Lamont signs bill that allows MDC to expand
Contributed
The Metropolitan District Commission headquarters in Hartford.
It’s not the bill that legislators wanted, but Gov. Ned Lamont on Wednesday signed into law legislation that, in part, allows the Metropolitan District Commission the ability to add more communities.
House Bill 6995, now Special Act 25-11, allows municipalities to join the district, even if they are not contiguous to one of the current eight member towns.
The district, which is administered by the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC), currently provides water, water pollution control, mapping and household hazardous waste collection to Bloomfield, East Hartford, Hartford, Newington, Rocky Hill, West Hartford, Wethersfield and Windsor.
H.B. 6995 allows the MDC to alter its charter to remove the requirement that new members must be contiguous to one of the existing members.
The bill was overwhelmingly approved by the General Assembly.
In testimony submitted in advance of a public hearing held on Feb. 24, Christopher R. Stone, the MDC’s district counsel, said the legislation served two purposes.
First, he said, it would amend the MDC charter to change the deadline date for filing certain financial reports to the state from Jan. 1 to July 1 each year. The later date makes more sense, he said, because the MDC’s fiscal year ends on Dec. 31 each year.
Adjusting the filing date, he said, “greatly enhances the ability of the MDC to maintain compliance with these reporting requirements deadlines.”
The second change, he said, “brings certain charter provisions into the 21st century.”
“Currently, if a municipality has an interest in seeking admission to the MDC as a member town, it is only eligible to do so if it is contiguously located to one of the eight member towns,” Stone said. “This is a provision that was included in the MDC Charter in 1933 and, therefore, it is approximately 100 years old, and, since that time, it has not changed.”
Removing that restriction would provide “the needed flexibility for towns, water systems, regulators and policymakers to adapt to changing times and conditions,” he said.
Stone added that the MDC “has no immediate plans to expand its membership,” and has not been approached by any nonmember municipality seeking to become a member.
Two people submitted testimony for the February public hearing to oppose the legislation, including Alicea Charamut, executive director of the Rivers Alliance of Connecticut, and Lori Brown, executive director of the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters.
Both Charamut and Brown, however, said they primarily opposed the bill because their organizations wanted greater transparency and more oversight over MDC decisions.
“I have serious concerns regarding MDC’s history of poor decision-making, lack of transparency, and resistance to efforts by the General Assembly to address these issues,” Charamut said. “This has generated significant distrust from the public, customers and stakeholders.”
“If the legislature is going to allow revisions to MDC’s charter,” Brown added, “it should also use this moment to require long overdue reforms to its operations, and a full review and update of its charter.”
Such reforms were included in a separate bill that failed to get very far during the 2025 legislative session.
H.B. 5888, which was introduced by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, sought to:
- Require annual audits of the MDC,
- Establish a task force to examine the organization and operation of the district and permitting commissioners from nonmember municipalities to vote on certain rates, and
- Require the MDC board of commissioners to adopt, administer and enforce a model code of ethics.
That bill was referred to the legislature’s Committee on Planning and Development in March but was never approved by that panel.
Last year, William A. DiBella, a former Hartford councilman, state Senate majority leader and lobbyist, agreed to step down as MDC chairman, but without ending his influence over the board.
DiBella said he would move from chairman to vice chair of the commission, a decision that came nine months after an outside investigation faulted him for legal work directed to a politically connected firm.
DiBella was succeeded as chairman by Donald Currey of East Hartford.
As of Wednesday, Lamont has signed 122 bills into law; signed and line-item vetoed two bills; and vetoed two bills from the 2025 legislative session.
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