Neil Vigdor
The clash over highway tolls in Connecticut is reaching a boil.
At the same time, Fasano alleges that Lamont’s administration is low-balling toll pricing estimates to try to save its highly contentious plan to raise transportation revenues.
The hostilities come as a growing number of cities and towns have adopted anti-tolling resolutions that are mostly symbolic in nature, but are intended to put pressure on lawmakers to reject Lamont’s plan to put tolls on 91, 84, 95 and Route 15.
Toll foes have further organized protests across the state, but have struggled to draw large crowds. A rally at the Capitol on Saturday drew an estimated 125 people.
Lamont’s senior adviser Colleen Flanagan Johnson excoriated Fasano Monday over a mailer that was sent out by the Senate minority leader promoting an April 22 toll information forum in North Haven in his district. It shows 80 toll collection points, compared to 50 in the latest DOT map, which transportation officials have emphasized is for preliminary planning purposes.
“It doesn’t matter how many times he is corrected, Sen. Fasano continues to peddle false information which does nothing to advance the honest dialogue we wish he’d have with the governor’s office,” Flanagan Johnson said. “Using thousands of dollars in state taxpayer resources in his quest to distort the truth and play politics is a new low.”
Fasano bristled at the criticism, saying that the black-and-white map on the mailer makes the distinction between a 2018 tolling study by the DOT and Lamont’s proposal. He said it’s still unclear where 50 gantries proposed by Lamont’s administration would be located.
“Their credibility on tolls is severely lacking,” Fasano said. “You can tell Colleen Fergus Flanagan, whatever her name is, that she’s a little disingenuous.”
Fasano said that he requested all correspondence between the state DOT and federal transportation officials on tolling. There is no indication that Lamont’s latest proposal has been presented to them, said Fasano, who pointed out that the 2018 DOT toll study had been shared with the federal government in the documents he received.
The GOP Senate leader is also disputing the toll pricing information released by Lamont’s administration, which has said that Connecticut E-ZPass holders would pay as low as 3.5 cents per mile with a discount for making at least 20 round-trips a month.
“Their math doesn’t make any sense,” Fasano said. “You guys have a right to argue tolls work. But you don’t have a right to mislead people in Connecticut by making up numbers.” Flanagan said GOP toll foes have yet to offer a viable alternative to tolls, which Lamont’s administration has estimated would generate $800 million a year for long overdue transportation improvements. Republican are instead touting their own plan, known as Prioritize Progress, which would divert bonding money from school construction and other capital projects to transportation and avoid tolls.
“We understand Senator Fasano is wedded to his plan to take out a $700 billion loan, 100 percent of which will be paid for by Connecticut citizens and future generations,” Flanagan Johnson said.
State Sen. Alex Bergstein, a Greenwich Democrat who supports tolls and is vice chair of the Transportation Committee, said Fasano’s mailer is misleading.
“Perhaps Senator Fasano is proposing new routes for tolls?” Bergstein said. “Because none of these roads are in any bill I’ve seen. I wonder why politicians aren’t sticking to the facts in our public discourse. Then people could see that the Republican ‘Prioritize Debt’ plan is $10 Trillion in new debt. Who thinks that’s a good idea?”
Patrick Sasser, a small businessman from Stamford who is the co-founder of NoTollsCT.org, said it’s critical for Connecticut residents to understand the potential scope of tolls because lawmakers are likely to punt the difficult decisions on their location and price to the DOT.
NoTollsCT.org, which Sasser said has collected more than 95,000 signatures of citizens who are opposed to tolls, is gearing up for a May 18 rally against tolls outside the Capitol.
Fasano said toll foes are galvanized and that policy makers shouldn’t jump to conclusions based on the tepid turnout numbers at some protests.
“People are pissed because Connecticut keeps pick-pocketing every chance it gets,” Fasano said.
Lamont looking to borrow against future toll revenues
SUSAN HAIGH
Tolls might not appear on Connecticut highways for years to come, but Gov. Ned Lamont sees an opportunity for the state to obtain some much-needed transportation funding before the first overhead collector is even installed.
The Democrat has suggested borrowing against the roughly $800 million a year the highway tolls are projected to generate. But that tactic has been partly blamed for the financial challenges facing at least one state, Ohio, where drivers now face hefty gas tax increases at the pump.
