SHELTON — Eversource Energy is spending $3.8 million to expand its natural gas distribution network in the city’s Coram Road neighborhood.
The project, which recently got started, involves installing more than 25,000 feet of pipe and will be done in two phases, according to Eversource officials.
The first phase involves adding more than 8,000 feet of natural gas pipe along Coram Road, Sunset Drive, Dogwood Lane, Angell Avenue and Newport Avenue. That phase is scheduled to be completed late next month, Mitch Gross, an Eversource spokesman, said.
The second phase is scheduled to get started early next year and will involve installing more than 17,000 feet of natural gas lines in 20 streets south of Route 8 and west of Coram Road.
Bill Akley, Eversource’s president of gas operations, said the company already has 6,500 natural gas customers in the area.
“We’re always working to provide energy when our customers need it and this project in Shelton is another example of our efforts to make natural gas available to more communities across Connecticut,” Akley said in a statement.
In an effort to woo customers to sign up for natural gas service, Eversource is offering discount pricing on a range of standard and high efficiency boilers, furnaces and water heaters. The packages include permits, labor and removal of old equipment.
Crews doing the first phase of the project will be working from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Some disruptions in traffic patterns in the area can be expected as a result of the work, though Eversource officials say they are work with city leaders to minimize the impact the construction work has on commuters.
To Milford’s annoyance, Bond Commission OK’s Silver Sands makeover
MILFORD — On Tuesday, Milford’s entire Hartford delegation staged a press conference deriding a $9.1 million improvement project for Silver Sands State Park.
Their appeal to the media was all for naught. Less than 24 hours after that event, the state Bond Commission approved $9.1 million to fund the construction of a number of amenities there, the only undeveloped one of the four shore-front state parks.
“Today’s decision was deeply disappointing, but not at all surprising,” Slossberg said after the Bond Commission meeting. “This project has been widely opposed from the beginning, and that opposition has consistently been ignored. The simple fact is that no one wants this project and the State of Connecticut cannot afford it.”
The improvements will include a new concession building, restrooms and an office as well as a 4,700-square-foot maintenance garage — a garage that Slossberg described as “a mansion.”
Gov. Dannel Malloy defended the $9.1 million for improvements despite the local opposition, noting it's a state asset.
Back in March, DEEP Commissioner Robert Klee said the state “considered the positive impact on the local economy that is likely to result from hosting a premier shoreline park. We are planning to proceed with this project because visitors deserve restrooms, changing areas and other modest amenities to make their visit sanitary, safe and convenient.”
Klee said thousands of Connecticut families “enjoy this park each year” and that their experience “would be improved with basic amenities.”
But state Rep. Kim Rose, who joined Slossberg at Tuesday’s press conference, said it’s “not a dead issue.”
“We will see what we can do legislatively to stop it,” Rose said.
But state officials have long sought to bring Silver Sands in line with the three other shorefront state parks — Hammonasset Beach, Rocky Neck and Sherwood Island. Other than portable toilets and a parking lot, there isn’t much in the way of amenities there. A long boardwalk linking Silver Sands with the Walnut Beach enclave opened in 2011.
Milfordites have in recent years opposed the Silver Sands “build out” idea because they said that they’d have to pay for parking at a park that they frequent a lot.
But that’s a moot issue now; the Legislature in recent weeks passed its “Passport to Parks” bill which gives state residents free parking at all state parks in exchange for a $5 assessment added per year to your vehicle’s registration charge. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Dan Haar: Why spend millions on beaches and arenas? Lots of reasons
Silver Sands State Park in Milford may seem like a pristine, grassy marsh leading to a Long Island Sound beach if you walk along the boardwalk and don’t look too closely.
In fact, the park that attracts 250,000 people a year is built on an old town landfill and the former site of 75 houses that were destroyed in a 1955 storm. The state turned that mess into a park over many decades.
Now the state is about to spend $9.1 million on another round of upgrades, including a maintenance building that will save money on moving equipment around, more parking, food concessions, a lifeguard station and, hold on to your shorts, bathrooms. Opponents — locals who don’t want a more built-up beach park and state spending hawks — thought they had a winning case. If people in town don’t want it and the state is broke, why spend the money?
More broadly, why borrow $1.94 billion this year to pay for a laundry list of capital improvements?
Lots of reasons. Chiefly, Connecticut is not a poor, developing nation, it’s the richest state. We can’t escape our fiscal hell by halting maintenance and upgrades on our assets.
We still need to attract and keep people and companies. Having four civilized beach parks if you’re a state with 3.6 million people and 332 jagged miles of coastline is very much a part of that. Projects of this sort are not the problem.
The issue came to a head Wednesday morning at the Capitol in Hartford, where a panel of nine powerful state officials, led by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, approved the third and final tranche of bonding projects for 2017. Two items, the $9.1 million for Silver Sands and $40 million to once again patch up the aging XL Center in Hartford, came under fire from the Republicans on the panel, Rep. Christopher Davis, R-Ellington, and Sen. L. Scott Frantz, R-Greenwich.
“Now is not the time to be bonding and adding to the state’s credit cards for projects that are simply wants and not needs,” Davis said during a heated spat with Malloy.
Yes, we know the state is basically unable to pay its bills. We know tens of thousands of people could be thrown off the Medicaid rolls in the coming months among many others in jeopardy.
Spending millions on non-necessities “sends the wrong message to the people of the state of Connecticut,” Davis said.
Malloy fired back, “Let me just be clear…Are you advocating that we bond operating expenses?”
The governor was making a distinction between regular, day-in, day-out state operations, which should be financed by tax collections, and one-time capital improvements, for which we borrow money like a homeowner taking out a mortgage.
“Well governor, obviously it comes from the same well and that well is the taxpayer of the state of Connecticut,” Davis said. “It will be paid for by our children and our grandchildren.”
Ah, the grandchildren. This is the rallying cry against borrowing and shorting the pension funds to make ends meet today. But it’s based on emotion and false logic.
We all agree that commitments made in the past, combined with lack of growth that results from the lack of magnet cities, have left us badly hurting. But we have to invest to dig ourselves out. Why should we, as struggling taxpayers, bear the whole brunt now when borrowing rates are low and returns are obvious? CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
State, tribes sue feds to compel approval of 3rd-casino gaming amendments
Connecticut joined the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes in suing the U.S. Department of the Interior late Wednesday afternoon, a move aimed at jump-starting the dormant East Windsor casino project.
In the suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the state and the tribes seek to compel the Interior Department to act on gaming-agreement amendments Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed with each of the tribes last summer. The department and Ryan Zinke, secretary of the Interior, are named as defendants.
Malloy’s office announced the filing, which had seemed to grow increasingly inevitable in recent weeks.
The suit contends that because the department failed to act on the amendments within 45 days of their submission, the amendments are “deemed approved,” under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. The suit says the court should require the Interior Department to adhere to federal regulations and publish notice of its approval in the Federal Register, the daily journal of the U.S. government.
“State law requires that these compact amendments are in fact approved,” Malloy said in a statement. “That’s why I have asked the attorney general to file this action. We need clarity and certainty with respect to this issue.” He said publication of the Interior Department’s approval “is necessary in order for the amendments to be legally effective and enforceable.”
The Interior Department's inaction has threatened to delay development of the East Windsor casino, a $300 million project to be built on the site of a former Showcase Cinemas building off Exit 45 of Interstate 91. The project is supposed to protect the tribes’ respective casinos — Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun — from the competitive impact of MGM Springfield, a nearly $1 billion resort casino under construction in western Massachusetts.
MGM Resorts International, which has vowed to pursue litigation to stop the East Windsor project, issued a response to the lawsuit’s filing Wednesday night.
“The Department of the Interior has clear authority to return submissions exactly as it did in its September 15 ruling, which ‘maintain[s] the status quo,’” Uri Clinton, the company’s senior vice president and legal counsel, said. “The Tribes are wrong when they insist that their amendment is deemed approved by default. Approving a new, third casino is the opposite of maintaining the status quo. Precedent shows that an amendment is not ‘deemed approved’ when Interior returns it, plain and simple. And no lawsuit, not even one backed by the Governor, changes those basic facts.”
