On Monday Republican lawmakers took the fight against tolls on the road and tried to rally people to help stop the controversial plan.
“It’s going to hurt all of us. The little economies. The little businesses,” Lisa Graca said.
Graca owns a salon in Watertown and she worries some customers won’t want to pay a fee to drive to her shop.
“When you have a client for 20 or 30 years, all of a sudden you’re going to lose that. You’re going to lose that revenue,” Graca said.
Graca was among the crowd who heard from state Republican lawmakers during an informational forum at Bristol Central High School on Monday.
With three toll bills moving ahead at the Capitol, State Sen. Henri Martin (R-Bristol) and others realized they needed help to put the brakes on the plans.
“We said, you know, let’s take it out to the people. This needs to be a grassroots effort in order to persuade and change the minds of those that may be on the fence,” Martin said.
Legislators explained why they thought the tolls were a bad idea and encouraged a mostly sympathetic crowd to make their voices heard; including by contacting political leaders who are pro-tolls.
There appeared to be a few dozen in the crowd who support tolls and wouldn’t mind the added cost.“Yes, I have no trouble with that,” Paul Morgan of Bristol said.
Those in favor of tolls say they could help pave the way for improved infrastructure and better quality of life.
For union members it’s also about jobs.
“There has to be something done. We have to have a plan for the future. We have a lot of long-term, big projects that have to be built and without a long-term plan or revenue stream, we’re not going to do it,” Nate Brown of the International Union of Operating Engineers, said.
“There has to be something done. We have to have a plan for the future. We have a lot of long-term, big projects that have to be built and without a long-term plan or revenue stream, we’re not going to do it,” Nate Brown of the International Union of Operating Engineers, said.
There are three more of these forums planned for April in Danbury, Old Lyme and Enfield.
Republican lawmakers oppose tolls, offer alternative at Bristol forum
BRIAN M. JOHNSON
BRISTOL - Republican legislators talked tolls with a packed crowd at Bristol Central High School Monday.
Tolls have been a hotly debated topic for several months and the high turnout was reflective of that controversy. In the crowd were local leaders including Plymouth Mayor David Merchant and residents of Bristol and surrounding communities.
The recent budget proposal from Gov. Ned Lamont includes more than 50 toll gantries on all major highways.
Area lawmakers who attended included Reps. Whit Betts, Cara Pavalock-D’Amato and William Petit Jr., and Sens. Gennaro Bizzarro and Henri Martin.
Also included in the discussion were Rep. John Piscopo, who represents Burlington, Harwinton, Litchfield and Thomaston; and Rep. Laura Devlin, who represents Fairfield and Trumbull.
Betts began by welcoming the guests. He encouraged them to reach out to Rep. Chris Ziogas and other members of the Transportation Committee to hear “the other side” from toll advocates.
Devlin then presented an overview of the toll proposal and information from a November 2018 toll study.
“This is a big issue and so we decided to hit the road and come to any community that is looking for us to come,” she said.
Devlin asked audience members to raise their hands, first if they support tolls and then if they oppose them. The vast majority indicated that they oppose tolls. A handful said they were undecided.
“I am not in favor, and 90 percent of my constituents are not in favor,” said Devlin.
Devlin said arguments she has heard against tolls include that they represent a “tax to get to work,” while arguments in favor are that people pay tolls in every other state and that tolls will capture revenue from out-of-state drivers.
Devlin said tolls are intended to discourage people from driving on highways during peak times of 6 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 7 p.m. and to push them onto side roads or public transportation or into car pools.
The November study estimated that tolls would raise $1.086 billion a year - 60 percent from state residents and 40 percent will come from nonresidents. Tolling would be done every six miles.
The Department of Transportation will also be given control of where the gantries are and what they should cost.
“This is a hugely partisan issue at the Capitol, but not for the people living across the state,” said Devlin. “This will affect everyone.”
Martin said there is $45 billion to fund transportation over 30 years out of the $62 billion that the DOT estimates it needs.
Martin laid out the Republicans’ “prioritize progress” plan that has no tolls and would raise $65 billion over 30 years. It utilizes general obligation bonds, respects the $2 billion state bonding cap, and “takes care of the state’s core investments and priorities.”
“There are a lot of pet programs, pork and political handouts -- we said no to all of that,” said Martin. “This plan also provides steady funding to transportation.”
Ziogas, a Democrat who represents Bristol and was at the forum as a spectator, said he opposes the Republicans’ plan.
