Al Barbarotta doesn’t like the audit posted on the Town of Trumbull website.
Barbarotta says it skewers the performance of his company, AFB Construction Management, which maintained Trumbull schools for nearly three decades before the town refused to renew its contract last year. AFB has managed Stamford schools since 2000.
Barbarotta dislikes the audit so much that he had his lawyers try to yank it from Trumbull’s website.
Barbarotta also had his lawyers try to bar the Trumbull Board of Finance from discussing the findings in the document, written by the town’s internal auditor, James Henderson. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Mayors confer 'clean' energy visit fuel cell
BRIDGEPORT — The leaders of two cities on the comeback trail will come together here today for a tour of the Green Energy Park being built on top of an old landfill.
Mayor Bill Finch will accompany Mayor Dan Rivera of Lawrence, Mass. this afternoon on a visit to the clean energy installation under construction at the Barnum Dyke in Seaside Park.
Finch and Rivera will also meet with officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency earlier in the day.
The two mayors are both active in the U.S. Conference of Mayors, where Finch serves as co-chair of the Climate Protection Task Force.
Lawrence, about half the size of Bridgeport, is on the Merrimack River and, like Bridgeport was once a manufacturing center. One of its old textile mills has been converted into a state Heritage Park and Museum.
Bridgeport’s Green Energy Park is a clean energy project consisting of 9,000 solar panels and a fuel cell. Once complete, the solar panels and fuel cell will produce enough clean energy to power an additional 5,000 homes while creating up to 92 jobs, said Brett Broesder, the mayor’s spokesman. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Windham protestors say natural gas pipeline not needed
WINDHAM — About 50 people stood across from the construction site of a new Spectra Energy natural gas metering station at 247 South St. Thursday chanting slogans such as “no fracking way,” “stop the pipeline," stop the gas” and “the people united will never be defeated.”
The station is designed to support a new pipeline that will cut across Connecticut to “provide the Northeast with a unique opportunity to secure a cost effective, domestically produced source of energy to support its current demand, as well as its future growth, for clean burning natural gas,” according to Spectra Energy’s website. Martha Klein of the Connecticut Sierra Club and the protestors believe the project is far from beneficial.
“The need is completely manufactured,” Klein said. “They’re bringing more fracked gas through the state and into the state. This is built on falsehoods.”
The protest was organized by The Sierra Club and Connecticut 350, an organization dedicated to building coalitions to end the reliance on fossil fuels.
Fracking is a controversial practice that involves drilling down a mile or more and then drilling horizontally several thousand more feet to create multiple wells. The wells are then pumped with a high pressure mix of water, sand and additive to create micro-fractures in the rock. It’s the additives that concern opponents most.
According to the Natural Resource Defense Council, fracking directly poses ah hazard to water, air and soil quality and diminishes the health of the communities in which it is based.
Arvind Shaw, chief executive office of GenerationsFamilyHealthCenter, joined the protest and said he has done extensive research on fracking and he believes it’s a public health issue that disproportionately affects poor communities. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Pratt & Whitney invokes 90 year history in groundbreaking for engineering center
AST HARTFORD — Ninety years of innovation, the video screen title declared, as music swelled. "Ready for 90 more."
Pratt & Whitney, one of the world's three dominant makers of large jet engines, had a ceremonial groundbreaking Thursday for a new headquarters and engineering center on its 900-acre home campus.
The company, which began on Capitol Avenue on the edge of Frog Hollow in Hartford, moved to East Hartford tobacco fields just before the Depression. Its first ceremonial groundbreaking was July 16, 1929 — 86 years to the day before Thursday's event.
Back then, the office and factory buildings — still the core of the Pratt complex on Main Street — cost $2 million, or about $27 million in today's dollars. The complex reached a size of 6 million square feet, with 40,000 employees during World War II. Today it's about 4 million square feet after some demolitions.
The new building will cover 425,000 square feet, and will cost about $150 million, including the furnishings and technology that will go inside. Construction will begin later this year.
The company has not decided what it will do with the 53-year-old engineering building after the new building is occupied.
Just as Thursday's ceremony was a milestone in Pratt's history, it also celebrated what politicians said is a marked improvement in relations between the state and Pratt's parent company, Hartford-based United Technologies Corp. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Fasano, Looney Yacccarino celebrate North Haven middle school construction project
NORTH HAVEN >> Sen. Len Fasano (R-North Haven), Senate President Martin M. Looney (D-New Haven) and state Rep. Dave Yaccarino (R- North Haven) celebrated Thursday’s ground-breaking ceremony at the North Haven Middle School construction project.