State and federal lawmakers promptly issued statements in support of the suit.
“This legal action is absolutely necessary because of the irresponsible and illegal failure of federal officials to do their job and approve the tribal plan,” U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said in a phone interview. “They have a duty to Native American tribes — in fact, it’s a trust responsibility — to take action and approve measures that are in the interest of federally recognized tribes.”
Blumenthal said his view is that “the law is crystal clear” and that the suit presents “a clear-cut issue” for the court.
“The Department of the Interior must follow the law,” he said. “There’s an economic interest here, not only for the tribes but for the state economy. There’s a profound public interest in the court acting promptly and prudently.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Why Stonington didn’t get $500,000 sidewalk grant, and which projects were funded
Stonington — The state Department of Housing on Wednesday provided the criteria it used to assess applications for $2 million in Main Street Investment Fund grants as well as the description of the five projects that were funded instead of one in Pawcatuck.
On Monday, the town learned that it would not receive a $500,000 state grant it was told it would receive to install sidewalks along Route 1 from the high school to downtown Pawcatuck. First Selectman Rob Simmons has called the decisions an “irresponsible action” by the state, as the project would ensure the safety of pedestrians who walk along the narrow, busy state road.
When the town was informed last year it would receive the grant, the expected bonding for the Main Street Investment fund was $8 million. But the General Assembly reduced that to $2 million, which resulted in the Housing Department not funding Stonington’s $500,000 grant.
The five projects approved for funding were:
- $25,000 for Bridgewater to reconfigure a downtown street with diagonal parking to improve traffic flow, increase parking and improve safety and accessibility for pedestrians and cyclists.
- $500,000 for a streetscape project in the village center of Kent that calls for handicapped-accessible sidewalks, 25 trees and a dozen street lamps.
- $500,000 for Sprague to make improvements to a bus lot and skating pond, including sidewalks, a streetscape, landscaping and a bus shelter.
- $500,000 for Suffield to enhance a community center site with new parking, walkways, sidewalks, field improvements, landscaping and decorative lighting.
- $475,813 for Trumbull to expand sidewalk access to the commerce center from adjacent neighborhoods and improve and expand the green space in the commerce area. Money will be used for sidewalk installation, a retaining wall, demolition of existing trees shrubs and walkways, leveling the site, installation of a patio and granite benches and new trees.
Stonington’s project would have helped pedestrians access downtown Pawcatuck, possibly aiding in its revitalization.
Examples of projects that can receive funding are “facade or awning improvements; sidewalk improvements or construction; street lighting; building renovations, including mixed use of residential and commercial; landscaping and development of recreational areas and greenspace; bicycle paths; and other improvements or renovations deemed by the commissioner (of housing) to contribute to the economic success of the municipality.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Bond Commission OKs $40M for XL Center
The state Bond Commission on Wednesday morning approved $40 million in funding for improvements to the aging XL Center in Hartford, which is headed toward the sales block.
The funding was included in the bipartisan state budget that passed in October, but it didn't make it through the bond commission unanimously.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who chairs the commission, and Rep. Christopher Davis (R-Ellington), sparred for several minutes about the borrowing, which Davis said comes amid cuts to Medicare, mental health and other programs and when the state is already staring down a potential deficit in the budget that passed in October.
Malloy noted that Davis had voted for that budget, which included the $40 million for the XL Center.
"So in other words, you were for it before you were against it," Malloy said.
Malloy also said it shouldn't be a surprise to Davis that the new budget might already be in deficit because he had warned legislators it could happen.
Davis shot back: "I would say that it was quite interesting and positive that both parties could pass a budget without your direct input," he said. "Some argue that, perhaps, is why it was able to be accomplished."
The state budget instructs the Capital Region Development Authority to solicit bids for the XL Center, which is owned by the city of Hartford.
Mayor Luke Bronin said recently that he is skeptical how much interest the venue will draw.
The $40 million can be used for renovations and capital improvements, including the acquisition of nearby real estate. CRDA has been in conversations to acquire the Hartford 21 retail complex that surrounds the arena, where the atrium, retail space and some parking is located.