“Once they know we’re going to be able to do our electronic tolling, we can borrow against those anticipated tolling revenues,” Lamont told reporters on Wednesday. The former businessman suggested such a move would allow the state’s Department of Transportation to jump-start spending on certain key transportation projects as it awaits the necessary federal approvals and the installation of tolls. That has been estimated to take anywhere from two to seven years.
Lamont, who opposes increasing the gas tax, wants to install electronic tolls on Interstates 84, 91, 95 and Route 15 to “speed up our transportation system” and to “get this state moving again economically.” Connecticut, which has not had any tolls since the 1980s, faces an estimated $60 billion backlog of unfunded transportation infrastructure projects. Meanwhile, the state’s main transportation account is projected to be insolvent by 2024.
It remains unclear whether there will be enough support this year in the Democratic-controlled General Assembly to pass a tolling bill, which is still being negotiated .Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican who also opposed a gas tax increase, agreed in 2013 to sell bonds backed by future toll revenue from the Ohio Turnpike to raise $1.5 billion. It was pitched as an out-of-the-box way to spur funding for key projects. That money paid for 13 major projects within 75 miles of the turnpike, as well as other projects along the corridor. However, the state’s drivers are still left with crumbling roads, not enough money to fix them and the prospect of having to pay off that debt until 2048. That’s on top of existing transportation-related debt that Ohio owes.
Faced with the prospect of not having the revenue to pay for any new highway improvement projects beginning July 1, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine this month signed a transportation budget that increases Ohio’s tax on gas by 10.5 cents a gallon and on diesel fuel by 19 cents. He called it a decision “no one relished.”
Jonathan Peters, professor of finance and data analytics at The College of Staten Island School of Business and a tolling expert, said if Connecticut decides to follow Ohio’s lead, officials will need to consider the borrowing costs and how the state will fund both short- and long-term transportation projects.
“Borrowing the money up front would allow you to have more flexibility to repair things today, but it would give up future opportunities for other repairs down the road because you’ve spent the money,” he said. “It’s not new money. It’s not magic money.”Lamont’s Chief of Staff Ryan Drajewicz said the administration is still in the very early stages of considering whether to borrow against future tolling revenue. He and other officials are looking at other states, including Ohio.
“I think we have the benefit of hindsight for sure, which is to look at where has this gone really wrong,” Drajewicz said.
He maintains Ohio officials “overshot by far” the projected revenues from tolls and “borrowed way too much against that.” He said the Lamont administration would be more conservative and only borrow against anticipated toll revenues for specific, priority projects, rather than seek a large block of upfront cash.
“We very much don’t want to put the state in jeopardy when it comes to something like this,” he said.
Drajewicz, state Treasurer Shawn Wooden and others have also been meeting with experts on public private partnerships to see if there’s an opportunity for Connecticut to work with a private entity to develop tolls.
However, there’s skepticism at the state Capitol about whether Connecticut should follow the privatization route that some cities and states have taken.
Joe Sculley, a lobbyist and president of the Motor Transport Association of Connecticut, a trucking organization that opposes tolls, said there’s been a “pretty bad history” of governments trying to get upfront cash from leasing everything from highways to parking meters to private entities. He sees similarities to Lamont’s idea of borrowing money from a private backer against future toll revenues.
“This is just such a complex issue, and I think that people just see money,” he said. “People see dollar signs and that’s as far as their gaze goes.”
Norwalk development projects on display for CT senator
Kelly Kultys
NORWALK — From the Walk Bridge to the SoNo Collection Mall to the construction at Washington Village, Sen. Chris Murphy received a “bird’s-eye view” of a variety of projects happening in the city.
“In this job, you need to make sure you know all the local opportunities so that if some money shows up at the federal level, you know where it best fits,” Murphy said.
Mayor Harry Rilling, along with Tim Sheehan, executive director of the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency, Jessica Casey, chief of economic and community development, and Steve Kleppin, director of planning and zoning, took Murphy on a bus tour through the city to show off current construction and potential future sites.
The tour featured a look at development on Wall Street and West Avenue, the SoNo Collection mall, transit-oriented development projects around the South and East Norwalk train stations and the Washington Village replacement projects
Murphy praised the construction near the train station, including the Spinnaker Real Estate Partners’ projects — in South Norwalk on Chestnut and Monroe streets and the 230 East Avenue mixed-use project in East Norwalk.
