Torrington residents still oppose sewer line approval; mayor pushes back against critics
TORRINGTON — Raymond Bottass, a Torrington native, spent a portion of his day off on the streetcorner near City Hall, airhorn in hand, with a sign that read “Impeach Mayor Carbone.”
Bottass, along with his wife, Carol, are protesting the recent decision to approve a sewer pipeline connecting the Woodridge Lake housing development in Goshen to the Torrington system, which is to run through part of the watershed area for the Allen Dam reservoir.
Botass said he’s worked in construction since he was 18. He said during his time in construction, he always found leaks in sewer pipes being disconnected, and believes the Woodridge Lake line eventually will fail.“It doesn’t seem to bother them. They have no conscience about it,” he said. “I’m totally against it.”
He said he was told that the mayor in Torrington cannot be impeached, but he wanted to be out there anyway. He and his wife said they’d be back on Saturday.
“It makes a difference because people are noticing,” said Raymond Bottass. “I’m doing this for a cause. ... I lived in this town all my life.”
Mayor Elinor Carbone was appointed by the people, “and this is what we get out of it,” he said.
Carol Bottass said she hopes the protest will prompt the sewer decision to be changed.
“It’s almost like nobody cares about us (the people),” she said. “I’m really, really scared. I hope that this does not go through.”
Later, Carbone pushed back vehemently against the idea that the vote had been predetermined — except for council member Paul Cavagnero, who she said clearly had made up his mind beforehand, reflected in his remarks at meetings ahead of the vote and a “Protect Our Water Supply” sign on his lawn.
She cited an obligation to the public, the board and her personal code to adhere to an appropriate process.
“This was not a done deal,” said Carbone. “I can tell you with absolute confidence and absolute certainty that this was not a done deal before the vote.”
Online chatter to the contrary — “all that moaning out there on Facebook” — was false, she said, referring to numerous comments about the vote posted on Torrington Facebook pages.
She invited the public to come take a look at the litany of documentation — in “four-inch-thick” binders, in her estimation — that council members had reviewed before the vote.
Residents to date had not done that, by and large, she said — instead, they received letters from the Torrington Water Co. indicating that the project was harmful to their health and urging them to speak out against it.
Carbone noted that the Department of Public Health, including Public Health Section Chief Lori Mathieu, charged with protecting drinking water, had instituted a series of conditions to mitigate the risk for the project — including requiring Woodridge Lake to purchase pollution insurance and run spill drills — then testified that it was appropriate to move forward.
Carbone noted that the Department of Public Health, including Public Health Section Chief Lori Mathieu, charged with protecting drinking water, had instituted a series of conditions to mitigate the risk for the project — including requiring Woodridge Lake to purchase pollution insurance and run spill drills — then testified that it was appropriate to move forward. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Labor offers harsh critique of CEO-led commission's report
Matt Pilon
A group of Connecticut labor leaders on Tuesday released a 15-page analysis lambasting the recent recommendations of the Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Growth.
The report, released ahead of a multi-committee hearing on the commission's findings scheduled for Friday, compares the commission's executive-heavy membership to arrogant college freshmen who come home after a semester and think they have all the answers to the world's problems.
"The Commission's report is multi-colored and slick -- looking like a stock prospectus for a 'can't lose purchase opportunity,' " the analysis says.
Labor leaders assigned a "C-" grade to the commission's findings about the state's economic and fiscal situation and an "F" to its list recommendations.
Though union leaders agree with the commission on raising the state's minimum wage and implementing highway tolls, they've bristled in particular at the commission's calls to change union bargaining, including a recommendation to remove fringe benefits from the collective bargaining process between state government and unions.
Unions think the commission overstepped its legislative charge by delving into labor benefit issues.
They argue that Connecticut cannot be compared to surrounding states that do not bargain fringe benefits, such as New York and Massachusetts, because those states have constitutional or court precedent protections that protect employees from unilateral changes by state government.
"The Commission would leave state employee retirement benefits up to unilateral employer whim. An employee could work 35 years for the state, accepting that a substantial part of his or her promised compensation is a decent retirement when he or she is too old to continue working, and have that promise revoked a day before retirement," the analysis states.
The analysis is also critical of the commission's labeling of the teacher retirement system as unsustainable, arguing that the state has failed to fully fund the pension system, while teachers have paid their share.
Commission co-chairs Robert Patricelli and James Smith released a statement Wednesday on the labor analysis:
"We are disappointed public sector labor leaders are taking this aggressively negative position. The Commission report has received endorsements and constructive response from a wide range of people and organizations in Connecticut including the CT Conference of Municipalities, the CT Realtors Association, the CT Construction Industries Association, and Governor Malloy."
Labor leaders signing the analysis include Lori Pelletier, president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO; Sal Luciano, executive director of AFSCME Council 4; Jan Hochadel, president of AFT Connecticut; Thomas Bontly, president of UConn-AAUP; and Dan Livingston, chief negotiator of SEBAC.
CT economist: No recession lurking
Gregory Seay
The prospect for Connecticut's and the U.S. economies lapsing into recession anytime soon are remote, but new trade tariffs, a jittery stock market, plus this state's stubborn job recovery and population loss, could impact both down the road, an economist says.
"The good news: A U.S. recession is still unlikely over the near term,'' said New Haven economist Don Klepper-Smith, who is an adviser to Farmington Bank, noting the current recovery is into its ninth year.
Addressing a remote webinar audience Wednesday during Farmington Bank's quarterly economic outlook, the chief economist at DataCore Partners LLC said he expects a modest U.S. recovery to continue at least through the first half of this year.
"The bottom line is the odds of a recession over the next 18 months is one in three,'' Klepper-Smith said.
He pointed to Connecticut's sluggish efforts to regain the 119,000 jobs it lost in the Great Recession, 2008-2009. So far, based on state labor department unemployment and job-growth data as of January, Connecticut has regained just 77 percent of those lost jobs, the economist said. By comparison, most other New England states have recovered at least all of their lost jobs, with several regaining double and triple their jobs deficits.
Connecticut's slow job growth, combined with a rollicking stock market that at times has many feeling less wealthy, and slow overall gains in take-home pay, Klepper-Smith said, are ganging up to make consumers less confident about their own finances, let alone the economy.
The result, he said, is that Farmington Bank's "business barometer,'' which tracks employment, consumer spending and related indices, has turned negative.
"Consumers really have a difficult time feeling this is a recovery,'' Klepper-Smith said.
For the rest of this year, he said he expects inflation to stay close to the 2017 rate of 2.1 percent. The 30-year mortgage rate, despite expectations for the Federal Reserve to hike the discount rate at least three times this year, starting as early as Wednesday, will end this year at around 4.25 percent to 4.5 percent.