After All Things

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Connecticut needs to fill thousands of jobs in its submarine building sector. Nassau lawmakers vote yes on a casino in Uniondale. Community college students in Connecticut will now have an easier path to four-year schools. What high temperatures this summer could mean for local crops. And advocates say Connecticut is not enforcing its Clean Slate law.

Duration:: 12m
Broadcast on:: 19 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Connecticut Congressman John Larson says there are thousands of open positions in the submarine building sector. He says suppliers are struggling to keep up with demands from the Navy. I don't have to tell any of you in terms of what's transpiring in Israel, what's the concern about Taiwan and what's going on in Europe as well. We're in a strategic race. Not unlike, in many respects, the Cold War battle with Russia in terms of nuclear power. Last year, electric boat in Grasan hired more than 5,000 people. They're hoping to do the same this year. You're listening to, After All Things, WSA choose daily news and culture update from the Long Island Sound region. Nassau lawmakers vote yes on a casino in Union Dale. Community college students in Connecticut will now have an easier path to four-year schools. What high temperatures this summer can mean for local crops. And advocates say Connecticut is not enforcing its clean slate law. Those stories and more are ahead. I'm Sabrina Garone. ♪♪ The Nassau County Planning Commission voted yes on a Las Vegas-style casino for the former Nassau Coliseum in Union Dale, but the $4 billion project still faces hurdles. WSA choose Desiree Diorio has more. The commission voted unanimously to hand over the lease to Las Vegas Sands. The rules committee is scheduled to vote Monday, but the New York Gaming Commission won't decide which downstate venues will get casino licenses until next year. In addition to building a casino the size of several football fields, the project includes two hotels, a conference center, and three parking garages. This is Sand's second attempt at leasing the Nassau County property. A judge rejected a previously approved lease after Hofstra University challenged it. Desiree Diorio, WSA choose News. Students at Connecticut State Community College will soon have an easier path to the state's four-year universities. WSA choose Molly Ingram has more on a policy change approved by the Board of Regents. The Board of Regents has approved a standard general education requirement across the system. It's in an attempt to be more transparent about how the classes they take at community college transfer to a four-year degree program at Southern, Central, Eastern, or Western Connecticut State University. Ainsley Diamond is the Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs. We need to guide more students to vertical transfer and retain more transfer students within our system, but please let me be blunt. Our competitors do this faster and better, and they are very happy to take our students. The state is struggling to recruit and retain students in its public college and university system. Over the past five years, enrollment was down 27% at community colleges and 12% at the four universities. Molly Ingram, WSA June News. Private well owners in Connecticut are supposed to test their drinking water for contamination every one to two years according to the state, but fewer than 10% of this population actually does. Alex Janis is with the Connecticut Institute of Water Resources. Our snake has no taste, has no smell, so it's one of those chemicals that's common in certain parts of Connecticut, and you would never know you're drinking it. The group works to spread awareness to rural parts of the state by offering discounted sample kits for well water testing. The organization also hopes to start testing for PFAS chemicals in the near future. Multiple Connecticut departments are reporting computer outages related to the global IT outage according to Governor Lamont. State and federal officials say the incident was not a cyber attack. The State Department of Social Services has been closed all day because of the interruption, and the Department of Motor Vehicles in both Connecticut and New York has also reported delays. Connecticut promised to erase the criminal records of 130,000 people. 18 months later, only 10% have been. That story is ahead. First, a message from our supporter. Local support comes from Hartford HealthCare, the only health system in the Northeast, with all its hospitals receiving a grades for safety from the LeapFrog group. This is patients leading independent safety watchdog group, HartfordHealthCare.org. Vegetable gardens might look a little different this year as high temperatures continue to hit our region. Abbie Connolly has more about what the heat could mean for New York crops. Cornell University professor of horticulture Steve Reiners says those hot stretches of 80 to 90 degree days may start to delay plant growth. He says the warmer temperatures in the summer, paired with the regular frost season, may result in lower crop numbers. Although we're seeing it get warmer, it's not necessarily resulting in a major change in our frost dates, neither the spring or the fall, so we can still get that late frost or an early frost that can certainly kill the crops as well. So it's sort of the worst of both worlds when we have that happening. As for how to beat the heat, Reiners says water is number one. Water, water, water, put a lot of irrigate, and this is whether you're a farmer or whether you're a gardener. If you think you've watered enough water again. He says a general rule to follow