Connecticut
Budget Outlook Clouds Connecticut's First Year of Early Voting

This election season marks Connecticut’s first year of early voting, but registrars statewide are voicing concerns that their budgets won’t be enough to cover the costs of the fall election.
Although each town received an additional $10,500 from the state to manage the change, registrars are responsible for covering any expenses associated with an extra 14 days of voting before the Nov. 5 presidential election. Towns may also have to fund an additional seven days of early voting in August if a primary election for a state or district seat occurs.
As a result, registrars in several highly populated municipalities told CT Examiner, the ongoing budget season has felt unorthodox. Cities like Manchester, Danbury and Waterbury are considering healthy budget bumps to fund additional staff, printed ballots and locations needed for early voting, but many registrars said it’s still not enough.
Meanwhile, registrars in Fairfield are facing a budget cut ahead of an unfamiliar election season.
“The concern is we’re headed for disaster and the public should be aware of it so there’s no questions afterwards,” Fairfield’s Republican registrar Cathy Politi said.
Democratic First Selectman Bill Gerber’s proposed budget allocated an additional $27,000 to finance early voting staffing and ballots and $8,848 for temporary staff, but it also removed a longstanding secretary position from the office, reducing its current budget by 22%. The Board of Selectmen and Board of Finance have since voted to increase seasonal payroll by $42,000, lessening the decrease to about 8%.
Regardless of the part-time and seasonal budgets, Politi said, office operations will be “crippled” without a full-time employee.
During a Representative Town Meeting on Monday, however, Gerber said he’s not too worried about the personnel cut.
“The administration does not think that this change will have any impact on the service provided,” he said.
According to Gerber and Interim Chief Financial Officer David Becker, the secretary was underutilized in the registrar’s office and will instead be moved to the Engineering Department. But if the registrars express that they need more help, Gerber said, the town can add more part-time staffing for them.
Democratic registrar Matthew Waggner also expressed concerns about the cut, telling CT Examiner in a statement on Wednesday that the registrars would be responsible for more administrative work.
“I think between the budget reduction and the introduction of early voting, I’d say that the types of communication, voter education, and outreach efforts we might deploy in a Presidential election year … would be constrained, as the Registrars will be more directly engaged in conducting routine administrative functions and individual service requests,” Waggner wrote.
Educated guesses
Meanwhile, Danbury officials have backed an unprecedented increase to the registrar budget, with Mayor Roberto Alves adding a requested $73,779 bump to his proposal. Election worker salaries accounted for $41,518 of the increase.
Republican Registrar Mary Ann Doran said on Thursday that the hike is almost entirely driven by early voting, but added that she’s not entirely confident in the budget plan.
Early voter turnout for the presidential primary election was low last month, but Doran said there’s no way to predict the turnout for early voting in the general election.
“We did put in a significant request to increase our budget for personnel for the early voting, but we’re not even sure if we put in enough,” she said.
Although she appreciated the mayor’s proposal, Doran said it is unfortunate that the unknown costs of early voting will primarily come from taxpayers.
On Thursday, West Hartford Democratic registrar Elizabeth Rousseau expressed support for her estimated early voting costs. Her confidence, however, came with a considerable caveat.
The budget for the West Hartford registrar’s office proposes a 16.5% increase to cover staffing expenses for the extra voting days. Rousseau, noting that all personnel in the town’s Office of the Registrar of Voters, including herself, are part-time workers, emphasized their dependence on poll workers for early voting. Wages and salaries for election workers went up 23.6%, but Rousseau said the two registrars and two deputy registrars haven’t received pay bumps in over a decade.
In 2015, registrars reportedly earned about $30,000 per year, while the deputy registrars earned about $15,500, totalling approximately $91,000. Under the latest budget request, the town has proposed a total budget of $91,350 for the four officials.
West Hartford’s town code stipulates that annual compensation for officials like registrars of voters, deputy registrars of voters and the town clerk are set by the Town Council, not through department budget requests.
“I don’t think that those salaries are sustainable in the long term,” Rousseau said. “I don’t know if they’re sustainable this year given the changes in the responsibilities of our office. Especially with early voting, we have a huge amount of work.”
Waterbury’s Democratic registrar Teresa Begnal similarly expressed confidence with her proposed budget, as long as the election season goes as planned.
With election worker compensation making up 66% of the $75,480 request, Begnal explained that she padded her budget with extra staff as she remains uncertain about the demands come November.
In March, Waterbury designated its City Hall as the sole location for the four days of early voting. But according to Begnal, the Board of Aldermen is considering opening additional locations, which she estimates could cost $20,000 each, for the general election.
“If we have to, then I definitely feel like we’ll have a shortfall in our budget,” she said.
Elsewhere in the state, two New Britain registrars said they feel reasonably confident in their proposed budget hike requests — Democrat Lucian Pawlak requested a 15.9%, or $45,108, increase, while Republican Peter Gostin asked for a 3.2%, or $9,791, bump. And Timothy Becker, the Republican registrar of Manchester, said he and his Democratic counterpart are pleased with their 9.2% proposed budget increase.

