Newsroom - 2010

March 3, 2010
Rep. Kenneth Green Announces Legislation To Promote “Visit-Ability” Housing
Press Conference AT 11:00 a.m. Thursday, March 4, LOB Room 1B

January 25, 2010
Legislators Weigh Using Gps In Domestic Cases

March 3, 2010

REP. KENNETH GREEN ANNOUNCES LEGISLATION TO PROMOTE “VISIT-ABILITY” HOUSING
Press Conference AT 11:00 a.m. Thursday, March 4, LOB Room 1B

State Rep. Kenneth Green, House chair of the legislature’s Housing Committee, will announce legislation intended to promote housing accessible for the physically disabled at a press conference at 11 a.m. Thursday in Room 1B of the Legislative Office Building.

The proposed Act Concerning Accessible Housing (HB 5372) would encourage developers of single-family homes to construct units that would promote “visit-ability” – a home having accessibility and facilities for people with physical disabilities who simply want to visit with a friend or relative. The legislation also addresses multi-family residential development by advocating that 25 percent of dwelling units be accessible if the projects use public money.

Rep. Green (D-Hartford) represents the 1st Assembly District, which includes Hartford and Bloomfield.

January 25, 2010

LEGISLATORS WEIGH USING GPS IN DOMESTIC CASES

By Ken Dixon
Connecticut Post Staff Writer

HARTFORD — Lawmakers who want to stop the kind of violent domestic incidents that have shocked southwestern Connecticut this month said Monday that the Global Positioning System and monitoring bracelets could cut down on the violence.

But in the current state fiscal crisis, such capital expenditures could be difficult to justify in the two-year, $37.6 billion budget, even if they could help keep track of potential assailants before they return to their homes and harm someone.

Rep. Kenneth P. Green, D-Hartford, a member of the Speaker’s Task Force on Domestic Violence, said that people under restraining orders but likely to commit a violent act could be forced to wear GPS bracelets and have their whereabouts tracked.

“I really struggle with how well we can protect a victim,” Green said during a morning briefing on shelters, violence and possible solutions to preventing the kind of incidents that resulted in murder-suicides in Fairfield on Jan. 16 and in West Haven the following day.

“I’m constantly thinking about ways that we should not allow people who could be abusers” back to areas where they can do harm, Green said.

Linda Blozie, communications director for the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said GPS monitoring could be effective.

“We have entertained the whole idea of GPS because it is something that is becoming a growing national trend,” she said, stressing that in conversations with the Connecticut Judicial Branch, it seems the state is not prepared to initiate it.

She said that some types of GPS require the victim, usually a woman, to contact the police.

Also, she added, “the major issues that we see is there’s still such a lapse in time in terms of GPS that it still allows for an individual victim” to be abused or for that particular abuser to come back into the house.

“We clearly would need to have a much more sophisticated GPS system in Connecticut before I would feel and before my colleagues would feel that it’s an effective measure,” Blozie said.

It’s too soon after the recent murder-suicide in West Haven to discuss ways the tragedy could have been avoided, the leader of the legislative committee said.

Rep. Mae Flexer, D-Danielson, who heads the task force, started its morning meeting by stressing that it’s premature to discuss the case of Selami Ozdemir, 42, and Shengyl Rasim, 25, who were found dead from gun-shot wounds in their Blohm Street home early Jan. 17, just hours after Ozdemir was released from the West Haven Police Department lockup. The couple’s two young sons were in the home at the time.

“All of the members of the task force offer their sincere thoughts and prayers to the Rasim family and particularly the children, but because there’s an ongoing investigation by the state’s attorney’s office, that particular incident is not something that will be examined by this task force at this point,” Flexer said. Last week, State’s Attorney Kevin D. Lawlor announced his office was investigating the events related to the murder-suicide.

“When that investigation is finished, we will make a determination about the task force’s role in investigating that, at that point,” Flexer said.

Flexer’s statement apparently contradicts an earlier statement from the panel that Ozdemir’s apparent murder of his wife, then suicide, would be discussed by the task force.

On Jan. 16, police found the bodies of two elderly people, Isidro V. Feliciano, 77, and his wife, Carmen, 65, in a car parked at a commuter lot along the Merritt Parkway in Fairfield. After shooting his wife several times, Isidro Feliciano died from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head, police said.

“I really struggle with how well we can protect a victim.”