State Senator Christine Cohen (D-Guilford) has been chosen to receive a 2020 “Town Crier Award” from the Connecticut Council of Small Towns (COST) in recognition of her leadership role in the General Assembly in advocating for public policies that benefit Connecticut’s small towns.
“Senator Cohen was chosen to receive this award because of her outstanding leadership on legislation affecting Connecticut’s small towns, in particular her efforts to enact a statewide fracking ban, assist towns in addressing coastal resiliency issues, support state cideries, and address concerns regarding plastic bags,” said COST Executive Director Betsy Gara. “In addition, this award recognizes Senator Cohen’s efforts to address municipal concerns and costs associated with recycling and stormwater management. COST is very appreciative of her efforts on these issues as well as her other legislation affecting Connecticut’s small towns.”
“Connecticut is comprised of many small towns that have a tremendous amount of activity! In many ways, they serve as public policy incubators for the state legislature. I am continuously talking to and learning from municipal officials about what their needs are and how we can best address those needs within the General Assembly,” said Sen. Cohen, who runs a bagel shop in Madison and who served on the Board of Education in Guilford. “It’s incredibly rewarding to be recognized after just one year in the legislature as a public policy champion for small towns.”
Founded in 1975, COST promotes itself as “The Voice of Small Towns at the State Capitol,” and is a member-driven organization committed to giving Connecticut’s smaller communities a strong voice in the legislative process. COST champions the interests of small towns at the state Capitol and provides resources to help municipal leaders meet the challenges they face as chief executives of the Connecticut’s 142 smaller communities.
Sen. Cohen’s award will be presented to her at COST’s Connecticut Town Meeting 2020, which will be held on February 19, 2020 at the Aqua Turf in Southington. Sen. Cohen one of only five state legislators to be honored with this distinction.
In her first term in office, Sen. Cohen focused her public policy energies on protecting Connecticut’s environment, preventing gun violence, making Connecticut healthier, and strengthening the state’s economy. She helped pass new state laws to ban single-use plastic bags beginning in 2021, to ban the production of untraceable ‘ghost guns,’ to raise the smoking and vaping age to 21, to reduce business taxes, expand workforce development training, institute a paid family and medical leave system beginning in 2022, and allow for the planting of hemp on Connecticut cropland – a brand new industry for our state.
Sen. Cohen created and co-chairs the Coastal Caucus, a bipartisan group of lawmakers who focus on the issues affecting coastal towns, cities and waterways. She also uses the private-sector business experience she gained working for years at Fortune 100 companies like Stanley Black & Decker and Georgia Pacific to co-chair the legislature’s Bioscience Caucus, which seeks to strengthen and promote Connecticut’s robust life sciences and biotech industries.