BERLIN — Town and state officials thanked supporters and volunteers at a ceremony Saturday for the newly renovated Berlin High School.
Parents, students and officials got a tour of the recently completed school after music and speeches in the auditorium.
Town leaders credited the state legislative delegation, in particular state Rep. Joe Aresimowicz, a Democrat and House Speaker, with providing state funding.
Former Berlin mayor Adam Salina said the town ran into a funding shortfall on the $70 million project
“We are extremely fortunate, and still are fortunate, to have a very influential friend in Hartford,” Salina said. “Thank you, Joe.”
Aresimowicz, a Berlin resident and football coach at the high school, said the town can take pride in a modern building.
“It was not easy,” Aresimowicz said of a project that was planned for more than a decade.
A referendum on an $83 million renovation project narrowly failed in 2010. Town leaders cut costs and the project was approved by voters the next year.
“The second time I put my personal money into a campaign,” said state Sen. Terry Gerratana, a Democrat representing the 6th District. “This isn’t political. This is the school, this is the future of our workforce.”
Work included upgrades to the cafeteria, gyms and hallways, which now have natural light. Additional classrooms were built as well as a new entrance. The auditorium and music rooms were completed last year.
High School principal Francis Kennedy said the new building is also outfitted with a wireless network and other new technology.
Superintendent of Schools David Erwin said the renovations would benefit students and improve the educational experience.
“A new building doesn’t make good students or good teaching, but there’s the old saying, ‘If you look good, you feel good,’” he said.
The surcharges are $5 for football, $2 for men's and women's basketball and men's hockey and $1 for men's and women's soccer. The fee will be added to all season tickets, mini-plans and single-game purchases as well, but there will be no assessment on UConn student tickets.
The school is planning a $46 million project to build new soccer, baseball and softball venues on campus. Construction is expected to begin in the spring of 2018.
The school says it has raised $15 million for the projects so far, and hopes to receive donations totaling $25 million.
'Lockbox' Stalemate Threatens Transportation Plans
A deadlock over a proposed "lockbox" for new funding threatens Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's 30-year plan to modernize Connecticut's transportation system, his administration acknowledged this week.
Transportation advocates last year pushed lawmakers to get the lockbox proposal onto the November 2016 election ballot, but couldn't pull together enough support in the General Assembly. The lockbox would prohibit the General Assembly from using money from the state's special transportation fund for anything other than transportation.
That leaves Connecticut with a withering revenue source — the gas tax — to fund soaring budgetary demands for repairing outdated interstates, rebuilding bridges and overpasses, modernizing rail lines and expanding mass transit systems.
"It's a problem," Ben Barnes, Malloy's budget chief, said Wednesday in presenting the governor's new two-year budget proposal.
"We don't have resources to pay for the Mixmaster (Route 8 and I-84 interchange project in Waterbury), we don't have resources to pay for the viaduct (I-84 highway project) in Hartford," he said. "There are big projects as well as a whole bunch of state-of-good-repair projects that need to be done in the next 10, 20, 30 years for which we do not have an adequate revenue stream identified today."
Malloy's ambitious $100 billion Let's Go CT plan for revamping all of the state's transportation networks by 2045 requires a huge infusion of new money, especially after 2020 when work would transition from design to actual construction.
In the past two years, the state's special transportation fund has taken in about $1.3 billion annually and spent a little more than that. The deficit this year is estimated at $17 million, leaving an end-of-the-year balance of just $125 million — the lowest point since 2011. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Feeling heat from CT, feds say they may alter high-speed rail plan
Washington – In the staredown between the Federal Railroad Administration and opponents of part of its plan in Connecticut to bring high-speed rail to the Northeast Corridor, the federal government has blinked.
It has agreed to consider additional input from those concerned about the route in Connecticut, and more importantly, the FRA is willing to modify that plan.
The NEC Future plan has been in the works for years. The FRA says it would reduce travel time between New York and Boston by 45 minutes and between Washington, D.C., and New York by 35 minutes and add tracks and railroad cars to a refurbished railroad system in the Northeast.
Other states have lauded the plan. But NEC Future has met heavy resistance from Connecticut, a pushback centered largely on a bypass of an existing rail line along the coastline that would run through Old Lyme and other historic coastal towns.
A final plan released in December proposes a new segment of track between Old Saybrook and the village of Kenyon in Richmond, R.I. The FRA is willing to dig a tunnel under Old Lyme to try to preserve the historic nature of the town, but that did not quell opposition.
The next step is the FRA’s release of its Record of Decision (ROD), expected no sooner than March 1.
“That ROD will identify a selected alternative that will encompass a package of investment projects to improve passenger rail service in the region served by the NEC over the next several decades,” said FRA spokesman Marc Willis.
The FRA spokesman also said “feedback” the agency has received – and continues to receive – since the final plan was released in December will be considered in drafting the Record of Decision.
“Meaning feedback we’ve received can reflect something different in the ROD than what is in the (final plan,) “ Willis said.
Meanwhile, Rebecca Reyes-Alicea, the NEC Future program manager, plans to travel to Connecticut Monday for a “private meeting with rail stakeholders.” The FRA would not disclose any other information about the meeting CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE