Americans Moving Less Often, Changing Jobs Less Frequently - Divorce May Be Among Reasons Why, UConn Researcher Says

Surprisingly, Americans are moving far less than they used to, only about half as much as they moved 50 years ago.  And Americans aren’t moving or changing jobs with the frequency of decades past.  Counter-intuitive, but true, according to the mounting data. In the early 1980s, about 17 percent of Americans changed their address each year. Now it’s less than 12 percent. Bigger moves, between different states, have dropped even faster, the Boston Globe reported this month.

“When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, about one in 10 Americans changed occupations in a given year. As of 2012, it’s more like one in 24,” the Globe reported, citing data from a team of researchers at the Federal Reserve and the University of Notre Dame.

A researcher at the University of Connecticut has developed a theory regarding a key contributing factor to the diminishing moves and job changes.

“I’ve been banging my head against a wall for almost a decade, trying to figure out why migration rates are declining like this,” says Thomas Cooke, professor of geography in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Cooke spent the spring of 2015 in the Department of Demography at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands on a Fulbright fellowship, where he worked on just this problem, UConn Today reported. His research findings give the first direct evidence for one major factor contributing to this trend: divorce and child custody.

“Changes in family complexity, like divorce and child custody, make a big difference for migration,” he told UConn Today.  Cooke’s current work stemmed from the idea that in the 21st century, families are becoming increasingly complex. More women are working, people often live with elderly parents or grandparents, and step-children and cousins often live under the same roof.

Less moving is not good news for the economy, published reports have indicated.

Economists worry that the lower turnover is an indication of stagnation, not stability, the Los Angeles Times reported earlier this year. “Workers are staying put because there are fewer better jobs to move to, or they face other barriers that are keeping them locked in their current positions. And with declining job movement may come slower gains in overall employment, wages, productivity and, ultimately, economic growth,” the LA Times reported.

The Globe report suggests that “one big reason people jump between states and careers is because they’re lured away by the promise of higher pay and grander opportunities. The fact that fewer people are moving suggests fewer are getting those life-altering chances.”

The Times reports that experts also blame government policies for suppressing job creation and labor market mobility, whether through taxes or burdensome regulations.  Government restrictions on who can work in which jobs have expanded greatly over time, academic economists Steven Davis and John Haltiwanger, who have written extensively on labor market flows, told the Times. Citing other research, they note that the share of workers required to have a government-issued license to do their jobs rose from less than 5 percent in the 1950s to 29 percent in 2008.

A New York Times report in May, citing data highlighted by the Brookings Institution, indicated that “Fluidity rates varied widely throughout the country, but the Brookings paper found that they declined in every state. Most of the largest drops occurred in the West: Oregon, Wyoming, Washington, Oregon, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Alaska were all in the bottom 10.

States with the most activity included North Carolina, South Carolina, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Illinois – but even these were not as fluid as they used to be, the paper reported.

There are broad adverse economic consequences to the lack of mobility, the Globe reports.  “A recent study authored by two Harvard professors found that poor states are barely gaining any ground. Between 1880 and 1980, income differences among the states tended to shrink about 2 percent a year. This catch-up growth was only half as fast from 1990 and 2010. And if you focus on the few years just before the recession that began in 2008, there was virtually no convergence at all.  Should this trend continue, the gap between rich and poor America may become a permanent feature of economic life,” the newspaper reported.

Cooke focused on child custody following divorce. His analysis confirmed that divorced people with children were even less likely to move than those without children. The findings support the idea that people’s lives are still linked, even if they divorce, Cooke explained.  At the University of Connecticut Cooke has directed both the Urban Studies program and the Center for Population Research. His research focuses on the family dimension of internal migration, and the shifting concentration of poverty. In 2013 he earned the Research Excellence Award from the Population Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers.

Cooke noted that the findings are the first direct evidence of divorce and child custody affecting migration in the U.S. Unlike the ’60s and ’70s, when state divorce proceedings usually awarded custody of children to the mother, joint custody is the norm today, he pointed out.

Combined with other factors affecting migration, such as the ease of telecommuting and the use of technology to communicate with loved ones far away, these divorce factors could spell a new era of rootedness, Cooke predicted.

Officials Seek to Turn State Schools “Red, White and Blue” Starting This Fall

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill and Education Commissioner Dianna R. Wentzell have launched what they’re calling the Red, White, and Blue Schools Initiative. The Initiative is a partnership between the State Department of Education and the Office of the Secretary of the State that will reward schools that develop programs that foster strong civic engagement among students. The program is available to all K-12 schools in Connecticut and will begin this fall with the start of the 2016-17 school year.

Each year, a theme will be announced and schools will be encouraged to teach the theme through interdisciplinary activities, whole-school events, extracurricular clubs/activities, student-centered learning and community outreach.

The theme for the first year will be “The Electoral Process,” since the year will include the presidential election, inauguration of the nation’s next president, and the beginning of the next session of Congress, as well as elections for all of Connecticut’s legislative and U.S. House seats and one of the state’s U.S. Senate seats.

“It is critical that we equip young people with the knowledge and perspective it will take to be informed, active citizens in a global society,” Commissioner Wentzell said. “The Red, White, and Blue Schools Initiative encourages schools to think outside the box about ways to engage students more actively in community and government.”

“A presidential election gives us so many opportunities to learn about democracy. Students can learn how voters are registered and polling locations are set up as well as how the votes are counted. What better time to learn about our democracy than an election year?” Secretary of the State Merrill said.  The Republican and Democratic parties will be selecting their presidential nominees this month, at national conventions held in Cleveland and Philadelphia.