Connecticut
DNA links Connecticut man to stolen vehicle theft

NEW FAIRFIELD, CT (WFSB) – A man was arrested on stolen vehicle charges after DNA linked him to the crime, Connecticut State police said.
Troopers charged 23-year-old Albert Sanchez-Hernandez of Bethel with larceny of a motor vehicle, sixth-degree larceny, and first-degree criminal trover.
On Dec. 17, 2024, New Fairfield police said they responded to the report of a stolen vehicle on Fulton Drive that was said to have occurred during the overnight hours.
On Dec. 19, 2024, state police said a trooper was investigating an unrelated crash in Sherman when the trooper spotted property from the previously reported stolen vehicle inside the passenger compartment of the vehicle involved in the crash.
With help from the Connecticut Adult Parole and Probation Office, New Fairfield officers interviewed one of the people involved in the collision.
“Information was developed that led police to believe that the stolen vehicle was being operated in the Stamford area, with a New York registration plate now attached,” state police said in their report.
State police said the stolen vehicle was recovered unoccupied in Danbury on Dec. 31, 2024.
They said DNA samples were collected from the stolen vehicle and sent to the state forensic laboratory for examination.
The results led to the identification of Sanchez-Hernandez as a potential suspect.
“After applying for a search and seizure warrant for Sanchez-Hernandez’s DNA, a sample was obtained which was later confirmed to be the DNA sample obtained from inside the stolen motor vehicle,” state police said.
An arrest warrant was granted by Danbury Superior Court.
On May 20, 2025, Sanchez-Hernandez was taken into custody on the strength of the warrant.
Sanchez-Hernandez was held on a court-set $50,000 bond, which troopers said he was unable to post.
He was transported to the Department of Correction ahead of his May 21 court date.
Copyright 2025 WFSB. All rights reserved.
Connecticut
CT no-fault evictions ban expansion dies in legislature

Proposed reform to state eviction laws — which would have required landlords to provide a reason for evicting someone, a concept known as “just cause” — will not move forward this year, proponents said Tuesday.
As the legislature’s 2025 session approaches its final weeks, Housing Committee Co-Chair, Rep. Antonio Felipe, D-Bridgeport, said he doesn’t expect House Bill 6889 to come up for a vote in the House. The bill, which had broad support from Connecticut renters and housing advocates, passed the Housing Committee in March.
Although lawmakers who endorsed eviction reform said many of their colleagues privately supported it, not enough of them were willing to go public with that support by voting in favor of the bill.
“I don’t think there is any path forward at this point,” Felipe said Tuesday morning. “I believe we have the votes. I don’t believe those votes are all willing to be public at this point.”
Last year, Felipe faced problems in the House with a similar bill that would have reformed evictions in Connecticut. Although Senate leadership believed they had the votes, the House wasn’t able to secure enough support.
Felipe championed the just cause eviction bill again this session. The bill would have banned no-fault evictions, which typically occur at the end of a lease, in buildings with five or more units, after the tenant had been there for at least a year. Connecticut has similar protections in place for renters with disabilities and seniors.
Tenants say this type of eviction may be used in retaliation when renters complain about housing conditions or to evict every resident of a building or complex when new ownership purchases the property.
Negotiations over the bill have been going back and forth for weeks. Members of the Democratic party were split, even in the committee process.
H.B. 6889 drew some of the most heated debate and the largest number of speakers of any bill the Housing Committee considered this session.
Landlords opposed the bill, saying it would make it harder for them to evict problem tenants.
“There is no more cause for the ‘just cause’ bill today than there was when the legislature rejected it last year, because it does not protect Connecticut’s apartment communities and will not build one new apartment home to relieve the state’s housing shortage,” the Connecticut Apartment Association said in an April press release about the bill.
Ultimately, the bill faced a similar fate this year.
Luke Melonakos-Harrison, vice president of the Connecticut Tenants Union, said Tuesday that the news of its demise was disheartening, particularly considering the hundreds of renters who testified and the broad support it drew from advocacy groups focused on housing, homelessness, health and labor unions.
“I don’t understand what these Democrats are so afraid of,” Melonakos-Harrison said, adding that about a third of Connecticut residents are tenants compared to a much smaller number of landlords.
“It’s such a massive constituency that I struggle to understand why legislators, so many of them, seem to recognize landlords as a constituency with shared concerns, but don’t seem to recognize tenants as a constituency,” Melonakos-Harrison said.
The statewide Connecticut Tenants Union has gaining political power for the past few years, formalizing its structure and increasing lobbying activities. But lobbying groups representing landlords maintain a more established presence in the state Capitol.
While the bill was under consideration, some Connecticut residents received phone calls asking them to oppose the measure. “Imagine living next to someone who makes you feel unsafe, and there is nothing you can do about it. Can we count on you to oppose this bill?” one caller said.
House leadership earlier this month said support had been difficult to gather within the party caucus. Speaker of the House Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said he’d fielded concerns from lawmakers who feared that if new owners couldn’t evict renters, they wouldn’t be able to make renovations and rental housing would deteriorate.
Members of the Democratic caucus also raised concerns that it would be hard for landlords to evict “bad tenants,” Ritter said. Landlords have repeatedly raised the same issue — that if someone is smoking or being disruptive, it’s sometimes easier to evict them through a no-fault eviction.
“You have people saying, ‘If you don’t incentivize people to come in, and then they can’t charge higher rents, they’re going to let their buildings be decrepit, deteriorate, and then flip it,” Ritter said. “And we could not solve that in the caucus. That was probably the single biggest issue.”
House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, said it’s a tough balance to strike between tenants’ rights and landlord issues.
Republican lawmakers broadly opposed the bill.
“I had serious concerns with this same proposal last year, which would have established a general right for any tenant to remain in a rental unit after a lease term expires in perpetuity. It didn’t even come up for a vote in the House because it’s a problematic concept,” said Housing Committee ranking member Rep. Tony Scott, R-Monroe, in a text message after the launch of the just cause campaign.
Sen. Rob Sampson of Wolcott, ranking member of the Housing Committee, has said the bill would violate landlords’ rights and that government shouldn’t encroach on private contracts like leases.
It wasn’t clear whether Gov. Ned Lamont supported the bill. At a recent press briefing, he gave what he admitted was a neutral response when questioned about his stance.
“Look, rents are going up a lot,” Lamont said. “There’s a lot of sudden shock. A lot of people are at risk of losing a place to stay. So I understand the worry about that. You also want to get a balance and make sure we have people continuing to invest in a state like this with rental units.”
Connecticut
House fire closes Route 72 in Bristol

Emergency crews have extinguished a house fire on Monday morning and part of Route 72 is currently closed.
Firefighters responded to the home in the 100 block of School Street, which is also known as Route 72, around 5:30 a.m.
It was reported that there was fire showing in the back of the building. Firefighters were able to quickly knock it down.
Route 72 is closed between West Street and North Main Street. There is no estimate for the duration of the closure.
No injuries were reported. All of the residents were able to self-evacuate before fire crews arrived.
The fire marshal is investigating the cause and origin.
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