The Connecticut Port Authority was in the crosshairs of the General Assembly again this year with lawmakers passing legislation they say will further rein in the quasi-public agency.

The legislation, which among other things limits the controversial use of success fees in port authority contracts, is among a host of bills passed this session that address everything from guns and mold to eel grass and affordable housing.

“An act concerning oversight of and requirements for certain contracts of the Connecticut Port Authority” prohibits the authority from entering into contracts with “success fees” and prohibits construction managers from applying for work on a project it oversees.

Lawrence Fox, the chairman of the State Contracting Standards Board, said the legislation addresses outstanding areas of concern to the board. The port authority paid a $523,000 success fee as part of a $700,000 payment to a consulting firm hired to find a port operator for State Pier. The board likened the success fee to a finder’s fee that is barred from state contracts in order to ensure fairness in the bidding process.

“We didn’t have any evidence that other quasis were engaged in using success fees,” Fox said.

Fox said he sees the other part of the legislation as closing a loophole. The port authority had allowed Kiewit Corp., the company managing the State Pier construction project, to recommend itself for millions of dollars in work on the State Pier project.

Another important aspect of the new legislation, Fox said, is the ability of the Contracting Standards Board to continue to audit the authority. That bit of oversight - the board conducts audits of state contracting agencies every three years to ensure compliance with statutes and regulations concerning procurement -- was due to sunset in 2026.

“The port authority is such an important asset to the state. Having public eyes on it makes sense,” Fox said.

State Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, who has supported legislation in the past to provide financial reporting requirements for the port authority, said the latest cost increase on the port authority’s State Pier project is an example of why continued oversight is needed. She is not convinced that the newest request to the state for $30 million toward what is now a more than $300 million State Pier project will be the last.

“We’ve put a lot of guardrails on the port authority. It just seems they can find a way around them,” Osten said.

Here’s a look at some of the bills considered or passed this legislative session that will impact southeastern Connecticut:

Affordable Housing

The omnibus housing bill, passed after a nine-hour filibuster from Senate Republicans in the waning hours of the session Wednesday, contains more than 40 housing-related provisions to enhance tenant protections, study weaknesses in the state’s housing voucher program and give the state more of a role in planning for affordable housing.

Housing Committee Chairwoman state Sen. Marilyn Moore, D-Bridgeport, acknowledged the state still has “a way to go” to address the need for more affordable housing, but called it a step in the right direction.

Housing advocates say there are at least 85,000 more households in Connecticut looking for rents or mortgages they can afford than there are places for them to live.

Sen. Osten joined the region’s Republicans in voting against the bill. She said Thursday most of the small, rural towns she represents don’t have the water and sewer infrastructure to support the kind of multifamily housing developments favored by advocates and state policies.

The bill passed the Democrat-dominated Senate anyway, by a vote of 23-13.

The flash point for the Republicans was a proposal – watered down by the House over the weekend – to conduct a study about how best to spread the need for lower-cost housing options across the state. The premise is each city and town should be responsible for building or rehabilitating its “fair share” of affordable units.

Republican Sen. Heather Somers, R-Groton, opposed the study that Republicans repeatedly referred to as the “Fair Share first step.”

“As a former mayor (of Groton Town) all I remember saying is ‘Hartford needs to stop with the mandates. Leave us alone. Let us decide. We know our town best. Local control is the best control,’” she said. “And I think this does the exact opposite.”

She also objected to measures designed to protect renters, which she described as too burdensome for landlords. Elements in the bill include restrictions on what landlords can charge in late rent fees or for screening reports and a provision to remove online eviction records within 30 days if the case is withdrawn, dismissed or decided in the tenant’s favor.

Life sentence for domestic violence killings

A bill that would allow the state to seek a life sentence without the possibility of parole for domestic violence killings did not gain traction in the legislature this session.

HB6682 would have included domestic or family violence killings among the crimes in Connecticut called murder with special circumstances, formerly referred to as a capital felonies.

State Rep. Holly Cheeseman, R-East Lyme, co-sponsored the bill, noting the 12 intimate partner killings in the state in 2022 . Cheeseman had testified in support of the bill with Heather Rodriguez, whose pregnant daughter, 25-year-old Corina Zukowski, was murdered by her former boyfriend at an East Lyme motel in 2018 while trying to leave an abusive relationship.

The bill was defeated by a vote of 55-95 in the House.

Mold

The General Assembly passed legislation that directs the state Department of Public Health, by Jan. 1, 2024, to develop standards for evaluating and fixing mold in residential housing and to create a public awareness campaign about mold.

The next step would be for the General Assembly to hold a public hearing and propose another bill to adopt the standards, said state Sen. Somers, who introduced the legislation because of issues at Branford Manor, a federally subsidized housing complex in the City of Groton.

State Rep. Aundré Bumgardner, D-Groton, who voted in favor, said in a statement that: “By establishing these standards, we can ensure that mold-related issues like we’ve seen at Branford Manor are consistently and effectively addressed across the state.”

Commutations

State lawmakers, led by Republicans, were able to call attention to and force a temporarily halt to commutations this year in reaction to a large spike in the number of reduced prison sentences being granted by the state Board of Pardon and Paroles. A bill to modify the Board of Pardon and Paroles’ ability to grant those reductions, however, fell short of what some lawmakers wanted and died in the Senate.