Schools that want to participate in the program will have to meet certain criteria to be considered a Red, White, and Blue School. Requirements include integrating lessons about civic engagement into social studies classes and at least two other subjects and holding a whole-school event focused on student engagement, such as a mock election or a student-led candidate forum.

A fact sheet on the new initiative indicates that community outreach will be part of the program, urging that schools “work with local community organizations, business or government entities to increase student knowledge of implications and effects of elections on the community.”

Participating schools will be encouraged to take innovative approaches to teaching civics in the classroom and to consider involving extracurricular activities that promote civic and community engagement.

The new initiative was announced at the Timothy Edwards Middle School in South Windsor in June.  The program timeline calls for schools to complete their electoral process projects by January 2017, with the submission deadline for project material in March and school designations and award winners announced in May.  A website for the program is also planned.

PHOTO: State Education Commissioner Dianna R. Wentzell, Secretary of the State Denise Merrill

Hartford’s Innovation, Manufacturing History Highlighted in Exhibits at Smithsonian and State Capitol

On Wednesday, July 13, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History will make public a special portion of their collection with “Objects Out of Storage: Hartford, CT.”  The special exhibit, led by curator Susan Tolbert and historian Eric Hinz, will take place at noontime in the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation in the nation’s Capitol. Describing Hartford’s prominent manufacturing history, Hinz said “Hartford, CT, is a classic story in the history of American technology. If you have ever wondered why people refer to “Yankee ingenuity,” this is what they are talking about.”  He adds, “In the mid and late 1800s, the United States overtakes Great Britain as the world’s foremost economic superpower, largely on the strength of its prowess in inventing and manufacturing new technologies. Hartford is at the center of that revolution.”

Hartford, described as “one of the birthplaces of American mass production,” is well represented in the ongoing exhibit, Places of Invention, which “takes visitors on a journey through time and place to meet people who lived, worked, played, collaborated, adapted, took risks, solved problems, and sometimes failed—all in the pursuit of something new.”

The exhibit notes that by the 1850’s “Hartford became the center of production for a wide array of products—including firearms by Colt, Richard Gatling and John Browning; Weed sewing machines; Royal and Underwood typewriters; Columbia bicycles; and even Pope automobiles.”

The Lemelson Center is located at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, Constitution Avenue between 12th and 14th Street NW, in Washington, DC. The Lemelson Hall of Invention and Innovation is located on the Museum's first floor in its Innovation Wing. In the exhibit, which debuted  last summer, Hartford is featured with Silicon Valley and just four other locations: Hollywood, home of Technicolor; the Medical Alley of Minnesota, where cardiac innovations of the 1950s flourished; the Bronx, N.Y., birthplace of hip-hop in the 1970s; and the current, clean-energy innovations of Ft. Collins, Colo.

Among the featured innovations on display is the bicycle, manufactured for the first time in the United States in Hartford.  As the Smithsonian historian explains, “sensing a commercial opportunity, Albert Pope began importing bicycles from England and hatched a plan to produce them domestically in 1877. Within a year, Pope rode the train from Boston to Hartford, then, ‘to the amazement of the city’s onlookers, rode his high-wheeler from the station down Capitol Avenue to the Weed Sewing Machine Company.’”

The history continues: “Pope approached factory superintendent George Fairfield with a proposal: would Weed agree to build a test run of 50 bicycles under contract? When Fairfield agreed, Pope (via the Weed Sewing Machine Company) became the first domestic manufacturer of bicycles in the United States. By 1895, Pope’s expanded Hartford operations included five factories set on 17 acres, employing 4,000 workers, making him Hartford’s largest employer.” Pope manufactured bicycles, motorcycles, and automobiles.

That chapter in Hartford history has recently captured the imagination of a well-known Hartford artist, whose cut-paper recreations of that chapter of the city’s transportation and recreation breakthrough is now available for display, having just completed an exhibition at the Connecticut State Capitol.

Jeanne Manzelli, a resident of Windsor, has a BFA in Sculpture from the Massachusetts College of Art and her MED in Art Education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her experience includes a 20 year career in design, manufacture, appraisal and sale of jewelry, two decades as mural artist working closely with interior designers as an industry professional, and 14 years teaching basic and advanced drawing, sculpture and 3D design as well as color theory at Tunxis Community College.

Her latest endeavor is a departure, and a salute to an innovation from a century and a half ago. The intricate designs, accompanied by information panels highlighting the history, are now available to be displayed at public facilities, such as schools, libraries, and community centers.  Manzelli looks forward to sharing her work (and is seeking a sponsor to underwrite the exhibit), as well as stimulating a conversation about innovation in Hartford, then and now.

Connecticut is Finalist to Host 2021 Solheim Cup, Prestigious Women’s U.S. vs. Europe Golf Event

Connecticut is in the running to host the 2021 Solheim Cup, often described as the most exciting event in women's professional golf, in what would be a significant coup for the state’s sports fans. The female equivalent of the men’s Ryder Cup, the tournament is held every odd-numbered year and matches the best players from the United States against the best from Europe.

Brooklawn Country Club in Fairfield is one of six finalists to host the 2021 Cup, along with Inverness in Toledo, Scioto Country Club outside Columbus, Oak Tree National in Edmond, Okla., Lancaster (Pa.) Country Club, and a to-be-determined course in San Antonio, Texas.

The 2017 edition is slated for play at the Des Moines Golf & Country Club on August 14 – 20, 2017.  Scotland recently won the right to host The Solheim Cup in 2019.   The 16th edition of the team event will be played at the world famous PGA Centenary Course at The Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire.

