Mornings With Gary Byron Podcast 3-6-26

0:003 FM the voice of reason Gary Byron and Joe the producer on the talk of Connecticut WDRC AM 1360 and 103.3 FM I tell you Connecticut can't get out of its own way and it's sad because there's incredible potential within this state but again you know it's like well I don't want to move but they don't the state doesn't give you a reason to stay. Now it's not even giving you a reason to be a snow bird to return in other words to spend your summers down and warmer climate states like Florida and then as the snowbirds typically do from Connecticut come right back up into Connecticut and you know on your boat or on you when you fly up here maybe you got a place to stay up here I just let me explain what I mean as of two months ago January 2026 new regulations

1:03from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection otherwise known as deep heavily restrict living on houseboats and vessels with new marina permits banning permanent temporary or seasonal occupancy so this effectively acts as a prohibition on live aboard or long-term residency on boats in Connecticut water so let me just give you some key details regarding the new rules what they include an occupancy ban it's a new stricter language in permits explicitly forbidding using birth vessels for habitation which may impact snowbirds or those staying on boats for the entire summer season and as

2:05far as the definition of violations the regulations are broad enough that even overnight seasonal stays could be considered a violation in license suspensions from for 2026 both a driver's license and a safe boating certificate can be suspended if you are convicted of boating under the influence but I want to go back to very wealthy individuals who's tax dollars by the way we love it's a matter of fact dams are always looking to getting more money from the uber rich right tax the rich that's their mantra so here we have an opportunity to do exactly that what do I mean these are the people who live in Florida during the winter months and for about I don't know five months they come up to Connecticut what they do is they take their yacht and the hired guns that they have for this because there are people who will live

3:10take care of the maintain the boat they drive the boat they navigate the boat they sometimes even depending on the size of your crew will prepare your meals you know depending on how many with the sleeping quarters is some of these yachts sleep you know 15 20 depending on the size of course and what they do is they'll come up and they'll stay in mystic or sabreau or westbrook or further or further or stoning tin or further down west port credits some of those areas on the Connecticut shoreline they doctor boat and a marina okay and they go and spend a lot of money and not only that but you know there's a fee in order to dock their boat their yacht actually at the marina and those marinas are Connecticut businesses they thrive on this and yes they're all paying taxes the individual owns the yacht

4:13who's looking to dock their yacht they're paying taxes and the owner of the marina are paying taxes what would you do what are they going to do if that is eliminated that being the ability for the yacht owner to dock their yacht in their marina good morning it's Gary Byron 12 minutes after seven o'clock welcome aboard the well I'm not going to say welcome aboard the yacht it's going to be well welcome aboard the old morning train our first guest into the daily connerton memorial company in the chair is a person ID as the Connecticut GOP fundraising extraordinaire but he's in for the full hour around Facebook live right now he'll be taking your calls at the bottom half of seven let's welcome back to the show George Eggnelly George good morning good morning yeah so a couple you know the nice part about being in the jewelry stores people come in and I

5:13get to hear all these little things that go on and you just you shake your head so one of my friends was up from Florida and he goes oh I don't think we're coming to Connecticut this year and I said what do you mean you're not coming up for the summer and you're always in Westbrook and he joins us at water's edge and he elks and he goes well they told me that I can't come up for the summer and live on my boat at the marina that I'll have to I'll have to at least spend two to three nights a week off the boat in order for them to do the dockets you know they bring up a very significant boat I mean it's you know they have you know three crew members you know they're different different they live in a different world and he goes well we're not going to be in Westbrook this year because the marina told us we can't spent we can't spend the summer in Connecticut and so he goes I think we're looking we're looking at Kate Manu Jersey we're looking at Boston harbors and trying to see what it is but just think about this boulder registration is down 9% in Connecticut as it is now these marinas are already facing you know because of the interest rate people aren't buying boats that they're going to now have like he was George we spend you know

6:1660,000 a park park our boat for the summer that's what they pay for the year for the summer that's a summer month yeah thousand of course it's all relative it's probably yeah it's all relative to their thing but he goes that's good that's going to be a thing and you know my daughter and I we just key in to go to bills see for when you got to go through the marina to get the bill see for them we always see the Debbie we always see hey is it Debbie Lou there hey is the man hat in there these monster yachts that are parked inside that marina and those people are paying you know 100 200 grand a year to park their boats at that marina and that marina built those dock specifically for boats that size and they're not going to be there and I don't I don't know what's going to happen with this this is just simply crazy okay do we know where this bill originated from who wrote this it came through deep I couldn't you know again this just happened yesterday so I did as much research as I could on it all right well I mean listen but it's happening this is what's happening other than the e-sert bill and some judges that were voted on nothing has been voted on on the floor they're still in committee this year so this tells me one of two things have happened um this was a bill through the legislature a year ago uh that

7:22just went into effect even though it was voted on last end of last session doesn't didn't take effect until January 2026 so that's one option right um or I mean I don't know if the deep commissioner could make this unilateral decision that's a policy issue I don't I don't I don't know enough about the legislature yeah I don't know enough about you know the rules and how it is but general law general law if you be a Google Connecticut voting and it says no more live-a-boards no no more air BABs no more I mean the tourism is going to get absolutely destroyed no more houseboats that's what I want to talk about now is let's talk about tourism there along the shoreline you know these any business along the shoreline takes a beating during you know from like November through April especially this was they got May June July August and September they've got five months out of 12 that's not even half that's just slightly less than half with five

8:23months to make their money okay what's this going to do for the tourism industry along the Connecticut shoreline it's good two things are going to happen we're never going to wait for food anymore we're never gonna get you know we're gonna walk in say oh did you have a reservation no you don't need one close it right over here but that's not a positive no yeah uh you know it's again everybody you know does there you know if you look at everybody goes oh is there going to be enough parking in the area the question is is there going to be enough people to support a parking problem that's the that's the you want to have enough people to support a parking problem that are we gonna have a parking problem so that we're gonna have a problem and the Connecticut shoreline the marinas are gonna be empty that means that there's gonna be less people working for the marinas which are seasonal work for the college kids uh it's just this is a snowball effect in the wrong way and this is going to have an effect on our revenue as well oh there's no question about so where's like who sat there and said yeah this sounds like a great idea so if you leave your boat in Connecticut right and you you like it's a 35 footer and you're gonna leave

9:24it at the marina you pay to have it shrink wrapped you pay tax you pay to have it winterized you pay tax you pay to have it put into water you pay tax you pay the marina dockets fee you pay tax a lot of tax right you put you buy gas in Connecticut you pay tax you go to the restaurant you pay tax so when you take this out when the guy if a guy says okay put my 36 footer in the water fill it up a gas and he heads down to New Jersey or he heads to New York or he heads to Boston or he heads wherever he decides to go with the boat he's gonna go somewhere else using that scenario that example that you just gave if you that's just one give me an average estimate on what the state could be losing out on taxes on just one one person who owns a boat and would dock it at one of our marinas and go ahead when I when I had the 36 footer it cost me about 25,000 a year between dockage gas everything else so if you do 6% at 25,000 that's 15 another answer that's just one

10:28boat that's not buying one drink at the bar that's not buying that's just the cost for docking the docking the winter storage the summer storage the shrink wrapping the winterizing is about 25,000 a year to own a boat it's not cheap yeah all right so but when you factor in everything else that you just mentioned a moment ago right when you factor in all this and that's just per boat yeah that's per boat per boat per boat so that doesn't that doesn't include the dock hands the people pumping the gas the you know the mechanics at the marina the restaurant yeah everything yeah no it was a lot of fun I have my boat at the back porch which was a great place and a great band every night and it was six stocks to the bar or six stocks out to the ocean and it was a it was a beautiful spot was a lot of fun expensive but it was a lot of fun so if that figure is based on one do we know how many people typically boat their that they're that they're boat for the seat for the summer season I have no idea it's got to be thousands got to be that a lot of people use that as their snow they get rid of their house because they don't I can't afford it to utilities and they live

11:31on a 35 or 40 foot boat for the summer and they come up they don't spend the whole summer maybe they spend two months or three months or whatever but they have their boat here and that's their their floating cottage that's what it's called a floating cottage I know I understand that I've heard that term before but again it baffles me where somebody said in our in the state yeah that sounds like a real great idea I mean that is a huge revenue loss for the state right well we and again I guess they need to clarify more the they're they're sent from reading some of the marina stuff we're so we're not sure we think they mean houseboats but they're not clear on this and they're talking about summer stories so it's going back and forth and back and forth but nobody has a clear guideline on it but the marinas can lose their permits if they have full-time seasonal people and they cannot do year-round boats anymore all right so now we're talking about I don't know we had a housing shortage and it goes by their own rules and they don't really think things through their knee-jerk reaction we're tip we're known for this knee-jerk reaction 49 lawsuits

12:32against Trump and the stuff that's falling apart in our state is unbelievable but you know he's got DTS so bad he sued Trump's 49th time when do we put some guidelines on him you can only sue the president ten times a year you know I mean I'm how much money are we wasting on lawsuits that are going to do nothing for us what about people who live in Connecticut year-round and they do say come on guys we're going to take the boat out we're going to do a two-week family vacation and we're going to dock at all these different marinas along our shoreline well I don't know that you're going to be allowed to because it doesn't looks like some of them can't even have overnight stay that they can only use a boat during the days if you read some of this stuff they did because there's no set guideline on what like there's no terminology like this is going to be while you can't stand your boat for five you can only stand your boat for five days you can only do this now they also put a new fee in called AIS for aquatic invasive species which is $27 per boat and $7 per hunting license and you have to have stickers on your boat and even if

13:33you're going Greenwich and you like let's say you go from New York to Greenwich for the weekend or New York to Essex or Griswald yeah you have to have that sticker you've got to pay $150 fine if you're on Connecticut water whether your boat's registered in New York New Jersey whatever you have to have that sticker so this stuff is just absolutely crazy what's going on and I again just found out about it yesterday maybe Wednesday some couple was in at you know part use live on your sailboat all summer well later on in the in the night of clock hour I'm sorry no no next hour the eight o'clock hour I've got a state center header summers on and I believe she is the chair of our co-chair or I don't know she's part of the tourism clock is I'm gonna I'm gonna ask her about this yeah ask her see what's it with I mean this is gonna really affect tourism on the shoreline in Connecticut and we really don't have much other tourism I mean you I mean we I mean they took wrench or field and they made it into a

