WASHINGTON (AP) — Faced with the prospect of a shutdown in highway and transit aid to states, the House is due to take up a bill to temporarily shore up funding for transportation programs for the 35th time since 2009.
The House bill on the schedule Wednesday would scrape together $8 billion to keep programs going through Dec. 18, but the Senate is moving in a different direction. Senate Republican leaders are trying to quickly cobble together a longer-term, more comprehensive bill that would pay for programs for possibly as long as six years.
Congress is under pressure to act quickly. Authority for transportation programs expires on July 31, which would eliminate the Transportation Department's ability to process promised aid payments to states. But simply renewing the department's authorization isn't enough. Without an infusion of cash, the balance in the federal Highway Trust Fund is forecast to drop below $4 billion — the minimum cushion needed to keep money to flowing to states without interruption — by the end of this month.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said he wants a bill that will fund programs at least through next year's election. The biggest holdup has been how to pay for a long-term bill since most lawmakers don't want to raise federal gasoline taxes, the chief source of revenue for the programs. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Stamford Board of Education officials rarely have challenged the contractor they hired 17 years ago to manage school buildings.
Now there is reason to ask whether officials know what they have been getting for the taxpayers’ money.The board’s past agreements with the contractor, AFB Construction Management, have contained few provisions for gauging the company’s performance.
Concerns arise as AFB seeks to lock in the remaining time on its five-year contract, which must be renewed annually. AFB chief Al Barbarotta, saying he wants “stability,” has offered to forgo his annual 3 percent increases if the contract is extended for three years instead of one. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Bass Pro Shops announces jobs fair
BRIDGEPORT — Bass Pro Shops will interview candidates to work in its Steelpointe Harbor store over three days next month.
The job fair will be held Aug. 17-19, from 8 a..m. to 7 p.m., at the Klein Memorial Auditorium on Fairfield Avenue, the store’s general manager said in a statement released by Mayor Bill Finch’s staff.
Loretta Mercado began work recently as the manager of the 150,000 square-foot outdoor and sporting goods store which is set to open in the fall.
“Steelpointe Harbor will create thousands of jobs and we are seeing the beginnings of that now,’’ Finch said Tuesday morning. “This is the largest economic development project in Bridgeport since the Industrial Revolution and will add millions to the city’s tax rolls, proving Bridgeport is getting better every day.”
Bass Pro Shops is the anchor tenant in the development that will also include Chipotle, Starbucks and a T-Mobile store. The second phase includes the multi-screen Cinépolis theater, with construction expected to begin next year. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Federal hearings this week on natural gas pipeline
SCHODACK -- Federal energy regulators will be in southern Rensselaer County on Tuesday and Wednesday to take public comments on potential environmental impacts from the proposed Northeast Energy Direct natural gas pipeline project.
Staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will hold public meetings on the planned 36-inch pipeline, which would run through the southern sections of both Albany and Rensselaer counties.
The federal energy public meetings include:
7 p.m. Tuesday at Birch Hill Catering, 1 Celebration Way, Castleton-on-Hudson.
6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Birch Hill Catering.
7 p.m. Thursday at Days Inn, 160 Holiday Way, Schoharie, and Foothills Performing Arts Center, 24 Market St., Oneonta.
7 p.m July 28 at Taconic High School, 96 Valentine Road, Pittsfield, Mass.
Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co., owned by Houston-based energy company Kinder Morgan, wants to build about 412 miles of natural gas transmission pipeline and associated facilities between northern Pennsylvania natural gas hydrofracking fields and metropolitan Boston.
Plans call for nine new compressor stations, including a 90,000-horsepower station off Clarks Chapel Road in Nassau, south of Burden Lake. Compressor stations pressurize gas so it can travel through a pipeline. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
East Hampton high school renovations enter final phases
EAST HAMPTON >> The renovation of the high school is continuing apace, with windows being installed in the science wing and the fittings being put in place for the new entrance.
Meanwhile, engineers and contractors will meet on July 30 with school administrators to discuss what the students will encounter when they re-enter the school at the end of August.
The School Building Committee met Monday with representatives of the project manager, the construction manager, and the project architects to discuss the progress to date.
There is an overwhelming sense of relief since the General Assembly approved funding in a special session that will ensure the town gets the entire state share of the project cost.
Earlier, a state agency had balked at paying the state’s full share, saying declining enrollment at the school disqualified East Hampton from receiving full funding from the state.
School officials had countered that the renovation project was intended to lure back students who had left to go to magnet schools. Committee Vice Chairwoman Michele Barber called upon her colleagues to join her in thanking the town’s two legislators, state Sen. Art Linares and in particular state Rep. Melissa Ziobron, for their work to securing passage of the special funding bill. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Meriden awarded state funding for cleanup, demolition of old Record Journal building
MERIDEN — The city is set to receive more than $1.7 million to clean up and redevelop the Record-Journal building downtown.
Meriden will receive $1,725,000 in state Department of Economic and Community Development funding to remediate and rehabilitate 11 Crown St., Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said in a statement Tuesday.
The funding will pay for the cleanup of certain contaminants found in soil on the property as well as the demolition of the building itself, city Economic Development Director Juliet Burdelski said.
“As we got into redevelopment planning, the developer said they felt like they have to take the whole building down,” she said.
New Jersey-based Michaels Organization submitted plans to build 81 housing units and commercial/retail space on the property last year, as part of a larger effort to redevelop six city-owned properties within the downtown Transit-Oriented District.
The city purchased the 109-year-old building in May 2014 for $495,000 using a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Sustainable Communities Challenge grant. Under an agreement with the city, the media company can remain in the building until at least Dec. 31 of this year.
The city is one of 12 communities across the state to receive part of $7 million worth of funding that will ultimately help clean up and assess 462 acres of commercial and industrial space, according to a statement from Malloy’s office. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
CANTON — Officials will make a second attempt at finding a private partner on a hydropower project on the Farmington River, this time with one of three companies that recently submitted proposals.
The project entails using the dam on the Farmington River in the Collinsville section. The project has been in the works for years, and town officials pushing the plan are pinning their hopes on help from a private investor. Unsuccessful negotiations with bidders were held earlier this year. When those talks fell through, the town put out another request for proposals.
Chief Administrative Officer Robert Skinner said that officials were scheduled to interview representatives of the three companies this week. A recommendation on which one to work with might be made to the board of selectmen in August, Skinner said.
"I would like to move this along as expeditiously as possible," said First Selectman Richard Barlow. "We have asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reprocess its license for this project and we are developing a lease on the dam with the state. Hopefully, all this can be brought together in the next two to three months. We have some fruit here and hopefully we can harvest it." CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Grant to clean up Waterbury
WATERBURY — The city landed a $200,000 state grant Wednesday to assess environmental conditions at two key Freight Street properties.
The city will use its share of the latest round of remedial action and redevelopment grants to survey the extent of contamination at 130 Freight Street and West Main Street.
The city considers these two parcels, totalling more than 14 acres and once the site of a brass rolling mill, integral to its plan to revitalize about 60 acres of underused property in the newly minted Freight Street District. The parcels have been dormant for 30 years.
Mayor Neil M. O'Leary said the city wants to redevelop them, but before it can do that, it needs to know the extent of the contamination.
"It's been a long time coming," O'Leary said.
The state awarded $7 million in this latest round of brownfields grants to 12 cities and towns across Connecticut, from Ansonia to Torrington, which is getting $100,000 to survey an old drycleaners.
Brownfields are contaminated former industrial properties that are vacant or underutilized that, if cleaned up, could be put back into productive use, creating jobs and tax revenues.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has been especially supportive of local efforts to clean up old industrial sites. Past administrations put the state's funding emphasis on open space acquisitions
The city has targeted, surveyed or repurposed 25 brownfields — more than any other Connecticut city, according to the state Office of Brownfield Remediation and Development.
The two properties, 130 Freight and 000 West Main, landed a $69,000 federal environmental assessment grant earlier this year, but that was only for contamination found in the buildings.
This state grant will allow the city to conduct tests on what contamination is present in the soil and groundwater and estimate the cost of actually removing the contamination, or capping it.
The Freight Street property is owned by Ridan Enterprises in Bridgeport. Ridan owes $1.6 million in delinquent city water and property taxes on this parcel, according to city records.
This property is the former home of Phoenix Soil, the company that removes contaminants, including gas and oil, from tainted soil so that soil can be reused as clean industrial fill.
That company had been engaged in a long court battle over its continued presence in the city after its permits had expired. It moved to Plainville one year ago.
The West Main lot, which doesn't have driveway access from West Main and is behind a Monro muffler shop, is owned by Environmental Waste Removal in Bridgeport. The tax debt on this lot is $700,000, but EWR is current on its local water and sewer bills, records show.