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First,
a quick progress report:
The members of the Heritage Coalition met this afternoon at the Capitol
to map a common strategy for responding to the Governor's recent budget
proposals. This proved an excellent, extremely heartening meeting. We
emerged committed to a common front and to a forceful presentation of
the case for heritage at the Capitol.
We agreed that:
- The Governor's proposal to create a new cultural super-agency by
merging the Connecticut Historical Commission, the state's Tourism Office
and the Connecticut Film Commission with the Connecticut Commission
on the Arts is not the best approach to increased efficiency and cost
savings in cultural funding, because it disproportionately reduces available
State of Connecticut support for heritage programming and because it
eliminates our distinct identity and legitimacy in the state's cultural
policies. We all agree that agency consolidation and cost savings are
essential in these hard budget times, but voted to encourage the Governor
and the legislature to seek these ends through the creation of two parallel
cultural partnerships, one serving the arts and the other the humanities
and heritage rather than a single, umbrella cultural agency.
- Our first task is to make legislative leaders and members of the rank
and file aware of the importance and impact of our work and the losses
the state would suffer were the present programs of the Connecticut
Historical Commission and the Connecticut Humanities Council to be eliminated.
Many legislators are still unaware of the nature of the Governor's cultural
proposals or how severe their impact will be on the heritage community.
The Heritage Coalition has already contacted the editorial boards of
all the state's major dailies and asked for their support. We need now
to mount a concerted grass roots advocacy campaign to get our basic
message out across the legislature and in the Governor's Office, and
we need to act immediately, because legislative review of the Governor's
budget proposals is already well underway.
The Appropriations Committee has scheduled public hearings on our
portion of the budget on Monday evening, March 9. Representatives
of the Connecticut Humanities Council, the Connecticut Trust for Historic
Preservation and Connecticut Preservation Action will all testify
on our behalf. Please help drive that message home by contacting your
local legislator to express your concern at the truly devastating
impact the Governor's cultural proposals will have on Connecticut's
heritage community and to remind him/her how important the programs
of the Historical Commission and the Humanities Council have been
in your community.
Please kill (or at least wound) several important birds with this
one stone by cc-ing your correspondence to the Co-Chairs of the Appropriations
Committee (Representative Bill Dyson and Senator Tony Harp); to the
ranking minority members of the Committee (Representative Peter Metz
and Senator Robert Genario); and to top political leadership (Speaker
of the House Moira Lyons, Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin Sullivan
and OPM Secretary Mark Ryan). The sooner these key individuals become
aware of our concerns and the depth of our support the better.
Do contact me if you have any questions.
Correspondence Resources:
Contact information:
All legislators listed above may be reached by mail at:
(name of legislator)
Legislative Office Building
Hartford, CT 06106-1591
Mark Ryan may be reached at:
Mr. Mark Ryan
Secretary
Office of Policy and Management
450 Washington Avenue
Hartford, Connecticut, 06106.
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