The cultural tourism portion of the state budget dominated the late night
deliberations of legislative leadership and representatives of the
Governor's Office in the wee hours last Friday morning, and after several
hours of often acrimonious debate, in the end did approve creation of a new
Connecticut Commission on Arts, Tourism, Culture, History and Film.

The final version of the bill contains all the changes in the original bill
advocated by the Heritage Coalition over these past several months.

The final authorizing language:

1) Gives history a real voice on the CT Commission on Arts, Tourism,
Culture, History and Film.

It adds the executive directors of the CHC and the Connecticut Trust, as
well as the State Poet Laureate, the State Historian and the State
Archaeologist to the Commission as ex officio non-voting members and
increases the number of mandated positions for individuals with backgrounds
in history and/or preservation from five to seven on the twenty-member
commission. We were delighted with the five spots we negotiated for history
people in earlier versions of the bill. We ended up with eight. Given the
absence of any historical representation in the initial version of the
consolidation bill, this is a real step forward.

2) Establishes a partnership relationship between Commission and the
Connecticut Humanities Council and the Connecticut Trust for Historic
Preservation while preserving their programmatic autonomy and financial
independence.

The bill contains the Coalition's suggested language defining that
connection as one of "joint strategic planning, annual reporting on
appropriations and fiscal reporting."

3) Restores funding for the CT Historical Commission's four historic
properties.

4) Restores full funding for the Connecticut Humanities Council's $1
million Cultural Heritage Development Fund.

5) Includes within the structure of the CT Commission's new "history
department" a "Historic Preservation Council" (in essence a mini-version of
the current 12-member Historical Commission) as we had urged, to oversee
that department's extremely important historic preservation regulatory
responsibilities inherited from the CT Historical Commission. Critical to
our work is retention of the independence of the Historical Commission (now
Historic Preservation Council) under the provisions of the Environmental
Protection Act. We pressed this case throughout the session. This
independence has been maintained and specifically spelled out,
distinguishing the Council as solely responsible when requesting the
assistance of the attorney general regarding unreasonable demolitions of
historic resources while stating its role as advisory in other
responsibilities.

We should feel very fortunate. Given where we started in January, we've
recovered an enormous amount of ground, a result directly attributable to
the determined grassroots lobbying efforts of many, many members of the
heritage community over the past long months. Advocacy does work, a lesson
we should retain, because we'll start this dismal process all over again in
February when the new session convenes...

A final important note:

Deputy Speaker of the House Melody Currey deserves our special thanks.
Melody was a staunch, and at time heroic ally, of the Coalition throughout
the session. Without her consistent and determined support we would have
been left for dead in March. Thank you notes would be most appropriate and
would be greatly appreciated. Melody can be reached at:
Melody.Currey@po.state.ct.us.

Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin Sullivan largely held his powder dry on
cultural tourism matters until the final hours of the session, but when he
did intervene he strongly supported the Coalition's agenda. Thanks are in
order here too: Kevin can be reached at Kevin.Sullivan@po.state.ct.us.