14:35beautiful Lego land and we get so many people coming into our state to see two warehouses that you know they decided to put there instead of building Lego land and Lego went to Boston so I you know you when you look at the plans for our state we are we really lack tourism and we this is gonna really affect tourism they also cut the tourism budget like why would you and I understand Connecticut has a lot of assets it has a lot of things going for it and I understand that but we're not the only state that's got a lot of things going for it so they had to give they had to give them money for the tourist dollars is it's competitive yeah they had to give they had to give their money to McCory because you know he was short but money in his budget and that's where they had to take it from the you know the tourism board which could bring money to the state and bring people in with money that actually might say hey I like it here I might move here all right let me do this I got to take a 60 second break more with the George Agnelli right after this wondering what to do with your big income tax check this year how about that kitchen project you've been promising yourself to do whether it's a full remodel or just new

15:38appliances Ferraris appliance has all the top brands and oven ranges refrigerators dishwashers and microwaves plus they service everything they sell provide delivery and installation even financing is available enough with the pushy salesman at those big box stores for your kitchen remodel make it Ferraris appliance and new intonate nougatuck online at Ferrarisappliance.com full power radio is on the move and we're looking for new sales reps and sales assistants to join our team turn ambition into income while working face-to-face with local businesses and creating bold high-impact marketing campaigns work and thrive in a fast-paced environment it's competitive and the rewards match the effort be a part of a locally owned and operated radio group in southern New England step up stand out start your new career email sales at fullpowerradio.com full power radio is an equal opportunity employer number one for breaking news for Vernon Farmington and South Windsor the talk of Connecticut a.m. 1360 and FM 103.3

16:4125 minutes after seven o'clock our guest live in studio is a Connecticut GOP fundraiser extorted their George Agnelli he'll be taking your phone calls momentarily if you want a call I see a line open getting the Q860243 1360 it's true George C.A. that is in the process of being acquired as part of a massive 111 billion dollar deal where paramount and skydance are buying its parent company Warner Brothers Discovery now the deal which emerged in about a month ago marks a significant shift in ownership with the combined company set to control both CBS and CNN what this is this is this is huge this is very big and and a mega guy is going to be the guy that's in charge oh yes and the people with CNN are not happy Dave Ellison Dave Ellison and he said they're going to become more legitimate news CNN is going right now and CBS and CBS

17:43and CBS well they changed the president of CBS a few months ago right she and she said and people were trying to get her ousted some of the other long term CBS staff members were trying to ousted her the press but let's go back to CNN or let's go back to Ellison for a moment because he was a Trump contributor and he's an old and old Democrat who got reformed and joined the Republican Party because his party he felt went too far left right and he's a big fan of Marco Rubio he gave him over four million dollars for his campaign for president so he was one of the ones funding Marco Rubio when Marco was running for president so this is a huge huge plus because you know the media is 80% liberal and 20% Republican this sort of balances the playing field a little bit and then you know Elon Musk is talking about taking over MSNBC and I think that's going to really happen in the next year or so what's that it's actually MS now it's not whatever yeah whatever in whatever the name is so the last time I looked at CNN ratings which is back in the fall I think

18:47was October or November it was the worst of the cable news systems and back then considering fox news news max MSNBC because it was MSNBC at the time in CNN CNN was was the worst of those of the big four and their number listen to this is pretty sad because in prime time prime time in radio folks is 7 to 11 unlike radio where it's you know 6 to 10 in the more 6 to 10 in the morning for radio 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. in television during prime time hours CNN brought in only one million viewers do you understand one million viewers on a national network yeah but they got colored hair and they got dyed hair and they're all they're ones all believing what they hear so that's like only one third of Connecticut's population right well they're on the 20 percent of every issue but they're under 20 percent of every issue that's the problem and then they have those people all

19:51riled up so let's get back to some balanced reporting and we won't have all these riled up people that are shaving their head and you know eating ass from when they're pregnant and doing all this stuff you're right of the 80 20 percent tile of the air in the 20 percent they yeah they take out of let's put them in the 80 percent you know well and and their ratings reflect that yeah I you know it's curious though I think people want unbiased straight thing just give it to me straight don't spin it yeah the Walter Christ here it is take it to leave it all right when Joe Biden lied about being president 20 years ago they called about that I got to take a break here your phone calls 860 243 1360 with George they're next 10 and 103.3 FM number one for breaking news for Vernon Chan and Rocky Hill the talk of Connecticut AM 1360 FM 103.3 I want you to circle a date on your calendar all right no I'm sorry if you're if you're if you're able to if you're not

20:53driving uh circle a date on your calendar if you are driving you know obviously keep your eyes on the road um just make a mental note of this or make a notation or verbal notation in your smartphone or Wednesday March 11th I'll say it again Wednesday March 11 and if you're wondering what's today today's today's the sixth the 11th is next Wednesday so Wednesday of next week it's going to be quite a day up at the Capitol in the L.O.B the legislative office building potentially this is what we're hoping this is what we're hoping to do because you heard the expression strength in numbers right when you see when when numbers that sends an overwhelming message potentially thousands of people could show up that's what we're striving for you might be asking well why what's what's going on here um wow I'll tell you why I'm

21:54going to let our next guest into the daily Connerton Memorial Company interview chair um explain that but I I just wanted to get that out right now just circle the date Wednesday March 11th uh we're going to need you we need our warriors to come out that thing good morning it's Gary Byron 8-11 here on the old morning train so happy to have you on board uh our next guest into the daily Connerton Memorial Company interview chair represents beautiful southeastern Connecticut we're talking Stonington Mystic rotten oh I don't know many others as well uh let's welcome back to the show state senator Heather summers senator good morning how are you good morning to you I'm doing great how are you this morning I am uh I'm I'm not too shabby I'm doing pretty well over here how about you do well where you are good yes we are we have a little bit of rain but you know I I can see the sun trying to make its way out and you know the rain reminds me of the democrats a little bit of

22:57sun reminds me of the light that we have with republicans um and we do need your help on the 13 you know it's like the new eyes of march except it's the 11th and not the 15 yeah the 11 exactly um explain explain what that is yeah thank you okay so it's if like pushing through you know an e-certified bill emergency certified bill that wasn't an emergency as if that wasn't enough for the people of Connecticut right and the democrats are pushing things through and giving organizations money that are under investigation thankfully the governor did veto that particular part of the bill he should have vetoed the whole thing because it didn't have a public hearing but as if that wasn't enough for the citizens of Connecticut now what we're doing not we but the majority party the democrats are taking too very hot button issues vaccination and homeschooling there's a lot of crossover on those individuals too as you as you

24:00can imagine because if you're not fully vaccinated your child is not fully vaccinated in the state of Connecticut you are no longer eligible for an education in the state of Connecticut because the democrats have pushed that through uh therefore some some if not many have chosen to homeschool their children so now there is an assault not only on vaccination but on homeschoolers on the same day in the capital we are going to be hearing two bills public hearing one is on the vaccination schedule that they are now going to take because they do not like that rfk is in the white you know is a um running the hhs uh was appointed by the white house and they are going to codify the vaccine schedule in state statute in addition to that there is a lawsuit a current pending lawsuit that was filed because we stripped away your religious right to object to a

25:01medical procedure or a medical vaccine being injected in your child's body for various reasons the contents etc we had an original religious exemption in the state of Connecticut that had worked fine for 60 years and they stripped that away so there was lawsuits filed and there was three different aspects of the lawsuit the first two have been thrown out by the courts but the third which has to do with a riffle law that we passed years ago about your religious right it's still pending in the court the state of Connecticut tried to have it dismissed and thrown out and the court which is our backstop to legislation said wait a minute now we're going to sustain this so we're going to we're going to think about this we're going to hear this they don't like that because that could usurp the bill that they passed so typically we in the legislature do not pass laws in the middle of pending litigation you probably remember this quarter time there yeah i even brought that up the court system you know go ahead and and do it do it do it's

26:02thing right that's our backstop to bad legislation to things that may be unconstitutional is we have our court system our judicial branch separate from our legislative branch our checks and balances that we're having our country right so this time the democrats are saying you know that we don't we we potentially really don't like where this judge is going to go with this we don't like this so guess what we're going to pass legislation that says these riffle law is consistent and we're going to go ahead and we're going to honor it but we're going to carve out except for vaccinations so the riffle law will continue but we're going to carve out but it doesn't apply to the vaccine schedule so we are going to you serve the court process and we're going to pass legislation that forces the hand of the judge i think that is absolutely is that even constitutional is that constitutional either i think it's wrong i've been told it's been done before but i was just listening to you before and guess what the democrats are doing this exact

27:07thing to trump they don't like his tariffs so guess what they're going to court yet we in Connecticut we don't like the bill we can't go to court because they're taking the ability for those people to to go to court away and i think that is absolutely wrong so that is one of the big fights this coming Wednesday the second fight is a homeschooling fight you know this is brought to the legislature or the legislature there's certain people that feel they need to pass this because of a situation we had in new britain where the young tragic situation where the young girl had been homes supposedly homeschooled and died that to me is a dcf failure that is not a homeschooling failure we have 40,000 students in the state of Connecticut that are being homeschooled and when you look at the data you see homeschoolers are typically graduating early going to college early they're smarter they're well-rounded and their parents have chosen to pull them out of the public

28:08school system for whatever reason there is now an attack on those individuals where they are going to have to prove to the state board of education they have a curriculum they are going to have to submit test results test results yet and if they don't guess what the democrats want to do they want to call the dcf on you so if you don't comply big brother democrats are going to send our department of child and family services to your house and guess what if there's one complaint you know if you're having a squabble with a neighbor let's say and the neighbor decides to report you and says you know i don't know how their summers is really not educating her child the way she should be i'm making this up there's a complaint now that there's a complaint with dcs in the bill it says if there is a complaint that becomes an open case there's an open case guess what we will no longer allow you to educate your child at home we're going to take your homeschooling

29:11ability away from you and we're going to make you go to public be i hope nobody ever has a vendetta against somebody and uh likes to just you know it's outrageous yeah i mean you can i think we should just if you have a child you should just turn it over to the democratic party and say here you go well tell us how to raise them tell us what vaccines to get tell us what we can say what we can't say it's just crazy and it's gone way too far i mean i know you're speaking facetiously but no that's it that's literally how it's turning into government can take better care of you and raise your children better than you but i hear and and i'm glad i got you on right now because maybe you can validate this or put this to rest is there something what we call a conclusion of oral testimony where there's a finite number of hours that uh yes we haven't even gotten to the best part oh my so it's true you know we didn't the democrats did not want to listen to you with the emergency certified bill that was not an emergency right there no emergency we just we're

