The state School Construction Committee voted unanimously Wednesday to keep Region 12’s proposed Agriscience-STEM academy on its funding priority list, despite the Malloy administration’s recommendation that the project be dropped.
Commissioner Melody Currey of the Department of Administrative Services had written to committee members saying that Region 12’s enrollment projections for the academy, though recently revised downward, “cannot be validated,” and that the slimmed-down project recently approved by the school board still has too high a square-foot-to-student ratio.
But State Sen. Toni Boucher, R-Wilton, who sits on the construction committee, said members decided to keep the project in play because school officials did everything they were asked to do in revamping an earlier, larger and more expensive proposal.
“The legislature doesn't always listen to what the administration wants to do,” said Boucher, who also co-chairs the Senate Education Committee. “They made it through the very first hurdle, but there are very many hurdles ahead.”
Boucher warned that the project will face extra scrutiny because of Currey’s letter and a Dec. 29 letter from Ben Barnes, secretary of the Office of Policy and Management, urging the committee “review the project carefully” for many of the same reasons.
Citing Connecticut’s fiscal woes, Boucher added that the state will have a hard time funding even those school construction requests that make the priority list.
Still, Region 12 officials were pleased that the project is moving forward for now.
“We’re still on the list,” said Superintendent Patricia Cosentino.
A final decision on the construction plan would be up to the General Assembly.
The Ag-STEM project, which would offer training in agricultural sciences and other technical fields, is an effort to bolster student enrollment in a district whose three rural towns — Washington, Roxbury and Bridgewater — project steep population declines in coming years.
The original $39 million proposal, approved overwhelmingly by district voters in November 2015, envisioned enrolling as many as 226 students from Region 12 and surrounding districts in new and renovated space at Shepaug Valley School. The state was expected to pay about $29 million of that total. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Malloy Administration Questions Construction Of New School In Greenwich
Despite recommendations from the Malloy administration to eliminate funding for new schools in Greenwich and Litchfield County, an education subcommittee gave preliminary approval Wednesday for state grants to 49 school construction projects totaling nearly half a billion dollars.
Rep. Andy Fleischmann, D-West Hartford, chairman of the education committee, began the meeting by questioning a letter from Department of Administrative Services Commissioner Melody Currey that suggested the two long-planned projects be removed from the list of proposed school projects for next year. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
$1 Trillion Infrastructure Plan Proposed
Democrats estimate their plan would create 15 million jobs. The plan includes $210 billion to repair aging roads and bridges and another $200 billion for a "vital infrastructure fund" to pay for a variety of transportation projects of national significance.
An example of the types of projects that could be eligible for financing from the fund is the Gateway Program to repair and replace rail lines and tunnels between New York and New Jersey, some of which are over 100 years old and were damaged in Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The project, which would double the number of trains per hour using the tunnels and help enable high-speed Amtrak service, is estimated to cost about $20 billion.
Republican leaders are unlikely to embrace the Democratic plan. It's not clear where Democrats would get the money for their proposal.
Infrastructure was raised at a meeting Monday between Trump and lawmakers from both parties. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Democrats pitched their plan to Trump and asked for his support. Schumer said he also warned Trump that doing so would mean he'd have to "go against" elements of the Republican Party. Trump acknowledged that and seemed open to working with Democrats, he said.
A White House spokesman didn't immediately reply to a request for comment.
Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters he doesn't want another infrastructure plan that is effectively an economic stimulus program like the one Congress passed in 2009 at former President Barack Obama's behest. He said Republicans are waiting to see what the Trump administration proposes and he hopes it is paid for in "a credible way."
Democrats "thought that was an area maybe to find common ground, and then Sen. McConnell made the important point it needs to be paid for because we've got $20 trillion in debt," Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican leader, who was at the meeting.
Trump bemoaned the state of America's roads, bridges, airports and railways during the presidential campaign and promised to generate $1 trillion in infrastructure investment, putting people to work in the process. But Trump has offered few specifics. Administration officials have indicated they expect Trump to offer details this spring.
"Senate Democrats are walking the walk on repairing and rebuilding our nation's crumbling infrastructure," Schumer said. "We ask President Trump to support this common sense, comprehensive approach."
Besides transportation, the plan includes money for expanding broadband access in rural areas, water treatment and sewer construction, veterans' hospitals and schools.
A proposal by two of Trump's financial advisers circulated just after the election calls for using $137 billion in tax credits to generate $1 trillion in private investment in infrastructure projects over 10 years. But investors are typically interested only in projects that have a revenue stream like tolls to produce a profit. Elaine Chao, Trump's nominee for transportation secretary, told senators last week that she wants to "unleash the potential" of private investors to boost transportation. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Larson Pitches Plan For I-91, I-84 Tunnels Through Hartford
U.S. Rep. John Larson's ambitious idea to rebuild miles of I-91 and I-84 underground met a mix of public opinion Wednesday night: Supporters called it visionary while skeptics warned it's simply unrealistic.
Building a vast network of tunnels for highways and their interchange would free up hundreds of acres in the city and East Hartford, recapture Hartford's riverfront and reunite the north and south ends, said Larson, D-1st District.
He conceded it could take 10 or 20 years to finish, but insisted the result would be worth the wait.
"Do we incrementally do what we've done for the last 50 years, or do we say it's time that Hartford thinks big?" Larson asked an audience of about 100 at a forum at Hartford Public Library.
Much of the crowd appeared to endorse the idea of diverting trucks and other through traffic into a tunnel system while building boulevards for local traffic where the highways stand now.
But residents took the microphone to say they doubt the federal government or private investors would pay billions of dollars to build it. Others feared the idea could derail the state's more modest plan to replace about 2 miles of I-84's viaduct in Hartford; millions of dollars and years of engineering have already been put into that project. "The viaduct is like an Edsel — we're keeping it running, and we've put away enough to replace it with a modern hybrid," said Christopher Brown of Hartford. "Now we're going to wait for the Jetsons' car that flies? I need more convincing that this is doable."
City resident Tony Charolis said Connecticut's plan to replace just the viaduct is within a few years of breaking ground and came after years of design work and dialogue with the community.
"They're so close to starting — I'd hate to see this be a distraction that pushes everything back 40 years," Charolis said.
Larson emphasized that the Trump administration will make major infrastructure projects a priority, and warned that Connecticut could be left behind if it doesn't put forward a proposal that does more than simply replace the deteriorated viaduct.
"We need bold visions. The time has passed for duct tape and bailing wire," said U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty, D-5th District, who accompanied Larson and about two dozen regional leaders to pitch the idea to the federal Department of Transportation earlier this winter.
"The image of this is so exciting – our city not being controlled by these highway systems that just destroy the quality of life," said state Sen. John Fonfara, D-Hartford.
Larson estimated the cost at $10 billion to dig more than 6 miles of tunnels beneath Hartford, the Connecticut River and East Hartford. But he stressed that he's not an engineer, and that detailed cost projections and schedules would require a professional study. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE