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News and Resources
for Inspired Leadership
January 2006 |
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In this Issue
Events
Funding
Sustainable
Development
Environment
Public Policy
Current Poll
If
there were such a thing as a
Connecticut
Center for Sustainable Development,
what would you want
it to do for
you?
Click
here and share your ideas.
Previous Issues
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
July 2005
February 2005
September
2004 |
Events |
CFED's Development Report Card
for the States
This
KnowledgePlex Expert Chat will highlight findings from CFED's 19th annual
Development
Report Card for the States, which benchmarks the 50 states against one another
in an array of
factors that influence economic vitality. CFED is a national nonprofit that
expands economic
opportunity. TOMORROW, January 26 at 2 pm, online. More
Building
Your Capacity to Revitalize Downtown
Sponsored by
Connecticut Main Street Center, featuring Kent Burnes of Burnes Consulting.
January 27, 2006. More
Too Much
Parking?
A comprehensive
look at design goals, green parking lot designs, and minimum and maximum
parking standards. Sponsored by
CAZEO,
featuring Carol Gould, AICP, of
Fitzgerald and
Halliday. February
1, 2006. More
Learning to
Think and Act
Like a Region (Editor's Choice Award!)
The Lincoln Land
Use Institute and the University of Montana are co-sponsoring this two-day
professional development course, which seeks to build and share knowledge about
regional
collaboration. It will highlight promising regional projects around the country,
and will be an
opportunity to share best practices learned through research and hands-on work.
March
16-17 in Seattle. More
Reinventing Older
Communities: People, Places, Markets
This national
conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia brings
together community developers, planners, government leaders, bankers,
researchers, and
funders to examine schools, the arts, parks, brownfields, displacement,
foreclosures,
community organizing, eminent domain, and waterfront development. April 5-7,
2006 in
Philadelphia. More
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Funding |
Green Communities Initiative
The Enterprise
Foundation's Green Communities program offers grants for up to $5,000 to
assist housing developers with integrating green building systems in their
developments and
engage in a serious discussion of green design possibilities. Planning grants
will be awarded
to affordable housing developers to coordinate green charrettes. More
February
3rd Next Deadline for Fund for Wild Nature Grants
The Fund for
Wild Nature provides money for campaigns to save and restore native species
and wild ecosystems, including actions to defend wilderness and biological
diversity. The fund
supports advocacy, litigation, public policy work, development of citizen
science, and similar
endeavors. The fund rarely supports proposals from organizations with annual
budgets
greater than $250,000. More
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Sustainable
Development |
Answer: 363,584,435
Question: What
is the Census Bureau's projected U.S. population for the year 2030? That's 23
percent more than today's population of 296 million. The Washington Post asked
six observers
how this growth will change the country. More
Windham
Seeks Developers for Four Mixed-Use Projects
Windham, CT has
issued a request for qualifications (RFQ) for mixed-use developments on four
Town/CHFA owned properties in its Willimantic section. The town seeks a firm
that can
complete the development projects, consistent with the Town’s vision, and
transform the
properties into active, productive, and vibrant parts of the community.
More
Survey of
Recent Innovations in Energy Policy
See what
state-level innovations in energy policy are taking place across the US. Browse
this
Government Innovator's Network survey, organized by topic or state, to find
links to related
resources. Connecticut is cited for its policy on alternative fuel and hybrid
vehicles for state
fleets. More
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Environment |
DPW to Pay Over $38,000 To
Settle EPA Claims of Clean Water Act Violations
The Connecticut
Department of Public Works has agreed to pay a $12,500 penalty to the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency and to spend $26,150 on environmental projects
to settle
claims it violated environmental laws concerning oil spills at a building
formerly owned by the
State of Connecticut at the Fairfield Hospital Complex in Newtown. On Dec. 8,
2003, the facility
discharged about 5,000 gallons of heating oil into Deep Brook, a sensitive trout
stream, leading
to the death of hundreds of fish. The discharge came from a 10,000-gallon above
ground
storage tank that had suffered a line failure. DPW had no Spill Prevention
Control and
Countermeasure plan for the facility, as required by the federal Clean Water
Act, and did not
have adequate secondary containment to contain a spill. More
Free
Guidebook on Controlling Urban Runoff Pollution
The EPA has released
a guidebook on managing runoff pollution caused by urban activities.
The guide is designed to help states and cities in their pollution-management
programs for
protecting waterways. The guide covers 12 management measures for setting
performance
goals for storm water control programs and for minimizing urban runoff. Nonpoint
source
pollution, unlike pollution from industrial and sewage treatment plants, comes
from many
sources. They include contaminated runoff from paved surfaces, malfunctioning
septic
systems, pet wastes, over-applied fertilizers and pesticides, improperly
disposed household
chemicals, and motor-vehicle fluids. More
EPA Publishes
Guide to Watershed Management
The EPA's 414-page
draft Handbook for Developing Watershed Plans to Restore and Protect
Our Waters is aimed toward communities, watershed groups, and local, state,
tribal, and
federal environmental agencies that are working with impaired or threatened
waters. More
Preserved But
Not Protected
The Council on
Environmental Quality has issued a special report, "Preserved But Not Protected:
The Damage to Connecticut's Preserved Lands From Boundary Encroachments,
Illegal Tree
Cutting, ATVs, and Other Assaults." Press
release;
Report
(in Word)
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Public Policy |
LPRI Committee Updates Study on
Connecticut's Tax System
The General
Assembly's Legislative Program Review & Investigation Committee has released a
study of Connecticut's tax system. Among other things, the report, which
includes changes
adopted on January 19, indicates that the local property tax provides a great
measure of
stability to the overall revenue system, but heavy reliance on that tax raises
concerns about the
balance of Connecticut’s state and local tax structure. Among other things the
report finds that
Connecticut has a complementary system, with no overlap in taxing authority, but
policymakers
do not have an accounting of the cost impact of state mandates on towns, and the
state does
not fully fund its obligations to municipalities. One of the things the report
recommends is to
amend CGS §2-79a to require the Connecticut Advisory Commission on
Intergovernmental
Relations every four years to report on each unfunded and partially funded state
mandate
affecting municipalities, quantify the actual cost of major mandates, and
determine the effect of
eliminating or reducing any such mandates.
More;
Digest
Learning
to Think and Act Like a Region
As in much of
New England, each town retains land use authority and is governed through
town meetings and the decisions of numerous local commissions and boards. Each
of these
jurisdictions has historically tackled land use issues independently, but the
nature of existing
trends and emerging challenges calls out for a different approach. Planning
across boundaries
– or regional collaboration – is slowly emerging as an essential component of
land policy and
planning in the twenty-first century. See this Lincoln Land Use Institute
article, co-authored by
Kevin Essington, director of the Pawcatuck Borderlands Program for the The
Nature
Conservancy in Connecticut and Rhode Island.
More
Battle
over property rights goes on, despite ruling
According to
this article, a mediator will decide if homes in New London will be razed to
make
way for private development.. More
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Kelly Kennedy | 38 Castlewood Road | West Hartford, CT 06107 | 860.521.0341 | kelly.kennedy@think-plan-do.net
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