NORWALK — Following weeks of debate and legal inquiries, the Common Council on Tuesday evening approved a controversial $3.4 million paving contract with the Grasso Cos..
“I’m pleased with the decision on the council and look forward to serving Norwalk this season with the paving contract,” Grasso Cos. owner Joseph M. Grasso Jr. said afterward.
Grasso Jr. said his company would start work in two to three weeks.The council approved the contract after adding language — put forward by Councilman Thomas Livingston — allowing the agreement to be terminated if the company doesn’t pay its taxes or violates zoning regulations.
“Add a provision that says that we’ve agreed to have a right to terminate the agreement in the event that Grasso Cos. LLC are in material or repeated violations of any city ordinance, including zoning laws,” said Livingston, a District E Democrat. “Mr. Grasso, you want to be a good neighbor and I want to believe you, but I also want there to be penalties if you’re not.”
At issue was whether the city should do business with the Grasso Cos. when the Original Grasso Construction Co. owes the city roughly $270,000 in unpaid taxes and is synonymous with many resident with zoning violations. The latter company remains in bankruptcy.
The council approved the paving contract on a 10-4 vote with one abstention. Councilman Travis Simms was among those who voted no.
“I just don’t think that they are good neighbors,” said Simms, a District B Democrat. “I don’t think that they are responsible.”
Simms charged the city’s law department and Mayor Harry W. Rilling with “pushing this initiative of giving this contract” to Grasso.
Rilling, a fellow Democrat, rejected that assessment.
“Do not put words in my mouth, Mr. Simms,” Rilling said. “I have not had a discussion with you or anybody else on this issue. What you see is your imagination as it usually is.”
Earlier, during the public participation portion of the council meeting at City Hall, several Splitrock Road residents made their final pleas to the council to reject the paving contract
Paul Braschi said he and his neighbors called police after five heavy-construction vehicles started up at 5:30 a.m. at the company’s facility on Wilson Avenue in South Norwalk.
“We’ve been fighting this battle for 13 years, and if you award them the contract tonight, for whatever reason or requirement that you have to do, it just reinforces bad behavior,” Braschi said. “This is less than a week after we were here and asked the council to not do this contract.”
Pat and Steve Kerschner shared similar stories before urging the council to reject the paving contract.
“It seems a joke, the new Grasso Corp., which is just a new dog with a different wag, is using daddy’s equipment, daddy’s bankrupt yard,” Steve Kerschner said. “Daddy hasn’t paid is taxes, and Joe is going to benefit.”
Tuesday evening marked the third time the controversial paving contract came before the local legislative body for action. As The Hour prepared to go to print, no vote had been taken.
At issue was whether the city should do business with the Grasso Cos. when the Original Grasso Construction Co. owes the city roughly $270,000 in unpaid taxes and is synonymous with many resident with zoning violations. The latter company remains in bankruptcy. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Trump wants regulations streamlined in infrastructure bill
WASHINGTON (AP) — On infrastructure, President Donald Trump wants to offer a two-for-one deal.
The Trump administration intends to propose a package of tax breaks meant to help spur $1 trillion in new spending on roads, bridges and other construction over the next decade. But as part of that bill, Trump also wants introduce measures to drastically shorten approval times for projects.
The strategy appears aimed at building support for an effort with little momentum in Congress. Democrats are critical of Trump's focus on public-private partnerships, rather that more traditional funding, while many conservative Republicans have balked at the idea of a massive government investment.
Trump, a former real estate executive who claims a passion for building, is looking for enticements that might bring his party on board.His National Economic Council is currently crafting changes to the law to speed up the regulatory process, so that construction could start sooner and builders would find it easier to finance projects.
Trump and his Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao have played up the problem of regulatory hurdles for infrastructure.
"We're going to try and take that process from a minimum of 10 years down to one year," the president said at an event earlier this month. On Tuesday, the president hosted a gathering of business leaders to discuss infrastructure and regulations, among other subjects.But the measures being considered for Trump's infrastructure package would follow a series of streamlining efforts that began under President Barack Obama.