30:12gonna push this through because we are going to send a message message to rob samson who supposedly you know stop their legislation from going through i have to say boy rob samson's got a lot of power not possible they have a super majority we're in the super minority so they pushed that through no public hearings no input just democrats getting together to put that language through so now here we go fast forward our public typically i sat through the longest public hearing 27 hours on the first vaccine bill where we're stripped away the religious right there were thousands of people outside on the capital lawn protesting that bill we sat there for 27 hours until we heard the very last person speak now they're pushing this bill true we don't want to raise it they want to raise it yet they don't want to sit and listen to every person say their peace their responses

31:15will you can submit written testimony well then why do we have public hearings at all why doesn't everyone just submit hey don't don't don't say that because believe me they hear you say that they'll you'll give them an idea what about freedom of speech when you have a bill that you are pushing through as a legislature as a body you have a duty to look people in the eye and have them have an ability come to you and say their peace to your face in my opinion no this is hiding behind who i don't want to stay so late well then don't raise the bill i'm sorry if you have thousands and thousands of people that are against what you're doing then don't raise the bill so what they've decided to do is start the hearing at 10 a.m. and they're going to stop it at midnight that's it time limit on the public hearing what about freedom of speech education i agree government for the people by the people you're i elect you you're supposed to represent me i should supposed to you know have my my say my three minutes if you will what would have happened to

32:17rewith you wholeheartedly this is not representation by the peat for the people this is representation of the democratic party in the state of Connecticut and you know this is sending a message to people that disagree with them we're not going to hear you we're not going to listen we're going to do what we want we have a super majority and you know what if you don't like it you can leave that's exactly what they're telling people it is just outrageous and it's just the start of the session i can't think of a worse idea than to limit debate to limit conversations and it's not even with legislators this is with the people that are paying this for all of this to happen these are our taxpayers are citizens of Connecticut and they deserve better you're forgetting something this is what they voted for you get the government you deserve when you keep voting for the same people over and over again this is what and so you got no reason to complain so it looks like the Wednesday the 11th that's the next Wednesday of next week this is a pretty significant day because

33:20you've got the vaccination bill you got the homeschooling um oral testimony for that is going to be tapped at will cap the 24 hours that 24 hours so again you know and democrats limiting to some democrats they don't even want to hear it it's the leadership that's pushing you know and and and why do we have to go on and assault for people i got to take a break to do the right thing yeah and i i got to take a 60 second break i just want to because i want to change gears when we come back i just want to recap this Wednesday folks march 11th that's this upcoming Wednesday hearings on vaccines religious exemptions and targeting homeschoolers and democrats have put limits on our freedom of speech i just want to make clarify that and if you're thinking well they can't take everybody i might as well not even go you know what go and don't even sign up to speak just go because strengthen numbers is going to send a message heather i'm going to come right back in 60 seconds stay right there my sister was recently struck with a disorder that left

34:23her paralyzed i stopped by your american home care and the person i spoke with understood my issue with compassion within days i received caregiver profiles to review for a match the challenges were huge yet my euro-american caregiver met every need and exceeded expectations with kindness and compassion with euro-american home care for you and berlin it's all about compassion and patience call 860 829 0208 online at home care the number four the letter you dot com are you a fraud paying american one in four tax paying americans have been victim of identity fraud with life lock your identity if it's stolen they fix it guaranteed or your money back and last year billions in refunds were stolen could be from your salary over time or second job gone but this year you don't need to stay a victim because this tax season fraud paying american is something no american should have to claim save up to 40 percent off your first year with a promo code back visit lifelock dot com terms do apply number one for breaking news for Vernon

35:23chin and rocky hill the talk of kinetic it am 1360 and fm 103.3 all right 25 minutes after eight o'clock our guest the state senator Heather summers let me just run something by you we're talking about this last hour with a previous guest um and i know that you are on the the tourism caucus you and i have chatted about this on many a times on this show what's going on with this new regulation from deep heavily restricting living on house boats and vessels with new marina permit banning permanent temporary or seasonal occupancy um i'm totally against that bill my friends that live on their boats in the mystic river and that is just ridiculous well it's not a bill anymore it wasn't was this not it's as a January 2026 we have bills in saying you can live on your boat to try to counter that red and i don't know where that red came from i don't know what the uh situation was that made it

36:29such that people wanted to pass that red i can tell you especially in the mystic area there's many people that are interested in doing that as a choice because price housing prices are so expensive if you have a hundred and fifty thousand dollars or two hundred thousand dollars you can't even think about buying a house any it's maybe a down payment right but you can buy a very nice older boat that you could live on um even if it didn't have a motor it wasn't working it's like a floating place to live and i you know you've seen that all over other parts of the country in Seattle from Alaska etc so i think that's something that we shouldn't allow here in the state of Connecticut so the idea that deep just decides to ban it is crazy to me yeah so there's many of us that are fighting that i'm i'm glad to overturn it uh through through legislation or through you have a bill to allow you to live on a boat in a marina should you choose

