• The authority's board of directors consists of 11 members appointed by the governor and legislative leaders. The governor appoints three members and the Senate president pro tempore, the House speaker, the Senate minority leader and House minority leader two each.

• Three directors must represent towns with a population of fewer than 50,000 and two must represent towns with populations greater than 50,000.

• Five members represent the public. Three of these must have extensive, high-level experience in finance, business or industry; one must have high-level, extensive experience in an environmental field; and one must have high-level, extensive experience in an energy field.

• Members serve four-year terms and must be confirmed by both houses. The governor designates one member to serve as chairman, with the advice and consent of both houses. The chairman serves at the governor's pleasure.

• CRRA plans, designs, builds, and operates solid waste disposal, volume reduction, recycling, intermediate processing, and resources recovery facilities. The chairman appoints the president of the authority, who supervises the authority's administrative affairs and technical activities. The authority is a quasi-public agency.

1. The Department of Environmental Protection's (DEP) amended Solid Waste Management Plan calls for increasing the state's recycling rate, which has held at 30 % for a number of years, to 58% by 2024. Do you think this is a feasible goal? What can CRRA do to help achieve this rate, and what are you doing now to promote recycling?

2. DEP's plan also calls for the state to develop a plan to recycle electronic waste, such as computers and televisions. CRRA has also said it favors such a plan. How do you believe such a plan should be financed? Do you favor a one-time advance recycling fee paid at the point of retail purchase, such as has been adopted in California, or one that would place more responsibility on manufacturers, such as DEP proposes? Should such recycling include only computers and televisions, or be expanded to include cell phones and other smaller electronics?

3. The DEP plan also calls for adding #1 (PET) and #2 (HDPE) plastics and magazines to the list of mandated recyclables, and expanding the bottle bill to include plastic water bottles. What is CRRA's position on these recommendations? Should the state also increase the current nickel deposit to 10 cents, as DEP recommends?

4. Under current law, unclaimed bottle deposits are returned to distributors. There have been many attempts to direct that money to the state instead. Where does CRRA believe that money should go and how should it be distributed?

5. Inner-city residents believe they have historically been overburdened by the siting of landfills and incinerators in their neighborhoods. What is CRRA doing to alleviate this?

6. What are the current plans to close the Hartford landfill? Has a decision been reached on whether CRRA or Hartford will bear the costs of closure and monitoring?

7. Can you briefly tell us the status of CRRA's deliberations about replacing its Wallingford resources recovery facility with a transfer station? How would CRRA compensate Wallingford for the station?

8. Please describe CRRA's policy on awarding new contracts and re-bidding expired contracts. Under what circumstances would you renew a contract outside of a competitive bid process?

9. Do you anticipate increasing or decreasing your tipping fees? On what would that depend?

10. Legislation has been introduced in previous years that would have allowed CRRA to spend proportionally more money on outside consultants as its full-time staff decreased, and less money on consultants if its full time staff grew. What are your current staffing needs?

11. What's the best and safest way to dispose of ash generated by CRRA facilities?

12. The Metropolitan District Commission last year proposed creating a 6. 25 million square foot riverfront development on land currently used for CRRA's Mid-Connecticut trash-to-energy project and building a new trash-to-energy plant. What is your position on that idea?

13. What do you think of the concept of single source recycling?