“The transit-oriented development project here is amazing, it's transformational and we should be able to sell Washington on being able to make some additional investments in that given how much private money is already teed up,” the Democratic senator said.Murphy also spent time on the hour-long bus ride through the city asking questions about the impacts of some of these developments, including how the mall would affect local businesses and the Walk Bridge project.Along the way, staff members and the mayor highlighted other areas, including the growth of local businesses near the Head of the Harbor project on Wall Street and the need for a community services office in the city.
Some of the areas were a return visit for Murphy, including the former Washington Village public housing project, which received most of its funding through the federal Choice Neighborhood Initiative Grant. All 136 public housing units of the former Washington Village will be replaced and 67 workforce housing units and 70 market-rate units will be added, collectively known as Soundview Landing.
All of the former Washington Village residents are guaranteed a spot in the new development, if they’d like to return.
“The mayor and I have done deeper dives on these projects before,” Murphy said. “We were over before at the East Norwalk train station a year or so ago, I've been over to the choice neighborhood but it's good especially as we're heading into the appropriations process to get an overview of what's happening in the city so that I can see if we have any opportunities in Washington (D.C.).”
Rilling said he appreciated Murphy’s willingness to see what is happening throughout the city.“I'm impressed because of how much he was impressed by what's happening in town,” Rilling said. “He was looking at the TOD areas, looking at the development taking place, looking at choice neighborhoods, looking at what's happening with our train station — he was just really incredibly impressed about the forward movement, the momentum in Norwalk.”Rilling said it was interesting to see the tour of the city through Murphy’s eyes and it helps strengthen Norwalk’s relationship with the senator.
“The senator has always been really available to us and been a partner in Norwalk in the past and whenever there's an opportunity to try to find federal funds, we reach out to him, he reaches out to us,” Rilling said.
Stonington begins to demolish collapsing mill
Joe Wojtas and Lindsay Boyle
Stonington — The town began demolishing the dilapidated Connecticut Casting Mill in Pawcatuck Monday night after a storm dumped rain onto its failing roof, causing sections of the building along the Pawcatuck River to collapse throughout the day.
"Because of the threat to the public health and safety, demolition work on the building will commence as soon as possible," First Selectman Rob Simmons announced shortly before a crane began taking down the building.
After the town received emergency state approval to take down the building Monday, Simmons said the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection provided the town with a system to protect the river from demolition debris. In addition, material that has already fallen into the river will have to be removed. It is unknown what environmental contaminants in addition to asbestos are in the structure.
"There's no telling what's in there," Simmons said.
He said one of the challenges of demolishing the building is making sure more of the building does not fall into the river, which recently was designated a wild and scenic river by the federal government. He said it is also important to prevent dust from the debris from creating an environmental hazard in the adjacent neighborhoods, especially if the remaining structure suddenly collapses.
Simmons said early Monday night that an engineer was on site testing air quality, and a team of about 25 Pawcatuck firefighters were hosing down the building to keep debris from getting in the air as the walls and roof came down.
Simmons said the demolition and cleanup will cost the town an estimated $600,000, likely taken from its undesignated fund surplus set aside for emergencies. He said the building owner did not respond to a dozen calls from town officials on Monday and the town will try to recoup the cost from the owner or the state.
The collapse has forced the town to close the Stillman Avenue bridge, one of three bridge links between Pawcatuck and Westerly. The town has posted a police officer at the site and a section of Stillman Avenue is closed.
In 2005, the Planning and Zoning Commission approved a plan by a Worcester, Mass., redevelopment firm to build 15 condominiums in the 18,000-square-foot, four-story brick mill at the north end of the site along the Pawcatuck River. An additional 24 units would have been located in two new buildings.
Those plans never came to fruition, and current owner Pawcatuck Landing has been unable to line up money for environmental cleanup of what it said is PCB, lead, mercury and other industrial contamination on the 1.2-acre site.
In January 2011, the roof of the southern portion of the mill collapsed, and the site has since become overgrown with the building in serious disrepair. For years there has been evidence that people have been trespassing in the building.
Last October the Board of Selectmen approved a plan to apply for a $200,000 state grant to perform an environmental assessment of the mill.
Simmons has said the mill owners have not only not proceeded with plans to redevelop the site, but have not paid taxes on the property for years and do not return calls from the town, effectively abandoning the site. The town was unable to sell the property at a tax sale, as there were no bidders.
At a September forum, Pawcatuck residents told town officials they want the town to secure the site and take actions to help clean up and redevelop the property.
