Proposed Public Safety Capacity at State Parks Bill Revised, Advanced

Hartford – The legislature’s Environment Committee voted recently to advance a bill proposed by state Representative Patrick Callahan (R-108), with state Senators Julie Kushner (D-24) and Stephen Harding (R-30), to make activities safer at Squantz Pond State Park and help ease overcrowding. H.B. No. 5009 has been revised to focus only on Squantz Pond, and not on all state parks.

The bill is now called AN ACT CONCERNING THE PUBLIC SAFETY CAPACITY OF SQUANTZ POND STATE PARK and would address an issue that New Fairfield officials have been asking for assistance with for decades.

The proposed bill has been placed on the House calendar and now awaits further legislative action. The General Assembly has until the end of the legislative session, June 7, to take up bills voted out of committee.

There are several factors for DEEP to consider when setting the capacity, including the number of visitors that can be safely supervised based on staffing, lifeguard staffing, and parking capacity. DEEP would also be tasked with determining if pedestrian safety would be threatened by traffic volume or if the number of vehicles parked along the road would impede emergency vehicle travel.

“In a typical summer weekend, cars are lined up as early as 4:30am to get into the park and it usually fills up between 8 or 8:30am. Once the parking lot reaches full capacity, the park is closed. Unfortunately, visitors then park illegally in spaces reserved for local businesses, in residential neighborhoods and private property as well as trespassing on Fire Department property, causing local traffic issues, and concern to emergency responders. This impacts our local businesses and endangers our residents and the park visitors as well,” said Callahan.

Residents from the area, as well as elected officials, provided testimony at the Environment Committee’s public hearing.