At the end of 2015, Obama signed a measure called the FAST Act. Its title stands for "Fixing America's Surface Transportation." In addition to providing funds for infrastructure through 2020, the law established the steering council that reviews the permitting process to ensure projects were reviewed in a timely manner. The law also put limits on the environmental reviews which in theory should shorten a process that could cause permitting to drag on well beyond five years. Some business groups say the Obama-era law is working and see little reason for an aggressive overhaul "You've got it down to a process that is two and a half years," said Bill Kovacs, a senior vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Kovacs added that it was uncertain as to how much more the government could shrink the timeline while still conducting reviews "to make sure there is no harm to the environment."
The Business Roundtable, a trade association for CEOs, sent a letter last week to Gary Cohn, the president's top economic adviser, saying Trump already had the authority under this law to cut permitting times for infrastructure but it had yet to be "fully implemented."
While the reforms are not "perfect," the group wrote, "if implemented aggressively, they may be able to deliver the timelines and certainty in the permitting process" that Trump seeks.
The White House has not decided whether it intends to revisit the FAST Act. An official, who asked for anonymity to discuss the private discussions, said the president believes infrastructure permitting could be event faster.
Trump last week criticized his predecessor for devoting money to infrastructure and claimed "nobody ever saw anything being built." The comment appeared to ignore the consider spending on infrastructure reparis in his hometown, including $30 million in repairs and repainting of the Brooklyn Bridge and more than $80 million earmarked for Moynihan Station, an annex to Penn Station that is meant to return the rail hub to the grandeur of the original Penn Station. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Raised Bill 7319, the third casino-expansion proposal now being offered, is similar to House Bill 7239, which the Public Safety and Security Committee forwarded last month. Both measures call for the commissioners of the state departments of Consumer Protection and Economic and Community Development to issue a request for casino proposals and to select an entity to develop, manage and operate “a possible casino gaming facility in the state.”
Applicants could include individuals, business organizations and Indian tribes.
The other casino-expansion proposal, Senate Bill 957, also forwarded last month by the public safety committee, would grant the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes the exclusive right to develop a casino in East Windsor.
Legislators were not immediately available to comment on the finance committee bill. A spokesman for MMCT Venture, the Mashantucket-Mohegan partnership pursuing the East Windsor casino, declined to comment.
The finance committee bill would require that bidders agree to invest at least $500 million in a proposed casino — substantially more than the $300 million minimum investment specified in the earlier competitive-bidding bill.
The Mashantucket and Mohegan tribes have characterized their proposed East Windsor casino as a small- to medium-size “satellite” facility that would cost up to $300 million to build. It would be designed to protect the tribes’ respective southeastern Connecticut casinos — Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun — against the competitive threat posed by MGM Springfield, the $950 million resort casino under construction in Massachusetts.
The finance committee bill calls for the operator of a third Connecticut casino to pay the state 35 percent of the facility’s revenues from both slot machines and all other games. The earlier competitive-bidding bill requires payments of 35 percent of slots revenue and 10 percent of other games’ revenue.
Both competitive-bidding bills call for an annual payment of $8 million to the municipality that hosts the proposed casino, about the same amount the tribes would guarantee to East Windsor.
Neither of the previous bills has seemed to gain much traction, largely because of uncertainty surrounding what impact they might have on the state’s existing revenue-sharing agreements with the tribes. The Mashantuckets and the Mohegans agreed in the 1990s to pay 25 percent of their casinos’ slots revenue to the state in exchange for the exclusive right to operate gaming facilities in Connecticut.
Whether that arrangement can be amended to legally accommodate a third, commercial casino on nontribal land is unclear. The tribes, seeking to allay doubts, have assured state officials they would keep paying the state 25 percent of their existing casinos’ slots revenue as well as 25 percent of the revenues from the proposed East Windsor casino’s slots and table games.
MGM Springfield is scheduled to open in September 2018.
Developer Plans 70 Apartments In Downtown Hartford
HARTFORD — The city moved closer to a goal of 2,000 new rentals by next year with a downtown developer purchasing two buildings on Allyn Street for conversion into 70 apartments.
Paul Khakshouri, the owner of Homewood Suites on Asylum Street, has acquired the buildings at 103-105 and 109-121 Allyn St. with plans for rentals and street-level shops. The retail space is likely to include an espresso cafe and an ice cream shop. Khakshouri also is adamant on what won't be in the storefronts.
"For sure, no bars," Khakshouri said.
The two buildings, near the corner of Ann Uccello Street and across from the rear of the XL Center, are part of what has been called the downtown bar district. One of the structures housed the now-closed Angry Bull Saloon where a Central Connecticut State University student fell from the rooftop to her death on March 3.