37:31i mean it's not an easy life especially in this kind of weather you know it's cold there's a lot of things that you have to do to make sure that um you know the boat is secure and warm and you don't get frozen well but i'm going to be looking at it like that my whole life i would love to be able to i'm looking at it from the perspective of the snowbirds who are down in florida that during the winter and come up for four or five months out of the year park it in mystic or a sabreauk or or or the further down the gold coast there and they just say let's dock it at the marina and here's 26 months 24 25 30 grand the tag them and what they purchase when they're here i mean they're buying things they're going to restaurants they're going to bars they're buying high-end products that guess what they're all taxed the amount of revenue they're going to go forget it let's bypass Connecticut and go further up and go to the cape instead or go to the master i mean i don't let them fool you if your boat is here for more than 30 days they tax you on the boat in the state of Connecticut so you know if you're here for you know 30 days and one 31 days

38:37you're you're going to get taxed on your boat so don't let them fool you that they're going to lose tax dollars because that's not the case but i know friends that actually have bought like an old trawler it may not be working they keep it at the dock and mystic or stonington and it's you know what a great summer place to live on that for the summer you know they use the marina they take their showers of the marina they go downtown mystic or stonington they're spending money in the restaurants they use bikes i mean it's kind of a great thing it's sort of a vacation home on the water um and now you know what is what is the reg how long is it that you're considered permanently or temporarily living that's the other thing that needs to be addressed but i'm totally against this i know um representative karni is also someone who has been a you know a strong opponent to this and this is something that we would definitely would like to see changed in the state of kinatica all right because i can you please keep us posted on that because i mean it's a big issue with us

39:37this morning we spent the entire hour last hour talking about that and and um and let's face it we're going to be heading into that season well i think you should get a boat and live on it in the summer i see what happens you know that'd be a great i can write it off i'm doing it for a work purposes for an experiment you could broadcast live from the floating hey don't give me any ideas Heather i got to let you go we'll see you soon okay thanks for your time you do the same open phones are next i see one line open call right now octaves kinetic morning show 103.3 Hartford and 104.5 let's feel double utility poles listen we've all driven around the state it doesn't matter if you're in the city if you're in the suburbs or you're out in some rural area of the state where it's farm country um you see them we're used we're typically we see what in our neighbor i grew up which is you'd be one pole you know i mean you'd drive a little further there's another pole connecting your wires but double poles now you would think well maybe there was an accident here or

40:37maybe that's an old pole and they just kind of need it for support and they're just doing something temporary told they have more time then they'll come back and get rid of the old pole and keep the new one there now because weeks months if not years we'll go by and you'll still see double poles and we're talking tens of thousands of these around the state all held together with cable rope wood ratchet straps potentially hazardous as well by the way um it's an issue and you wonder well why why do why is this an issue why am i seeing more double poles now than ever good morning it's Gary Byron 9.11 here on the old morning train so happy to have you on board yes we're Facebook live right now our next guest into the daily Connor 10 memorial company interview chair joined us the first Friday of every month typically it's an hour earlier but as I explained the circumstance earlier this morning he's a chief investigative reporter over at NBC

41:42Connecticut in hours the first Friday of every month let's welcome back to the show lend best off lend good morning good morning it hey I like those glasses you got great really nice they're those warpy parkers something like that or time store time store cheaters 10 bucks 10 bucks cheaters do you know that these were $10 or $12 maybe like a CVS I was here one morning in my old breeders the black ones um broke let the arm came right off while here and I'm like and I I need it just to read to read note I don't need it for distance I have contacts in for distance but to read you know close up I'm near sighted as they say so I am I'm like I get through I'm trying to find a screw and I'm like you know what I can't find I it's not working and you know what they're cheap anyways I'm gonna go to the store and I couldn't I couldn't find my oh like the script but they're not prescription there yeah but

42:44just your distance like you're a two or you're one and a half or one or one or a quarter and I'm looking on one after another after another after another in these were not my first second or even third choice but I'm like it's either this one or a couple of other ones that they had there and I'm like oh yeah this was the best or the better of the of the three that I think I had to choose from and I'm not all I don't know I'm not all that crazy about them I don't know I'm looking on the Facebook live feed and yeah they pop on TV you know I know about that kind of stuff so they pop yeah hey mama me mama but thank you very much thank you for noticing I mean I don't really see all colors I'm a little color blind so are you really yeah like earth tones that kind of stuff green red orange I can see traffic lights everybody asks but and people don't believe me they said well what do you see what do you see now and all the stuff and then what happens is I'll ask my photographer my producer I'll say can I wear this shirt with this and they're like are you nuts and what's the most difficult color for you to pick up

43:49I would say some of the greens and browns that's where I really get fouled up okay and I mean for instance I was interviewing a guy on this double pole story uh-huh and he tells me at the end of the interview we're just chitty chatting and he says I got seven cats and I said really that's too many I well you know sure but I said that's great and we're talking and then after the interview my photographers like how did you not know didn't you see all the cat hair on his jacket and I'm like what are you talking right stuff like that yeah and like back when we wore ties on TV you know my wife wasn't happy with me that day she might not tell me because literally I I would have stuff planned like this shirt goes with this tie and this jacket right just wear a lot of blue blazers because you can't lose there right that's right so but they look good I don't know if that's a backhand backhand compliment but I'll take all the compliments I can get at this juncture of my life so I hear it's not every day I get compliments by where you so yeah thank

44:52you um when did they stop with the ties by the way oh god five six years ago yeah I mean if I'm anchoring I'm wearing a tie uh maybe although you see like on Fridays Kevin Nathan Mike Haydeck on NBC Connecticut will not wear a tie I like that Kevin Nathan oh he's a great guy we got to get him on when we talking about that last yeah yeah I think uh I think we're working on it I've given names and numbers yeah it lends out of it now lend past lend lend touched base he passed along all the info and I'm on it okay I'll have an update next week but but he can't steal his segment I mean it's got to do something completely different I'm sure he will he's Kevin is very passionate about veterans issues it's one of the big things he talks about and does a lot of stories on good I think that would probably be something your listeners would want to hear about and I know Kevin would want to talk about that yeah I mean there's got to be a regular feature I'm just saying dude haven't come in and talk veterans I think we're going to make it a regular feature well we'll talk about that we don't want to make more work for Kevin Nathan right I'm sure that's Kevin would love

45:56you right Kevin would love a monthly Kevin's like oh oh I got to do my taxes uh the lawn I got I got him on the lawn I got a wash the car yeah so let's talk about these dumbos are to get off track here it happens very easily by as if you couldn't Friday true yeah uh let's talk about the double polls I mean how many are we talking about statewide 10,000 20,000 well when you talk with pure about this and they're sort of overseeing this whole thing this program to try to reduce them now um they will say that the numbers are fluid you got to be very careful on how it is quantified and the numbers change literally every day but in pure as annual report from 2022 it said there were 22,000 of these and I don't hold me to the number but over 20,000 since then the state has instituted a program where a third party will come in and try to help repair these polls I'm just giving you top line here and that has resulted in about 7,000 of these double polls plus or minus

47:00being taken away but we just got an estimate from ever source the other day and UI that uh when you combine their totals on double polls we still have over 20,000 in the state because the thing is we keep developing land we keep adding different services whether it's Wi-Fi or whatever so there's more polls going up there's more wires going up and if you have more polls you're going to have more polls getting hit I mean it's just it's a percentage kind of so I understand that what I don't understand is why two are needed I don't understand like why and they're always right next to each other sometimes you'll see a tree or sometimes you'll see the poll off on an angle sometimes it's suspended in air right and it looks like oh they must be working on it they're going to come back and rectify that and and they don't come back and they say no that's that's how it should be yeah what what's happened here is you have polls that had been hit by a car

48:01or maybe there was storm damage or or other things and then what happens is the power companies are very good you know this is something I can verify about moving their lines to the next poll because it's safety issues so ever source and UI are diligent in transferring their lines but the question is what happens after that you have all these different attachers on the polls whether it's internet service cable service even municipal kinds of lines that are on there that all have to be transferred and they have to be done in a pretty graduated fashion for safety reasons and what's happening is a lot of times these attachers are allegedly or in a pure or according even to the utilities that own these polls being negligent in moving it over and so what's happened is the state in conjunction with the utilities has come up with this program where a third party now comes in and moves over all of the attachments to the next poll the new poll and then the phone

49:06company the legacy phone company in our state is the last person or the last entity to do the attaching so they're waiting so that's why you see all these double polls all over the place they can't finish until the attachers move everything over the program has been somewhat successful they've gotten rid of about seven thousand of these double polls but more and more keep popping up so now we're at 21,000 so maybe we've gone down a little but more have come online at the same time Connecticut is now being lauded in another state in Massachusetts for even just having a program to do this the way that we start on the story was because we saw our sister station NBC Boston has been covering this problem in Massachusetts for six years since seven years since 2019 when they saw 19,000 of these double polls in Massachusetts since they have one of the same power companies ever sourced we said let's take a look at this and see what the deal is in Connecticut in fact we found we have more than they do so but in Massachusetts they're not really doing anything

50:11to solve the problem Connecticut has been but we're still trying to catch up so yesterday we were at this hearing for the new purer commissioners and both Bob Duff the Senate majority leaders on the nominations committee and I can't remember his last is it David Jacarino? David Jacarino, state representative of North Haven we're both asking questions of some of the nominees about this double poll situation the one who really gave a good answer was the chair interim chair David I'm not I apologize I'm not pronouncing his name right I think it's wheeled for a while and he said that purer does set rates on how much the attackers have to pay to rent that space on the poll to put their stuff up on there so conceivably they could raise rates on them because the problem is they're increasing the costs to the power company and the phone company because everybody has to wait and that gets passed on to us

51:16it would still get probably passed on to the companies that have to pay the rental to be on that poll but then it would be passed on to their individual customers not electric rate payers or phone rate payers you know what I find fascinating in this is that there is like a pecking order there's an order in which like we were saying the phone company can't come out until last even if they're even they're available come out I have somebody out tomorrow no you can't because the cable company has got to come first and the internet company has got to come second and so on and so forth and that of course will delay the whole process there are penalties you know in terms of if you don't do it within let's say 45 days they they have a pecking order on this there is a poll administrator now for the state that works at ever source a poll administrator um this has been set up by pure and the power companies and the phone company because there are 900,000