“I think Henri Martin did a fine job of demonstrating how this will slash huge portions of the budget,” he said. “Their proposal will cost funding to education, municipal services and programs that provide supports. Their plan will not provide new revenues like tolls will.”
Audience members were allowed to share their thoughts and question panelists. That occurred after press deadline.
CT Airport Authority sees growth potential beyond Bradley International
Sean Teehan
If Bradley International Airport is Alec Baldwin, the five regional airports overseen by the Connecticut Airport Authority (CAA) are his less-famous brothers: They don't operate on the same level, but they're still making moves.
"We do have development discussions underway at every airport that we own," said Kevin Dillon, CAA's executive director. "Some are very advanced where there are signed term sheets, and there are others that are still in the discussion phase, but at each one of our airports we have some level of development that we're discussing."
That development ranges from new airplane hangars at three or more CAA airports to the possibility of bringing commercial fights and developing a hotel at Groton-New London Airport. That's in addition to preliminary talks about CAA possibly taking some operational role at Tweed-New Haven Airport.
Efforts to bring CAA's five smaller airports, which collectively recorded a $6.1 million operating loss in fiscal 2018, to their full potential are being informed by market research that's been done on the needs of individual and corporate travelers, Dillon said. All contribute to Dillon's vision for CAA as a statewide network of airports that compliment each other in terms of the services they provide, and are operated to their maximum capacity for aeronautical and non-flight uses.
"If you have one entity operating these significant facilities, you assure yourself of that coordination," Dillon said.
Challenges and opportunities
One of the biggest efforts underway is deciding the future of Tweed-New Haven Airport. Talks between CAA, Tweed's airport authority and the city of New Haven are in their infancy, Dillon said. At the moment, the only agreed-upon principle is that activities at CAA airports and Tweed should be coordinated.
But Dillon sees mutual benefits to some kind of operational partnership or acquisition. For starters, Tweed currently pays outside firms for engineering services CAA could provide for free if an agreement was reached. A merger would also better position Tweed and CAA to approach the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for grants, since only one entity (likely CAA) would be responsible for grant planning, Dillon said.
However, not everybody is on board with a possible merger. Some high-ranking state legislators on both sides of the aisle — namely Democratic Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney (who represents New Haven) and and Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano (R-North Haven) — have expressed skepticism, noting CAA and Tweed's competing interests.
"The CAA is concerned with Bradley Airport, which wouldn't want competition from Tweed," Looney recently told members of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce.
Speaking to the New Haven Register, Fasano called the idea "fantasy land," and questioned why CAA would want to take over "another entity that doesn't make money."
Public skepticism aside, the CAA/Tweed talks dovetail with continued negotiations with AFCO AvPORTS Management LLC, the Dulles, Va.-based private operator of Tweed. For more than a year, CAA has been considering outsourcing operations management of three of its general aviation airports — Hartford-Brainard, Waterbury-Oxford and Groton-New London — to AvPORTS as a cost-saving measure.
"We don't have a specific timeline," Dillon said of CAA's discussions with AvPORTS. "We're interested in trying to reach an understanding with them as soon as possible."
CAA and AvPORTS have agreed that 16 full-time unionized employees would, under any deal, remain in place. That had been a sticking point in the negotiations.
Meantime, one of the airports that AvPORTS would manage under that deal, Groton-New London, could once again start offering commercial flights, Dillon said.
The 489-acre airport is only about 65 miles away from Bradley, but given its proximity to businesses like Pfizer and Electric Boat, not to mention casinos and the Coast Guard Academy, Dillon sees opportunity in expanding Groton-New London's services to commercial flights.
"We've done a fair amount of market research down there as to what destinations people are looking for, and what companies are likely to utilize at the airport," Dillon said. "It's a matter of convincing an airline to start operations at the airport."
Additionally, CAA is looking into possible hotel development at Groton-New London, Dillon said.
That airport is also among the four with advanced plans to develop airplane hangars on-site. The other three, Hartford-Brainard, Windham and Waterbury-Oxford, already have signed term sheets with developers Hartford Jet Center, Windham Air Services and Atlantic Aviation, respectively.
"At Hartford-Brainard, (there's) a heavy presence of privately owned aircraft," Dillon said. "But some of the hangar development that we're looking at along with Hartford Jet Center would give the potential to handle some smaller corporate jet aircraft."
Hangar development facilities are usually constructed by third parties, which absorb the cost, Dillon said. Once they're up, CAA collects ground rent and fees associated with aircraft parking.
The Waterbury-Oxford hangar development, if greenlighted, would be used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Dillon said. That would make Waterbury-Oxford the only CAA airport outside Bradley that can accept direct flights from foreign countries.
In a recent interview, CAA Board Chairman Tony Sheridan cited the moves Dillon is making with development at both the regionals and Bradley when expressing his optimism for the year ahead for the authority.
"I believe that growth will happen," Sheridan said. "There are a lot of exciting changes (coming)."
Moving forward, identifying and pursuing opportunities for development will remain a key part of CAA's business strategy for its five smaller airports. While they might not have as much space as airports that have opened golf courses on their property, Dillon sees plenty of potential for uses of airport space for things like flight schools, restaurants, and aircraft repair and maintenance facilities.
"At all of our airports — Bradley as well as the five general aviation airports — we do have developable property," Dillon said. "We're constantly out there marketing."
East Windsor casino subject of lawsuit over zoning permit, site plan
Brian Hallenbeck
Having finally secured the last federal approval they needed for their East Windsor casino project, the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes on Monday withdrew a lawsuit they and the state of Connecticut had been pursuing against the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The suit sought to compel action on the tribes’ amended gaming agreements with the state, action the Interior Department officially took Monday by publishing notice in the Federal Register of its approval of the Mashantuckets’ amendments. The department had approved the Mohegans’ amendment last year.
Still, a much lesser-known matter on the docket in Superior Court in Hartford will have to be cleared up before casino construction can begin.
In a claim lodged last July, the owner of a retail area located across the street from the casino site appealed the East Windsor Planning and Zoning Commission's approvals of a special permit and a site plan for the project. Oral arguments in the case, which names as defendants the commission and the tribes’ partnership, MMCT Venture, are scheduled for June 5.
Sofia’s Plazas LLC, a family company, alleges that the commission failed to properly notify abutting property owners of a public hearing on the permit application and failed to indicate in a legal notice that alcohol would be served at the casino. The corporation also claims that MMCT’s development agreement with the town constitutes illegal “contract zoning,” defined as a process in which a local government "extracts a performance or promise from the developer in exchange for its agreement to rezone the property ..."
The tribes have agreed to pay the town an estimated $5.5 million a year in property taxes and another $3 million annually in payments aimed at offsetting the casino-related costs the town incurs.
“Although the applicant here did not contract directly with the planning and zoning commission, the enormous financial incentives offered by the applicant colored the processing of the applications at every stage of the proceedings in favor of approval,” Sofia’s Plazas asserts in a court brief.
The plaintiff’s attorney, David Sherwood, plans to depose the former town planner who held office when the approvals were granted.
“Sofia’s Plazas’ primary concern is the adverse effect the casino will have on the ease of access to their property,” Sherwood said by phone Monday.
Robert Maynard, the East Windsor first selectman, called the upcoming deposition “a fishing expedition.”
“It’s not much of a case,” he said. “We’re not too concerned about it.”
Maynard said the Interior Department’s announcement last week that it had approved the Mashantuckets’ gaming amendment took the town by surprise.
“Because it was so sudden, the town and MMCT haven’t conferred yet,” he said. “The ball’s in MMCT’s court.”
MMCT still has to seek a building permit, starting a time-consuming process that will involve a public hearing and the filing of detailed plans for the casino project, according to Maynard.
The 188,000-square-foot casino, dubbed Tribal Winds, and a five-story parking garage will be built on 28 acres off Exit 45 of Interstate 91. The tribes have said it will take 18 to 24 months to finish construction.
The recent budget proposal from Gov. Ned Lamont includes more than 50 toll gantries on all major highways.
Area lawmakers who attended included Reps. Whit Betts, Cara Pavalock-D’Amato and William Petit Jr., and Sens. Gennaro Bizzarro and Henri Martin.
Also included in the discussion were Rep. John Piscopo, who represents Burlington, Harwinton, Litchfield and Thomaston; and Rep. Laura Devlin, who represents Fairfield and Trumbull.
Betts began by welcoming the guests. He encouraged them to reach out to Rep. Chris Ziogas and other members of the Transportation Committee to hear “the other side” from toll advocates.
Devlin then presented an overview of the toll proposal and information from a November 2018 toll study.
“This is a big issue and so we decided to hit the road and come to any community that is looking for us to come,” she said.
Devlin asked audience members to raise their hands, first if they support tolls and then if they oppose them. The vast majority indicated that they oppose tolls. A handful said they were undecided.
“I am not in favor, and 90 percent of my constituents are not in favor,” said Devlin.
Devlin said arguments she has heard against tolls include that they represent a “tax to get to work,” while arguments in favor are that people pay tolls in every other state and that tolls will capture revenue from out-of-state drivers.