The middle school, located at 55 Bailey Road, is undergoing a massive renovation and new construction to update the school, according to a release.
“It’s very exciting to see this important construction project move forward,” Fasano said in the release. “I want to thank Representative Dave Yaccarino and Senator Martin M. Looney for working with me to help secure the state funding needed to make this project a reality. I’m looking forward to watching the transformation begin and I thank the town for their efforts to give our deserving students the best school we can.”
The project involves renovating core portions of the existing building, demolishing certain existing classroom wings and adding a new two story academic wing. The construction will address multiple structural issues and out of date technology including: roof leaks, inadequate power, air quality complaints, heating system upgrades, smoke detector replacements and updates to satisfy ADA requirements. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Vandalism probed at New Haven's former construction initiative 2 site
NEW HAVEN >> The city is investigating damage at the former site of the Construction Workforce Initiative 2 on Dixwell Avenue.
City officials Thursday could not immediately produce a police report on the vandalism, which was discovered by Livable City Initiative personnel July 2.
Nichole Jefferson, who has run the construction training program at 316 Dixwell Ave. since 2007, removed the tools and records, which she said were the property of CWI 2, as well as personal furniture from the building, on March 18. That was the day the city put her on administrative leave as part of an investigation into the relationship between CWI 2 and the Commission on Equal Opportunities, of which she is the executive director. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Pratt & Whitney invokes 90 year history in groundbreaking for engineering center
AST HARTFORD — Ninety years of innovation, the video screen title declared, as music swelled. "Ready for 90 more."
Pratt & Whitney, one of the world's three dominant makers of large jet engines, had a ceremonial groundbreaking Thursday for a new headquarters and engineering center on its 900-acre home campus.
The company, which began on Capitol Avenue on the edge of Frog Hollow in Hartford, moved to East Hartford tobacco fields just before the Depression. Its first ceremonial groundbreaking was July 16, 1929 — 86 years to the day before Thursday's event.
Back then, the office and factory buildings — still the core of the Pratt complex on Main Street — cost $2 million, or about $27 million in today's dollars. The complex reached a size of 6 million square feet, with 40,000 employees during World War II. Today it's about 4 million square feet after some demolitions.
The new building will cover 425,000 square feet, and will cost about $150 million, including the furnishings and technology that will go inside. Construction will begin later this year.
The company has not decided what it will do with the 53-year-old engineering building after the new building is occupied.
Just as Thursday's ceremony was a milestone in Pratt's history, it also celebrated what politicians said is a marked improvement in relations between the state and Pratt's parent company, Hartford-based United Technologies Corp. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Fasano, Looney Yacccarino celebrate North Haven middle school construction project
NORTH HAVEN >> Sen. Len Fasano (R-North Haven), Senate President Martin M. Looney (D-New Haven) and state Rep. Dave Yaccarino (R- North Haven) celebrated Thursday’s ground-breaking ceremony at the North Haven Middle School construction project.
The middle school, located at 55 Bailey Road, is undergoing a massive renovation and new construction to update the school, according to a release.
“It’s very exciting to see this important construction project move forward,” Fasano said in the release. “I want to thank Representative Dave Yaccarino and Senator Martin M. Looney for working with me to help secure the state funding needed to make this project a reality. I’m looking forward to watching the transformation begin and I thank the town for their efforts to give our deserving students the best school we can.”
The project involves renovating core portions of the existing building, demolishing certain existing classroom wings and adding a new two story academic wing. The construction will address multiple structural issues and out of date technology including: roof leaks, inadequate power, air quality complaints, heating system upgrades, smoke detector replacements and updates to satisfy ADA requirements. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Vandalism probed at New Haven's former construction initiative 2 site
NEW HAVEN >> The city is investigating damage at the former site of the Construction Workforce Initiative 2 on Dixwell Avenue.
City officials Thursday could not immediately produce a police report on the vandalism, which was discovered by Livable City Initiative personnel July 2.
Nichole Jefferson, who has run the construction training program at 316 Dixwell Ave. since 2007, removed the tools and records, which she said were the property of CWI 2, as well as personal furniture from the building, on March 18. That was the day the city put her on administrative leave as part of an investigation into the relationship between CWI 2 and the Commission on Equal Opportunities, of which she is the executive director. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE