North Stonington — Residents here will vote this week on something that may never have happened before in southeastern Connecticut: canceling a school building project after spending more than $1 million, signing one large contract and getting ready to break ground in just a few weeks.
On Thursday at 7 p.m., residents will vote at a town meeting in the gymatoruim on whether or not to proceed with a contentious school building project. Passed at a referendum nearly two years ago, the $38 million project — of which taxpayers will be responsible for about $21 million after state reimbursement — is intended to address serious maintenance concerns in the school district’s aging buildings, and constructing additions.
The town found itself in the uncharted territory of scheduling a revote on the project after two petitions were submitted asking for the Board of Selectman to call a town meeting and vote to reconsider the project. Despite the timing and challenges posed by revoting on a project the town has already spent a large amount of money on, the Board of Selectman was left with little option but to comply with the petitioners’ request.
As an unchartered town, North Stonington is required by state law to hold the town meeting, and there wasn’t a strong legal basis to suggest otherwise, according to Town Attorney Robert Avena. Given the timing of the request, there was also concern that any attempt to avoid the meeting had the potential to threaten the project’s short-term financing and the ability to start construction.
“If this was three, five, six years ago and we're looking at different options, that's fine, said First Selectman Mike Urgo. "I respect that people are interested ... but you’ve got people, really smart people, that have put a lot of time and energy into this, people that really looked at things from so many different angles."
“This project is the right decision for the town,” he said.
Meanwhile, petitioners and those opposed to the project have raised concerns about the impact it would have on the town's tax rate and the ability of the town to handle the increase. There's also been concern about the language of the originally approved resolution.
This means that residents — not selectmen — will vote Thursday on whether the school building project will happen at all. And given how contentious the project has been over the past several years, its original approval by just three votes and the information and misinformation being circulated, the outcome of Thursday's vote is anyone's guess.
A history of rejecting school projects
Renovating the town’s aging school facilities has been discussed for more than a decade, but in 2014 residents were first presented with two versions of a school renovation project.
Both proposals, the first for a $47 million project and the second for $40 million, were rejected at referendums by more than a 150-vote margin. Opponents at the time said they simply couldn’t stomach the cost.
Addressing the school problems was shelved until 2016, when voters were presented with a new $38.5 million project. This project proposed to renovate the elementary school, demolish the existing middle school, build a new combined middle and high school wing attached to the gymatorium, and end the use of the tunnel under Norwich-Westerly Road. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Goodwin College Plans Include Housing, Hotel, Marina And Shops
Goodwin College rose on an industrial graveyard, a riverfront rebirth that is to continue over the next several years with developments designed to serve more students and boost the local and regional economy.
Since 2009, when the current campus was built on the site of an abandoned oil storage yard, the private, nonprofit college has been buying houses and land between Main Street and Riverside Drive. Goodwin now owns the majority of the Connecticut River neighborhood south of Willow Street and north of a 60-acre wetland that was once a Pratt & Whitney testing site.
Over the next two or three years, plans are to build a marina, a riverfront hotel and other mixed-use buildings along with a 150-unit residential/retail building that will serve students and renters seeking river-bank apartments. The college also is working with the state to expand a manufacturing education center at a magnet high school on campus.
Town council Chairman Rich Kehoe said the wide-ranging plans promise “an awful lot of common benefit.”
“It’s clearly a win-win for both the town and Goodwin College,” Kehoe said. “The college has provided significant investment in that area and the town has always hoped that we would see some economic development arise as a result of the college’s growth over the past 10 years.
“I’m very excited and pleased to see that these plans are moving forward,” he said.
Now serving about 3,400 students, the college grew from the storefront Data Institute Business School of East Hartford. Goodwin President Mark Scheinberg bought Data Institute for about $30,000 in 1981, when it was located above a pizza shop in Hartford and served just six students. Two years later, Scheinberg moved the school to East Hartford, and in 1999, the state Board of Governors for Higher Education granted college-level status.
Goodwin spent about $100 million to build the riverside campus, which serves a student population that is about 80 percent female and 50 percent minority. Now one of the state’s largest nursing schools, the college also offers degrees in business management, manufacturing, early childhood education, environmental studies and criminal justice/public safety.
“We’ve been building a college from scratch in the past few decades, but we know we will continue to grow,” Todd Andrews, vice president for economic and strategic development, said.
Andrews and Scheinberg said the planned development is meant to benefit students and East Hartford residents and to attract visitors. The plans proceed from a community-based outlook, they said.“We need to be considerate of the surrounding community and to affect it in a positive way,” Andrews said.
Plans call for:
— A residential/retail building that would include student apartments. The campus neighborhood now includes nothing larger than four-unit housing. Almost all Goodwin students are commuters and Connecticut residents, but officials say on-campus housing would attract students from farther away. The building also is to include market-rate and above-market-rate apartments.
Retail shops will be on the ground floor and the design will mesh with the neighborhood, Andrews said. The college has hired an architect and will present plans to the town this year, he said. A site has not been finalized, but the project likely will require demolition of several houses, Andrews said. The college, he said, “is very sensitive to not displacing residents.”
— A 60-slip marina, able to moor anything from a kayak to an 80-foot vessel. The marina will be open to the public for rentals and to boaters sailing up from Long Island Sound who seek only short-term stays. The idea, Andrews said, is to make the area a destination for river travelers and stir economic activity in restaurants, retail shops and entertainment venues. The college has received federal and state permits for the marina and only local permits remain to be secured, officials said.
— A riverfront hotel with one or two restaurants. The hotel is to be built on the site of a vacant restaurant at 125 Riverside Drive. College leaders say they are in discussions with hotel and restaurant developers, and construction could start as early as next year. A second phase would add more commercial and possibly residential development along the riverside. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Issues abound around proposed sewer district hookup
For 20 years, the stately conference room with cherry-wood finishing at Torrington Water Co. has been where its board members voted on purchasing new land, approving new capital projects and adopting new policies at the privately owned company. But in recent months, growing discord inside that room has emerged over a proposed sewer line from Woodridge Lake Sewer District in Goshen to the city treatment plant.
The proposed 6.2-mile sewer line would cut through the water company’s Allen Dam Reservoir watershed.
Longtime water company board member Charles W. Roraback, who owns five 1-acre vacant parcels along the shore of Woodridge Lake, and his daughter, Margaret, also a board member, voted against a resolution that the city of Torrington not enter into any agreement with WLSD that involves sending sewage through the watershed, said Richard Calhoun, fellow board member and former water company president.
Charles W. Roraback’s son, Charles E. Roraback, owns a home on Woodridge Lake and three undeveloped lots, all within the sewer district. The family also owns a home on a small island that is surrounded by Woodridge Lake.
“I wanted to create a historical record of what’s happening in the community and the intention was to create an accurate record for posterity,” Calhoun said of his decision to propose the resolution at the board’s last quarterly meeting. He added that he wanted the resolution to encourage the city not to get into an agreement.
The Rorabacks were the two dissenting votes on the resolution, which passed 6-2, Calhoun said.
Charles W. Roraback declined to confirm the board vote or discuss it, saying it would be inappropriate to comment on board actions.
The 145-year-old Torrington Water Co. has spent $200,000 on attorneys and engineering firms to oppose the route through the watershed. Torrington Water Co. President Susan M. Suhanovsky has said she is not against the pipeline connecting to Torrington’s sewer plant on Bogue Road, but she wants an alternative route that doesn’t compromise the watershed if there was ever a break in the line. Suhanovsky said she plans to speak out against the proposed route during a hearing that will allow public comment on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at Torrington City Hall.
THE PROPOSED ROUTE from the sewer district’s facility on Brush Hill Road in Goshen to the treatment facility at the intersection of Route 4 and Lovers Lane in Torrington cuts through nearly a mile of the watershed. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Once Again, Gambling Expansion About To Become Hot Button Legislative Issue
It’s the odds-on favorite: There again will be a big push in the General Assembly this year to expand legalized gambling in Connecticut.
And expect casinos and sports betting to be on table after lawmakers return to the Capitol on Feb. 7.
“No doubt,” Rep. Joe Verrengia, D-West Hartford, said. “Gaming will be one of those hot-button issues in the upcoming session.”
Already, a bill is percolating among members of the Bridgeport delegation that would open up bidding for a casino in the state’s largest city. MGM already has a splashy, $675 million proposal for the Bridgeport waterfront. Rep. Ezequiel Santiago, D-Bridgeport, said the bill “will attempt to do what we started last year, attempt to start a process for competitive bidding.”
In the last session of the General Assembly, state lawmakers opened up casino expansion after a heated debate, allowing the operators of Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun to establish a “satellite” casino in East Windsor. The venue is part of a defensive strategy responding to MGM’s casino and entertainment complex under construction in Springfield that is set to open in September.
Santiago said he does not oppose the East Windsor plans — he voted for them — but he sees Bridgeport as primed to capitalize on an untapped gaming market in Long Island and the New York City metro area.
Construction has yet to begin in East Windsor, and the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes still face hurdles in obtaining a key approval from federal regulators. The tribes have said demolition of an old movie theater on the site will begin in the first three months of this year.
Santiago also said the tribal operators of Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun expressed interest in Bridgeport, following the MGM proposal. Only the tribes are allowed to operate slot machines in the state now, under an agreement that gives the state a 25 percent cut of those revenues each month.
Authorizing another casino operator would cancel the agreement. MGM has argued that the state could do better with a Bridgeport gambling venue, given the decline in slot revenue amid intensifying competition in neighboring states.
“Adopting a modernized gaming policy that would allow contenders to put their strongest offer on the table for the state to consider, consistent with industry best practices, would bring the best result for its state and its taxpayers,” Uri Clinton, senior vice president and legal counsel for MGM Resorts, said. “And we continue to believe that Bridgeport is the best location — in terms of jobs and economic development — for a commercial casino in Connecticut.”
The legislature’s public safety and security committee will gear up early with an informational hearing. The hearing, in late February or early March, will include a panel of national experts to talk about emerging trends in gaming.
“Given the landscape around us has changed, and it has become more competitive, it’s important that we get a national perspective on gaming — casinos, sports betting, even fantasy sports,” Verrengia, co-chairman of the public safety committee, said.
In addition to casino expansion, state lawmakers in 2017 added off-track betting sites and approved setting up a regulatory framework for future, but not yet legal, state-regulated sports betting.
Both initiatives were aimed at laying the foundation for legalized sports betting.
Sportech Venues Inc., the state’s only OTB operator, was given permission to expand to 24 locations. Sportech has consistently said it sees sports betting as the next logical step for its location as the popularity of OTB wanes. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Authorizing another casino operator would cancel the agreement. MGM has argued that the state could do better with a Bridgeport gambling venue, given the decline in slot revenue amid intensifying competition in neighboring states.
“Adopting a modernized gaming policy that would allow contenders to put their strongest offer on the table for the state to consider, consistent with industry best practices, would bring the best result for its state and its taxpayers,” Uri Clinton, senior vice president and legal counsel for MGM Resorts, said. “And we continue to believe that Bridgeport is the best location — in terms of jobs and economic development — for a commercial casino in Connecticut.”
The legislature’s public safety and security committee will gear up early with an informational hearing. The hearing, in late February or early March, will include a panel of national experts to talk about emerging trends in gaming.
“Given the landscape around us has changed, and it has become more competitive, it’s important that we get a national perspective on gaming — casinos, sports betting, even fantasy sports,” Verrengia, co-chairman of the public safety committee, said.
In addition to casino expansion, state lawmakers in 2017 added off-track betting sites and approved setting up a regulatory framework for future, but not yet legal, state-regulated sports betting.
Both initiatives were aimed at laying the foundation for legalized sports betting.
Sportech Venues Inc., the state’s only OTB operator, was given permission to expand to 24 locations. Sportech has consistently said it sees sports betting as the next logical step for its location as the popularity of OTB wanes. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE