to the Regional Water Authority what the move means for costs here in our state.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/24be378f-4689-431f-87cc-1dedf93f74cc/24be378f-4689-431f-87cc-1dedf93f74cc.transcribe

RTCTPowerPolitics11222025CBlock230pm_2025-11-22-15-08-25

Well, some big news concerning your water bill. State regulators reject a multi-billion dollar bid to take over aquarium water. News 2's Connecticut's John Craven with the new developments. Well, this sale was controversial from day one. Ultimately, state regulators thought it was bad for consumers, but could a different buyer be even worse? 250 million customers get their water from aquarium, and for now it'll stay that way. The decision has been adopted. On Wednesday, state regulators shot down a controversial sale to New Haven's Regional Water Authority. This was the result of an Perfect process. It's an imperfect product and an imperfect governance structure. Critics say the deal is bad for consumers. RWA bills have gone up 40% over the last decade compared to just 8% for Aquarian. And since RWA is semi-public, rate increases don't need state approval. They no longer need to have pure oversight, and then their rates increases would not be subject to pure jurisdiction. RWA insisted that every town it serves has a say in rates. It's a very transparent process and Each application is scrutinized very closely by that policy board. RWA argued that an out of state owner would be worse. They were going to load it up with $6 billion in debt, but State Attorney General William Tong thinks customers would have ended up paying for Aquarian's massive $2.5 billion price tag. That would have raised rates maybe by double 65% in in some estimates. People are going to get crushed by this. Eversource won't say what their next step is or which other buyers might now be interested in Aquarium. John Craven, News 12, Connecticut. Now after the vote, the Regional Water Authority's chief financial officer said, quote, We are reviewing PURA's final decision. We believe the conversation, the conversion of Aquarium to a not for profit public authority would have been in the best interest of customers, communities, and employees providing local control and significant long term benefits. Well that's all our time. I'm Mark Sudall. Thanks for watching.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/ee50e77b-c63a-40cd-9739-e7237e1b6753/ee50e77b-c63a-40cd-9739-e7237e1b6753.transcribe

Gov. Ned Lamont and State Rep. Tony Scott join the show.

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