Devlin said tolls are intended to discourage people from driving on highways during peak times of 6 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 7 p.m. and to push them onto side roads or public transportation or into car pools.
The November study estimated that tolls would raise $1.086 billion a year - 60 percent from state residents and 40 percent will come from nonresidents. Tolling would be done every six miles.
The Department of Transportation will also be given control of where the gantries are and what they should cost.
“This is a hugely partisan issue at the Capitol, but not for the people living across the state,” said Devlin. “This will affect everyone.”
Martin said there is $45 billion to fund transportation over 30 years out of the $62 billion that the DOT estimates it needs.
Martin laid out the Republicans’ “prioritize progress” plan that has no tolls and would raise $65 billion over 30 years. It utilizes general obligation bonds, respects the $2 billion state bonding cap, and “takes care of the state’s core investments and priorities.”
“There are a lot of pet programs, pork and political handouts -- we said no to all of that,” said Martin. “This plan also provides steady funding to transportation.”
Ziogas, a Democrat who represents Bristol and was at the forum as a spectator, said he opposes the Republicans’ plan.
“I think Henri Martin did a fine job of demonstrating how this will slash huge portions of the budget,” he said. “Their proposal will cost funding to education, municipal services and programs that provide supports. Their plan will not provide new revenues like tolls will.”
Audience members were allowed to share their thoughts and question panelists. That occurred after press deadline.
CT Airport Authority sees growth potential beyond Bradley International
Sean Teehan
If Bradley International Airport is Alec Baldwin, the five regional airports overseen by the Connecticut Airport Authority (CAA) are his less-famous brothers: They don't operate on the same level, but they're still making moves.
"We do have development discussions underway at every airport that we own," said Kevin Dillon, CAA's executive director. "Some are very advanced where there are signed term sheets, and there are others that are still in the discussion phase, but at each one of our airports we have some level of development that we're discussing."
That development ranges from new airplane hangars at three or more CAA airports to the possibility of bringing commercial fights and developing a hotel at Groton-New London Airport. That's in addition to preliminary talks about CAA possibly taking some operational role at Tweed-New Haven Airport.
Efforts to bring CAA's five smaller airports, which collectively recorded a $6.1 million operating loss in fiscal 2018, to their full potential are being informed by market research that's been done on the needs of individual and corporate travelers, Dillon said. All contribute to Dillon's vision for CAA as a statewide network of airports that compliment each other in terms of the services they provide, and are operated to their maximum capacity for aeronautical and non-flight uses.
"If you have one entity operating these significant facilities, you assure yourself of that coordination," Dillon said.
Challenges and opportunities
One of the biggest efforts underway is deciding the future of Tweed-New Haven Airport. Talks between CAA, Tweed's airport authority and the city of New Haven are in their infancy, Dillon said. At the moment, the only agreed-upon principle is that activities at CAA airports and Tweed should be coordinated.
But Dillon sees mutual benefits to some kind of operational partnership or acquisition. For starters, Tweed currently pays outside firms for engineering services CAA could provide for free if an agreement was reached. A merger would also better position Tweed and CAA to approach the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for grants, since only one entity (likely CAA) would be responsible for grant planning, Dillon said.
However, not everybody is on board with a possible merger. Some high-ranking state legislators on both sides of the aisle — namely Democratic Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney (who represents New Haven) and and Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano (R-North Haven) — have expressed skepticism, noting CAA and Tweed's competing interests.
"The CAA is concerned with Bradley Airport, which wouldn't want competition from Tweed," Looney recently told members of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce.
Speaking to the New Haven Register, Fasano called the idea "fantasy land," and questioned why CAA would want to take over "another entity that doesn't make money."
Public skepticism aside, the CAA/Tweed talks dovetail with continued negotiations with AFCO AvPORTS Management LLC, the Dulles, Va.-based private operator of Tweed. For more than a year, CAA has been considering outsourcing operations management of three of its general aviation airports — Hartford-Brainard, Waterbury-Oxford and Groton-New London — to AvPORTS as a cost-saving measure.
"We don't have a specific timeline," Dillon said of CAA's discussions with AvPORTS. "We're interested in trying to reach an understanding with them as soon as possible."
CAA and AvPORTS have agreed that 16 full-time unionized employees would, under any deal, remain in place. That had been a sticking point in the negotiations.
Meantime, one of the airports that AvPORTS would manage under that deal, Groton-New London, could once again start offering commercial flights, Dillon said.