Officials at the Connecticut Convention & Sports Bureau recently confirmed that conversations are underway that may result in the event being played in Fairfield County in 2021 – if Connecticut is selected from the field of finalists. Presentations by competing cities are being made on July 19 in Chicago.  The state should learn of the selection decision by the end of the year. Connecticut’s elected officials, at the state and federal level, have provided support for the Brooklawn bid.  

Brooklawn Country Club was formed in 1895 and from its earliest days, was conceived as a family club. Rich in history, Brooklawn was one of the first dozen or so clubs to join the United States Golf Association in 1896. Brooklawn has been the site of numerous amateur and professional championships including the 1974 USGA Junior Championship, the 1979 U. S. Women’s Open, the 1987 U. S. Senior Open and the 2003 USGA Girls Championship.

Although more than a year away, Des Moines is already spreading enthusiasm and selling tickets to the week-long event.  The August event traditionally draws some 200,000 fans for the three days of competition and preceding practice rounds.

“The support that the Des Moines community has shown for golf events in the area has been tremendous. Based on the incredible welcome that we’ve already seen from the city, state, and local organizers, I have no doubt that the 2017 Solheim Cup is already on track to be one of the best event we’ve ever staged,” said LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan. “From the very first time we met the Des Moines Golf and Country Club leaders, we realized that we were able to think big, rally the support of the community, and facilitate corporate and fan experiences that will take The Solheim Cup to a new level.”

Des Moines Golf and Country Club was the site of the 1999 U.S. Senior Open Championship which drew a record 252,800 spectators.

After an extensive and very competitive bidding process for the 2019 event, the final decision saw Scotland edge out a strong bid from Sweden, according to published reports.  There were 10 countries - Denmark, England, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and Wales – that submitted expressions of interest in hosting the 2019 event, the next time it is to be held in Europe.

Ivan Khodabakhsh, chief executive of Ladies European Tour said: “The competitive nature of the bidding process for the 2019 event is testimony to the growth in interest in women’s professional golf and women’s sport in general. The Solheim Cup has grown to be the biggest event in the women’s game delivering outstanding value to its partners at a local, national and international level.”

There is no early word on what impact the recent “Brexit” vote that is expected to lead to the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union might have on the event.

Last month, the victorious 2015 U.S. Solheim Cup team visited Washington D.C. to be recognized for their accomplishments last September in defeating the European Team and winning back the Cup after back-to-back losses. The team sported matching red, white and blue sneakers for their Oval Office meeting with President Obama.

Scotland’s bid, which was led by the EventScotland team within VisitScotland’s Events Directorate and backed by The Scottish Government, was submitted in August and received huge support from stars across the golfing, sporting and media spectrum.  John A. Solheim, PING Chairman and CEO, commented: “I am excited that the Solheim Cup will be returning to Scotland, home of Europe’s first win.  Gleneagles is certainly one of the great venues in golf and I’m sure that the members of the 2019 Solheim Cup teams will be up to meeting the challenges of this exceptional golf course.”

In the 1930’s, A. W. Tillinghast, one of history’s premier golf architects who also designed, among others, the courses at Winged Foot Golf Club, Baltusrol Golf Club, Bethpage State Park and Quaker Ridge Golf Club, redesigned the Brooklawn course in Fairfield into its present form.  Des Moines Golf and Country Club is the second Pete Dye-designed venue to host The Solheim Cup following the 2005 tournament at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Indiana.

Most Valuable States in America: Connecticut Ranks #3

A recent study estimates that the combined value of all land in the contiguous United States is worth nearly $23 trillion. The most valuable state, according to the survey, is California, which accounted for 17 percent of the total value of the 48 bordering states. New Jersey, however, had the most valuable real estate relative to its size, estimated at $196,400 per acre, or 16 times the average value per acre across the contiguous U.S. Connecticut ranked third overall.  Although the third smallest state in the country, containing just over 3 million acres, Connecticut is also one of just four states where land is valued at over $100,000 per acre on average. By contrast, the estimated value of an average acre across the country is just over $12,000.

The study, authored by William Larson, senior economist at the Federal Housing Finance Agency and previously at the Bureau of Economic Analysis, estimated the value of different property types, including agricultural areas, federal land, and developed suburban and urban areas.  The study is featured on the website 24/7 Wall St.

States with generally larger rural areas tended to have a lower value relative to their size, while more densely populated states that contain large urban centers had the highest estimated worth per acre. The value of Connecticut’s land is reflected in the higher cost of a house in the state. The typical house is worth $267,200, compared to a national median home value of $181,200, according to the analysis.

Key data for Connecticut includes:

• Value of land per acre: $128,824
• Total value: $400 billion (18th highest)
• Total acres: 3.1 million (3rd lowest)
• Percent land mass rural: 62.3% (4th lowest)

The top 10 “most valuable” states:  New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Delaware, New York, California, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.  Next are Florida, Michigan, Illinois, Virginia, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Indiana, Washington, North Carolina and Tennessee.

The analysis points out that the type of land in a given area has a significant impact on its worth. Agricultural and other largely undeveloped areas are generally worth significantly less than cities and suburbs land.  Developed land, or land where housing, roads, and other structures are located, is valued at an estimated $106,000 per acre, while undeveloped land was estimated at $6,500 per acre, and farmland at only $2,000 per acre, according to the analysis.

That said, the analysis notes that it is not surprising that most of the states with the highest per acre land values are predominantly urban, such as New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. These Northeastern states are smaller and have less rural acreage “to bring the average value down.”  The data reflects that the six most valuable states were also among the 10 smallest states by landmass. In New Jersey, for example, 39.7 percent of the area is considered urban, compared to a national urban share of just 3 percent.

