WLA has joined with Connecticut Forest & Park Association and many conservation partners on efforts this session to put a constitutional amendment in place to better protect our state conservation and agricultural lands. This efforts seeks to prevent these important state-held lands from being sold, traded, or given away without a transparent process, public input, and appropriate compensation.
On Monday, March 14th the Legislature’s Government Administration and Elections (GAE) Committee held a hearing on Senate Joint Resolution 36 (SJ 36), a bill that would put this constitutional amendment on the ballot in November. This bill provides greater transparency and protections for our state conservation, agricultural, recreation, and open space lands, and would require a local public hearing and 2/3 ‘yea’ vote of both chambers in the General Assembly before these lands could be conveyed.
Our colleagues at Connecticut Forest & Park Association prepared this excellent fact sheet on SJ 36, with talking points and full details on how to submit written testimony and support this bill. You can also read WLA’s testimony on SJ 36 and our testimony on SJ 5, a similar bill that was raised in the Environment Committee. At this point, we now need the GAE Committee to vote this bill out of Committee by its March 23rd deadline.
Here’s how you can help!
Send an email to the Chairs of the GAE Committee and tell them you strongly support a constitutional amendment to better protect our state conservation, agricultural, recreation, and open space lands. Urge them to support Senate Joint Resolution 36 and vote it out of Committee by the March 23rd deadline. Please cc your State Representative and State Senator on the email.
GAE Co-Chair: Senator Steve Cassano
GAE Co-Chair: Rep. Ed Jutila – ed.jutila@cga.ct.gov