The 489-acre airport is only about 65 miles away from Bradley, but given its proximity to businesses like Pfizer and Electric Boat, not to mention casinos and the Coast Guard Academy, Dillon sees opportunity in expanding Groton-New London's services to commercial flights.
"We've done a fair amount of market research down there as to what destinations people are looking for, and what companies are likely to utilize at the airport," Dillon said. "It's a matter of convincing an airline to start operations at the airport."
Additionally, CAA is looking into possible hotel development at Groton-New London, Dillon said.
That airport is also among the four with advanced plans to develop airplane hangars on-site. The other three, Hartford-Brainard, Windham and Waterbury-Oxford, already have signed term sheets with developers Hartford Jet Center, Windham Air Services and Atlantic Aviation, respectively.
"At Hartford-Brainard, (there's) a heavy presence of privately owned aircraft," Dillon said. "But some of the hangar development that we're looking at along with Hartford Jet Center would give the potential to handle some smaller corporate jet aircraft."
Hangar development facilities are usually constructed by third parties, which absorb the cost, Dillon said. Once they're up, CAA collects ground rent and fees associated with aircraft parking.
The Waterbury-Oxford hangar development, if greenlighted, would be used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Dillon said. That would make Waterbury-Oxford the only CAA airport outside Bradley that can accept direct flights from foreign countries.
In a recent interview, CAA Board Chairman Tony Sheridan cited the moves Dillon is making with development at both the regionals and Bradley when expressing his optimism for the year ahead for the authority.
"I believe that growth will happen," Sheridan said. "There are a lot of exciting changes (coming)."
Moving forward, identifying and pursuing opportunities for development will remain a key part of CAA's business strategy for its five smaller airports. While they might not have as much space as airports that have opened golf courses on their property, Dillon sees plenty of potential for uses of airport space for things like flight schools, restaurants, and aircraft repair and maintenance facilities.
"At all of our airports — Bradley as well as the five general aviation airports — we do have developable property," Dillon said. "We're constantly out there marketing."
East Windsor casino subject of lawsuit over zoning permit, site plan
Brian Hallenbeck
Having finally secured the last federal approval they needed for their East Windsor casino project, the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes on Monday withdrew a lawsuit they and the state of Connecticut had been pursuing against the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The suit sought to compel action on the tribes’ amended gaming agreements with the state, action the Interior Department officially took Monday by publishing notice in the Federal Register of its approval of the Mashantuckets’ amendments. The department had approved the Mohegans’ amendment last year.
Still, a much lesser-known matter on the docket in Superior Court in Hartford will have to be cleared up before casino construction can begin.
In a claim lodged last July, the owner of a retail area located across the street from the casino site appealed the East Windsor Planning and Zoning Commission's approvals of a special permit and a site plan for the project. Oral arguments in the case, which names as defendants the commission and the tribes’ partnership, MMCT Venture, are scheduled for June 5.
Sofia’s Plazas LLC, a family company, alleges that the commission failed to properly notify abutting property owners of a public hearing on the permit application and failed to indicate in a legal notice that alcohol would be served at the casino. The corporation also claims that MMCT’s development agreement with the town constitutes illegal “contract zoning,” defined as a process in which a local government "extracts a performance or promise from the developer in exchange for its agreement to rezone the property ..."
The tribes have agreed to pay the town an estimated $5.5 million a year in property taxes and another $3 million annually in payments aimed at offsetting the casino-related costs the town incurs.
“Although the applicant here did not contract directly with the planning and zoning commission, the enormous financial incentives offered by the applicant colored the processing of the applications at every stage of the proceedings in favor of approval,” Sofia’s Plazas asserts in a court brief.
The plaintiff’s attorney, David Sherwood, plans to depose the former town planner who held office when the approvals were granted.
“Sofia’s Plazas’ primary concern is the adverse effect the casino will have on the ease of access to their property,” Sherwood said by phone Monday.
Robert Maynard, the East Windsor first selectman, called the upcoming deposition “a fishing expedition.”
Maynard said the Interior Department’s announcement last week that it had approved the Mashantuckets’ gaming amendment took the town by surprise.
“Because it was so sudden, the town and MMCT haven’t conferred yet,” he said. “The ball’s in MMCT’s court.”
MMCT still has to seek a building permit, starting a time-consuming process that will involve a public hearing and the filing of detailed plans for the casino project, according to Maynard.
The 188,000-square-foot casino, dubbed Tribal Winds, and a five-story parking garage will be built on 28 acres off Exit 45 of Interstate 91. The tribes have said it will take 18 to 24 months to finish construction.