Deb Heinrich
State Representative Serving Madison and North Guilford
Blog
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Shoreline Times: Shore Line East expands travel options
Posted Jul 08 at 9 PM
By: Hannah Vahl , Shoreline Times Staff writer
MADISON-Residents celebrated a different kind of independence this Fourth of July weekend: from cars, as the Shore Line East train officially expanded service to include weekends and holidays year-round.
Governor Jodi Rell announced the change just three days before the holiday. "This is great news for everyone who is looking for ways to save money on their gasoline purchase," she said. "The timing could not be better, as the state experiences an influx of summer residents and tourists coming to the shoreline."
On Saturday, State Senator Ed Meyer (D-12th) and State Representatives Pat Widlitz (D-98th) and Deb Heinrich (D-101st) all took a ride on the 11:10 train to New Haven from Madison's train station.
"Mass transit is key to creating strong transportation," said Heinrich, who said the legislature has provided funding to the state Dept. of Transportation for the Shore Line East. She called the train "an important investment."
Widlitz, whose children live in New York, said that when they visited it would sometimes take two hours to get them to Union Station in New Haven on a Sunday.
First Selectman Al Goldberg, there to see the state legislators off, said that local businesses would benefit from the expanded train service. "Madison is becoming, even more so, a day destination," he said.
Nine trains are to run in each direction, with four westbound trains to New Haven from the early morning to the late afternoon and five eastbound trains to Old Saybrook from mid-afternoon to late evenings.
Two years ago, the General Assembly mandated that the state Dept. of Transportation put out a report on what it would take to get the Shore Line East running on weekends and holidays.
Last year, the state experimented with weekend and holiday service. The seven-week test run between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day provided more than 3,600 passenger rides.
In April, Rell announced that Shore Line East weekday ridership increased over 4.5 percent last year.
While residents and legislators alike celebrated the victory, they did note that expanded service had been hard-won. "The weekend service has been a long time in coming," said Connecticut Commuter Rail Council Chairman Jim Cameron. The expanded service was supposed to start on Memorial Day, but planned work on a bridge over the Thames River in New London disrupted service on Amtrak, according to Cameron, and so the service expansion was postponed.
And Guilford resident Bob Jelley, secretary for the Commuter Rail Council, said, "It's about time." He noted the lack of advanced publicity leading up to the announcement, both of the year-round weekend and holiday service and last year's seven-week experiment.
Still, support from the Governor's office has come a long way since Governor Rowland threatened to cut funding for the Shore Line East altogether in the mid-90s, as a cost saving device.
And new M-8 cars for the Shore Line East are scheduled to arrive next summer. They will feature amenities like outlets next to seats, individual headrests, and larger windows. Meyer said the cars will also accommodate bicycles.
Even before these luxury cars arrive, Cameron thinks the weekend and holiday cars will be packed. "I'm fully expecting there will be a tremendous response by riders, certainly because of high gas prices," he said.
The new schedule is available at www.shorelineeast.com or by calling 800-ALL-RIDE. -
New Haven Register : Shoreline rail service extended to weekends
Posted Jul 06 at 10 PM
By: Abbe Smith, New Haven Register
MADISON — Instead of gassing up and hitting Interstate 95 for a weekend day trip to the Shoreline, revelers now can leave their cars behind and take the train.
On Saturday, local lawmakers celebrated the start of new weekend service for Shore Line East by lining up at the train station, getting onboard and riding the rail into New Haven.
Previously, there was no weekend service for stops on Shore Line East.
“This is a very big deal,” said state Rep. Deborah Heinrich, D-Madison, while waiting for the train Saturday morning.
Shore Line East commuter service includes seven stops from New Haven to Old Saybrook.
Heinrich said she and colleagues secured state funding to expand the rail service and hoped to continue the expansion past the summer.
A similar weekend service expansion was started last Christmas, but ended when the holidays came to a close.
Heinrich touted the move as an opportunity for travelers to save money this summer.
“With gas prices rising, it’s a great time to expand rail service,” she said.
Joining Heinrich for the kickoff were state Sen. Edward Meyer, D-Guilford, and state Rep. Patricia Widlitz, D-Guilford. First Selectman Al Goldberg came out to help launch the new service and to see the lawmakers off on their trip.
Widlitz said she’s been fighting for Shore Line East for many years and remembers when she helped keep commuter train service in her area get on track despite plans by former Gov. John G. Rowland to shut it down in the mid 1990s.
She said traffic congestion on I-95 coupled with skyrocketing gas prices make mass transit the way to go.
“We need to get the word out so the people understand this is available,” she said.
Goldberg said the new service may give a boost to the local economy by helping Madison become an easier-to-reach destination for tourists from other Connecticut towns and New York City.
“Today puts Madison on the map,” he said.
As a vocal critic of the state Department of Transportation, Meyer said the expanding of Shore Line East to include weekend service “signals a new DOT” in his mind. Next on his transportation agenda is improvement of bikeways throughout the state.
“This is the age when we are trying to overcome fossil fuels,” he said.
Down the street from where the lawmakers waited for the train, the first phase of the new train station is on the verge of completion and is scheduled to open this summer.
Phase two, which focuses on the north side of the railroad, will include a platform and two-story parking garage.
Meyer said construction on phase two is expected to start next spring and finish in spring 2010.
The initial weekend rail schedule includes four westbound trains to New Haven from morning to early afternoon and five eastbound trains from midafternoon to late evening.
The trains will also provide reverse stops at Guilford station throughout the day.
For information on timetables and fares, go to shorelineeast.com. -
Deb is the Office of Healthcare Advocate's Featured Legislator
Posted Jun 21 at 11 AM
Deb was featured in the latest e-newsletter from the Office of the Healthcare Advocate.
Rep. Heinrich has been working to make healthcare more affordable to businesses and consumers in the state. This past legislative session, Rep. Heinrich was a key voice in securing a vote on OHA’s bill (now P.A. 08-125) in the waning hours of the legislative session. Her Health and Human Services Cabinet bill made it through both chambers of the legislature unanimously. A key supporter of the Connecticut Healthcare Partnership bill, Rep. Heinrich is a strong supporter of healthcare access and enforcement of existing insurance consumer protections in Connecticut.
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Shoreline Times on the 101st District Race
Posted May 29 at 6 PM
A recent Shoreline Times article reports on Deb's nomination for re-election:
For Heinrich, who represents Madison and North Guilford, one of her proudest accomplishments has been making the Educational Cost-Sharing (ECS) Formula more equitable. Last year Madison got a 34 percent increase in ECS money, and Guilford a 7.5 percent increase (Heinrich says Guilford got more aid than Madison to start with). This year the amount increased by 4.5 percent, despite revenue shortfalls for the state's coffers. Heinrich received an award from the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities for her work on changing the ECS formula.
Now she's working to get the state to fully fund special education. "It's the most unpredictable piece of the town budget, and one of fastest rising costs," she said. "If we want to see more education funding, the way to get it is through special education."
Heinrich is also working to implement results-based accountability in the funding of programs by the state, which would require programs to report back with how they used funding, and assign goals to departments that would then determine how money is doled out. Results-based accountability has already been applied to early childhood education programs and to the state Department of Environmental Protection, said Heinrich. It has reduced redundancies in programs that affect early childhood, and resulted in a goal for the DEP of achieving a healthy Long Island Sound, a goal that helped lawmakers decide which programs would get the most funding, she said.
Heinrich is running for her third term as State Representative. "When I first ran," she said, "I said I would do it as long as I felt I was making a difference. And I still feel there is more I can do to help the community and help the state."
About Stevens, she said, "I have tremendous respect for anyone willing to serve their community in elected office. My opponent should be applauded for stepping up to serve." -
Operation Music Aid Presents Guitar to Afghanistan Veteran
Posted May 24 at 9 PM
Madison-based Operation Music Aid presented a guitar to Jason Coppola, a member of the National Guard from Watertown who was injured while serving in Afghanistan. Operation Music Aid is a non-profit agency that gives wounded service members musical instruments free of charge. You can find more about their mission by visiting their website, operationmusicaid.org.
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Heinrich Wins Legislative Award for Work with Non Profits
Posted Apr 13 at 3 PM
The Source
December 13, 2007
Representative Deb Heinrich (D-Madison, Guilford) was honored by the Connecticut Association of Nonprofits (CAN) for helping advocate for the group’s various interests in the legislature and communities throughout the state. The “Connecticut Association of Nonprofits 2007 Legislative Award” is awarded annually by the group, and Rep. Heinrich said receiving the award was “tremendously humbling.”
During her speech Rep. Heinrich adapted the “three R’s” of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s depression-era New Deal Programs as a model for how the state should work with today’s Connecticut non-profits. The “three R’s” proposed in Rep. Heinrich’s New Deal for state non-profits are as followed:
- Respect: Respect for every citizen, regardless of their varying abilities and respect for the people who help them achieve and for the love and care they can provide.
- Responsibility: As a state, we must acknowledge that the responsibility of caring for all our citizens falls on all of us as a community.
- Reliability: The state and federal government should always be there for our nonprofits. These groups need to know that Connecticut is not going to be pennywise and pound foolish with regard to funding. The state needs to recognize that prevention is much less expensive than treatment and that people are most productive, integrated and happy when they have access to the services they need, when they need them.
Representative Deb Heinrich serves the 101st Assembly District in Madison and Guilford and is currently serving her second term. -
Checks in mail may be scam
Posted Apr 13 at 3 PM
By: Hannah Vahi, Shoreline Times
2/28/08
State Representative Deborah Heinrich is ensuring that you don’t have to check your checks.
At least, that you don’t have to check them for hidden contracts. Some checks often contain fine print that say that cashing the check you agree to sign up for a promotional program or act as some other contract which costs money. These types of checks are often target seniors, whose eyesight tends to be poor.
Many who receive the checks don’t notice the small print. And when they find that they are shelling out extra for an unwanted service, cancelling that service can be expensive.
“It’s confusing, because people think it’s a rebate,” said Heinrich.
A friend of Heinrich mentioned to the legislator that ever since she became a senior citizen, she had started getting small checks in the mail for amounts ranging from about $2 to $20 dollars.
Madison resident Ginny Raff also brought it to Heinrich’s attention. One day she was with her parents in Florida, going through the mail with her dad. Her father had macular degeneration as well as cataracts, and had a difficult time reading print.
A check for $25 came for him from a phone company. He wasn’t sure what it was for, but of course wanted to cash it. Even Raff, who is nearsighted, had to remove her bifocals in order to read the tiny print on the check, which explained that cashing it, would enroll the recipient in the company’s long distance service program.
“To me it was fraudulent,” said Raff. “Companies shouldn’t be allowed to do that.”
Enter Heinrich. The legislator is co-sponsoring a bill introduced by the Banking Committee (individual legislators don’t introduce legislation during the Short Session) to prevent checks from being used as contracts.
The legislation would require a separate contract to come with the check, spelling out the terms and conditions, and listing the name and contact information of the maker.
The bill is currently in the hands of the banking committee. A screening meeting about where to send the bill could bring it to another committee for further study or to a vote on the Senate floor as soon as Mar. 4.
After the bill went nowhere last year, the office of the Attorney General offered to help legislators draft it differently.
The Attorney General had gotten interested when Connecticut, along with 14 other states, successfully sued a company who had used contracts written on checks.
At a public hearing held Thursday, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal testified in the bill’s favor. He said that on his way to the hearing, he was approached by someone who handed him a piece of the kind of mail in question and said, “Is this for real?” -
$2 Million Approved for Hammonasset Center
Posted Apr 13 at 3 PM
The Source - 12/13/2007
The State Bond Commission was expected to approve $2 million this week to help fund construction of a new visitor center at Hammonasset State Park. State funds will supplement $2.1 million in federal funds.
The new visitor center will include a gift shop, public restrooms, staff offices, and a picnic pavilion, all linked by an elevated deck to the existing West Beach boardwalk. The new center will replace the former Main Pavilion, which was demolished in 2003 because of safety concerns.
State Representative Deb Heinrich said the new visitor center was much needed.
“Acquiring this funding was one of my top priorities, and the Friends of Hammonasset and I worked very hard to see this through to the end,” she said.
The $2 million in state funding that was due to be approved Wednesday, Dec. 12 by the State Bond Commission is a combination of four separate requests, Heinrich said.
“This new pavilion is long overdue, and this bonding is great news for visitors to the state park,” State Senator Ed Meyer said. “From an environmental point of view, I am particularly pleased with the planned use of composting toilets at the pavilion restrooms. This will ensure that no pollutants flow into the Hammonasset River or Long Island Sound.”
Meyer, who is vice-chair of the State Legislature’s Environment Committee, said, “The state park is one of the most pristine areas on the East Coast, and we need to do everything possible to protect and preserve it.”
The compost toilets, and some other measures designed to reduce potential pollutants from entering Long Island Sound, will be funded by two federal grants from the Environmental Protection Agency that total more than $2.1 million. Heinrich said the new facility will offer “top-of-the-line” amenities and be fully handicapped accessible, and every visitor “will be able to enjoy a cleaner beach as well.”
Governor M. Jodi Rell, whose office announced the bond request earlier in the week, said, “Hammonasset State Park is the most frequently visited state park in Connecticut, but right now it is without a visitor center. This project will resolve that problem, and do it with style. Drawing more than one million visitors a year, this wonderful location on Long Island Sound is a summertime favorite, for obvious reasons.
The new visitor center will blend with its surroundings and reflect green design principles, enhancing the natural beauty of this natural jewel.”
