We qualified for public financing, funded by 175+ neighbors. Thank you!
James Mol
Bradley and Economic Opportunity
In one Minute
Bradley occupies roughly 2,432 acres across Windsor Locks, East Granby and Suffield (and a tiny piece of Windsor), and Windsor Locks gives up close to a third of its land to it. In return the Connecticut Airport Authority pays a fixed sum: $3,319,686 to Windsor Locks, $693,909 to Suffield, $657,991 to East Granby. Those amounts were last set in law in 2013 and have not moved since.
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The airport is also the district's largest economic asset, and the workforce case is stronger than it is usually made. Collins Aerospace runs a major aerospace campus in Windsor Locks. Bombardier operates its Hartford service center at Bradley.
A payment frozen for more than a decade
Indexed to inflation, the payment would be about $1.9 million a year higher today. The airport expands under a $1.4 billion master plan and the payment does not change by a dollar.
Source: Connecticut Airport Authority host town payments; US Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U.
The full story
In 2023 a bill was introduced asking for a ten percent increase. It was referred to the Planning and Development Committee, where our representative sits, and it died there without a hearing. Ten percent, once, is about a third of what inflation had already taken. Each spring the Bradley Development League is showcased at the Capitol. Three showcases later, the payment is the same.
In May 2026 Bombardier launched a fast-track to FAA airframe and powerplant certification at Bradley with CT Aero Tech, the state's own certificated school. That program requires eighteen months of prior experience. There is no state-supported way for a Suffield, East Granby or Windsor Locks graduate to get those eighteen months. Twenty-five miles north, Westfield, Massachusetts runs an FAA-certified aviation maintenance program inside a public high school.
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The Bradley Development League has four first selectmen, the airport authority and five business members on its board. It has nobody at the table who supplies its labor.
The Air National Guard site at the airport's southwest corner, in Suffield and East Granby, is a federal cleanup site with documented PFAS contamination. In 2025 the Department of Defense pushed back the investigation timetable at roughly 150 bases, including this one, in some cases by nearly a decade.
What I will do in Hartford
Index the host-town payment to inflation on a permanent schedule, and restore the four towns to the tiered state PILOT structure they were removed from.
Build the entry ramp that is missing: a paid pre-apprenticeship with Bradley employers that carries a district graduate to the experience threshold, and an articulated route into CT Aero Tech.
Add a workforce and education seat to the Bradley Development League, which today has none.
Raise the state's reimbursement to host towns for Airport Development Zone abatements, so growth delivers to town budgets and not only to the airport.
Work with our congressional delegation to restore the PFAS cleanup timetable at the Air National Guard site.