is for every square foot of garden, use a half gallon of water each week. In Syracuse, I'm Abbie Connolly for the New York Public News Network. An application period is now open through September to New York farm employers for overtime pay reimbursements. Farm worker unions on Eastern Long Island were instrumental in passing a law that faces in overtime pay after 40 hours per week. To be eligible, farm owners need to earn at least two-thirds of their federal gross income from their farm and have paid overtime wages eligible to employees since January 1. Suffolk County is the first in the state for wholesale value of crops. Connecticut's June Jobs Report is out and it's record breaking. Private sector jobs in the state reached an all-time high at more than 1.4 million according to the state's Department of Labor. The state added nearly 18,000 jobs this year so far. Only 18,400 were added in all of 2023. (Music) Back in 2021, Connecticut passed the Clean Slate Law to erase the records of convictions for minor offenses. At the time, Governor Lamont said it would change the lives of people who'd been denied jobs, housing, and education because of their criminal record. Three years later, the state is struggling to keep its promise. WSHU's Molly Ingram reports major issues with computer infrastructure have caused the delays and advocates are fed up. Sixteen years ago, Adam Osmond was convicted of a misdemeanor charge, his only brush with the law. Osmond, who maintains that he was wrongly accused, was happy when Connecticut passed its Clean Slate Law, which would automatically erase misdemeanors after seven years in certain low-class felonies after 10. The erasure was scheduled for the beginning of 2023. Osmond, who has done extensive research on criminal convictions in Connecticut, says he waited and waited more than a year for his record to be erased. The bill was passed, just like every other bill, when it's passed, it gets implemented. But this one kept, you know, delayed, delayed, delayed, and there's a lot of people who are still wasted. Osmond is one of only 13,000 people who have had their convictions erased. 120,000 are eligible. That's according to data provided by the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, which is overseeing the erasures. Richard Green is the department's spokesperson. "It's a very complex process and much more complicated than we originally thought when the law was passed." Connecticut officials have repeatedly blamed old computer systems for the delay. Green says the data quality and systems from state, local, and federal sources has made it difficult to verify whether a record should be cleared. The legislature also had to pass a second law last year to make technical changes to the original legislation. Governor Ned Lamont announced last December that 80,000 people were expected to have their convictions erased by the end of January. Gus Marks-Hamilton from the ACLU's Smart Justice campaign has been advocating for clean slate. "For people that get involved in the criminal legal system, through arrest and through conviction and serving a sentence, there is a process and a system of accountability for people who end up getting involved in our criminal legal system." Now, months later, he says the repeated delays make it difficult to trust the system. "But when it comes to our state and when they pass laws and fail to implement those laws in a lawful way, there doesn't seem to be a level of accountability for them in the same way that it is for people who are believing in the system." Connecticut isn't the only state that's struggling to implement clean slate, Delaware, Michigan, Virginia, and Utah all face delays, too. Green says he anticipates Connecticut would be willing to buy new equipment, if that's what's necessary. "I think the state is ready to do whatever is necessary to complete this project as quickly as possible. I couldn't speak to whether this means, you know, new computers or whatever, but I think that it's very clear that this is the top priority right now." The state recently paused all the racers while they hire an outside consultant to determine the best path forward. But Mark's Hamilton says those updates were new to him. "The last update that I'm aware of is back in March when they announced that they had erased, you know, 13,000 people's records and that they anticipated in the summertime they'd be erasing another 90,000 people's records. I haven't seen any press releases since then." Phil Ken is the co-chair of the legal reform team at Congregations organized for a new Connecticut, known as Connect. He says the lack of updates have added insult to injury, and while they wait, the impact on Connecticut residents who are waiting to have their records cleansed is growing. "This is a real impact on real people, and the longer that it takes, the worse off their life is going to be in the meanwhile." A spokesperson for Lamont says the governor is frustrated with the delays and remains committed to getting the eligible records erased. Molly Ingram, WSHU News. For the latest news from Long Island and Connecticut, you can listen on the radio stream online at WSHU.org or download the WSHU app after all things is supported by Hartford HealthCare and whether it's news, classical music, or podcasts like this one. They're all made possible with support from our listeners, so if you like what you hear, you've been with us for a long time now. Please consider making a donation to WSHU. All the info on how to do that is there for you on our website. I'm Sabrina Goron. Have a great rest of your Friday and a wonderful weekend. I'll talk to you on Monday. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]