Instructors

Director, Connecticut NEMO Program
University of Connecticut, Department of Extension Land Use Educator

john.rozum@uconn.edu

860-345-5225

John Rozum is the director of the Connecticut NEMO program. As director, he delivers workshops and training to Connecticut's 169 towns, assisting them to implement land use practices that protect water resources.

Mr. Rozum is a certified planner (AICP) with a M.S. in Land Use Planning and a M.S. in Ecology, both from the University of Arizona. He has professional experience in land use planning, scientific research, and ecological field science. As a planning consultant, he prepared land use and watershed plans, wrote regulations, and completed technical reports for numerous municipalities. Recently, he coordinated the development of the CT LID Regulation Inventory, a searchable database of low impact development regulations across the state.

Mr. Rozum has served on his town's planning and zoning commission and the board of directors of the East Haddam Land Trust.

Green Valley Institute
University of Connecticut, Department of Extension Land Use Educator

paula.stahl@uconn.edu

860-486-1215

Paula Stahl is a licensed landscape architect (ASLA, LLA) with the Green Valley Institute, a part of CLEAR, comprising a partnership between the University of Connecticut’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and the Quinebaug-Shetucket National Heritage Corridor. As a land use educator, she works with municipal officials in the 35 towns in the Heritage Corridor to find ways to protect the region’s cultural and natural resources as its economy grows.

With a dual background in Finance (BS, MBA) and Landscape Architecture (BS), she brings a unique perspective to community planning issues through workshops and presentations. Her topics include Economics of Land Use, Growth and Rural Character, Subdivision Design and Building Sustainable Communities.

Active in her community, she is Chair of her town’s Planning Commission and sits on numerous local boards and committees.

Partner, Halloran & Sage, LLP
Member, Planning and Zoning Law Section of the Connecticut Bar Association

roberts@halloran-sage.com

860-297-4695

Richard Roberts represents municipalities in the full range of their legal needs. He provides legal counsel to them in real estate acquisitions and sales, land use, charter revisions, drafting and review of ordinances, and property tax issues. He also provides legal counsel to individuals, partnerships, limited-liability companies and corporations in real estate acquisitions and sales, financing transactions, general business affairs and contracts and agreements. He represents lending institutions and borrowers in secured, unsecured, asset-based and non-traditional financing transactions as well as in various state and federal regulatory matters, including securities, banking and land use and zoning matters.

Mr. Roberts regularly presents seminars to attorneys, bankers, accountants and other professionals on topics that include commercial lending, limited liability companies and other forms of business entities, real estate and land title law. He is a member of the Connecticut Association of Municipal Attorneys. He has served as Republican Town Chairman in Wethersfield since 1995 and has been a member of the Wethersfield Planning and Zoning Commission since 1991.

Partner, Halloran & Sage, LLP
Member, Planning and Zoning Law Section of the Connecticut Bar Association

slater@halloran-sage.com

860-297-4662

Kenneth Slater practices primarily in the areas of land use and environmental law. Mr. Slater has extensive experience in land use matters, and he is frequently consulted to prosecute and defend administrative appeals to the Superior Court regarding the issuance or denial of zoning, planning and wetland permit approvals and enforcement matters. He also regularly serves as counsel to municipalities in land use matters. He is also experienced in complex land use matters involving constitutional and environmental claims and statutory remedies.

He also has significant experience in environmental law matters. He routinely represents current and former owners of real property regarding legal issues relating to transfer or remediation of contaminated properties and in the prosecution and defense of environmental cost recovery actions. He advises businesses, property owners, municipalities and individuals regarding environmental regulation, permitting and enforcement. He appears regularly before federal and state environmental regulatory and siting agencies and federal and state courts regarding environmental matters. He served as lead counsel in several appeals to the Connecticut Supreme and Appellate Courts involving important issues in land use law. He also lectures on a variety of environmental and land use law topics.

Attorney at Law, Branse, Willis & Knapp, LLC

MBranse@bransewillis.com

860-659-3735

Mark Branse is an attorney practicing law in Glastonbury where he is Senior Partner in the Law Firm of Branse, Willis & Knapp, LLC. Mr. Branse was a former planning director, holding a Masters Degree in government from the Fels Institute of Local and State Government., Wharton Graduate School, University of Pennsylvania. He is also a former member of the Glastonbury Town and Planning and Zoning Commission and also a former member of the Glastonbury Redevelopment Agency.
 
Mr. Branse provides or has provided, representation and/or legal consultation to land use agencies in more than two dozen municipalities and has represented applicants and neighborhood associations in more than seventy towns. He is currently Town Attorney of Griswold and Scotland, as well as Special Land Use or Planning Counsels of Andover, Canterbury, Eastford, East Haddam, Middlefield, Montville, Old Lyme, Old Saybrook, Westbrook and Willington. Mr. Branse is a past Chairman and Secretary of the Planning & Zoning Section of the Connecticut Bar Association, and a current member of the Executive Committee. Mr. Branse is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Land Use Academy.

Partner, Secor, Cassid, & McPortland
Member, Planning and Zoning Law Section of the Connecticut Bar Association

gem@ctlawyers.com

203-757-9261

Gail E. McTaggart is a principal in the law firm of Secor, Cassidy, & McPartland with offices in Southbury, Waterbury and Washington Connecticut. Her areas of expertise are land use, municipal law, real estate development and transactions, and commercial law. She has served as Town Attorney for New Fairfield, Southbury, Middlebury and Roxbury. In addition, she has served as land use counsel for the Town of New Fairfield and is special land use counsel to Middlebury on Affordable Housing and senior housing appeals.

Prior to becoming an attorney, Ms. McTaggart was a secondary and college biology teacher for eight years. Ms. McTaggart received her B.A. degree in biology from the California State University at Fresno and received her J.D. from the University of Connecticut. Ms. McTaggart also serves on the Connecticut Association of Municipal Attorneys Executive Board, the CBA Real Property Section Executive Committee, the CBA Planning and Zoning Section Executive Committee and is a member of the Connecticut Bar Examining Committee. She has briefed and argued many land use appeals before the Connecticut Superior, Appellate and Supreme Courts; she has presented numerous seminars on land use throughout the State.