“We prepared a report last year and then updated it earlier this year to deal with the issue of what will the town do if the building ends up abandoned,” Simmons said. “We have anticipated that this might happen — not that the building would collapse, but that the town might have to take it over.
“I think the collapse of the building has only accelerated that.”
Push past Republican opposition and adopt toll plan
The Day Editorial Board
Democrats in the state legislature need to remember a couple of things.
First, in 2020 Republicans will attack them on the issue of tolls whether or not the Democratic majority sanctions imposition of tolls on state highways this session.
Secondly, Democrats will never enjoy greater political cover to do what needs to be done — setting up a tolling system so that the state can start tapping out-of-state drivers to help fix its highways — than they do right now.
State Republicans have made the calculation that tolling is the wedge issue they can use to try to rebuild the party after facing steep losses in the 2018 state campaign. Politically, it makes sense. If Democrats use the strong majorities they hold in the Senate and House to authorize tolls, Republicans can run in 2020 on a platform to block them. Construction of gantries to electronically assess tolls would have to await negotiations with the Federal Highway Administration about the details.
Democratic lawmakers in Fairfield County are feeling particularly vulnerable. Anti-toll sentiment is strongest there, where local congestion encourages drivers to jump on Interstate 95 for even local business. Democrats could afford to lose three votes in the 36-member Senate, 15 votes in the 151-member House, and still get a tolling bill passed.
As noted earlier, however, expect Republicans to use the toll issue as a political bludgeon regardless of what happens. Even if a toll plan did not pass, Republicans will take credit for blocking it and will warn voters not to give Democrats another shot.
On the policy side, the Republican alternative for paying to repair and upgrade the state’s highway infrastructure is deeply flawed. Republicans would use general obligation bonds, sending the state deeper into debt. And unlike tolls, it would place the burden almost entirely on Connecticut residents, rather than also tapping those driving through our state on its highways.
Gov. Ned Lamont has the better plan of using toll money, along with the existing gas tax, to pay for transportation needs while otherwise placing the state on a debt diet.
As now envisioned, 53 electronic tolling gantries would be spaced six miles apart on Interstates 84, 91 and 95 and the Merritt Parkway. I-395 would not be tolled. Recent estimates from the state Department of Transportation show a one-way trip from Old Lyme to New London, or from Stonington to New London, costing about 60 cents during rush hour, 50 cents at off-peak times, a small burden for raising the revenues necessary to repair and improve the state’s transportation system. When fully operational, the Lamont administration expects a toll system to generate $800 million annually
Democrats also have to ask themselves, “If not now, when?” In 2018, many Democrats ran on platforms supporting tolls and their party won, convincingly. While it is true Lamont made a political calculation in adopting his trucks-only position on tolls during the campaign — only to flip to full tolling after the election — it is also true that the only gubernatorial candidate flatly against tolling was Republican Bob Stefanowski, and he lost.
Connecticut Democrats did well last November in no small measure because opposition to the presidency of Donald Trump drove Democratic voter turnout. That dynamic will only increase in 2020 when Trump is expected to be on the ballot. That will play a larger factor than the toll debate.
As pointed out in this space before, providing quality transportation is critically important to the state’s future economic prospects. Choked highways, a lack of reliable mass transportation options between its larger cities and the failure to realize the full potential of its major ports continue to put Connecticut at a great economic disadvantage.
A modern tolling system will create a reliable and fair revenue source to repair and improve that transportation system, tapping out-of-state drivers without driving Connecticut deeper into debt.
Republicans have made their political calculations, leaving it to Democrats to show the political courage to do what is in the best long-term interest of our state.
The Day editorial board meets regularly with political, business and community leaders and convenes weekly to formulate editorial viewpoints. It is composed of President and Publisher Tim Dwyer, Editorial Page Editor Paul Choiniere, Managing Editor Tim Cotter, Staff Writer Julia Bergman and retired deputy managing editor Lisa McGinley. However, only the publisher and editorial page editor are responsible for developing the editorial opinions. The board operates independently from the Day newsroom.
Millstone workers, state & local officials tout 10-year deal
Benjamin Kail
Waterford — Dan Brown, a supervisor in training at Millstone Power Station, relocated his family to Connecticut after plant owner Dominion Energy shuttered another nuclear facility, the Kewaunee Power Station in Carlton, Wis., in 2013.
With Millstone facing some of the same economics that squeezed Kewaunee — mainly competition from historically cheap natural gas — Brown worried the same fate awaited the Waterford plant and its 1,500 workers.
"I've seen firsthand the devastation that a plant closure can have on a region — to the individuals, to families and to the community," Brown on Monday told a relieved, upbeat crowd of 100-plus Millstone employees, Dominion executives, and state and local leaders who last month helped craft a deal, with help from Gov. Ned Lamont, to keep the plant open at least another decade.
Under a large tent in front of the plant, Brown shook hands with Lamont, State Sen. Paul Formica, R-East Lyme, and Kevin Hennessy, Dominion's state policy director in New England, after thanking the governor and his team for hammering out a deal with Eversource and United Illuminating just weeks after Dominion executives said premature closure of Millstone remained possible.
"We all know nuclear plants have been challenged ... forcing many states into economic and energy supply chaos. We were determined to avoid that scenario," Formica said, explaining that the state and New England could not rely solely on natural gas for its baseload power.
Monday's celebration event — which fell on Lamont's 100th day in office — came a few years after a bipartisan group of lawmakers pushed to allow Millstone to compete with higher-priced wind, solar and hydropower in the state's zero-carbon auction. The state's pick of a Millstone proposal in the zero-carbon auction let Dominion sell some of its power to utilities at higher rates than it could earn in the wholesale electricity market. But unlike moves made by lawmakers in other states with nuclear plants, Connecticut's path to keep Millstone open involved no direct subsidies.
"There's not too much bipartisanship going on in the nation's capital. But fortunately, that is not the situation in Connecticut," said Dominion President and CEO Thomas Farrell.
"Connecticut's method was creative, fair and highly responsible to everybody involved," he said.
Farrell added in an interview that Dominion would eventually seek relicensing of Millstone's two operating units. Unit 2's operating license with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission expires in 2035, while Unit 3's expires in 2045. Unit 1 ceased operations in 1998.
State Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Katie Dykes noted the 10-year contract reached between the state, Dominion and utilities was a "Millstone milestone," but she added it was not quite a done deal yet. The Public Utilities Regulatory Authority must complete a review of the contract by October.
Many speakers noted that Millstone's continued operation maintains several benefits to the region, state and all of New England — jobs and economic activity from support vendors; nearly carbon-free power; and a reliable electricity grid.
Dykes said Millstone's substantial power was critical in helping the state combat climate change and to keep the lights on in the winter.
"We know that during the winter time when we have prolonged periods of winter weather, a lot of the gas-fired plants on our grid are not able to get fuel and run," Dykes said. "It's a facility uniquely like Millstone that's so important to maintain the electricity we need for our state and thriving economy."
Lamont, Formica and Dykes also framed the deal to keep Millstone open as a bridge to the region's expansion of renewable energy, particularly offshore wind and solar power.
"What Texas is to oil, what West Virginia is to coal, I'd like to see this part of the state ... be the hub of green power for the next generation going forward," said Lamont. "It starts right here at Millstone. I'm talking to the nuclear scientists, they say there's still a lot of legs to this place."
Laura Wagnecz, a nuclear engineer who's worked at Millstone for 25 years, said in an interview that news of last month's deal gave her "such a good feeling, especially with the plant running so well."
Wagnecz and dozens of other Millstone employees had gathered for the event wearing blue jackets with insignias that signified a top rating in 2018 from the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, a nonprofit that sets industry standards and evaluates nuclear plant safety and reliability.
Debbie MacDonald, a manager of engineers at Millstone, said in an interview that the plant has been looking to hire people, but the lack of clarity over whether the plant would stay open long-term has presented challenges over the last several months.
"This assurance helps us bring talent into the area," she said.
Farrell said that he hoped Lamont and Dykes would continue work with New England governors and the regional grid operator, ISO New England, to "fix the market structure in New England so we don't need this structure in Connecticut anymore. I think that would be the best option for everybody."
Last month at Lamont's suggestion, New England governors agreed to evaluating "market-based mechanisms that value the contribution that existing nuclear generation resources make to regional energy security and winter reliability."
How such "market-based mechanisms" will play out between states, Millstone, Seabrook Station Nuclear Plant in Seabrook, N.H., and the power grid remains to be seen, but Dykes said the state was open to all options.
Waterford First Selectman Dan Steward said the town was "just pleased to have this resolved and to keep Millstone as part of the community."
"The state doesn't have a ready, reliable backup," he added.