WALLINGFORD — Public works will pave 14 town roads this summer to repair cracking and other issues as part of the town’s annual road paving program.
The paving will begin in the coming weeks and is expected to be finished by September, Public Works Director Henry McCully said.
Scheduled to be paved are Town Farm Road, Laura Lane, McKenzie Avenue, Simpson Avenue, Mohawk Drive, Osage Drive, Bristol Street, Bolton Street, Ridgecrest Road, Shire Drive. Portions of Ward Street, Wall Street, Schoolhouse Road and Long Hill Road will also be paved. McCully said the list is subject to change. The department paves around 15 town roads each summer using money allocated in the town’s capital and non-recurring budget. The 2017-18 budget includes just over $1 million for the road paving program this year. “If you don’t keep putting money into the roads, you’re never going to catch up,” McCully said. “You have to be committed to the paving every year or the roads are just going to fall apart.”
Mayor William W. Dickinson Jr. said maintaining town roads is “one of the basic elemental services that local government offers.”
“That’s one of the very visible and tangible uses for tax money,” he said.
McCully said the roads are selected each year based on surface conditions and the amount of traffic on the roads. The department also refers to a study performed by the engineering department a few years ago as a guide when deciding which roads to improve each year, McCully added.
“We try to spread it out throughout the town, not just in one concentrated area,” he said. “We have a lot of roads. It’s difficult to keep people happy all the time.”
Public Works is responsible for maintenance of roughly 630 roads in town. Crews start repairs by shaving a few inches off the surface before laying new asphalt down. McCully said asphalt used today does not last as long because it contains less oil due to environmental concerns.
Paving is expected to be completed by September. McCully said it’s ideal to finish the work before the school year starts.
On a warm July afternoon, Gampel Pavilion's basketball court is a construction site.
The hardwood floor is covered with layers of tarpaulin, and workers are repairing triangular roof tiles at two stations. Some are stripping the outer skin on tiles; others are wrapping tiles with new material.
About 130 feet above, sunlight peaks through a hole in the ceiling where a tile has been removed. And workers are occasionally seen through the triangle as they move on the outside roof.
Without the banners hanging on the walls, it would be hard to identify the venue as UConn's basketball home. But four months before the season, there's a continuous flow of work inside the 27-year-old building. "This is definitely an interesting project," said Louis
Gaedt, the construction engineer with UConn's Planning, Design and Construction department.
How's this for interesting: A puzzle of 2,093 tiles are being removed, repaired and wrapped with a new outer skin before being re-secured in the exact spot on the ceiling. Gaskets are being replaced, and the seams are being sealed, one by one.
And along the way, there are code updates being completed, such as electrical improvements. The $10 million project began with preparation work in May, when the bleachers were folded and removed as soon as graduation was complete.
The crew of about 40 is expected to complete the job in late October, with time to spare before the start of the basketball season. When fans file into the building for the first game, they will notice the change — the repaired tiles are bright and white, a stunning contrast to the stained and flaking shell on the tiles seen in recent years. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and tribal leaders signed documents Thursday amending Connecticut’s relationship with its two federally recognized tribes, another step toward allowing them to jointly develop a casino in the Hartford suburb of East Windsor, as authorized in legislation approved last month by the General Assembly.
Amendments revising the tribal compacts now go to the legislature and then to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which has informally indicated it would approve the terms of the tribes’ first casino off tribal lands, a facility intended to blunt the impact of a competing casino MGM Resorts International is building over the state line in Springfield.
The last official word before construction, however, is likely to come from a U.S. District Court judge: MGM vows to seek an injunction, claiming that the law granting exclusive rights to the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribal nations violates the equal protection and commerce clauses of the U.S. Constitution. A previous suit was dismissed as premature.“We continue to believe that the process put in place by the legislature and signed today by the governor violates both the Connecticut and U.S. Constitutions. As such, we will continue to pursue all legal remedies,” said Uri Clinton, the senior vice president and legal counsel at MGM.
Kevin Brown, the Mohegan tribal chairman, said MGM’s threat is nothing new, and the tribes successfully made their case for a new casino to the governor and legislature “under the shadow of litigation.”
Malloy announced he had signed revisions to the state’s tribal compacts at a ceremonial signing of the casino law in the Old Judiciary Room of the State Capitol, surrounded by officials from the tribes and East Windsor, and legislators and union members who fought for passage. He signed the actual bill into law on June 27.
The governor played a pivotal role in passage of the casino law, dropping his neutrality in an interview with CT Mirror on May 19. At the time, MGM was lobbying lawmakers to reject the tribes’ proposal and instead permit an open competition for the right to develop a casino in Fairfield County, tapping the New York City market.
Malloy effectively killed the MGM alternative by saying the only casino bill he would sign was one that respected the state’s exclusivity agreement with the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribal nations. Under the deal, the tribes pay the state 25 percent of the gross slots revenue at their casinos, Foxwoods Resort and Mohegan Sun. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Amendments revising the tribal compacts now go to the legislature and then to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which has informally indicated it would approve the terms of the tribes’ first casino off tribal lands, a facility intended to blunt the impact of a competing casino MGM Resorts International is building over the state line in Springfield.
The last official word before construction, however, is likely to come from a U.S. District Court judge: MGM vows to seek an injunction, claiming that the law granting exclusive rights to the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribal nations violates the equal protection and commerce clauses of the U.S. Constitution. A previous suit was dismissed as premature.“We continue to believe that the process put in place by the legislature and signed today by the governor violates both the Connecticut and U.S. Constitutions. As such, we will continue to pursue all legal remedies,” said Uri Clinton, the senior vice president and legal counsel at MGM.
Kevin Brown, the Mohegan tribal chairman, said MGM’s threat is nothing new, and the tribes successfully made their case for a new casino to the governor and legislature “under the shadow of litigation.”
Malloy announced he had signed revisions to the state’s tribal compacts at a ceremonial signing of the casino law in the Old Judiciary Room of the State Capitol, surrounded by officials from the tribes and East Windsor, and legislators and union members who fought for passage. He signed the actual bill into law on June 27.
The governor played a pivotal role in passage of the casino law, dropping his neutrality in an interview with CT Mirror on May 19. At the time, MGM was lobbying lawmakers to reject the tribes’ proposal and instead permit an open competition for the right to develop a casino in Fairfield County, tapping the New York City market.
Malloy effectively killed the MGM alternative by saying the only casino bill he would sign was one that respected the state’s exclusivity agreement with the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribal nations. Under the deal, the tribes pay the state 25 percent of the gross slots revenue at their casinos, Foxwoods Resort and Mohegan Sun. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE