2026-10-26 - Board of Representatives Legislative and Rules Committee

Alrighty, thank you everybody for being here. I'm going to call to order this meeting of the Legislative and Rules Committee October 27th at 7.01 p.m. I see in attendance committee members Blank, Monroe, Pambrelian, Hyatt, Lapine, Myself, Stone, Weinberg. I think that's it. And then I also see ex-officio members in attendance, Johnson, Pollock. I think that's it. - So if anybody... - Hiya. - Hiya, too. - Hi, Brett. No worries. Alrighty. So with that, we have two items on our agenda this evening. So we're moving to item number one. I'd like, you know, I appreciate a motion to approve LR 32.01, excuse me, 021. Thank you. - Thank you. - Thank you very much. So I hear a motion and a second with respect to LR 32.021, a resolution urging the Connecticut General Assembly to enact statewide window safety legislation for protection of children. And I understand the author of this resolution has a motion that he'd like us to consider. So Representative Stone. Thank you, Mr. Kay. We've not yet discussed this in committee. I wanted to go with a slightly different version than the one that was originally released that incorporates input from various conversations of how people, it allows us to just have one conversation that is cleaner than to go through the original text and then the amendments because it reflects all the changes that I want to incorporate based on those decisions. So if it's okay with the committee, I'd like to go forth with that amended version that was sent out to the committee earlier. Perfect. Sorry, are you making a motion to substitute that? I'm making a motion to substitute. - Perfect. - And a second? - Second. - Thank you very much. Any discussion on the motion to substitute? Yes, Representative Boudreau. Yeah, I'm curious about the motivation on the substitutions. The thing that stands out to me, assuming I'm working on the correct versions, is that in the original resolution, we called for statewide legislation on the window safety protection. And in the substituted version that you're proposing, it is narrowed down to a municipal opt-in framework. Yes. I struggled to see the virtue of that. If there is a safety benefit being gained, is there a reason why it shouldn't be statewide? I guess the thing I usually think of is the case where we're using municipal opt-in is if we can't pass the stronger legislation at the state level, then maybe you can pass a municipal opt-in version. So just curious what your problem was there. Sheriff, for you to respond to your-- Yes, I'm also sorry. Before you reply, though, I just want to introduce our invitees that I forgot to introduce. So apologies. So I'd also see an attendance on this item. John Harnas, Attorney John Harnas, Information Counsel, Director Linda Rubis, Director of Public Safety at the City of Stanford, and also Chief Rex Morris of the Stanford Fire Department. And back to you, Representative Stiles, apologies. I've had various conversations with people to try to understand what makes the most sense. And given that there is a lot of variance in buildings, in the housing stock, in different towns, it doesn't necessarily make, I think, as much sense to do a blanket call for advocacy. And again, remember, this is just a call for advocacy. It's not necessarily stating what the regulations should be at any given time. It's saying what we think the state should consider doing. But I think that having it be as a municipal opt-in allows for the most flexibility for cities and towns to decide what makes the most sense for them, but most importantly, incorporate in the realities of their housing stock, the challenges and such that go with it, as well as the expertise that the local public safety officials have, based on their experience with the towns and the buildings themselves, to figure out what does or does not work best for them. So that was a rationale for making that better. Okay. I'm still partial to the idea of having a well-written set of statewide rules rather than kind of a, you know, in a highly-great place, a biological algebra. Ultimately, it's going to be up to the state to determine what those rules are going to be. Again, this is a call for advocacy. So what we end up doing in this room, and then hopefully next month in full committee, is that as opposed to designing necessarily what those rules are going to be. At the end of the day, the state's going to do whatever they want. So I don't think it makes a ton of sense to spend too much more time on this one here before. Also, to correct something, I think I said, Director Luger was, I don't think he's in attendance yet. Never mind. I was right the first time. Alrighty. Does anybody else want to just keep the floor with respect to the motion to substitute, which is effectively a motion to amend that? Quick point of information, if I may. Yes. Is this the same language that's in the legislative record on its 14th, or is this a new substitution? This is a new substitution that was circulated in the committee today. Got it. Okay, thanks. Sure. Though that being said, and representatives, oh, and correct me if I'm wrong, I believe the substance of the changes are reflected in the proposed amendment's email that is part of the record. Absolutely. It's a cleaning up in efficiency, so we don't have to vote on amendment after amendment. We don't have to vote at that besides the separate original intent. It's one thing that we vote on. But substantially, it is just the proposed changes from that email. I'm sorry, I did not, I couldn't. But substantially, it is just the proposed changes from that email. Same stuff that was empty. Awesome. Got it. Thank you. Sure. Thank you, Clerk Johnson. Yeah, I just want to say that I'm uncomfortable voting on anything without hearing first from our public safety officials. Sure. So with that, I'll turn it to either Chief Morris, Director Durovus, or Attorney Harness. If any of you like to share your thoughts on the ordinance, excuse me, the revised version of the ordinance. I could speak on it if you wish. I'm Rex Morris, I'm the fire chief. I have a terrible cold right now, so if you don't hear me well, I'm sorry about that. My thoughts on it, and I discussed it with the director, are we're concerned with any kind of lack of access or egress into someone's apartment when we have a fire, especially in taller buildings. Most of our larger buildings, the way they're designed, they have only one means of egress, that's the front door. And when people have a fire, even a small fire in their apartment, we use those windows for access. And also possible rescue of the people. We've had them very recently, where people had to be taken out of their windows on an upper floor of an apartment building by means of ladders. You could actually cut them out of the way or stall them out or pry them out with tools, but it makes it a lot more difficult. So there's a concern that I have, that whatever is decided upon by legislature, it's something that would be acceptable and agreeable to public safety. We do use windows as a means of egress for people trying to get out, also firefighters trying to get out, and for us trying to get into apartments when there's a fire. So we do that, and it's something that is a little bit, probably not thought of in that particular building where the tragedy happened, 65 Prospect Street. You know, I know the building, we had a second alarm fire there a couple years ago. We get fires in buildings in the city, not excessive amount of fires, but we get them. And having windows that prohibit egress and egress by firefighters or the people themselves, it is a concern. So I would really like to just throw out a word of caution there. Also, a lot of our buildings, if you take a look at them, they actually are balcony buildings. A lot of the buildings being built today, they have small balconies or larger balconies, and a lot of times people don't lock their balcony doors. I mean, I lived in a building that had a balcony a long time ago, and we rarely lock the door. So, you know, so somebody could actually go out a balcony, and that building has balconies in it, 65 Prospect, those have balconies in it. It could have happened anyway, even if the windows were blocked. And I don't even think the child, the unfortunate situation, wasn't even that child's apartment. That child was visiting a relative. So there's a couple of concerns with it, and I know we changed the wording on this recently. So I just want to put that word of caution out there that we think this through a little bit better. We do not have a lot of public housing here. We have some, a lot of this started in New York City with public housing and other buildings where people were actually, kids would fall out of windows frequently because of essentially a form of child abuse. Nobody was watching their kids, and they would just put their kids in an apartment and lock the door so they couldn't get out. So that was a little bit common, not very common, but it happened. And it caused a problem down the road because the fire department had trouble getting in when there was a fire there. So it's just like a word of caution on that, and I don't want to take up a lot of time. But from the fire chief's perspective, I would really like to think this through, and I would enjoy hearing comments. Thank you, Chief Morris. That's very helpful. Director Dromas. Hi, good evening, everyone. Sorry for joining a few minutes late. I was jumping over from planning committee. Yeah, no, you know, Chief Morris and I have had a lot of discussion on this. We've had some discussion with the attorney harness who's been very helpful. And let's just start with saying that what happened on that evening in Stanford last, this summer was a tragedy. And we have to do more to try and educate our residents and visitors to make sure that they are aware of the hazards surrounding screens and windows, especially as you go up in stories and buildings. And in terraces, as the chief said, a lot of these buildings have balconies that are just as hazardous. So it's important that we kind of educate our community as much as possible. And I think we definitely should explore ways to do that. Our main concern when this first started to come to light after that incident was we just don't want to see unintended consequences come as a result of this. I think a lot of people wanted to take immediate action and try and take some steps to prevent this from happening again. And yes, we agree with that. But we just wanted to make sure that we slowed this down and focused on what's the best option for Stanford. I know Chief Morris has an extensive background in New York City where this is very prevalent and that he's dealt with a lot of these type of situations there with our first responders trying to gain access to facilities that have these type of bars or other type of locking mechanisms on the windows. So what's the right fit for Stanford? And we just wanted to make sure that we brought this to this board's attention so that we don't put something forward to go up to the state level in which we have good intentions, but it leads to unintended consequences. And quite frankly, Chief Morris is like we're very fortunate to have him as our fire chief. He is a national expert in fire operations. And if they do end up doing hearings up there, he's testified numerous times on various firefighting and emergency rescue issues. I would just not like to see us putting forward something and then Chief Morris, our fire chief, is up there speaking against it. I don't think that would be a good look for the city. So I just wanted to make sure that we kind of had that discussion up front. And I think based on where we are with the current resolutions that's being proposed, I think we, you know, Rip Stone has done a lot of work on that. And I think we've kind of gotten to a point where Chief Morris feels comfortable as long as it comes down to not mandating any type of ordinance for landlords to do these type of devices. But rather than making it potentially an option or a path where if a tenant does request it, they would be able to have that available to them. Those are the kind of things that we would like to work towards in addition to the education. So I just appreciate your time on this. Thank you very much, Director Groves. That's helpful. Are there any, obviously, I have a couple of members that are looking to speak, so Representative Blank. Oh, before I get to you, sorry. I just wanted to recognize a couple of additional attendees we've got. Committee member Hughes in attendance, and also ex officio members Gardner, Alicia, and Shaw, I think, and Adams. I think that's it unless I've missed anyone. We have information. Yes. We're still voting on the, are we going to discuss the revised ordinance as opposed to the merits of the resolution, as opposed to the merits the resolution itself. Is that correct? That's correct. The question before the committee is whether or not to adopt effectively. I just want to make sure that as people are speaking that that is that we're not actually debating the pros and cons of the proposed resolution. More so, do we even talk about the, are we going to discuss the revised version? Yes. Understood. Representative Blank, you were before. I have a question. I'm hearing what the experts are saying, the buyer, chief, and Lou on Mr. Rubis, and I'm, I'm a New York City boy, grew up in an apartment building in New York, which had window lights. And, and I appreciate the concept and the safety that is involved with that. And I understand the chief's trepidation. What I understood when I read through the draft that you had proposed, and I'll get to my question, I apologize. Is does, you have reviewed this, I would imagine, with them, with the director to Rubis and chief Morris and, and corporate counsel. I, I'm not seeing anything in here that's saying that somebody has to do something. I'm seeing as a recommendation, and taken as that. Is that how you perceive it? Yeah, it's a recommendation. It's a call for advocacy. It's a perspective. It's up to the state to decide how and if they want to implement anything. This is merely meant to say, here's our perspective. Here's a thought on how we think that it might work as a good execution of it. But ultimately it's up to them to decide, do they want to take it up? If they do want to take it up, how do they want to define it? And do they want to have a statewide thing or do they want to have the municipal opt-in? That would entirely, entirely be up to the state. Well we're saying that we want to be able to say this is our recommendation, talk about it with the Stanford delegation to the Connecticut's legislature so they understand our perspective, and let it take the due process that anything in Hartford would take. All right, thank you very much. Sure. And I'm going to do a point of clarification as an exhibition. Sorry, I heard you ask the question, if we're asking this resolution, if we're requiring them, as Durovus had mentioned, you'd be comfortable not mandating it. The clarification is in section one, the fourth sentence down, it says to require. So are we asking, it sounds like we're asking for it to be a mandate, not as a suggestion. Just want to make sure the answer. Well it's a suggestion that that's the way that the state would implement it. Ultimately it was up to the state to decide if they want to have it as a requirement or something that the tenant can ask and then it is up to the landlord to grant that request or not. But that is our call for advocacy for the state to consider. Thank you. Thank you. Also for future reference I just wanted to clarify for everybody, point of clarification. I misunderstood your point, I thought you would amend the point of information. So generally, points of information should be questions, as opposed to statements, we shouldn't necessarily, you know, out of order, make clarifying statements generally. It sounded like he answered differently. My understanding was you were, you know, pointing to kind of what the resolution said to clarify a previous statement. And that's why I also made the point generally, if that wasn't your intention then that's perfectly fine. But for everybody else, you know, points of information, a-okay, clarifying points, take the floor to speak and then take it there. Thank you. First of all, I feel so bad for this family that lost this child, it was just horrible. I have a couple of questions. Some of them are for Director Derubus and some are for the Ordinance's sponsor. So to Director Derubus, you had just mentioned that you have been discussing with the chief education for residents and things like that. And I know I'd like to see that and I'd also love to see education for landlords as well. You know, maybe landlords can offer removable something, you know, things that you guys agree with. What type of education are you working on? But, you know, that would reflect back to it. Sure. Chief, would you like to discuss Children's Safety Month? I know you were looking, incorporating that into the Fire Marshal's presentations. Before we go into that, I just want to pause and I'm not sure if that's kind of related to the language that we're considering here. I think, you know, that's an important question that we might be able to follow up on. So my question for, I would like to sort of take that up when we do the main motion because I think it's important, but I'll let you decide that. My question for you, Scott, is to what end is this resolution going? So you propose a resolution to go to the state to ask them to give us the authority to write our own ordinance. Is that because you're considering having an ordinance drafted for Stanford? Will you take this to the next level once this resolution goes to the state and if the state passes it? I think it's something that's worth consideration, but anything in that time horizon is several months away. We want to be able to get more input from people and any sort of definitive answer that I give of that wouldn't be based on enough fact to really make it worth an answer because ultimately we don't know what the state might or might not grant us the right to do. So until I know what the sandbox is, I can't necessarily think about what I would or would not want to do in a theoretical sense. This is just calling for advocacy to give us the right to it, and just as a clarification, it's not talking about things like permanent bars or window guards. The revised version, one of the key things in this revised version that I wanted us to do today, is limiting it to temporary or removable window stops that provide a four-inch aperture. Nothing to do with bars and therefore the issue of or concern of losing valuable time and having a much more difficult time getting entry or egress changes dramatically because we're not talking about those bars like you see in New York City. We're talking about window stops that would be removable typically in about 30 seconds, if not less, using a halogen bar, which is a standard piece of equipment that firemen have when they would make such a call. So again, we can get into that aspect of it if we decide to take up the revised version of the resolution. So you're not putting the resolution forward because you want to bring an ornament. I think the state should consider it and decide what the state wants to do. I think that there is, personally, I think there is value in investigating what options we can do to keep people safe, especially considering there, but understanding there are significant differences on what protections are available depending on the age of the building that someone is in in terms of window stops being required versus not being required. And I think that's something that should be addressed. In terms of what that ultimate solution is for Stanford, I think it's very premature for me to think about any sort of ordinance that I'd want to introduce without having any direction as to where the state is going, if the state is going. And then for Chief Morris, will you, is it your intention to speak at the state level if they take this up? Yeah, I would. I would definitely share my thoughts, but I think you asked the question before, and the director mentioned it. We have a lot of, we have a lot of reach. The fire department has a lot of reach. In other words, every multiple dwelling, that's a building with more than, with three or more apartments, has to be inspected by our farm marshals to get their permits to operate a multiple dwelling. That gives us an opportunity to make people aware of the problem. You're going to start, and we do a lot of PSA announcements, whether they be car seats, whether they be smoke detectors, whether they be water safety in the summer when people are, you know, at the beach or swimming. And we put these things out frequently. And this is something that we would like to make people aware. And I think Rep. Scott mentioned that window limiters, now window limiters, a lot of modern windows have a window limiter built in, and they will only allow the window to be opened up four inches, or they could be installed as required or not required. I don't want to leave that word alone, because I think you'll get too much, there'll be a bigger lift than you might add, might think. But the limited window to a four inch opening is not a very hard thing to do, doesn't require gates or bars or anything of that nature. And that can be done when people have a child in a multiple dwelling that do climb or do have the ability to climb out of a window and the parents become aware of it. That would be something I think could be expressed between the landlord or the building superintendent and the family that's paying the rent. I mean, there's a lot of ways of doing it through education. And Child Safety Month actually is starting in November. We do have, this is going to be one of our topics, there's a lot of them, cooking safety, where people don't keep their pots on the stove with the handles turned in and the kid grabs it. See, we respond to all these bad things that happen. My guys responded and cared for that child who fell out of that window. And we don't want to see this, probably next to the parents, we do not want to see this at all. Those guys had a problem with it, going up on a ladder and bringing that child down and being part of transporting them to the hospital with a very sad result. So we're aware of it. And because this is a infrequent, the last time it happened that anybody could understand was 20 years ago. But I think it's happened and it brings us to a little bit of a focus right now because it did happen within the last year. And we are going to do some public safety announcements on this particular issue. So I don't know if the state, I don't really know how the state would be helpful to us if we could just do something on a local level, local law and ordinance that we have, where people do request a window limiter that they can work it out between the landlord and the renter. I'm just saying, I'm not in the legislature, but I know there's other ideas. And a lot of windows do have modern windows. A lot of them do have a little – looks like a wing that pops out. And you could break them if you had to really get out of the window. I mean, an adult could. A fireman surely could. So there's other avenues. I don't know – and maybe you folks know it. I don't want to go on and on and on because I have a cold that's killing me. I'm always reluctant to go to the state for help with legislature. Usually it's like you run into a lot of blockage of other entities and other jurisdictions probably will not even hear of this thing because they don't have this type of issue. They probably never had one. So anyway, that's my thoughts on it. I think education and child safety and things like that. We are about that. And our fire marshals can actually, when they do their inspections, can bring this up to the management people. So will you be speaking out against what they're asking for? I most likely will if it limits the ability for us to get in and out of these or else it's very specific of what they could do because I don't know if the idea would be to require every building to have these. I think it would be a monumental thing to even do. I think you'll get more of a pushback from the real estate interests in this city. But I don't know. Listen, I would speak as an educational part and let people know it does limit and inhibit what we have to do as firefighters. We have the most high-rise buildings in the state in this city. I mean, we have a lot of them. And we have a lot of, not high-rise, but tall buildings, four- and five-story buildings that would require these. And we do have a stake in it. I want my people to be safe and I want the people we were there to protect to have a better chance of survival in a fire. So it is an issue. So it depends on how it's proposed and written. I would not be in favor of it in many ways. But other ways, yes, possibly. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Campfella. Representative Weinberg did the floor. Also, just given the timing, I just want to remind everybody that we're currently, the question before the committee is a motion to substitute. It's really a motion to amend. I'd like to keep our comments limited to things that have changed because we still have to vote on the actual meat of the resolution itself. So there'll be plenty of opportunity to discuss the broader merits of it. Representative Weinberg did the floor. Thanks. So I have a great respect for Scott's, for the concerns that Scott has and the co-sponsors have, you know, that's driving this. But I think the amendments, unfortunately, don't solve the fundamental weakness of this proposed resolution. To me, the fundamental weaknesses of this proposed resolution are two. First, it, you know, the resolution specifically in the current version says that we want them to, we want the state legislature to introduce and pass legislation. So when we do that, once it goes to the state, we effectively lose control over the outcome, regardless of what we've encouraged, what we've proposed, what we've proposed. And so while the amendments are trying to narrow the scope of what we're recommending, that's my understanding, principally, of what these amendments do. It still opens it up to the state legislature, whereas the Chief Lawrence has pointed out, you know, many legislators have very different points of view and very different interests and constituents that they're trying to represent. And we effectively lose control as opposed to, you know, and I apologize that this gets into the main substance of the resolution, as opposed to retaining control here and asking what can we do as a municipality to improve safety in our apartment buildings. So that to me is one of the fundamental weaknesses of these amendments. The other fundamental weakness of these amendments is it puts our public safety leaders who have the best public safety record of, you know, throughout the city of our size, throughout New England, and one of the 25 best public safety records throughout 330 million people who live in this country. It puts us in us as a, as a legislative body in opposition to the experts who not only have we placed in these positions, have we supported in these positions, in their positions, but who have a record that is beyond exemplary. And I think that's a terrible stance for us to take. So I appreciate the effort in these, in these amendments, but they don't end up resolving what I believe are the two fatal flaws of this resolution. So I would urge the voting members this committee to reject the amendments and ultimately reject this, this resolution. Thank you, Chairman Cuman. I'm going to support the amendments and the resolution. I'm totally in great respect for our firefighters, my grandfather was a volunteer firefighter. But something needs to be done to address the safety issue. This is an issue that impacts families in my district, a lot of young families downtown in high rises, families of all backgrounds. I understand there's the concern regarding, you know, fire rescues, and my concern is if you leave this to an education campaign in any education campaign there's going to be inherently people miss an education campaign at the end of the day doesn't address the clear design flaw that some of these high rises have. So, again, I'm going to support this because I, the legislative process in Hartford is, you know, is what it is, and what we're saying and this is not likely what they would pass, you know, they probably study it for five years before they move on it. But something needs to be done to address this. And if that means we're in opposition with public safety officials and we're asking them to meet us where we are which is addressing this issue. You know, I don't see an issue with that so I'm going to support this resolution. I want to thank Representative Stone for bringing this forward, and I yield. Representative black you look forward. That's what if you if you were looking to get my attention before I missed you. Go ahead. I think, Representative Weinberg made some great points, and I was really hoping this substitution was addressing that maybe I'm confused so I also don't with the utmost respect that's why we look to our experts for guidance in these situations and I think education can happen simultaneously, not separately and I would support being a collaborative here and I thought that these amendments were addressing those concerns. So, through you, pro chairs. We made the amendments that everything had to be approved and I recognize it was a great point that at the state level they do whatever we they want. But that's how we get progress. We have these discussions and along the way every discussion we're having is more and more education. And I, I don't know what here is what is, is there something being opposed that is written in these amendments it's supposed to be approved by our local fire chief fire marshals. I know that we have mended it to take out the fire bars, you mentioned great options but that's what we're trying to do here so is there something in particular here that somebody is opposed to from public safety, but as a legislative branch, I'm hoping we could have these conversations. Oh you're muted, Chief Morris, if you're speaking. Okay, I'm on now. Yes, I heard what you said. Yeah, I did hear what you say said and there are there are things in there that could be problematic for us I don't think it would be something that would have to be looked at by our fire marshal and the chief of department of the fire department. If there's any kind of thing that would prevent egress from a occupied space. And, you know, we don't really know what the best thing is right now, people could put in, you know, if you if the legislature decides to come up with something that's different, totally different. It may be something that would not be conducive to what we're trying to do, and I don't know why the state has to be that involved in it. Because I think we could clearly do something at our own level we do have a lot of these types of buildings in our, in our city there's many or more than any other city, and I don't know if it's even the type of thing that would be necessary to put it up for the state. I think some places have probably proposed it places that have a lot of public housing, and maybe that's where it came from, but I'm sure a lot of other jurisdictions that really don't, really don't see or would even want this to move forward. So if it's something that's on a local level, a, not a local law but a city ordinance, there might be something that would be in agreement to that. There are things we could do once again to our fire marshals our fire marshals do meet with people they do meet with community groups, tenant groups, they do inspect these buildings, usually once a year, and this could be discussed we do that, plus a public service announcement on everything that we do, including things like smoke detectors that's our big push that probably is the most important thing we do we do put smoke detectors in literally by the thousands in this city, and it has made a great effect on safety. We do these things on a regular basis, we didn't need the state to actually do what we install them for anybody who asks for free, and I don't believe any other jurisdictions are doing that. So we could do surely on a local level by the fire department in conjunction with our fire marshals office. That's, that's one takeaway from this. Thank you very much. And I want to applaud it I think Stanford is an example. We have made so much progress and safety and I personally have been helped immensely by you. So thank you. It's my understanding that we couldn't do anything at the local level in terms of ordinances and legislation, which is why it's just a resolution encouraging, and I hope throughout the process we could continue to have your guidance. I would like to see this amendment of substitution, but I'm not on the committee so my answer. Thank you very much. I want to. First I want to make a statement. I'm in favor of this resolution for the one reason that constrains us, and this goes to everybody's conversation towards being able to propose something or do something with the city of Stanford, according to the resolution, and I have not read the state code, but according resolution says there is a state level constraint on building and housing preemption, and that would mean they have to change the law, and for them to do that to allow us to do something else has to happen first, and I applaud. Representative Stump, and I applaud his effort to find a way to make the ability for us to do something legislate something is is outstanding, and for that I will back this, and I appreciate all the evidence. Clark Johnson you have the floor. Oops. I'll. If I can I'll reserve my comments for when we're actually discussing the main motion. I think I can rephrase to be relevant there. Got it. Understood. Thank you, Clark Johnson, Representative Weinberg and the Representative Stump. Well I want to address two points that have just recently been made. First is the comment that something needs to be done. I would agree with that, but that doesn't mean that anything that comes into our heads should be done. You know, directed to Rubis talks about unintended consequences, but I don't see any analysis or forecast of what those unintended consequences could be. According to what Chief Morris said a few minutes ago, this tragedy, the last time this tragedy took place was about 20 years ago. Would the things that might come out of the state legislature, would they create tragedies more often than 20, once every 20 years? A tragic death more often than once every 20 years or less often? We don't know. We haven't asked ourselves those questions because we're just assuming away the existence of unintended consequences. I think that's foolish. The other thing that was said was the comment about state level constraints. And of course there are state level constraints on what we as a municipality can do. There are almost every subject. But there are no state level constraints on what we can do in terms of education. There are no state level constraints in terms of what we could do to put a line negative in the budget to buy the kinds of plastic window guards that prevent windows from going up and distributing them to residents or the landlords and creating a campaign to do that. Those are just two ideas off the top of my head. I'm sure there are others that people far more knowledgeable than I could recite. We should be, instead of tossing it to the state legislature, we should be doing the things that we can do that we are not constrained over and making those things happen instead of always looking to create, you know, to always looking to others to solve the problems for us. So that's why I think these amendments don't work and ultimately why I think this resolution doesn't work. There is so much on this very important subject that we have the ability to bandwidth power to do. I'd rather think we're far better off focusing on what we can do to solve this real problem than kicking the candle. Thank you, Representative Williams. Representative Stone, you have one more. My understanding, and again it's just an understanding, is that this will may very well be taken up by the state legislature next year with or without our involvement with it. From what I've seen, there's a state senator out of South Windsor, Senator Anwar, who is very engaged with this and has mentioned the possibility of introducing something about this in the 2027 state legislature. That being said, I go back to what Representative Hughes was saying. We need to take action, and education is a component of that, and I think that it would be great to be able to have distribution of window stops available and be able to do that. But not knowing what the state is going to do, but given that there's a very strong possibility the state will be taken action. We at least, by passing this resolution, state our opinion, we've got a seat at the table, we're sharing our perspective with it. This body doesn't necessarily have the ability to mandate that we get funding for the window stops, as you were saying, is a possible solution. Well, I think that'd be great. The point that you were saying before, education doesn't necessarily reach everyone, or even necessarily a significant portion of people. It's a start, it's a part, but I don't think it should be the only thing that we're dealing with as our only tool, as our only attempt to solve this, when the stakes are potentially as high as they are. And again, I think that something that I'm afraid is getting buried, is that this revised version is not calling for bars, it's not calling for guards, it's calling for window stops, which as Chief Morris was saying, is something that people could... Pretty much adults from the inside could probably break through if they need to, and do not provide a meaningful barrier to entering or exiting through a window for residents or for firefighters. Especially using the standard tools like a halyard, if needed, if they couldn't even break through. And that's all that this amended resolution is calling for advocacy. So the way I see it, we state our perspective as a possible solution, a guide to the state to take it up. Again, we can't control if the state is going to, but we can influence if our state reps are made aware of it and made aware of our perspective, and our perspective potentially being that education is not enough. And yes, we'd like to be able to maybe do more and maybe have the distribution of the tools, but we can't mandate that right now. What we can do right now is be able to at least raise this topic for discussion, and hopefully the state could then grant us the ability to have a more meaningful, definitive conversation in which education would certainly play a large part if, or if not, this ends up being passed. And I applaud the fact that Chief Morris was saying there was going to be a lot of discussion with it in November, and that's great. I think that's only part of the solution, and I think that this proposed, revised approach could be another valuable part of the solution. Thank you, Representative Stone. Clark Johnson, are you looking for the floor for this? You got the floor. Awesome, thank you. Two quick points, I guess, or let me start with a question. Has this, or this group of amendments, I should say, been discussed with our state delegation at all, the state reps or the state senators for kind of the broader area? Through you, Chair, one of the co-sponsors. It has not yet been discussed because I didn't want to have preliminary conversations on something that wasn't passed, that didn't have a final form, and go against what the protocol would be. Do I think it should be? Obviously I do, but I thought it'd be very presumptive to have those conversations and calls for advocacy before this body had a chance to deliberate. Thanks, that answers that question. I might have some more comments once we get to the main item, but I guess on the group of amendments here, my worry is, it sounds like the rationale is to open a discussion, right? Because obviously this tragedy that happened, the idea is it warrants some response. I guess my concern is that's not what this resolution says, right? This resolution advocates for a specific outcome that may or may not be the desired outcome, right? So this isn't opening a discussion, this is closing a discussion, right? Saying here is the city of Stanford's preferred solution. So that's my key worry with these amendments and perhaps a similar worry with the underlying matter. But I'll yield back to Chair. Thank you, Clerk Johnson. Debbie Morgan. I was just to answer, yes, co-sponsors. Anyone spoke to the state reps? I have spoken to a few of the state reps and agreed that after all the amendments were made and in between when it comes in front of the full board. So should the committee tonight pass it, I would also be reaching out saying this is what, but the general sense that I've gotten from the people I've spoken to is they're in favor of a resolution and addressing it at the state level. But I don't have anything more definitive than that. Thank you. Yeah, Representative Stone. Again, this comment may be more relevant if we get to the point of delivering the entire thing. But the reality is the physics of a child pushing against a screen do not change regardless of what we do or do not do. But what we're trying to do is provide a barrier, provide a way to increase safety. That is the goal with it. What ultimate form that takes is not going to be decided in this room tonight. It will probably potentially be decided sometime in Hartford next year. But we are sharing our perspective on what we think a solution might make sense to me. Again, this proposed revised solution calls for Windows Docs, which from my understanding from what Chief Mars was saying, admittedly provides very little barrier to the ability for fire personnel to enter search protocols. So it theoretically would not adversely impact their ability to do the job. And it provides our perspective for the state to choose to act or not act. But at least we as a legislature within the city of Stanford are acting by bringing this up. Bring this up in conjunction with education. That is the minimum of what we can do. And hopefully we can get to a point tonight where we can vote on the amended resolution, which I believe assuages some of the potential concerns that people might have from an operational perspective and be able to then have the ultimate vote next week and then maybe have fruitful conversations as Representative Pollock was saying with our state reps to get their perspective and see what their thoughts are. I see no other representatives that wish to see the floor on these amendments. I have a quick question for Chief Morris, if you're still on. Yes, I'm here. Hey, Chief Morris. So the question I have is one of the amendments between the original version and this version, one of the primary amendments is moving off of the language that required the installation of temporary or removable window guards or window stops. And instead, now it just says temporary or removable windows stops. And based on the discussion we've heard tonight, I guess my question is, and apologies if you addressed it, is that specific change? Does that alleviate some of your concern about the barrier to enter these dwellings? It's an improvement, but one of the things that I'm concerned with is that so an apartment will go through many, many, many years of many different occupants. And anything that's put in there that's kind of permanent or semi-permanent may never be removed. So when you have a child who's within that age parameter where that might be a problem, does that device have to stay there forever or can it be removed? Because once again, no matter how you restrict egress, it is still a restriction. So there's things in there that I think would have to be cleared up. And I don't know how it would end up in a legislature such as the state legislature when it came back down to become state law. And then we'll kind of stock with it. So I think the latest of the amendments said it would be something that would be approved by the fire chief and fire marshal, meaning a local fire chief and a local fire marshal. And I think that might be a better way. I think it would be something that we could make sure that something is not going to be there forever in a building. One second. Thank you, Chief Morris. That's hopeful for me to understand. I have further comments and questions on the main merits. But I think with respect to the amendments, two things. One, procedurally, I don't see good reason to not accept these amendments even if we're not necessarily supportive of the underlying motion. We still have the opportunity to discuss the merits of the underlying resolution. But I think the co-sponsors feel that this is an improvement. And from what we're hearing from our experts, it seems like the amendments themselves are at least an improvement of the original, if not necessarily kind of a full endorsement of the entirety of it. And so for those reasons, I'm supportive of the amendments. And I have further thoughts on the main motion I'll share when we get there. Representative Stone and then Representative Ryan. Just pointing out again, the amended version specifically says temporary or removable window stops. So the design is to not have something become a permanent thing that stays in that apartment in perpetuity. My further understanding is that there is a difference in the requirements for buildings that were rather built since 2018 or had a significant renovation since then. And that the exact thing we're calling for here, the window stops, is actually called for already in those buildings. So essentially we're kind of closing the gap potentially between what exists in newer or renovated buildings already versus buildings that predated. That's my understanding. Thank you, Representative Stone. Representative O'Connor, you go for it. Thank you. Just want to follow up on your comments. I view the amendments as the lesser of two evils, but it doesn't solve the core evils so well. I will vote for the amendment with the hope that it does not pass. I'm doing so because if it should, it's the one that at least gives us less of a problem. But I'll save the rest of the comments that I just want to clarify my vote. Thank you very much. Does anybody else wish to seek the floor with respect to these amendments? Seeing nobody else, let's do this by roll call. Angie, if you don't mind helping with the roll call? Sure. McEwen? I mean, yes. Camparelli? Yes. Blank? Yes. Boudreau? I'm standing. Hughes? Yes. Pied? Yes. Can't find it. I spin. Lapine? Yes. Stone? Yes. And Weinberg? Yes. 8-0-1. Thank you very much. So 8-0-1, the motion to substitute passes. So now, I'm going to open the floor for anybody that has comments with respect to passage of LR 32.021 as amended. Representative DeGraw. So I came into this meeting expecting that I was going to vote in favor of this. And I think Representative Stone actually has talked me out of it. Because my hope and my vision is that the state would take up this item and they would really deep dive on it. And they would figure out what the best balance of the various needs are. Because there's the egress need. There's the following risk. There's things we haven't even discussed or even imagined here. And there's a holistic view that needs to be done. Representative Hughes referenced the state taking a five-year study. That's kind of what I want. I don't want it to take five years. But I really want them to deep dive and figure out all of the angles and all of the aspects. And why so originally this resolution was us saying, in my mind, look into this figure that we want to do. And the main communication that we're doing is that we wanted them to take out the item. But now it learns that there is apparently a senator who already is pushing for this. It's my theory, it's based on some-- I'm sorry. Let me finish it now and then we'll get-- That there is maybe a senator who is already pushing for this. And the objection that I have is, as Clark Johnson mentioned earlier, this resolution presupposes an outcome. Which is that requiring the installation of temporary removal stops on a time by time level and all of that is the correct policy. And you talk about wanting us to have a seat at the table, which is admirable, but this body has not really done its homework to know what the correct solution is. Maybe you have, but this body has not. And so I'm not really comfortable voting in favor of an item that makes specific suggestions like that unless we have really ourselves taken the deep dive to look at all of the angles on that. And we, as a body, have not. And so I would support a resolution that said we want the state to look at this and investigate this and figure out what the correct thing to do is. But I find it very difficult to support a resolution that says this is the outcome that we want. Thank you, Representative Udo. We have a couple of folks that have stopped the floor before you, but as the primary sponsor, if you have a very brief reply. Yeah, I have other comments I want to make, but a brief reply. My understanding from things I've read in the media is that state Senator Anwar has commented that something should be done, things should be looked into. I have no visibility into his legislative agenda for next year. I'm just responding to the thought that I don't think this is necessarily just a thing that Stanford would care about. I think it's something that we should advocate for. And I think there's nothing wrong with us giving a suggested approach of what we think works. But ultimately, the key is the municipal opt-in. So while that could be the suggestion that we have of what we think works for Stanford. Ultimately, the state would decide to grant or not grant the right. And at that point, then we as a body would be able to do the due diligence that you're talking about in terms of trying to figure out what is the solution that makes sense for Stanford. But we need to be granted that right first, and that's what this is called. Thank you, Representative Stone. Vice Chair Camperelli, you have the floor. So, Representative Stone, would you consider amending the resolution so that it is more general? In other words, I agree with you that all of those things can be done in committee. We can have experts testify from both sides on different methodologies for keeping children safe. So why not? I mean, I think maybe you'd have a better chance of it passing if it was amended to just ask the state to allow Stanford to create its own laws regarding window safety for children. So that's my first question to you. I think there's nothing wrong with us offering a perspective. Ultimately, it would be up to our state, represent our state delegation, to decide what their perspective is. If they think that this suggested approach makes sense, if they feel there's a different way of approaching it, that's entirely up to them. So I think it's important that we have a suggested approach in here, which is why I included it in there. But I have no vision that that is necessarily how anything would end up. Knowing it needs to go through the discussions with our state reps, knowing it needs to actually even be potentially introduced into Hartford, and then hopefully have much less than a five-year horizon to be able to have something happen. But I see no harm in us offering, hey, here's what we think is our recommended solution, but we're not. Then it'll be saying, this is what it should be. Right. I was just suggesting that because I do hear representatives here saying that they don't know all of the things that maybe you know. They're not comfortable giving the state specific things to rule on. So what I'm saying is that if your resolution just asks the state, perhaps, to give us control, and I love the language, fire chiefs and fire marshals, like consulting them, then it might make everyone more comfortable to send the resolution. And then also about your point, we can have experts testify. Scott can have experts testify to the fact that these are the best window of safety, and they're not going to jeopardize any firefighters' lives or anything like that. You can have people like that come to committee and discuss those things. So I just wanted to suggest that maybe you want to make an amendment like that to get some of the people that are not on board. Thank you. Next up, we have Clark Johnson. You've got the floor. Yeah, I guess I just want to echo from from my perspective. I think Rep. Foudreau, I believe, was summed it up quite nicely. This feels a little bit like if I were in my day job going to my boss and asking for permission to do a project. And I want permission to own that project and with a budget. And she asked me, great, what are you going to do? And I say, well, I don't know. It just feels premature for us to have not done the homework as a city, to decide what it is that is best for the city, to then go ask the state preemptively for permission to do what we don't know we want to do yet. And so I'm quite concerned. I'm to represent camp really point I'd be much more inclined to support a more broad kind of we wish the legislature would look into this Senate leaves things open. But I think simply put, the group here hasn't the group, broadly speaking, obviously certain individuals have group, broadly speaking, doesn't have consensus on what the best approach is. And to then have a unanimous view on this is the way it should be, I think, is simply premature. So with that, I'll yield. Thank you, Clerk Johnson. President Shaw, you have the floor. Thank you so much. I apologize. I'm driving and if I hear a background noise, I apologize. But I'm one of the co-sponsors and I supported this resolution. And I was knowing and comfortable that the chief and the director where, you know, they had, while they had concerns and we've alleviated a lot of their concerns through this amendment. But I am I'm hearing what Clark Johnson said and representative Boudreaux and representative camp early said. And while I think that, you know, it's very unpredictable as everyone said, there is what is going to happen and what what what will be taken up or not taken up. So I'm not the main sponsor, but I would be very open to having a more generic resolution to ask the state to take this item and stressing the importance of it. And we have done similar resolutions in the past with a sense of the board. So I would be open to having a more broader resolution if that's what makes sense at this point. And like everyone said, once we have some kind of direction on where the state is going at that point, we will know whether we need a ordinance that locally we could do or anything else that we could do. That would help our fire marshal and our fire chief and our firefighters because ultimately that's that's the goal here is to have everybody be safe. So whatever way we can achieve that. So I'm more open to having an amendment, but ultimately Scott's the main sponsor. So with that, I yield. Thank you, President Shaw. Representative Lopana. Thank you, Chair. I I'm grateful we have people on this board that act when they see bad things happen. And so the minute this happened, we reached out representing the stone to a lot of us and talked about that we can't stand by idly and not see what's within our board. I think that comes from a great place. You also delayed putting this in front of us a month ago because they hadn't yet gotten input from the experts, which I also applaud because I think that's one of the big mistakes we often make is that we step in where we have highly qualified people who live these tragedies every day, who wake up every morning thinking about how they keep the people of the city safe and we're very fortunate to have some very talented leaders in those seats. And they came here tonight and they spoke and they have concerns. And that's all I need to hear. I think just to represent Weinberg race. We can operate from a position where we have a scarcity of options and start waving our arms and ask our food to come in and save the day, or we can start thinking about it from a position of an abundance of ideas and getting input from our experts from our state delegates. And think about ways we do this, where we reduce the potential risk of unintended consequences. So I have such regard for President Shaw, who while she's a sponsor, allows the process to play out, listens to the experts and says, hey, the process works. I have a change of heart or change of thinking around it. That's what this is for. I don't think it's about getting dug in to defend. I think you brought the right people to the table. I think they told us what we need to hear. That's what the process is here to do. And I have such a high regard for that process and for those individuals. And therefore, I will absolutely be voting now. Thank you. Representative Hughes, you have the floor. Thank you, Chairman. You know, I, when I reference, you know, us, you know, punting this to the General Assembly, you know, it becoming a five-year study or whatever is kind of their way of tackling tough issues. All that does is further kick the can down the road of this potentially happening again. This is something that disproportionately impacts folks and kids who live in urban neighborhoods. This isn't particularly a huge issue in suburban or rural Connecticut. But I don't think this resolution as written does anything other than actually, you know, asking for Stanford to have the ability to institute these temporary removable window stops, which addresses the concern of fire chiefs and fire marshals is my understanding. That's why we this amendment was made in terms of, you know, asking for the legislature for a solution. This is about the most cost effective one and feasible one, in my opinion. You all know, by now, I'm not a big fan of overburdensome regulations when it comes to building apartments. That's not the approach that this took. To me, these are common sense asks for a growing city of 140,000 people. Downtown Stanford, we have a number of tall high rises being built that are going to be occupied by children. So I'm going to happily support this and I yield. Thank you. I represent it is coming more to the point what what you just said, someone just said really resonated with me. And I think we're all kind of saying the same thing here. And at first, I thought it was opposition vote for it or against it. But it seems to me that everyone here wants to have progress, education, a fix and have safety. Everyone's together. And to me personally, this resolution is in that step of the right direction. And please don't quote me on this number because it's been a while since I took the test. But I remember for other safety issues such as carbon monoxide, smoke detectors, guards on stairways, all of that before it was mandatory. I think it was something like before 1970, 3 percent of homes had smoke detectors. And I think mid to late 70s, it became mandatory. Every 10 years it doubled by the homes that had it. It takes time. And before that happened, cities were trying to call for an education happening until it's mandatory. We weren't seeing what we take for granted through the education of all of our public safety providers advocating for it. It wasn't in every home and it saves lives, even if it's just one life. So I'm also open to amendments. I'm open to making it more generalized or broad. But I also heard from committee members that there's concerns about making it too broad because we don't know what the state's going to do. So whatever this committee decides, whether it's amendments or not, I'm still hoping we can have a resolution so we could get in front of it and bring more experts to the table. Thank you very much. I just want to share some perspectives just so we kind of understand and kind of tackle. If you look at the data associated with it, and I think we all acknowledge this is a real problem, but I think we should always kind of understand the magnitude of it. You look at the information from the National Safety Council. It notes as 12 deaths and 5,500 injuries to kids 10 and under every year from falling out of windows. 12 deaths, 5,500 kids. Just for perspective, that's more than the number of children born to Stanford families from 2022 through 2025. Now, the majority of these deaths and injuries are kids 5 and under. And the reason why is because a window screen is designed to keep bugs out, not designed to keep children in. It ends up being essentially an illusion of security. It only takes five pounds of pressure to force the screen out. So here's where we can take the data, marry it to humanity and come up with action. And this danger that we're talking about, I don't see it as necessarily even just being the screen, but also the systematic difference in the way that older buildings, newer buildings are being treated. Because, again, my understanding is these window safety control devices, they're only mandated for new construction since 2018 or something that's had a level three gut renovation, which affects over 50 percent of the building. So if a landlord is doing a standard apartment flip, they can just slide new windows into the old existing frames bypassing the model and safety features. So essentially this, for lack of a better term, sash loophole ends up leaving a conservative estimate of about twenty three thousand units in Stanford completely unprotected, which is, if my calculations are right, about 60 percent of our multifamily housing stock. So we're essentially setting a different standard for the safety of a child living in an older building versus one living in a newer building. And I personally don't think that a child's life should be protected or not protected as much based on the construction date of their house. And this is our opportunity to advocate for the tools to sew up this potential loophole. Because as we've seen, as we've discussed today, gravity doesn't wait for laws to be passed. Thoughts and prayers are not enough when we as legislators have the tools to try to mitigate this issue. And education, as I said, is important. Education and empathy are an important start. They've got great value. But action and advocacy are the things that can actually work here and potentially beat gravity. We know, like we said, that every city and town is different and the housing stock varies dramatically. And we talked about that. That's why I was asking to have the ability to have cities and towns be able to opt in, customize solutions based on their local needs, based on the input from their local experts and their public safety leaders. Because what doesn't change is the physics of a child falling through a screen. And that's why I think we need to act. And that's why I think we need to pass this resolution asking the state to act. So we've made these amendments now calling for the window stops, the four inch things that are basically the same thing that exists in the newer buildings, which Chief Morris had said doesn't really prevent someone from pushing out to get out or for fire personnel to be able to remove that, especially if they're using a housing bar. They can pop it open in five to ten seconds and allows the firefighters to still do event enter search protocol if needed, protecting both potential victims and the firefighters. And these stops don't create fire traps. They create essentially a virtual safety net for children at risk for falling out. So at its core, this is a simple request, this resolution advocate to our state reps, create a literal and physical framework where we don't have to choose between protecting kids and protecting first responders and have the same affordable safety standards apply regardless of the age of the building. I think by removing the operational concerns that we've done, I think this moves forward the process. To Representative Camparelli's point, I also recognize this is one committee member's perspective. So if you strongly feel that a more general amendment makes sense, please feel free to introduce it. We can decide if that makes sense and then we can hopefully come into a position. And with that, I open the floor. Thank you, Representative Stone, Vice Chair Camparelli. I just want to say that I actually did do research on these things just like you did. And I came up with the same thing that you did. What you're proposing is pretty much the safest thing out there for everybody, the children and the firefighters. So I'm not disagreeing with you on that. I really am not. I'm very supportive of what you're doing. All I'm saying is that once we have the power in our hands to legislate, you can bring forth experts to the chief and director, and you can prove to this committee that those are the right things to do. Right now, I think generally what you're asking is for the state to give you the power to bring these things forward. And I think the easiest path for you tonight and for the full board is to just make this a general request to the legislature in light of this tragedy and all the whereas and everything that you have here and just say, basically, please give us the power to legislate this ourselves. And then and then it's the second part where you bring the experts and all the things that you're saying to us right now, which I believe you want forward as to best practices. And that's when you get buy in from director. And Chief Shaw. You convince them that it's the right thing to do. I just think that we're putting the cartwheels of expression, the cart before the horse. You know what I'm saying? So I'm totally with you. And I'll even help you find some of those experts when we get to that point. And I think in order to get this passed tonight, because what I'm hearing is that you have a lot of opposition that, you know, maybe we just make a general and I don't know what that is, maybe the board can help you. Next up, the Supreme Senator Blaine. And I'm listening to the amendment to the amendment to the amendment to the amendment. Right. And I listened to everybody in the room on the screen, and I appreciate everybody's input. And I personally would appreciate all the words that were in this document, and especially paragraph one, which gives exactly what we want, right? We want to not opportunity to pass legislation to enable the city of Stanford or any other city to mandate by the board actually think of legislate some better safety protocol for our children in downtown. And people too, but to move it past and make it more generic. And I think, I think, if we were willing to take it up and make this minor change. I think it would move this forward through full committee and through the board. I know you won't, but I think if all we needed to change would be allows the city and town to require the installation to get rid of that and just legislate enable a municipal opt in framework that allows individuals and towns. Just an opt in framework period, and then get rid of everything else underneath that. And you would say that this is what we want. We want to be able to opt in to be able to change the law or mandate a resolution. And I think that works here and allow us to move forward with this without having to tell them exactly what we might want to do, which is what I'm hearing. Everybody's saying, well, this might be the best solution. I've even heard our fire chief Morris say that he may not back this up and I want everybody backing it up because it's the last thing I want to hear later on is that in the advocate of me. Oh, the resolution sent by the city board reps made it to Hartford and then got squelched by its own fire chief, which would be really ugly. So not putting in the words of what we're going to do, but just saying we want to be able to do something is better saying they do not. And for that, I would advocate for this minor change and this amendment to the amendments that we can forward on that. And then we will move this group. All right. Thank you. President Shaw, you have the floor. Sorry, I had my hand raised originally and I lowered it because whatever I had to say, Representative Kimberly covered it. And I only want to add one other thing is that, you know, can you hear me? Yeah, sorry. Well, we have a point of order on the floor. One second. Okay. What is the current culture before the committee? The same one. No motion was made. President Shaw, you've got the floor. Apologies. No worries. Sorry about that. I can't have half the things, but no signal in a lot of places. But anyway, I was whatever I had to say, most of it was covered by Representative Kimberly. But the only one thing I wanted to add was that I don't necessarily with all your respect. I mean, I know Scott's done a lot of work on it and a lot of research, but with all I don't think whether having that one sentence, I well, I understand the importance. I understand what we're asking. But even if we take that out, I necessarily don't think that takes away anything from the fact that this board wants to take an action. This board wants to have the state look at it. I don't think it takes away that sentiment. And so with that in mind, I really hope that we can come to something that's workable, that will be acceptable to move forward and at least have something like something to the state to look at with that idea. Thank you. Thank you. Representative Weinberg, you're the floor. Thank you. So I've heard a number of representatives use this phrase call to action. And I think that's really true. Because there are actions that we can take. I think that a resolution imploring the state legislature to solve a problem for us is like a is is a call to action kind of like, you know, our kids calling us to action to do something that would, you know, that they want us to do. That they're not, you know, and that they're not, for whatever reason, only to do themselves. I just looked it up these plastic window stops. Anybody want to guess how much they cost? $2. Well, that's the middle of the range. The range is one to four. And I suspect, you know, somebody's buying them in serious bulk. They're gonna be closer to the one than the four 23,000 units, six units, six windows by unit. I don't know. I don't know if that's accurate or not, but if it is, that's like 125,000. What if instead of imploring the state legislature to give us, you know, help us, what if we implored the planning board and the mayor to put $125,000 into the budget, which is not a lot of money in the context of a $750 million budget, right? What if we implored them, you know, the mayor and the planning board and the board of finance, put that money into the budget. And then when the fire marshals, and again, I have no idea if this is the great state. And the fire marshals, when they go out and do their inspections and say, Hey, look, we've got these things. Here's how to install them. They don't cost you anything. I'm sorry, we're getting off. I'm just saying that there are so let's hear that. I think we're getting off the point, which is to pass or not pass. Yeah, let me hear the one word. I'm not saying that these are not wonderful other ideas. Sorry, are you saying this comments aren't germane? I disagree. I think the comments are germane because I think that I don't want to speak for members of Weinberg, but I understand the nature of the comments being an alternative, more appropriate course of action and passage. Is that correct? I would say that they are germane. If we really believe in a call to action, then let's take some action that we do not take an action that somebody, you know, and implore someone else to. That's what leaders do without a you. Thank you. Representative Weinberg. Clark Johnson, you had the floor next, but I saw you pull your hand out. Did you still wish to speak? I was going to make the same point that Representative Weinberg just made in a much less eloquent way. So I will yield back to you. Thank you, Representative. Oh, you said you yield as well. Anyway, President Shaw. Thank you. I hear what Representative Weinberg is saying, and maybe that's one of the potential solutions. But my understanding or when we first spoke to Chief Morris and Director Robis. I think that, you know, fundamentally, there's some other concerns with these things. So I'm not sure that putting money in the budget or proposing that and for it to be used, all of that will need to be eventually discussed. So I'm not sure that is a path that we should even be considering right now. If the discussion here is whether to do a resolution, whether or not to do a resolution, whether we keep this amended one, we not to keep this one. I suggest we keep to this portion right now and decide whatever this committee wants to decide. With that, I yield. Thank you. Thank you, President. And, Clark Johnson, I see your hand up again. Yeah, just maybe add on slash response to what President Shaw just said. I think if we don't have the confidence to ask the mayor to spend a quarter million dollars on this, then I think it's a little preemptive for us to have the confidence to then try to write it to state law without a yield. Thank you, Clint Johnson. I'm fine with putting an amendment in that eliminates the suggested solution, because while I think that it makes sense to have a suggestion solution, I want to see action. And if that is a greater chance of this board being able to at least take action and move this forward, then, you know, perfection is the enemy of good. I'm fine with moving things forward and removing things in amendment one after municipal opt-in framework, because ultimately, again, it's the state that's going to potentially decide what if anything happens. So we can take out the if anyone's too concerned about being too prescriptive. That's fine. We can remove that, eliminate after framework, put that as amendment, vote on that, and then vote on the resolution up or down to go to General Committee. But I think, you know, I think we've, I'm not saying we should cycle debate on this. I think everyone's kind of raised on points and we're getting to the point where it's coming back around the second time some of the same points. So this way we move things forward. So I'm not sure what the protocol would be, but if I propose amendments to, if I, you know, you have the right to make the motion, if you don't mind if I could have an opportunity to speak on that. No, please. So you'll yield them? Go away. So I had a couple of questions that others may already know. Maybe, maybe I'm a little behind that would help me understand this a little bit better. So you, I think you had mentioned in passing a couple of times that the current building code requires new or renovated buildings to include, is it Windows Stop specifically or? That's my understanding, yeah. So the Windows can't open more than four inches, which is the same goal as what I was trying to propose with these temporary, so as far as you understand, any new building that's erected or one that undergoes renovations that qualify, just to bring them up to code, will have what you're currently suggesting be implemented in other buildings as well. Yeah, but that's already happening in those buildings. So this is essentially just playing catch up for older buildings that have not gone through a gut renovation. Understood. That's helpful to understand. The other question that I have is for either you or Director Durovus or Chief Morris. Typically, when it comes to compliance with the building code, how often do enforcement agencies have the opportunity to determine whether or not a building is in compliance? Is it limited to a certificate of occupancy or the issuance of any permits related to renovations or those kind of the two friction points where we have the opportunity to review compliance? I will gladly defer to Director Durovus or Chief Morris. If either of you could speak to that, where do we have the opportunity to see whether or not a building is in compliance with existing building code or a revised building code? So our fire marshals, they actually enforce the fire prevention codes, things like stairway egress, sprinkler systems, hallway and aisle widths, and things of that nature. Some of those other ones might end up going to the building department if it's something that's installed in a window. Does that get triggered when the building is erected in their review for the certificate of occupancy or if they're getting a city permit for renovations? I assume we're not just walking into buildings generally or are we kind of doing an ongoing review? So part of it is for fire prevention inspection, we usually do not go into the apartments themselves unless invited. It's only the hallways, stairways, and public areas. We really don't have jurisdiction in there unless asked to come in. So someone might come in and say, "Hey, could you check my smoke detector?" or "Do I have enough smoke detectors?" or "I need smoke detectors." Then we're invited in. It's not something we enforce. Enforcement is actually, in this case, probably a lot more difficult than you might think. And it possibly will fall into the building code. For newer construction, and the ones that we're talking about, some of the newer windows, they actually just pop out and you can push them back in again when they're not needed. So it's a little bit different than something that you retrofit, which you probably have to get permission from the building owner to even do anything like that. So I'm not exactly sure, but I know we only enforce code that has to do with fire protection and probably wouldn't even go to this. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. So I agree with a lot of the comments that Representative Lapai made. I think that this is an incredibly important public safety issue, one that obviously was important enough to be addressed in the existing building code with respect to new or renovated buildings. I think where I have concern is largely with how we as a body feel comfortable advocating at the state level. And the way that I feel comfortable doing so is when we have a true amount of consensus, both internally and also with experts that advise the board. That's not always guaranteed necessarily. We will, I'm sure, occasionally disagree with experts that advise the board. But that being said, I've made comments in the past where I think the experts that we've entrusted do deserve substantial deference in the way that they're advising the board. And in this circumstance, I think that there is certainly potential here because I think the rationale and the concerns I think are potentially alleviated, at least from an access and safety standpoint, because the building code existingly requires at least something substantially similar for new and renovated buildings, including old buildings that are substantially renovated and now subject to the building code and these requirements. So I don't have a tremendous amount of concern from that perspective, from a safety perspective. However, there are two things that give me pause. One, I think from an enforcement standpoint, expanding this to include all buildings is difficult because I assume the way we're able to kind of put the hook in that currently exists is one where the building is erected. We have a certificate of occupancy that will allow us the opportunity to review these things before issuing that. And secondly, when there's substantial renovation, I would imagine there's also most likely a permitting process that triggers the fire department's review at that time. I think if we were to expand this to all other types of units, we run into a logistical enforcement challenge that I think we need to work out simply from an opportunity perspective separately or relatedly. I think the language here about enforcing this was with respect to units where a child under the age of 10 resides or frequently visits, I should say, that's what the language says. I think that's a really difficult test to meet as to whether or not a child frequents a unit or whether or not a child under the age of 10 currently resides there or temporarily resides there, I think we get into difficult waters. So that's one primary concern, but the other primary concern is, like I said, with how I consider sense of the board resolutions generally or resolutions calling for advocacy. I think that we as a municipality, if we feel that's strongly about an issue that we want to advocate for statewide action, we should, as a municipality, have consensus on what that call is. I don't think we're quite there yet, especially when we're hearing while some of the concerns from our experts have been alleviated, they wouldn't go so far as to boldly support it and may go so far as to potentially oppose it if it were enacted and then we take the next step and explore legislation for this municipality. Those are my biggest concerns, but that being said, I do think that there is a potential path forward that could get us at least that consensus and potentially alleviate these enforcement concerns. Where I'm leaning is potentially modifying this that makes it a little less specific. I don't necessarily agree with Representative Lang that we should cut everything after the word framework, because it kind of just leaves us saying, you know, we want them to introduce enabling municipal opt-in framework, period. I don't think it's clear enough as to what type of framework outside of contextual clues. So what I recommend, and I don't think we should necessarily pass this or move this into a space where it could pass, even after the amendment, because I do think we really need more consensus from our experts. But I'm hopeful that if we were to remove the language towards the end that just says, you know, we're a child under the age of 10 resides or frequently visits, I think that would alleviate my concerns at least with respect to enforcement on that test. And then potentially we could explore over the next month with Director Durovus and Chief Morris, further amendments, they would ultimately feel comfortable supporting that we could make over that next month. And given that we do have a little bit of leeway with respect to the legislative session, I don't see time sensitivity here. And that's, I think that's where I am currently, Representative Hunter. Given the comments that have concerns about the language, and the challenges and the potential unintended consequences of writing on the fly, will the chair entertain a motion to reconvene? That's your right answer. I mean, is it appropriate? I'm asking, I'm from a parliamentary. Oh, from a, yes, we can reconvene. I move to reconvene this. There's a motion and a second. Is there anybody that wishes to seek the floor with respect to the motion to reconvene? Yeah, I am a fan of this motion. I wrote up scribbled together a little amendment that addressed some of my concerns, but I think it'll be better if we have time to talk through this thing through it better than what I just came up with in five minutes. Because I do think there's a version of this that we can make good. Anything that helps the process where everyone feel comfortable, especially because I didn't realize that our public safety officials were not 100% of board with the resolution. And I thought that they had concerns about what could happen. But even that doubt for me, I think recommitting is great and I would make a recommendation to the committee, or any other members, if there's something in particular, maybe funnel it through the sponsors, the co-chairs, so this way it's organized. And the city and everyone is very busy so I know getting responses back from everybody involved, just hoping it could be streamlined because I know you've been working very hard. I've been working very little compared to you. So, to make this process go better, hoping that everybody can streamline it, but Scott's not in the co-chairs, so I support that you guys decide to be able to recommit. Thanks. Thank you very much. Is there anybody else that wishes to seek the floor with respect to the motion or recommit to represent? Personally, I think we've kind of hunted on this for several months and I just personally want to see some sort of action done with it. But if the pragmatic thing to do is to postpone it for another month, try to get more consensus, we can. We can put forward that vote to postpone it. I do think that it raises a risk because I think the legislative agenda for the state for 27 is going to start coming into focus post-election and I think a lot of that work is going to be done in November. So, I'm a little concerned of losing any sort of momentum or potential of impact with it, but at the same time, I want to be pragmatic about it, listening to what people are saying. So, if there is indeed a motion to postpone, then let's vote on the motion because ultimately I want to try to see some sort of action happen out of this. Thank you, Representative Stone. So, anybody else that wishes to seek the floor? Seeing none, I have a quick question. For Director Garubas and Chief Morris, there have been some comments made from a number of members that your input on this is critical. Over the next 30 days or so, the committee were to re-discuss this item on its next meeting and provide you with some potential revisions here. Do you think you'd have the capacity in those 30 days or so to review those and potentially reassess your support of the resolution? I would default to Chief Morris on this and his team because they're the ones that will actually be impacted the most with this and any type of change with this. Yes, we could look into it. We could look into it and come back with recommendations or some better ideas on how to bring this forward in a way that would actually be beneficial to the city of Stanford. We'll look into it, sure. Thank you, Bold. I appreciate that. Yes. I would just like to say that if Representative Stone is writing this resolution in a way that is generally just asking the state to allow us to legislate, then I'm just curious, why do we need to go back to public health and safety to get their opinion on that? If he's writing it in the way that we're asking him to write it, which is just to come back to us with the power to do our thing, those types of conversations should happen later. I'm just saying that shouldn't be a barrier to enter if he's writing it that way. It's just food for thought for the committee. We don't need to ask permission to legislate, right? I don't disagree. In this case, we do, to the state, but not to the administration. Just to put that aside. I don't disagree with you, though that being said, I know a number of members, including myself, have indicated that while, of course, authoritatively, we don't need permission, putting together a specific resolution, calling for action without the support of experts behind it, I think that's where there's some level of discomfort. We can ask if they're comfortable with a general resolution, just asking the state to give the legislature power. Well, I think they will need to see it. That's the point. But the idea of that, are they... Are we debating how we go through providing if we now vote to choose to submit? I think the touch point as to why I would say it is as close to domain as possible is limited to why we would move to commit now, as opposed to moving forward, is if that motion to commit is predicated upon the advice of experts that may not be necessary. I think that was what... Yeah, I'm just trying to make the best use of the committee's time. That's where I took it. I'm not hearing that as a requirement to admit that just may be the process we end up going through, right? Correct, and that's the only reason I think those comments are germane as to whether or not it's advisable in the committee's time to recommit to get that, or as to whether or not we move forward. And so that, I think, speaks to the motion to recommit. Representative Weyberg? Well, in my view at least, we may not need permission to legislate, but it would be prudent to avoid having to ask for forgiveness without any help. Thank you, Representative Weyberg. Does anybody else wish to seek the floor on the motion to recommit? Seeing none, let's do it by roll call. McEwen? One second. I'm, yes. Camparelli? Yes. Blank? Yes. Woodrow? Yes. Hughes? Yes. Hyatt? Yes. Lapine? Yes. Stone? Yes. Weinberg? Yes. So that passes unanimously to the items we've recommitted. Before we move on, I just want to say that I do, oh, and first of all, thank you very much for attendees for this with our invitees. Appreciate your time. Director Garuvis, Chief Morris, and Attorney Harness. Your insight and your answers to the committee's questions have been very helpful. Thank you for having us. You're welcome. And before we move on, I also wanted to say that, you know, some of the comments that were made in, the motion to recommit included a suggestion that members of the committee submit to the extent they have any revisions so that we can kind of funnel these and aggregate them for both the sponsors and also the experts. I think that is a good suggestion. And so I'll send out an email this evening in appreciating representatives desire to see some movement on this. And I agree. I'd like to set a reasonably aggressive, quote unquote, deadline to get those comments in. I think appropriately a week from today. So I'll send that email afterwards and I'd appreciate it if you could send either your proposed amendments or, you know, if they're not the exact wording, you know, at least a concept of what you'd like to see. And then I'll aggregate that and deliver it to the co-sponsors to further those conversations with with the exits. And with that, we're ready to move on to LR 32.023. I've got a conflict of interest with respect for this one. So I'm going to hand the chair over to Vice Chair. Gabrielli, who will carry through item number two and then I'll rejoin the following disposition. Oh, I'm going to shut that home. So the thing I was going to say is, if after you're supposed to let me know, you'll take that chair back only in the rare chance that something pops up. So what do we like to consider items not only at the risk of that? I don't think we knew that we could do something to yourself. You know, not any sudden. No, we forgot. Thank you. All right. I entertain a motion to take up LR 32.023, an ordinance for publication establishing an urban grocery store development district of the city of Stanford submitted by reps Hughes, Adams, Boudreaux, Ditteloe, Gardner, Graham, Rose, Johnson, McCowan, and Pelichy, Shaw, Sylvester, and Weathers. I just like to say that we have in attendance, Director Kagan, Stackpole, and Attorney Ander. Thank you, Chair Camparelli. So this is an item. The draft I'm looking at is LR 32.023. This is CCA 720.26. Revision August 3rd, 2026. So this is the draft ordinance that I as well as the other co-sponsors currently support and are looking to support. The latest draft we have is dated 10/9/20. Yes, yeah, getting to that level. No worries. So, as Representative Blake indicated, there's also a draft, titled October 9th, 20- er, sorry, dated October 9th, 2026. Titled in Ordinance, adding Article 6, Grocery Store Tax Abatement, consisting of sections 220 through 237 through 220 through 237 to Chapter 220, Taxation of the Code of Ordinances in the City of Stamford. So that is the draft that the city is proposing. I think a good place for us to start is just mentioning, I think we're all in alignment in terms of wanting to create new economic development tools that address the shortcomings of the market that make it difficult for urban grocery stores to open up. This is not just something that is unique to our grocery market, this is something that actually is a problem across Connecticut in urban centers. We see inequities of grocery stores, specifically full service grocery retailers, not existing where the population density is in many places. I think we all want to address this, but so the main area I see there being differences between these two drafts is the proposed one from the city and from council removes these incentives being specifically for certain neighborhoods that we've identified. The draft that is the one that the co-sponsors and I are supporting, which establishes an urban grocery store development district. That draft specifically creates the incentives for downtown, east side, and south end neighborhoods. The updated draft, the October 9th draft removes that and creates citywide incentives. I was wondering now if someone from the city would like to speak to that change and explain it to me as well as the other co-sponsors. Director Kagan, do you want to speak to that? So I'm happy to speak briefly just to touch base on the draft that you all received I think today and then perhaps attorney anger will speak specifically to the change in the draft that would make this citywide. And just a slight clarification from what representative Hughes shared, which is, I agree, we definitely are seeking to find a way to provide some sort of incentive or abatement so that we can attract a desirable grocery store downtown. I would say in the south end as well, but as many of you probably know, the fairway, the former fairway space will have a new grocery store within the next few months to a year once that is done since the lease has been signed. But, you know, we worked with representative Hughes and a few others through a series of phone calls to basically look at the ordinance that was proposed a few months ago, and, you know, bring in input from the tax assessor, bring in input from the legal department from my team and draft an ordinance that would really take into account the feedback from those departments. And I think the ordinance that we've proposed is very solid I would say that there's still some due diligence that needs to be done even further there, where we last left off with our conversations with several of the representatives this was sort of the baseline and there were some next steps we wanted to take before I would even suggest that we would bring it forward for a vote, for instance. But I do know that the question at hand that representative Hughes would like addressed imminently is regarding the citywide component so I'll turn it over to attorney anger to speak to that but I just just want to provide a little bit of context in terms of where, where we were with this draft so it's not in a final stage where we think it's perfect it's more so that this was a included input from various city departments based off the initial draft that the co sponsors have prepared. Thank you. Thank you director Kagan attorney anger. Sure. So, the revised draft that is the most recent iteration is applies citywide and that's because we couldn't determine, or at least I was not able to, that there was a rational basis for identifying specific districts within the city that would support legally creating an advantage within those areas. My thought process was more that when you create districts you're really talking more about zoning, and the statutes, actually allow for these sorts of tax abatements under the tax statutes. In my view, we couldn't support legally creating districts for this purpose. Questions representative. Yeah, Cynthia. Thank you for your comment and, you know, as I think you know I'm still a believer that we should listen to our lawyers tell us we can't do something we shouldn't do it. But, but the conclusion that you reached is, you know, is a somewhat controversial one. To what extent have you socialized your analysis among your colleagues elevated it within the department and so forth. Can you can you comment on that a little bit. Well, I haven't and that's not typically done. We are assigned to work on projects ordinances and we that's that's what we we do. And so, this latest draft is more result of conversations with the assessor. And so if that's socializing if that's within what you're. Need specifically the legal conclusion that that doesn't permit doesn't allow for the designation of specific neighborhoods. Well, I have had conversations within the department about it. So, in that sense, yes. Okay, thank you. Well, actually, representative representative Johnson. Awesome. Thanks. Question through you if you'll have chair to attorney anger. Can you help me understand I'm obviously not a lawyer and even less so a municipal law expert any means, but how I guess what, what delineates when you can sort of create these zones versus can't right you think about something like the downtown special services district, right. There is a zone that has different tax, both kind of pros and cons right that other parts of the city, and that's obviously been allowed for the past 25 years. So I guess what makes this different from a from a legal perspective. Well, this wouldn't have specific statutory authority, I believe the district you're talking about is was designed and based on a statute that authorize the city to do that. There's no specific statute that authorizes the city to create this kind of district. And that's why my suggestion was zoning regulation might be the path forward. Gotcha. Thank you. I'm sorry, representative. I had the same question as representative Johnson will yield as well. Thank you. Um, so during our meetings we had talked about, you know, the needs for specific data to tie it to these neighborhoods. You know, I've spoken with a lot of the co sponsors of this represent Felicia, and he talks about looking at the rates of car ownership and tie into that. And I guess where I'm struggling is I'm co chair of the land use and urban redevelopment committee. My understanding is there are state statutes that allow cities to designate areas of retail and create incentives for those retail districts. I recognize it's not specifically and utilize for grocery stores. My overarching concern with this draft and why I highly hesitant to support it is from my perspective if they're not incentives for the neighborhoods that lack the full service grocery store access that have the majority of new housing development and have the high population density. All you're doing is incentivizing the grocery retail market to continue to open up in the locations that they exist. I know we have raised this director Kagan. And, you know, I don't want to put words in your mouth but I guess could you address address my concern that this draft isn't going to just continue to incentivize the market to open up towards where they exist, essentially what I'm saying is this, these incentives don't change the grocery retailer market behavior. Sure. So, I think the, there are two points, I can make on this topic and again as I said earlier I think that we have yet to kind of do the work we would need to do with the draft that we currently have to, because it's not, it's not public yet it hasn't been posted on the public record and we need to have conversations with grocery retailers and property owners to determine if the financial incentive as we have proposed to structure it would move the needle in bringing a retailer to the locations we are aiming for. So I think that work still remains to be done. But the reason I think this ordinance, this recent draft has been structured in this manner is because I think it, the incentive is strongest for a multifamily development to have ground floor retail, because we have included in this language, an abatement for, I believe 10% of the entire property, and from the case studies we looked at with the assessors team that they provided, they saw the numbers were much stronger in terms of the abatement amount when the grocery retailer was connected to a multifamily development than if it was a standalone building or property, where they're just receiving an abatement based on the size of that grocery store. I think that the, the financial benefit of having the ground floor grocery retail but yet providing an abatement for part of the entire building financially, that is a much larger and beneficial incentive that could move people and knowing that our zoning for larger multifamily properties are in the areas where you are looking to bring the grocery, it seems like a very strong alignment that would more likely bring a grocery retailer to one of those multifamily developments. I'm happy to, you know, I know that Steve Parente is here from the assessor's office and I don't know if it's worth sharing one of those examples, if possible, but the abatement for a grocery retailer as we've laid it out in a standalone space, for example, 699 Canal Street. It's great, it's helpful, but it will not make or break whether or not a grocery store with a 10 year lease is going to be profitable or not. It truly just isn't going to, you know, these are businesses that are operating on small margins, millions of dollars in revenue that they're working with a few hundred thousand dollars is, is not necessarily going to bring them to a location that they do not feel is possible otherwise. So I hope that provided some clarity again it's we're working off of a draft that hasn't been vetted fully yet but that would be why I think that this is a stronger ordinance when we're targeting bringing a grocery retailer out there. Thank you. And I totally agree that, you know, the multifamily component of this is very strong. When we look at the new developments that are in these neighborhoods that we're actually trying to target the majority of them are these multifamily. And I definitely appreciate that that is still, you know, intact. But I just, my, my concern just still falls to, you know, kind of how I see the grocery retail market and where they concentrate. I mean, for example, in Fairfield County, in Westport, Connecticut City, sorry municipality of less than 30,000 people, there's five full service grocery retailers on a 1.5 mile stretch post road. You know, they have higher grocery store access, and we do in their smaller municipality. So that's why I see our draft is, you know, being a little more directive in terms of, I guess being more prescriptive to trying to address that behavior of the market, which is to concentrate in areas that are more suburban more car centric, I totally agree that there is room, and a huge component of this being successful for, you know, grocery store downtown is zoning. But I just might again just concern is, are we through tax code incentivizing the market to continue as is, I totally understand the overlap, but with the with the multifamily zoning, and that making that more likelihood. But I just don't know that that's as strong as, as I'd like. But also, I, as to Leah's point, I think there's definitely more meetings to be had on this and more, more details to iron out. But I'm grateful for for everyone's help with this and getting us to this point. I think I'll yield. Representative Thank you, Chair Canberra. Through you, I guess, to, to Cynthia, I know I recall at one point we did talk about the kind of the census tracts and and using those to determine, you know, certain kind of justifications that were kind of legally defensible to say, you know, based on this, you know, whichever census tract downtown census tract or maybe potentially other census tracts, we could kind of define certain areas. I guess, you know, something maybe we can follow up on in the past kind of month I was looking at kind of the USDA has kind of a they have this like food access research. I don't know if you looked through that, but something I can kind of I could share with everyone offline as well. But they also have this measure they call like an urban low access threshold and they consider that to be like 500 residents or kind of 33% of a census tract is more than one half a mile from a grocery store. Potentially, maybe that's something we could use with our census tracts. And maybe we can even add in, you know, vehicle ownership into that I know representative use touch on that a little bit. And then we can that way we can actually define a certain area that's legally defensible based on, you know, actual statistics for that. And we can consider that a underserved area. Would that be kind of something we could look into, in your opinion, I'm happy to revisit it. I'm not sure that it works. But one of the sticking points initially was the inability to define a district and we had looked at the the feds data but it didn't comport with the neighborhoods that were originally being proposed within this ordinance. And so, because we couldn't define a district because we couldn't get the data to support it. We weren't able to get there. I'm not convinced that we can, but, but I'm willing to take another look from that point that standpoint. If we, if somebody has the data and and is willing to work on that that end of it. I can certainly kind of commit to that I already started looking at and looking at the census tracts they somewhat align with what we've talked about I know in some areas like you said they do go over a little bit, not substantially kind of city wide per se, but they do kind of go outside the bounds we've set. And obviously with the new store opening that kind of would eliminate some of some of, you know, if we consider half mile that would obviously eliminate one of the zones, but that was kind of really the only question that I had I just want to see if we can revisit that and circle back. Thank you. Yeah, my one concern is, at least the data I've looked at is old. And relying on old data is almost the same as not having it so if you know if you have more current sources. Great. I just want to be careful about that. So, sure. Yeah, I can dig around and see what else I can find if it's more current unfortunately a little dated. But the other thing you know we can look at is also the current supermarkets we have and maybe an established kind of threshold with that as well that we're at, you know, we're adding other layers on to what the data that there is, potentially, but that that was really all the questions. I think I had right now. So thank you. Thank you. Through you to Director K.A.A. Oh, Leah, you mentioned one subject that one or one area for, you know, for additional research and additional due diligence which was, which was interacting with the local grocery community. Could you just briefly elaborate on other areas of due diligence that you think we should be focusing on as we continue to develop this ordinance. Sure, absolutely. So, yes, I think circulating this you know we have spoken with several grocery retailers through the process of being in touch with the owners of the 699 Canal Street, and, and are aware of the reasons why they, though, other than the company that did just recently sign at least why they passed on that location so we can definitely go back to them and share this with them, some of which we've already, you know, alluded to it. Because obviously we know that we are in need of other grocery retailers so we can definitely speak with them we can also speak with some of the property owners. From a financial standpoint to really understand what the tipping point is and where it's beneficial. I think also specifically for downtown an area that it would behoove us to have a better understanding about is what other obstacles there may be that has happened to grocery stores from coming to the any of the existing locations so we're aware of what some of those are but I think the nuances are unique so one example is loading for some of the larger trucks that typically do loading at grocery stores this can be very challenging in some of the buildings downtown, and that really changes what ground floor space would look like what access points would look like, which all impact construction costs and financing so I think there's some nuances in downtown that are unique, not unique to Stanford specifically every downtown, you know, deals with these challenges so there's certainly ways to overcome them, but I think in building out an ordinance if our goal is to really support this will be specific and some of this might, you know, go over into land use right and what we can do there as well in addition to support this as our, as our goal. Those are a few examples but I'm sure there are more. Thanks. Very helpful. Yeah, could. Whether it's represent a huge a direct pain. If it's in here I apologize to be pointing to it or help me as if what did we define as equitable access. So I don't believe we have a definition for equitable access. Either, and either of the drafts. The. So the 10 or the August, third draft creates the development district for those three neighborhoods mentioned, but we don't define equitable access. One thing we're loading when we first, you know, sort of on this endeavor in the spring. We did look at food desert statutes. I think food desert statutes don't capture necessarily those statutes don't capture kind of, you know, unique situation that Stanford has which is a densely populated area that you know mileage wise, you might hear a lot of full service grocery retailers. But if you don't have a car, it's a lot harder to get to. And also, those statutes don't necessarily take into account that that densely populated area has a lot longer travel time, because of the traffic and mobility issues. But so we, we find out the areas of where we were trying to target through the neighborhoods statistical area profiles, using a city of Stanford land use Bureau map. Sorry, I think. Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. And I want to come back to that. Do we consider targeted grocery store. No, I don't believe it was a grocery store. And yet by the definition of what the grocery store isn't here it by every category there would pass as a grocery store. I don't think that's the case. So our definition is, let me make sure I'm on the right one. Ours is full service grocery retailer means a retailer of establishment not less than 6000 square, not more than 29,000 square feet that offers sale broad range food products for off site preparation and consumption including fresh produce fresher refrigerated meats dairy products and packaged goods. So just by that definition just to be clear, I mean the largest grocers in the US, outside of the dedicated grocers or Walmart, Target, Costco, those are all categorically very shows and everything just described, what's in that category. So all I all of its justice. We're trying to solve a problem, which I agree, we should be trying to solve. If we can't define the problem. I think it's very hard to solve the problem. I see the word equitable access that is at the core of what we want to solve, and you bring up great points represent views about what it may be in Sacramento is different than what it might be in Stanford. Well let's define what it is for. Yeah, let's understand the problem we're trying to solve. Let's scope the problem because you can't solve it without the money and then understand the data, let's define what's a grocery store by our own definition that's in this document. And then let's draw circles or whatever methods we're using and use data to understand what those barriers of access are, whether it is transportation, whether it is parking, whether it is hours of operation, whether it is the type of food. So I think all of those are important considerations. The reality is I'm not a grocer. I don't know. And if I'm trying to solve a problem for a business, I think we better watch out if we're not allowing the knowledge to guide us and making assumptions or acting in the absence of what I think is key problem defining data. I don't know how to solve this problem because I don't even know what we're talking about when we say equitable access. So I'm sure there's a lot of definitions out there. I want to know what our definition is. So when we put a motion on the table to solve it, we can feel confident that this is where to solve the problem that our data is pointing us to, and we can point to all the areas and ways to solve it. So I think this might be a great tool in our toolbox. And I applaud the thought behind it and the work that's gone into it. I don't understand what we're solving for, except for words on a paper without a definition. That I can't fix. Yeah, I understand that, and I think that gets to the need for a draft that goes into that. But I mean, the problem is there's not a grocery store downtown. You talk to any constituent line, you know, the target doesn't fit their needs. And I don't know that they're legally considered a grocery store. I don't know if they fit the definition as this is written. I think the 29,000 square feet cap takes into account, you know what I mean? Walmart and Target's of the world. But I think the fact that many communities have to rely on them and them not being full service grocery dealers speaks to larger issues that we have in this country regarding how people have access to food. For example, right, the east side doesn't have a grocery store north of I-95. That's one of the neighborhoods that we targeted in our new ordinance. I will say the updated draft, the October 9 draft, has not less than 4,000 square feet of retail floor area to the sale of such products. So their version seeks to better address that clarification of if, you know, a target or any other big box retailer has a market, you know, does that qualify? So I hear it. I'm not going to go back and forth. Yeah, but I appreciate that and I understand that that's a valid question and I yield. Yeah, just briefly to build on Representative Lakhine's point. We understand that there are these neighborhoods as the populated neighborhoods that don't have grocery stores. And I think we can all agree that that's not healthy. But the question that, to me, at least remains unanswered, is whether you were, lacks a compelling answer, is why? And this strategy, the strategy that's embedded in a tax abatement is that the reason is, is, you know, that's why from both the grocer's point of view as well as the customer's point of view. And this, the essence of this, of this draft, of these draft ordinances is that the store, you know, doesn't, doesn't produce a positive end present value, basically. The investment won't produce a positive end present value. And it sounds like, well, that may be the case, that may not be the only obstacle, the only reason why. And we, you know, and, you know, and I think that we need to do additional work, as Director Kagan's suggesting, to really understand underlying reasons what, why, what, why, what are the barriers to entry for, for prospective grocers on the one hand, and what are the barriers to actual, for, for the potential customers. that's that's the work that I think yes yeah I mean as I said before we have been working on this since the spring but you know you're asking me to give an answer for why there's no no no I'm not asking for you I'm sorry I'm not asking for an answer why I'm suggesting that finding getting is what we need well so there there's inequities across this country and one of those is how our economic development takes place you know it's again as I've said this is not just an issue that is in Stanford right this is a lot of urban centers but there are areas that have had success Jersey City just got a shop break in their downtown you know White Plains has a grocery store in their downtown so I think it's an all the above reason we don't see them in urban centers in Connecticut I think there's a mix of overburdened some regulating regulations from the state a less friendly less that friendly business climate you know it's expensive to run a grocery store as we've talked about there are very very small margins but we have to be honest about ourselves about where grocery stores are and where they are you know I grew up in a small town 10,000 or a little less we had a grocery store it was a predominantly white community you see that across the state that small communities that are predominantly white have grocery stores but urban centers where the population is diverse you see there's less likely to be full service grocery retail access and that's an inequity that I think we need to address and part of addressing that inequity I believe is changing our tax code to try and incentivize grocery retailers to open in these neighborhoods so I want to push back a little on yes we you know grocery retailers their thoughts on this are important but they're the folks who aren't opening stores in these neighborhoods and that needs to change and so that's you know my 10,000 foot view of you know what we're trying to address I also caution folks that you know I think there's some conflict of interests in meeting with retail or grocery retailers about creating you know incentives that could benefit their business so that is one area that I'm just I caution folks on but I know you just I don't know just want to just roll down you have to have all two of these you have to click on the look at these words those the charity represents you know okay um I think so I'm a resident of Stanford now I was here when I was a store there was a Palmer's in this window and now occupied by CBS which we would not call grocery store by any stretch of the imagination and again it has no grocery store although my house so down the road there's almost two grand central you know great days the central store the I applaud the concept of this ordinance I have a problem with its implementation because yes these areas all of these areas if you have identified Southside there are areas that are missing facilities for which to find a grocery store or grocery material a store of some sort and incentivize incentivizing this effort by doing what we're doing or having this discussion right now has huge conflict of interest in that we we had facilities yes step Connecticut is no question is it's tough market to live in as any business owner as to and grocery stores are and I work as a manager of grocery store for a short period of time I tell you the margins are super thin and I get it and and I know is very tough and there are some of our grocery stores chains in this in this area who are in those markets that you're discussing and there are and for some reason behind me and I'm not a mark guy involved in this kind of business at all my issue is that if we incentivize this across the board like the city wants to do which I'm not a big play this draft it is just opening up a can of you know Pandora's boxes what are we getting into whereas I think the original draft you guys proposed is a much more concise and narrow view of what needs to take place at least within those regions that really do need some I applaud the fact that we're getting an organic grocery store yeah that's not helping anybody because those prices are going to be off the charts but they but I think we need to just I think we do need to focus on trying to bring in a better stores that will serve the general market in a reasonable way and but I don't know if incentivizing it in this way is going to because these these stores have to have a way to make a living and obviously the market is not bearing food and that's why they're not there and I don't know how to make that better I don't know if tax abatements or not I did I just want to make two points to a representative you said one is I think yes I guess my concern is I do support this this exobatement for the grocery store incentive and just remember just look back at what happened with detection just it on South End which is BLT that nobody wanted to develop now we got a almost new 15,000 new resident in the South End because of that tax abatement and this was all manufacturing on land that now have blossom because of tax abatement so so I don't see a problem with trying to throw a carrot out to bring our grocery store in the South End of Eastside I mean maybe we can do it with in the district I mean it's where we can do it in it within the taxing district of BLT which is fair waivers in part of the 82 acres maybe we can do it with in the DSSD which is the taxi district with itself that would incentivize a grocery store is going now coming in and being exempt from the taxes because most of the time when you're in a commercial space it's a triple net so you're paying the taxes you're paying a rent and you're paying the insurance so sometimes it might be a little overbearing I mean and I can see what the bond John is and all of them they always bought their facility so they won't have to worry about the triple net they are the owner of the facility but handing out a carrot to tax assent it to bring a grocery store in or even have somebody to look at it I think it's worth going down that road and oh and I hope hope this work and if not we could just I mean it's hard to call Keener and say you know we get if we bring our grocery store now we give you a hundred percent taxes on that particular space out of the 82 acres would you be willing able to support that I mean I don't know but these are conversation we can have and I do support giving a tax credit to any grocery store to come here Stanford because we do need it especially with the population of Yukon coming downtown and I think these kids would appreciate it in the future years that they're gonna be here cuz I think we're gonna get bigger and bigger so at that I thank you thank you just one quick point I think we're all well served to remember that the first company that took advantage of those tax abatements on the south end before there was ever a BLT in our town went bankrupt and it took a lot more than tax abatements to make that whole area work so I think it's a great reminder I think there's a good theory on the table if you have to test the theory that's what you do with theories and I just yeah yeah part of information what what tax incentive what company went back where you talk about a terrorist group oh well if you look at that wasn't really um a bankrupt the investors put them out cuz it wasn't doing the right thing and what building to you do it but if you look at the footprint of the property okay go ahead and they went bankrupt and I am NOT in any way disputing the national problem that exists in so many cities about food deserts and the direct tie to both racial and income disparities within those cities I caution that as our rallying cry on this if you look to the east and west side of this town which I said in a presentation today that brought up again our heat map of the city of Stanford and most of the first neighbors are two of our most long standing grocery stores on the east side and the west side have served neighborhoods there for years when I was a kid my grandmother drove from the worst ever to fund journals which used to sit right in the heart of Southfield village at the time this thing Gary's have been here a long time with swords on the east and west side there was a big beautiful grocery store that sits empty right across on the west side and a densely populated one of the most racially diverse neighbors in our city on the west side that that stop and shop couldn't make work and they invested three acts with that building is being valued at today and it was beautiful and you walk in and nobody came which takes and it was closer to walking distance to Connecticut Ave then having a crossover US 1 so again I just caution there's a theory that it's proximity that's created problems maybe it is let's find out let's test the theory let's get the data and a lot of what I'm hearing is throwing out things that are maybe relevant on the communities I'm not buying that that we know that's the reason here they may be show me the data I'll be the first to get behind it and I'm really thank you no one else so they can say I'd like to say something to the to all of those sponsors of this ordinance and I get what the problem is and I really commend you for trying to fix the problem I don't think that you can create an ordinance to help roasters without having roasters come to the table I don't think it's a conflict of interest for you to sit with the St. Harry Brothers or any other grocery store and ask them what are the barriers to enter what is their problem which which I have because of this ordinance they will give you a list of things that that keep their margins razor-thin and that are problems for them some of them some of the people that I've spoken to think that this type of ordinance will will hurt them especially one that's city-wide because it might put competition temporary competition in places where they don't have it right now so I definitely liked the original ordinance that was specific to areas that were deemed food deserts but even with that ordinance the ordinance itself did not look to help actual grocers in other words it would help a developer that was maybe you know building a building that would then have a grocery store in it but that's not necessarily going to the grocer so I'd love to see an ordinance that's actually going to do something to help the actual grocers not just the developer that's going to renovate or develop the building you know and if it is going to be an ordinance that let's say is for multi because this one has its hands it's not just for a grocery store but it's for like a multi development so it would be housing with the grocery store on the bottom and then I would challenge you to say what's the public benefit there besides the grocery store because 85% of that tax abatement is going to end up going to the apartments versus the grocery store and so can we make some of those how those housing units have a 30% affordable housing like the one that I sent you that Costco did you know some type of public benefit other than just the grocery since that developer would be reaping the benefits for the house and so those are just some ideas I I know that director Kagan when I was working on some of the ordinances that I was working on she put me in touch with different organizations one that I found is the Connecticut Food Association so they represent what you're smiling they represent okay I don't know they represent you know all the grocers and maybe they know no yeah I totally hear that concern so my let me just get some insight into my thought and reasoning behind the mixed-use development credit so the goal there is to try and create like a symbiotic relationship between the developers of those buildings to make up the most developments in these neighborhoods and the grocery retailer what do I mean by that is so the developer only gets the tax credit if the grocery retailer maintains operation in their store so one issue in talking to folks is the retail rent so the thought there is that the owner of that building is incentivized to keep that rent at a value that is attracted to a grocery retailer the mixed-use developer doesn't get that credit unless he has that grocery retailer in terms of affordable housing and below market rate housing all of our existing housing laws and below market rate program requirements would still apply to that project meaning if the project came in let's say downtown it's gonna be a retail grocery and then you know 200 units above it that credit they're still gonna have to either have a certain number of BMR units I believe it's 14% downtown or they're gonna have to still pay into the affordable housing trust fund so this would not negate any of those affordable housing requirements to your point about the 30% requirement I know that's extremely well-intentioned and in a perfect world I would love to support that but I think that 30% requirement would make most developers or most projects not feasible I talked to a lot of developers and they make a strong case that the 14% requirement is already quite high so I would just caution on that end but I do think the BMR program you know applying to still applying to a project like this is good and and and so that was just kind of I wanted to give my background of what we were trying to do with that credit which is create that symbiotic relationship where the developer is incentivized to almost from the front end you know from inception of that project but it's just blueprints on the table to design it so a grocery store can come in so for example you know look at the CVS right at the edge of my district and right by the Taco Bell they're designed so you know there's parking below that same similar design if it you know or a grocery retailer is a similar design that you know that would have to be used in urban setting so one of the struggles that when we talk to people is it's the actual retail space and it being something that a grocery retailer can utilize from parking to zoning and loading as Leah mentioned I think loading requirements are one of the largest barriers to them downtown but so I just wanted to explain a bit of why the credit goes to the developer not per se the grocery store because like I said when we look at what developments are happening happening downtown it's mostly that mixed use I was just suggesting that maybe you could make the info to the actual grocery store rather than just the developer and if you are gonna if you are gonna write an ordinance that is helping a developer that's going to fill the apartments then the public benefit would be to up what they're required to do because they're already required to do without a tax payment you're giving them another incentive there's no give back to the community well for me to give back to the community is we have a grocery store downtown and then we have however many new units of housing which we talked about this at length we need all types of housing so really you're kind of killing two birds with one stone there in terms of though it not going to the grocery store my understanding is that actually the the nature of these lease agreements is that you know when when the retailer signs the agreement I don't have the exact legal term here but they're they're gonna agree to you know covering the electricity the property tax bill but so this fixed assessment agreement would benefit the grocery retailer because whenever the retailer signs the 10-year lease you know they're on the hook for the property taxes of that specific of that specific square footage unless that's somehow been taken out in their lease agreement I've heard the exact word I can I know I have it in my notes somewhere but so my understanding is that the fixed assessment agreement you know essential would be going to the grocery retailer and I'm sorry you were responding to me I think you're did you did you also I'll be very brief I believe that you're looking for was a triple net lease yes they go they go pay the taxes the utilities triple net lease that's the word yeah and that and and that that doesn't necessarily get extended to the retailer in other words on the developer what a triple net a triple net leave but if I'm a tenant and I have a triple net lease and that means that I'm responsible for utilities all the rest of them all the all across the place so if the property taxes on cost of occupancy is discounted then I'm taking it as a tenant if you got if you get if I have a triple net which which maybe I might maybe this it's a very indirect way of helping well it's correct because direct it's all right because I'm the tenant is your triple net lease response did you did you see before something else are you that was the only thing I want to say I will also mention that we on this committee approved a triple net lease so we're actually responsible for playing taxes for ourselves this is a couple not for the donuts for the parking for the school like the school buses well actually I like the promotion to recommit so because I don't think we're getting to go anywhere on this and I apologize to you no dog and but I think as a community at the time as for anything else I think motion to approve and I second that I think we can take it by voiceover. All those in favor. Aye. Aye. Anybody abstain. Representative Calici. Not saying thank you chair I guess that's a that's a quick kind of point of information for anyone I mean I'll watch the video as well but for anyone who spoke had questions I think it would be really great for the sponsors to receive those if you have been written down I've been taking notes but you know it's better to hear from your mouths than my notes so we would we would greatly appreciate any follow-up so but again we can watch the video but it's easy to get it from from everyone else. I'm gonna send my questions into the whole committee just so I'm going to make a motion you seconded it right? Motion to adjourn I have to tell. Second. Thank you attorney Thank you. Thank you. Everyone. Thank you. Goodnight. Thank you.