Sen. Somers said while Gov. Ned Lamont did replace the chairman of the board of Pardon and Paroles, changes to a proposed bill regarding the commutation policy by the Democratic-controlled House had stripped important provisions, such as notifications to victims’ families, before it went to the Senate.

As a result, amendments proposed by the Senate led to death of the bill.

Guns

Lamont on Tuesday signed into law House Bill 6667 which prohibits “open carry” of firearms statewide, part of a bill pitched as a way to further prevent gun violence. Gun owners will no longer be able to carry firearms openly in public but maintain the right to a concealed firearm.

The bill increases penalties for repeated firearm offenses, updates state law on unregistered ghost guns, bars bulk purchases of handguns and expands the state’s list of ban “assault weapons” to include “other” firearms, guns with features of banned weapons that were previously not on the list.

Other provisions update training requirements for pistol permits, require trigger locks on all gun sales and not just handguns and requires a pistol permit to purchase body armor.

Eel grass restoration

The General Assembly passed legislation, with overwhelming support, to create “a working group to identify ways to restore eel grass along the state’s shoreline.”

Somers, who co-sponsored the bill, said she and the Long Island Soundkeeper are excited the legislation passed.

“I am proud to cosponsor this legislation because it protects our fragile marine ecosystem along our shoreline,” Bumgardner said in a statement.

Mystic traffic, parking

The Senate unanimously passed SB 660, co-sponsored by Somers, to establish “a task force to study the feasibility of developing a multimodal transportation center in the towns of Stonington and Groton,” but it didn’t get taken up for a vote in the House, according to the General Assembly’s website.

Financial literacy

Lamont on Wednesday signed a bill that includes one-half credit in personal financial management and financial literacy in high school graduation requirements, starting with the class graduating in 2027.

The measure passed the House and Senate with broad bipartisan support; all Democratic and Republican legislators from southeastern Connecticut voted in favor.

Reproductive rights

State Rep. Christine Conley, D-Groton, said the General Assembly passed a package of reproductive rights bills.

That includes legislation, locally co-sponsored by Somers, Conley, and state Rep. Devin Carney, R-Old Lyme, to implement the Department of Consumer Protection’s recommendations for regulating prescription drugs. The legislation allows pharmacists, who complete educational training, to dispense emergency and hormonal contraception.

Businesses with a permit can have vending machines to dispense over-the-counter medication, according to the bill language. That would include Plan B and Narcan, Conley said.

Somers said it includes the proposal for pharmacists to dispense birth control that she introduced with state Sen. Ryan Fazio, R-Greenwich, and was co-sponsored locally by Somers, Bumgardner, Carney, and Cheeseman.

Vision Zero

The General Assembly passed legislation, co-sponsored locally by Bumgardner, to implement safety recommendations of the Vision Zero Council in the wake of a spike in fatal crashes.

Bumgardner said the final version includes allowing municipalities to have speed and red light cameras, contingent on DOT approval, and directing the DOT to study allowing cyclists to treat a stop sign as a yield sign and a red light as a stop sign.

Mashantucket-Mohegan fund will increase

Osten hailed passage of a bill that will more than double the amount of gaming revenue the state distributes annually to cities and towns through the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan Fund, starting with the 2026 fiscal year.

Passed unanimously by the Senate and the House, the bill calls for the state to transfer $139.4 million to the fund from its share of gaming revenues the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes generate from slot machines, online gaming and sports betting.

‘Dual taxation’ to be studied

The budget implementer bill creates a “working group” to look into the taxation of real and personal property on the reservation lands the federal government holds in trust for the Mashantuckets and the Mohegans. Earlier in the session, Rodney Butler, the Mashantucket chairman, argued in favor of a bill that would have ended such “dual taxation,” a move that would cost Ledyard and Montville hundreds of thousands of dollars.

A bill that originated as a proposal to rename the Thames River as the Pequot River did not get a vote in the House.

Education funding increased in final state budget

Education advocates applauded the approved state budget this week, noting that the final package boosts general education aid to cities and towns through the Education Cost Sharing grant and provides cities and towns with additional funding for high-cost special education.

Overall, the final state budget added $150 million to the ECS formula grants to cities and towns for the coming 2024-25 budget year and provides $25 million in each of the next two years to help cover high special education costs.

In the governor’s initial budget, some municipal school districts were slated to see their ECS grant funding drop next year. Preston, for example, would have lost $91,000 in the governor’s initial budget. The final budget restored those funds to last year’s levels and provided additional ECS funding to Alliance School Districts. Norwich will receive an additional $1.4 million and New London $458,000 in ECS money.

“No city or town in Connecticut received any cuts in funding, with many towns receiving more state aid, state Sen. Martha Marx, D-New London, said in an email statement on education funding.

Conley said funding was approved for health care, physical health and mental health at University of Connecticut branch campuses, including UConn-Avery Point in Groton.

Conley added that the legislature changed a law to allow people who have federal military qualifications to have home daycare to use those qualifications in Connecticut.

“That way if military families are moving and have the licensure, it will be easier for spouses to continue employment,” she said.