That retail space is owned by Northland Investment Corp.
Larson promotes pollution tax to fund infrastructure investment
U.S. Rep. John Larson this week took to the national stage to tout his plan to invest $1 trillion in the nation's infrastructure paid for by a pollution tax.
Larson, who represents Connecticut's 1st Congressional District, gave a keynote address Tuesday at a Brookings Institution panel discussion entitled "Can Tax Reform Include A Carbon Tax?"
Larson recently introduced the American Wins Act, which proposes to raise $1.8 trillion over 10 years through an upstream tax on the carbon-content of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas.
"This fully-paid for proposal would be an investment that would target our roads, bridges, levees, tunnels and rail lines so we can improve commerce, provide jobs, and ultimately improve the economy," Larson said.
"It was refreshing to have an open dialogue on constructive solutions to some of our nation's most pressing problems, including tax reform, job creation, rebuilding the country and reducing pollution. I urge Congress to get back to regular order, so we can have discussions like the one we had today, focused on practical solutions," said Larson.
Big interest in bidding Nonnewaug renovation project
WOODBURY – A crowd more than 60 strong attended a pre-bid meeting and tour of Nonnewaug High School Wednesday to hear specifics of the renovation project, which will enter the major construction phase in early 2018.
There are more than 24 bid packages for all aspects of the main construction – from flooring to painting to ventilation to electric – in the $63.8 million project, and representatives from Construction Manager O&G Industries at a Building Committee meeting Tuesday said there has been great interest in this project.
Questions fielded at the pre-bid meeting, which O&G did not make mandatory, were about the bidding process and hours of access to the school. Much work will be done on second shift. Any questions, even those asked and answered on the tour, need to be submitted in writing for a documented response.
Bids will be opened Dec. 13 at 3 p.m. in the meeting room of Woodbury Middle School, where boards and committees now hold meetings. That date is about a week later than originally anticipated due to the Thanksgiving holiday, some clarifications on the project and the high number of interested parties, project manager Nelson Reis said.
Reis can gauge the level of interest electronically, seeing which companies look at the bid specifications online and which decline. Some companies could combine bids, such as putting electrical and alarms systems into one, while others may submit individual bids for each area, he said.
Reis said it will take several weeks to go through all the bids, but project officials still hope to award the bids by mid January.
Committee members stressed to design team officials from O&G, SLAM architects and owner’s project manager Colliers International that time is of the essence since the project has been plagued by delays.
Two separate lawsuits over the vote on the project set the timeline back by four years, with an escalation loss of roughly $6 million. Escalation means that items, from material to labor, get more expensive as time goes on, so less can be bought with the same $63.8 million.
Construction was originally supposed to start over the winter break, but a delay in getting a flood plain management plan approved by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection set the project back another two months, at an escalation rate of roughly $186,000 a month.
Plan approval is required before construction can begin, and Building Committee and design team members, along with local legislators, have made exhaustive efforts to get the approval fast-tracked.
State Sen. Eric C Berthel, R-32nd District, said his office was expecting to hear back from DEEP on the plan status last week, but Scott Pellman from Colliers told Building Committee members Tuesday that Berthel reported he hadn’t heard back yet.
Building Committee Chairman John Chapman said he’s willing to continue to reach out to whoever can help expedite the approval.
Despite the delays and escalation, design team members are sticking to a two-year timeline instead of three, with a completion date of summer 2019. Pellman said an updated and more detailed timeline will be created once bids come in.
Designers also are employing value engineering methods to get as much bang for their buck, but they are bound by many state mandates to get the maximum reimbursement on the project. The state also requires that every inch of the building be renovated, so certain areas can’t be left as is.
Phase 1 started in the summer with abatement work, relocating offices and building temporary classrooms. That phase is wrapping up on time, Pellman said, and design teams members moved some work from Phase 2 into Phase 1 to get a head start on main construction.
The next Building Committee meeting, originally set for Dec. 6, has been rescheduled to Dec. 16 after the bids are opened.