The entirety of Delaware is worth just $72 billion, the second smallest total value compared to the other states in the lower 48, the analysis notes. On a per acre basis, however, the state is valued at $57,692 on average, the sixth highest in the country. Just behind Delaware is New York, with more than 30 million acres worth $41,314 each, on average. In total, the Empire State’s acreage is worth $1.25 trillion, based on the analysis. Because of the large rural areas in the state, the analysis explains, less than 10 percent of New York’s total area is considered developed. However, that developed property is so valuable it accounts for roughly two-thirds of the state’s total value.

All 10 of the states with the largest proportions of federally-owned land are west of Kansas, reflecting the way in large swaths of that land entered the United States at various junctures in U.S. history.   The Louisiana Purchase and the conclusion of the Mexican-American War left considerable areas across the western United States in the hands of the federal government.

While less than 25 percent of all land in the lower 48 states is owned by the federal government, in Nevada, as one prime example, the third least valuable state by acre, 86.8 percent is federal, the highest share in the country.  As a result, western states with a lot of federal land tend to have lower average values per acre. More than 30 percent of land in nine of the 15 “least valuable” states was federally-owned as of 2009.

Enforcement Hold Lifted, FCC Will Now Consider License Renewal Application of WTIC-AM, Pending for Two Years

Just days after a federal appeals court upheld former Gov. John G. Rowland’s conviction for violating federal campaign laws, the Federal Communications Commission lifted an enforcement hold on WTIC-AM's license renewal. At the time that Rowland was accused of secretly accepting pay as a political consultant, he was also an afternoon radio host on WTIC-AM. His use of the airwaves in order to favor the candidate, Lisa Wilson-Foley, whose spouse was paying Rowland at the time, was raised during his trial.

The FCC is now “in a position to consider the objections that have been filed regarding the renewal application,”  an agency official told CT by the Numbers.  There is no timetable for that review, which is just beginning now that the agency’s enforcement hold has been “lifted,” or for a final decision on the station’s license renewal application.

The station’s broadcast license expired almost 27 months ago, on April 1, 2014.  In accordance with FCC procedures, the station filed a license renewal application on November 27, 2013.  By September 2014, the FCC’s enforcement division placed the renewal application on “enforcement hold,” which precluded any action by the agency on the renewal.

The station, owned by CBS Radio, could continue broadcasting while the FCC held the renewal application. Stations in such a status routinely continue to operate without any interruption until a decision on license renewal is made.

Even as the station remained on the air, the license renewal has been in limbo. As the agency’s Enforcement Bureau considered “an alleged violation of FCC rules,” the agency’s Media Bureau could not proceed with a decision on whether or not to renew the station’s broadcast license, typically an 8-year renewal.

The FCC has not provided the reason that the license application was put on hold.  FCC officials have indicated that most often enforcement holds are instituted due to a complaint being filed that requires investigation, but they would not confirm whether that was true in this instance.  That information is only made available to the licensee or their attorney, according to an FCC official.

Now that the license renewal application has reached the agency’s Media Bureau, they will consider “how the allegation of violation was resolved,” as well as a range of other factors in deciding whether or not to renew the station’s license.  The other, more routine, factors include whether any other objections have been raised about the station, whether the station has been adequately serving the public in their area of license, their history of compliance with FCC regulations, and their overall performance.

Hartford Attorney Ken Krayeske filed an informal objection on October 1, 2014 to WTIC’s broadcast license renewal, alleging that the station “demonstrated serious malfeasance” and “helped conceal violations of federal law.”  The FCC has confirmed the receipt of that objection.

Rowland resigned from his drive-time talk show on WTIC-AM in April 2014.  The station currently airs a locally-originated sports talk program in that time slot. The FCC had no comment on whether the now more than two-year delay in making a determination on the license renewal is among the longest in FCC history.

NHL Considers Las Vegas and Quebec, Not Hartford

Apparently, it’s all about the lease.  Rumors continue to fly about the possible relocation or sale of the Carolina Hurricanes of the National Hockey League, but Hurricanes owner Peter Karmanos, who moved the team formerly known as the Hartford Whalers there two decades ago, says they’re staying put. The Hockey News is reporting that no team in the league has had worse attendance this season than the Hurricanes, whose average attendance has been 12,203 this past season. That’s more than 1,000 fewer fans than Arizona’s attendance, and Carolina is the only team in the league consistently selling less than two-thirds of the maximum attendance at home. In fact, the Hurricanes’ average of 65.3 percent capacity is the lowest by more than 12 percent.

In Forbes’ annual franchise valuations, the Hurricanes were ranked 28th at a value of $225 million, the News reported. Only the Arizona Coyotes and Florida Panthers were given a lower valuation by Forbes. In addition, Forbes said the Hurricanes had an operating income of -11.7 million, which ranked behind only the Panthers and New York Islanders.

“We have commitments that we value (in Carolina). We have an excellent lease, I love (PNC Arena) and I am deeply committed to this market,” Karmanos was quoted as saying in quashing rumors that the team was headed to Quebec, where an NHL-ready arena is waiting. 

A Las Vegas-based website, sinbin.vegas, reports that “their lease runs through 2024. He receives 100% of all parking and concessions for all non-North Carolina State events and a discount on utilities.”  Las Vegas has also been rumored for a franchise relocation or expansion team, and was one of two cities (Quebec was the other) to formally apply for an expansion franchise late last year.

The website reiterates that the Hurricanes are filling only 65% percent of the PNC Arena in Raleigh, which lists a capacity of 18,680. “The obvious reason is because the Hurricanes will once again not take part in the postseason…which doesn’t inspire the folks of Raleigh to attend… which sparks talk of relocation. To give this proper perspective the Columbus Blue Jackets are second from the bottom while filling only 77.7 percent of the Nationwide Arena.

NESN reported in March that, according to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, “We have two applications, one from Quebec City and one from Las Vegas. That’s exactly what we expected when we began the process, that those would be the two applications we’d have.” Quebec City has a brand-new arena that opened last fall, but would be the smallest market in the league.  It would also add another Eastern city, in a league that currently has an imbalance in Eastern teams, but has promised not to move teams from the mid-west, including Detroit, into a Western conference under realignment.

Veteran hockey journalist Stan Fischler is reporting that the NHL “could very well put teams in tiny Quebec City and sprawling Las Vegas; and likely will make that decision in June.”

A return to Hartford is not on the NHL radar.  As Hartford Courant columnist Jeff Jacobs pointed out last summer, when the NHL expansion process began, “without anyone willing to pay a whopping $500 million expansion fee the league owners want, bid or not there is no way — zero, zero, zero way — the NHL would select Hartford in 2015.”  Or 2016, apparently.  And 2017 is not looking good either.

Six State Commissions, Victims of Budget Consolidations, Disappear After Decades-Long Record of Achievement

After 43 years, the ironically-named Permanent Commission on the Status of Women began the organization’s final newsletter with an ironic observation:  “the PCSW had its most successful legislative session ever, celebrating the passage of four bills instrumental in protecting women's health and safety.” The PCSW is one of six legislative commissions eliminated in a last-minute budget compromise at the end of the legislative session a month ago.  The six ceased to exist on Thursday (June 9).  In their place will be two Commissions, each a mash-up of three of the organizations.

Wiped from the roster of state agencies are the PCSW, Legislative Commission on Aging, Commission on Children, Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission, African American Affairs Commission and Asian Pacific American Affairs Commission.  Replacing them will be the Commission on Women, Children and Seniors and a Commission that merges the Latino, African-American and Asian Pacific American Commissions.

All staff members were effectively laid off, some applied for the handful of jobs that are to exist in support of the new Commissions.  The volunteer Commissioners will be holdovers, meaning that 63 Commissions will remain in place to set policy direction.

The 23 year old Commission on Aging was eliminated as Connecticut rapidly approaches a new, long-term reality—older adults will comprise an increasingly large proportion of the population.  At least 20 percent of almost every town’s population in the state will be 65 years of age or older by 2025, with some towns exceeding 40 percent.  Already, Connecticut is the 7^th oldest state in the nation.

The Asian Pacific American Affairs Commission, the most recent of the six, was established in 2008 to respond to a growing population in Connecticut.  With the smallest budget, the agency struggled to gain traction, and was just beginning to fulfill its mission when the end arrived.  Connecticut's Asian American population grew from 95,368 in 2000 to 157,088 in 2010 – a 65% increase. Asians represent the majority minority in 40 percent of Connecticut school districts, according to the Commission. 

The Permanent Commission on the Status of Women was formed in 1973 to study and improve Connecticut women’s economic security, health and safety; to promote consideration of qualified women to leadership positions; and to work toward the elimination of gender discrimination.

Over the next four decades, the organization played a pivotal role in the passage of more than 50 significant pieces of legislation, often placing Connecticut at the forefront of progress towards greater justice or equal treatment for women.

That was certainly true in 2016, in what turned out to be, as was once said in a different context, the best of times and the worst of times.  This year, PCSW advocated for major initiatives that gained legislative approval:

• Allow judges to remove firearms during temporary restraining orders in domestic violence;
• Make affirmative consent the standard for investigating alleged campus sexual assaults;
• Establish a working group to study possible labor violations in the nail salon industry;
• Eliminate the discriminatory tax on feminine hygiene products and diapers;
• Dramatically strengthen anti-trafficking laws by: shifting the focus of arrests in prostitution cases to the "demand side"; raising penalties against buyers of sex; removing the "mistake of age" defense; and requiring hotels and motels to keep records of those who rent rooms by the hour; and
• Give judges authority to remove parental rights from rapists in cases of clear and convincing evidence of sexual assault resulting in pregnancy.

Established in 1997, the mission of the African-American Affairs Commission (AAAC) was to improve and promote the economic development, education, health and political well-being of the African-American community in the State of Connecticut.  The Commission has been at the forefront of a range of issues impacting the African American community in Connecticut, and its demise occurs when race relations and equal opportunity remain under heavy scrutiny in Connecticut and across the country.   

Glenn A. Cassis Executive Director of the African-American Affairs Commission, when the consolidation plan was announced, said merging the panels will cause "irreparable damage to the African-American community in Connecticut."

"The elimination of AAAC tells the African-American community that their issues are not important to the state,'' Cassis wrote in an open letter to the leaders of the General Assembly. "The message that resonates is that despite the successful efforts of the past to eliminate the disparities that exist for this constituency in education, health, economic development, criminal justice and incarceration, and social well-being have become marginalized. Years of progress made has been cut short from being fully impacted to the level that this growing segment of Connecticut’s population deserves and expects."

The Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission (LPRAC) was created by an act of the Connecticut General Assembly (CGA) in 1994. This 21 member non-partisan commission is mandated to make recommendations to the CGA and the Governor for new or enhanced policies that will foster progress in achieving health, safety, educational success, economic self-sufficiency, and end discrimination in Connecticut.  As of 2014, the state’s Hispanic population exceeded 500,000, about 15 percent of the state’s overall population.

In an Open Letter, LPRAC Executive Director Werner Oyanadel said “The decision to eliminate LRPAC does not in any way diminish the significant pride of the Commissioners and LPRAC staff, present and past, in the far-reaching and often ground-breaking work that has been accomplished to advance the quality of life for our state’s steadily growing Latino population.”  He added that “the end of a distinguished and impactful decades-long history does not diminish or eviscerate the landmark laws, policy-changing research and enduring impact of LPRAC on countless families, businesses and individuals of Hispanic heritage, and all the citizens of Connecticut.”

The Commission on Children, established in 1985, was borne of the legislature’s desire for the development of “policies that would ensure the health, safety, and education of Connecticut children.”  Said long-time Executive Director Elaine Zimmerman: “We feel we’ve succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest hopes, taking a leading role in issues as important—and diverse—as closing the achievement gap in reading, school climate, immunization, disaster planning for families, school readiness, children’s mental health, home visitation, youth employment, equity, and poverty reduction.”

One of the testimonials on the PCSW website, said succinctly: “The commission boldly tackles the issues that matter to my survival and prosperity! Their work to identify and eradicate inequality (whether of the deliberate kind or not), to serve as a public voice for women’s issues which are underrepresented in all public spheres, and to engage the public is integral in working toward a fair and just society.”

Regarding the state’s Latino population, Oyanadel said “the successor combined Commission will not be nearly the same; we can only hope that its impact will not be diluted or weakened, though we are concerned that our community will have a softer voice advocating for those issues of particular importance in and impact on the Latino community.”

Back in 2011, when consolidations and eliminations were under consideration by legislators, but ultimately not approved, as was the case repeatedly since the 2008 recession, Gov. Malloy told the CT Mirror: "If they asked my advice, I'd consolidate a bunch of them."

And in 2016, it came to pass.

Fast Forward Past Fiscal Crisis: CT Developing Goals for the Year 2041

New goals approved in the waning hours of the state legislative session focus not on the impending deficit in the next two years, but what Connecticut should look like a quarter-century from now. Fast forwarding to the future, the newly approved legislation establishes a “Connecticut 500 Project” to develop a plan to, within 25 years:

• Increase private sector jobs by 500,000;
• Increase Connecticut’s population by 500,000;
• Increase by 500 the number of start-up companies organized around Connecticut-developed intellectual property;
• Increase by 500 the number of students graduating from each state college and university;
• Achieve a national ranking within the top five for economic growth, public education, quality of life, and private sector employee salary;
• Maintain Connecticut’s position within the top five for productivity, higher education, and income per capita.

“This is an effort to reassert Connecticut as one of the strongest economies in the nation and in the world,” State Representative William Tong recently told WNPR. He's co-chair of the state’s Commission on Economic Competitiveness, and said the Connecticut 500 Project comes directly out of the work of the commission.  The commission will continue to flesh out the Connecticut 500 Project, and look to hire a private consultant to take the plan forward, WNPR reported.

Tong added that the project is modeled after similar efforts in states like New York, Minnesota, and Ohio, and one of its centerpieces will likely be to move away from Connecticut’s traditional suburban strategy, focusing instead on building population and business vitality in its urban cores.

Some of the groundwork begins sooner, and comes with a price tag.

The state Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) is required to establish a Talent Advisory Committee to assess shortages in the software development and other technology workforces, and develop pilot programs to correct such shortages.  And the Committee would develop knowledge enterprise zones around colleges and universities with the same benefits accorded entities in enterprise zones.

Details are still to be worked out as to how such an initiative would unfold, and the precise role of the state’s public and private institutions.  The committee would design a pilot program to recruit developers and train state residents over the next 10 years, according to the legislation.

The department’s First Five financial assistance program to encourage business expansion and job creation, is also expanded, as a means of hitting the lofty goals within the next two-and-a-half decades. 

The initiative, which began just a few years ago with five companies and has expanded almost every year since, providing loans and grants to Connecticut businesses as an incentive to remain in the state either despite, or because of, the steadily increasing state deficit driven in part by declining tax revenues.  The First Five program is increased once again under the bill to 20 projects from 15.

When it began in 2012, the companies identified to receive state funds were CIGNA, ESPN, NBC Sports, Alexion Pharmaceuticals, and CareCentrix.  Subsequent participating companies benefitting from the program include Deloitte, Bridgewater, Charter Communications, Sustainable Building Systems, Navigators, Synchrony Financial and PitneyBowes.

Earlier this spring, DECD Commissioner Catherine Smith told the legislature that over the last three years the program has provided $256 million to thirteen different companies. Smith stated that the companies have “committed to retain more than 13,500 jobs and to create between 2,600 and 5,264 jobs” and urged the program’s expansion and extended deadline (into 2019), which was ultimately granted.

Most recently, the state provided $22 million in loans and grants to the world’s biggest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, to stay in Connecticut – a decision that instantly received both praise and criticism, from Democrats and Republicans alike.

Colorado’s Governor Recalls Time at Wesleyan

The first time someone told Governor of Colorado and Wesleyan alumnus John Hickenlooper ’74 that he should run for public office, he nearly laughed them out of the room. “I said, ‘Why the hell would I ever do that,’” Hickenlooper said. “[Even growing up,] I never ran for student council or class president, and I didn’t really hang out with the people that did. This kind of caught me by surprise.”

If there ever was a perfect example of the triumph of a broad liberal arts education, Hickenlooper’s serendipitous path to the Governor’s mansion is it. The English major, turned geologist, turned brewpub owner ran for Mayor of Denver in 2003 as something of a joke.

“In 2001, some smart people who did work in politics—and they were my customers so I knew them—suggested I run for mayor,” Hickenlooper said. “They said, in a funny way, you’re perfect for who ought to be in politics. You’re a small-business person, someone in the service industry who understands restaurants, and somebody who understands science. So kind of as a joke, we decided to run. We didn’t do opposition research and I’ve never done a negative ad. Our focus was really on putting up a positive vision for Denver. And we did a few very funny TV ads that are still up on YouTube. And no one could believe it as we were running, because in 2003, we beat these lifetime politicians who had been in office since 1987 two to one.”

Hickenlooper may not have taken the most direct route to a career in politics, but growing up, he always had the sense that he wanted to leave a public legacy. Despite his initial disinterest in the political sphere, public service is actually in his blood: his great-grandfather Andrew Hickenlooper was a renowned Civil War general and both a Lieutenant Governor and U.S. Marshal for the Southern District of Ohio.

However, Governor Hickenlooper learned little about his family heritage growing up. His father died from cancer when he was eight, and he felt the absence acutely.

“Especially for men and boys, if your father dies you have to figure out [how] to raise yourself,” Hickenlooper said. “You know, showing yourself how to comb your hair, or what kinds of pants look good. Because you learn that stuff when you are very young.”

For a long time, Hickenlooper had little idea what he wanted to do with his life, but he believes there was something deeply existential about his lack of direction toward one set path. According to him, he internalized the family tragedy as motivation. He wanted to make enough noise in his life to leave a legacy that one day would be impossible to ignore.

“When I was a kid, I was skinny, had acne, and wore really thick, ugly black plastic glasses,” Hickenlooper said. “So I always sort of felt like I had to prove myself. After my dad died, there was this sense that you want your voice to be heard out in the cosmos. Kind of in a weird way, you want your father way, way out there to be able to hear your voice.”

With his father absent, Hickenlooper taught himself many adolescent rites of passage. Yet, he discovered Wesleyan through family ties. He attended his half-brother’s graduation from the University in 1968, and reminisces fondly about how cool he thought it was that The Grateful Dead played a show on Foss Hill amidst widespread campus unrest in 1969. Beyond this trivia, Hickenlooper loved Wesleyan’s approach to diversity and its open-minded curriculum.

In going about his academic experience, Hickenlooper forged as eclectic a path as he could. Although he majored in English, Hickenlooper was dyslexic and felt that he could never keep up in classes where there was heavy reading. Thus, he took a course load that included piano, “how to design and fabricate stained glass windows,” dance, and electronic music.

“I took all different things I thought would help me,” Hickenlooper said. “I thought I wanted to be in some sort of creative role in life. But it turned out everything I taught, I was never very good at. But it’s nice, because I can still play the piano, guitar, and banjo to this day.”

It was only just before his undergraduate education came to a close that Hickenlooper finally found his niche. After sitting in on a lecture in one of his friends Earth & Environmental Science classes, he realized that he loved the subject more than anything he had ever studied.

Subsequently, Hickenlooper was accepted into Wesleyan’s Master’s program in geology for students with a non-science background. He then took chemistry and math classes for two years and over the summer at Harvard University. He did field work in the Beartooth Mountains of southern Montana, where he observed the most beautiful landscape he’d ever seen. After graduation, he drove a beat-up Volkswagen fastback from his brother’s house in Berkeley to do more fieldwork in Costa Rica.

If Hickenlooper’s post-college years seem like a narrative straight out of “On the Road,” their surrealistic nature has never escaped him, especially when he settled down in Denver to become a professional geologist in 1981. After working for the oil company Buckhorn Petroleum for five years, Hickenlooper realized that he was a pretty big extrovert, and a nine-to-five desk job was never going to do it for his more adventurous tendencies. Before he could make a career switch, the price of oil collapsed and most of his company was laid off, including Hickenlooper himself. Even though he was out of work for almost two and a half years, Hickenlooper faced this latest setback the same way he had dealt with adversity all his life: reinvention.

“It’s funny, when I first got laid off, I was lucky,” Hickenlooper said. “Our company had found a lot of oil and we had some anti-takeover provisions in our compensation, so I ended up getting a year of severance. You know, I was looking through my old letters and I was never moping around, I was kind of excited. This didn’t work out, now I have to find something else, and what am I going to try next.”

After trying to find another job as a geologist and even toying with becoming a writer, the next chapter in Hickenlooper’s life was spurred by a visit to a California brewpub, a trip made with the same brother who had inspired his interest in Wesleyan. Enamored by the self-sufficiency of the restaurant-brewery fusion, Hickenlooper began to talk incessantly about the superiority of the establishment’s beer.

Eventually his friends started to tell him to open a brewpub of his own. Despite no experience with running a restaurant, that is precisely what he decided to do. After going to the library to figure out how to write a business plan, Hickenlooper dove headfirst into his new life as a small-business owner and opened the WynKoop Brewing Company in 1988.

Initially, getting the business off the ground was grueling. Hickenlooper worked between 60 and 70 hours per week and paid himself a salary of less than $26,000. But soon, things started to pick up, and Hickenlooper and his co-owners began to open brewpubs all over the Midwest. It was the opening of Coors Field two blocks away in 1995 that caused the WynKoop to explode in popularity.

“All of a sudden, we became rich,”Hickenlooper said.

While Hickenlooper could have franchised his pub or enjoyed the revenue stability that Coors Field had provided, he was still restlessly searching for his place in life. He began to become deeply engaged with the Denver community, joining non-profit boards such as the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts and the Denver Art Museum. He got involved with the battle over the naming rights for the Broncos’ new stadium, and soon he become a well-known figure in the city.

Hickenlooper soon realized that his favorite part of the day was the time he spent in the non-profit community. The intersection between business, arts, and public relations work suited both Hickenlooper’s multifaceted interests and his extroverted personality. Becoming some sort of a public servant could fulfill the higher calling he had sought since the death of his father. While he laughs that he initially ran for mayor as a joke, considering this decision, you get the sense that deep down, his political move was serious and deliberate from the beginning.

In 2005, Hickenlooper was named one of Time Magazine’s top five big-city mayors, and after getting re-elected as mayor in 2007 with 97 percent of the vote, there was talk of him filling Ken Salazar’s vacated Senate seat. While that didn’t pan out, Hickenlooper got the call in 2010 from incumbent Governor Bill Ritter, asking him to run for the soon-to-be open governorship. Hickenlooper easily defeated challenger Tom Tancredo and became the first Denver mayor to be elected Governor of Colorado in over 130 years.

For a public servant who has thoroughly disproven the conventions of how to carve out a career in politics, he has been a remarkably shrewd and effective leader. Despite running a nonpartisan campaign focused on balancing Colorado’s deficit, Hickenlooper has acted on the front lines of implementing socially liberal policies. He took on the NRA to institute stricter gun control regulations. He questioned the practice of capital punishment. He’s championed criminal justice reform after originally embracing harsher policing policies as mayor.

Most famously, he’s spearheaded Colorado’s marijuana legalization efforts. However, in this case, he did not always agree with the pace of reform. While supporting the decriminalization of marijuana and its use for medicinal purposes, he has publicly expressed opposition to Amendment 64, which was passed in 2012 and legalized possession of up to one ounce of the drug. Has his mind changed in the following years?

“I was against it, because you don’t want to be in conflict with federal law,” Hickenlooper said. “You don’t want to be the first to create an entire regulatory framework. But, now that it’s been going for a few years, we have anecdotal reports that I think are reliable, that we have fewer drug dealers than we had before.”

Hickenlooper also wanted to dispel the notion that legalization is merely driven by a financial calculus.

“Some people said we wanted to do it just to get the tax money,” Hickenlooper said. “That’s stupid. Why would you risk the health of your kids and your citizens? If this is really bad for people, getting tax revenues is a pretty bad excuse. But if you end up sending less people to jail, and you end up with less drug dealers trying to sell drugs of all kinds to kids or anybody, that is reasonable. We’ve taken the tax revenues and we’ve helped fund programs for drug rehabilitation and kids that get derailed from a constructive life. We’ve dedicated a lot of money to try and get them back in a good life.”

If politics forces everyone to eventually take sides, Hickenlooper likes to at least preserve his nonpartisan, centrist appeal in tone. What has allowed him to push deeply progressive policies in a politically divided state has been pairing his utilitarian philosophy with the desire to keep his finger on the pulse of the communities he serves.

“I think mostly just by listening,” Hickenlooper said. “You know states and cities are made up of all different kinds of people, so you really have to listen hard to understand what is the rhythm behind all that noise out there. There’s a melody and a rhythm in there somewhere, and what is it that will make the greatest number of people happy and give the greatest value to the community.”

Staying true to his business and non-profit experience, he has also streamlined government in Colorado and filled his cabinet with many people who possess management skills. While he certainly doesn’t speak about the relationship between business and government in the way that Donald Trump does, he does agree that government benefits from employing individuals with diverse backgrounds, especially those with organizational management and leadership experience.

“We’re taking all this [management] training that people receive from getting MBAs, and we’re giving it very narrowly to just business,” Hickenlooper said. “If you look at it, government is about 30 percent of our economy. And non-profits are another 30 percent. And yet all the training in management and leadership goes into business.”

Hickenlooper operates in a tranquil space, and his desire to forge a consensus on major issues seems sincere. What, then, does he think of an election season that has been the complete opposite? Specifically, what would he do if Donald Trump becomes president? One has to wonder if another extended trip to Costa Rica is in his future.

“No, I’d have two more years of being a sitting governor, so I couldn’t leave and do that to my adopted state,” Hickenlooper said. “But I do think that he might be reinventing himself again. So, I’m not going prejudge him. I will say that he scares the living daylights out of me. Some of the things he says are just so provocative and difficult. If he somehow manages to get elected, which I’m going to work hard to make sure doesn’t happen, he’s the President of the United States. And I respect the system our country has created.”

There’s even a chance that Hickenlooper himself may play a direct role in the election to come. A longtime supporter of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Hickenlooper is one of the superdelegates that has already pledged support to her campaign. And while he has dispelled rumors of being a potential pick for the Vice Presidency, they persist anyway. Since Hickenlooper occupies a space between the establishment and outsider status, what does he say to students who are disillusioned by the DNC’s cozy relationship to Clinton, or their frustrations with the lack of viable alternatives?

“What I tell young people all the time is, ‘get your friends to vote,’” Hickenlooper said. “Don’t complain because the more experienced people in the party are supporting Hillary. Go out and get more people to vote.”

His take on the activism of today is similarly nuanced, if not a little nostalgic for the great battles for equality of the past.

“I say to kids, ‘I was you once,’” Hickenlooper said. “I marched on Washington to oppose the Vietnam War. I went to the first Earth Day in 1969. But, I also understood that there were people who were older and they thought they had answers, and maybe they were right and maybe they were wrong. But we had a system whereby everybody had a voice, and that is the amazing thing about America.”

If there’s anything that sticks out about Hickenlooper’s political philosophy, it’s his respect, and even admiration, for a democratic process that once seemed completely foreign to him. Then again, he didn’t expect to become a brewpub owner or a geologist either. Perhaps he’s still got a few more tricks up his sleeve.

This article was written by Aaron Stagoff-Belfort and first appeared, in a lengthier version, in the Wesleyan Argus.  Abridged and published with permission.