52:16utility polls in Connecticut half are owned by the electric distribution companies ever source in united illuminating you know certainly there's also the munis but let's not even get into the municipal electrics at this point most towns are served by these two larger electric distribution companies and then frontier which is now Verizon owns the other half of the utility polls so they share in the maintenance of them and the ownership of them and ultimately we're the ones paying for it in our bill yes and no um there are costs that they have that some are built into your bill and some they get to recover later but what ever so excuse me what pure is trying to do is put that cost on these middle companies on the polls for them to have their rate payers pay it not have it more broadly distributed distributed by the electric customers and the phone customers now the cost of this i've asked and ui has said it's sense on the dollar but that's not the point i think here

53:22what we also don't know because the data on this is maintained by the utilities is we don't know how many if any of these double polls have fallen on people on vehicles on property we know that this has happened and it was ultimately responsible for that it depends on who owns the poll right and that yeah and we have none of this information because it's not public however um can you foyer that i mean it's not no it's not available i know there's got to be that the thing is the problem is is that the power companies at the utilities are all program with proprietary software that they paid for right and so it gets complicated very quickly as you know utility policy does so before you got to take the break here which is very shortly where do we go from here what's your next step in your investigation and and this we're still trying to look at exactly why this delay is so long and we're getting a lot of calls and i encourage viewers and listeners to send us

54:25video and photos of your double polls but we've got some very interesting calls where there's some foot dragging allegedly going on that we're going to take a look at by some institutions that might surprise you that's going to be some of our follow-ups on that look forward to that uh we got to take a 60 second break more with Len Bestoff right after this no one ever likes calling their insurance company it usually means there's a problem and when there's a problem you don't want to talk to a stranger you want your agent the agent who knows you that's Michael van autokirk and his staff at state farm of newington state farm has been the number one autoinsurer in the u.s every year since 1946 so when a problem arises you'll be relieved to call state farm of newington 860661037 has like a good neighbor state farm of newington is there wondering what to do with your big income tax check this year how about that kitchen project you've been promising yourself to do whether it's a full remodel or just new appliances Ferraris appliance has all the top

55:27brands and oven ranges refrigerators dishwashers and microwaves plus they service everything they sell provide delivery and installation even financing is available enough with the pushy salesman at those big box stores for your kitchen remodel make it Ferraris appliance and newington a nougatuck online at Ferrarisappliance.com let freedom ring and turn up the talk of Connecticut morning show with Gary Byron and Joe the producer am 1360 and FM 103.3 25 minutes after nine o'clock uh our guest is the chief investigative reporter over at NBC Connecticut lend best off don't forget uh we have a couple of lines open open phones are very soft just a few minutes from now 860243 1360 um I know it's a shorter segment let's kind of pivot a little bit and talk about some of the concerns over data centers um and talk about taking taking energy I can sense our utility bills will be

56:30if you think it's high now it keeps getting higher it's going to be higher and in the near future and some of that what about the solar farm that and was it nice Windsor yeah yeah there's just been a lot of news when it comes to energy and electricity in Connecticut I mean just look today when when you look at the headlines right now today one of the biggest stories was done by my colleague Melissa Cooney you can see it on NBC Connecticut dot com on her web page about the east Windsor solar farm proposal that has now been approved it's over 100 acres of new solar arrays or the land is over 100 acres I don't know if it's 100 acres of arrays but um people there are very upset about this they say that they already have 25 percent of the solar in Connecticut and now they're taking on more this is taking out farmland that to be fair these are private landowners that sold this to this company and the company according to the citing council has

57:31checked all the boxes and done everything properly and the citing council cannot stop them there's been a 2200 signature petition that's been circulated and given to the citing council but yesterday I believe the vote was 6 to 0 in favor of gravel pit solar and letting it go forward with this project the town has said it is considering some kind of action now to try to stop this it's you know an interesting situation there and again it brings us back to there are so many issues right now Gary when it comes to utilities in our state the other big headline today that's coming up it was headline yesterday and it's going to be even bigger today is this merger with the regional water authority and aquarium that it is anticipated pure is going to be approving this uh there's been a lot of people who have said it shouldn't be because it could be damaging in terms of higher rates for rate pay or something nobody wants right now because why because basically it is

58:39believed that the RWA and its newly composed structure is going to be assuming aquariums debt which is significant I was I was I was why I remember Niagara bought a lot of bottling company remember Niagara this is when I was on the environment committee um everybody thought their rates were going to go up when in fact no their rate was actually going to go down because they were they had promised Niagara to buy a million gallons a day a day and people were also concerned like whoa I mean is that going to put a lot of stress on our reservoirs and it turns out that Niagara and I think they only topped out at 350,000 gallons a day and that was where they topped I don't think they averaged anywhere near that and we don't know what happened to them I hear the music tease us what do we got coming up next month oh my gosh we're still covering the energy and utility industry I know something's coming up before the next time I see you in April we also have a follow up coming up on the Avon old farms warrior case oh my goodness next week

59:42and uh I think we're going to have something on super speeders coming up also don't forget reckless on a road uh oh careful well yeah people start to weather starts getting nicer people start heading out for day trips and real quick gotta go one more waterbury the missing man piece we've got an amazing production coming up next line we'll talk to you next month your phone calls 860243 1360 are there next