Since 2015, nearly 850 apartments have been added in and around downtown in an effort to boost vibrancy in the city beyond the workweek. Occupancy at some the largest projects — 777 Main, The Grand on Ann, 179 Allyn, Spectra and the Colt South Armory — are in the 90 percent or better range.
Nearly 600 more apartments are in construction or on the drawing boards, including Khakshouri's estimated $11 million conversion on Allyn Street.
Virtually all of the apartments have been partly financed with taxpayer-backed loans or equity investments through the Capital Region Development Authority. The authority has a charge to add 2,000 apartments in and around downtown by 2018; but CRDA has said the speed at which the rentals are added will depend on leasing demand.
According to CRDA, Khakshouri expects to create 39 studios, 24 one-bedrooms and 3 two-bedrooms with rents ranging from an estimated $900 to $1,500 a month. Construction could begin later this year. CRDA has approved a $4 million loan for the project, roughly $61,000 a unit. The per unit investment is in line with recent CRDA projects, but some investments have been more, as high as $103,000 a unit. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Bridge Over Quinnipiac River Will Need Replacement, Southington Official Says
Possible underwater erosion means a Spring Street bridge built in 1960 over the Quinnipiac River will have to be replaced, a change in previous plans to just repair the crack bridge decking.
The discovery that future severe flooding will likely cause scouring around underwater bridge footings prompted the switch to the replacement project, town Public Works Director Keith Hayden told the town's Public Works committee Wednesday.
The earth surrounding the buried bridge footings that support the 37-year-old bridge is in danger of being eroded by the river, he said. There is no immediate safety concern, but the problem will worsen over time and the bridge eventually would need to be replaced, Hayden said.
He likened scouring to what happens when a person standing on beach sand has a wave wash over their feet. The water rushing back into the the sea pulls sand out from under and around the person feet, he said.The predicted scouring at the bridge is like that but much more gradual, he said.
The new project will cost $3.3 million, almost double the $1.7 million estimate to replace the bridge decking. But replacement makes the project eligible for an 80 percent federal reimbursement rate. The bridge deck project was eligible for 48 percent state reimbursement.
The actual cost to taxpayers for the more costly replacement will be $660,000, less than the $884,000 the town would have had to pay for the less costly project.
Divers inspecting the bridge before the start of design work found evidence of the likelihood of scouring. Hayden said the new bridge will be attached to bedrock, so scouring will not be an issue in the future. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
State DOT drops study of mileage tax
A political football in state transportation debates for the past two years — the concept of a mileage-based tax on motorists — apparently is no longer even a subject of research at the Connecticut Department of Transportation.
The tax has been the subject of sporadic political jabs between Republicans and Democrats at the Capitol since word first broke two years ago that the DOT was researching this revenue-raising option.
But Transportation Commissioner James Redeker wrote last week in a letter to a regional transportation coalition that was coordinating research into this tax that his agency was halting its involvement because of budgetary issues.
“I regret to inform you that the state of Connecticut must withdraw from the coalition’s project on mileage-based user fees in a multi-state region,” Redeker wrote to the I-95 Corridor Coalition. “I continue to believe this collaborative effort is a great opportunity to learn and gather critical information about a potential future revenue source. Unfortunately, the Connecticut Department of Transportation is now facing large budget cuts that prevent us from providing any state matching funds.”
Redeker added that the DOT was withdrawing “with great reluctance.”
The coalition is an alliance of state transportation and public safety agencies, toll authorities and related organizations along the Atlantic coastline from Florida to Maine. It provides research and policy development on transportation issues.
Connecticut’s aging, clogged transportation network faces a wide array of challenges, including a lack of funds to address these and other problems.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy came forward two years ago with a plan to spend $100 billion over 30 years to rebuild and transform highways, bridges and rail networks.
But Malloy also has refused to press for tolls or any other mechanism to pay for most of this work until legislators back a constitutional “lockbox” amendment to safeguard those revenues.
Still, after Senate Republicans learned the DOT was studying a mileage tax, they quickly denounced it. Senate Democratic leadership joined it, saying they opposed it as well.
Meanwhile, DOT officials said they simply were gathering more information on a revenue option many other states are studying to reduce reliance on gasoline taxes. Gas levies are slowly shrinking in value as more fuel-efficient vehicles are produced. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE