Daniela Altimari
The state’s largest labor organization has officially endorsed Gov. Ned Lamont’s plan to install electronic tolls on Connecticut’s highways.
The Connecticut AFL-CIO joins other labor groups in backing tolls as a way to fund transportation upgrades and repairs.
“Anyone driving on Connecticut’s roads can see that our transportation system is in dire need of repair,” said Sal Luciano, president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO. “A modern transportation system is vital to our state’s economic growth and prosperity. In order to repair and build out our aging transportation system, a reliable and long term funding source needs to be secured. Electronic tolling, estimated to raise $800 million dollars per year, is the most sensible way to fund these critically needed investments.” In addition to fixing the roads, those projects would stimulate the state’s economy and create jobs, labor leaders said." The Building Trades represent thousands of skilled construction workers across Connecticut who are trained and certified to meet our state’s workforce demands,” said David Roche, president of the Connecticut State Building and Construction Trades Council. “We are ready to go to work to bring our state’s infrastructure into the 21st century and beyond.”
Lamont is all in on tolls
Chris Powell Paying a surprise visit to the Connecticut House Democratic caucus with news reporters in tow at the state Capitol last week, Gov. Ned Lamont made some observers uneasy by promising to raise campaign money for caucus members who will cast difficult votes on the highway tolls he has proposed.
“We’re going to raise money for this caucus,” Lamont said. “I’m going to have the business guys coming in. Labor’s going to be standing up for you, and I’m going to be standing up for you.”
While campaign money in exchange for legislative votes might sound like bribery, there really was nothing new in what Lamont said. It was jarring only because such offers seldom are made publicly and candidly by high officials.
But the great profit that stands to be made from tolls and the transportation projects they are supposed to underwrite is clear, since construction companies and their labor unions are spending heavily on an advertising campaign supporting tolls.
Indeed, the whole government class will pitch in, since tolls are not entirely for transportation. They are also for establishing new revenue streams large enough to eliminate the need to economize elsewhere in state government.
Lamont keeps saying opponents of tolls should specify their alternatives for financing transportation, but he already has rejected all of them, starting with the Republican legislative minority’s proposal to use the usual bonding and to stop diverting gasoline-tax revenues to the General Fund.
Lamont has rejected all other alternatives to tolls by refusing to economize anywhere in his budget.
The budget increases state-government-employee compensation, continues to give state-employee pensions priority over all public needs, and increases “aid to local education,” the euphemism for pay raises for municipal teachers, regardless of student-test-score trends.
Welfare and urban spending are to continue as usual, though city demographics and living conditions keep declining.
What exactly did Lamont mean by saying he would recruit “business guys” to raise campaign money for Demo-cratic legislators? Did he mean only the construction-company operators, or the business executives who lately have been clamoring for state government to raise taxes on themselves and other wealthy people?
Since the state income tax was enacted in 1991, Connecticut’s “business guys,” led by the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, have failed to oppose state government’s tax hunger. As a result, Connecticut is in a long economic decline.
In any case, the “business guys” don’t need higher tax rates if they want to enrich state government. They can mail donations to the state treasurer as easily as they can mail donations to Democratic state legislative campaigns.
But since the government class is united in favor of what would be in effect another massive tax increase, contributions from the “business guys” probably won’t be necessary to unify Democratic legislators. For as H.L. Mencken wrote a century ago, “The typical lawmaker is a man devoid of principle – a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him, he would be cheerfully in favor of polygamy, astrology, or cannibalism.”
Or tolls.
Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer in Manchester.
Bozrah residents OK gas line, sewer asset deals
BOZRAH - Voters approved several aspects of the sale of water and sewer assets between the town and an assisted living partnership at a special town meeting Wednesday that will bring municipal utilities to Route 82 and contribute a positive cash flow to town coffers.
In a 37-11 vote, residents approved the $95,000 purchase by the town of a natural gas line between Norwich Public Utilities’ connections and the Bozrah Senior Living LLC property at Route 82 and Noble Hill Road, and also approved a $1.7 million appropriation for the sale of water and sewer assets to the town from Bozrah Senior Living, Selectman William Ballinger said.
Bozrah Senior Living, an arm of the Southampton, Mass.-based Optimus Senior Living LLC, is constructing a 100,000-square-foot, $17 million assisted living facility in town.
Voters approved the purchase of water and sewer rights from the company in October 2017 over a five-year period, but officials proposed buying them outright through bonding with 10-year financing at a lower interest rate in efforts to save about $180,000 in tax revenue.
The arrangement will bring a positive cash flow to the town each year, Ballinger explained, as the Bozrah Senior Living’s tax liability will be approximately $360,000 per year once its facility is completed, which will more than cover the annual cost of bonding the project.
“It’s more financially advantageous to the town to do it with the bonding,” he said.
The company also agreed to keep the facility on the tax rolls for at least five years, meaning they cannot switch to nonprofit status during that time frame.
Voters also approved the installation of 700 feet of additional water line to connect the NPU feed from Montville to the senior living facility, at a cost of $200,000, and agreed to an ordinance that would designate the Board of Selectmen as the town’s Water Pollution Control Authority, 42-6.
Town officials have wanted to bring public water and sewer assets to Route 82 for several years in the hopes that it would spur economic development, they’ve said. The lack of town water and sewer hookups has been a hindrance to businesses in recent years, and has even prevented some businesses from opening in town.
With Wednesday’s approvals, “I think we’ve laid the foundation for what we believe is a good future for the town,” First Selectman Glenn Pianka said. “It’s a major step for the town to create an environment for businesses to come.”
Well-water contamination is another issue that will be addressed by the new public water utilities, officials said, which will be able to be accessed by businesses and residents. While some remediation has been completed, Pianka said, levels of methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MBTE, which is found in gasoline, and other contaminants, can still be found.
“We’ve got people over there having their water monitored by the state,” Ballinger said.
The ultimate goal over the next several years, he added, is to bring water assets down to South Road, or in the vicinity of the Montville town line. Other small towns, including Franklin, Lisbon, Sprague and Preston, are also in talks to craft an intermunicipal agreement with Norwich Utilities. The agreement, which would be for a term of 40 years, outlines provisions of water, sewer and natural gas service provided by NPU to participating towns.
No recession soon for Connecticut, economist says
Luther Turmelle
BRANFORD — The chief economist for the National Association of Realtors told members of a housing trade group Thursday that despite some of the challenges Connecticut’s economy is facing, he doesn’t expect the state to fall into a recession either this year or next.
Lawrence Yun told members of the New Haven-Middlesex Association of Realtors that employment growth in Connecticut is one percent lower than it was in January 2000. Over the same period, employment at the national level grew by 13 percent, Yun said.
BRANFORD — The chief economist for the National Association of Realtors told members of a housing trade group Thursday that despite some of the challenges Connecticut’s economy is facing, he doesn’t expect the state to fall into a recession either this year or next.Lawrence Yun told members of the New Haven-Middlesex Association of Realtors that employment growth in Connecticut is one percent lower than it was in January 2000. Over the same period, employment at the national level grew by 13 percent, Yun said.drive economic growth in the state if home builders rise up to fill the void.“If we build new homes, it will support the economy,” Yun said. “If you build these homes, more people will be working. We’re not building enough single-family homes.”
Yolonda Lowe, a Realtor with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices New England Properties in Essex, said she’s seeing a good deal of sales activity with moderately priced, single-family homes. Lowe is the president of the New Haven-Middlesex Association of Realtors.
Yun’s assessment of the state’s housing market came even as the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development reported that new housing permits for 613 units were issued last month, more than twice the number of permits that were approved in April 2018. And of the new housing permits issued last month, more than 70 percent were for multi-family housing in buildings of five units or more, according to the data from DECD.There is a slow shift to a rental society in Connecticut,” Yun said. And that shift, he said, is being driven by the housing preferences of members of the millennial generation, born between 1981 and 1996.
“There is a general preference among millennials for downtown living, for walkable cities,” Yun said. “They have put off having children so that meets their needs. But once they have kids, they’re going straight out to the suburbs.”Connecticut benefits from having housing prices that, compared to more popular urban areas such as Boston, are relatively affordable, he said. If the state is able to find a consistent engine for job growth, Yun said that factor could be beneficial to the state’s economy.
Among regions of Connecticut, the New Haven area has been a job growth engine compared to other parts of the state, he said.
The New Haven area has seen 4 percent growth in employment since 2000, according to Yun. By comparison, he said the Stamford-Norwalk area saw a 3 percent employment decline, while the Hartford area had a one percent gain.Meriden wraps up Pratt Street Gateway project
Matthew Zabierek, Record-Journal staff
MERIDEN — As crews put finishing touches on the new-look Pratt Street, city officials and local businesses say they’re pleased with how the project turned out.
“I think it looks extremely nice,” said Jim Rinaldi, an employee of Prentis Printing Solutions on Pratt Street.
“We’re very happy with it,” Public Works Director Howard Weissberg said. “We essentially gauge it based on the types of comments we get and, for the most part, the comments we’ve gotten upon completion have been positive.”
Weissberg said the project, which began in December 2017, is scheduled to finish next week. The only work left to be done, he said, is some “aesthetic treatments” to the landscaped medians installed as part of the project.
While construction for the project caused headaches for travelers, Steve Chehotsky, owner of Little Rendezvous pizza shop on Pratt Street, said many of his customers feel the finished product turned out OK.
“The same consensus most people have is that it’s nice now that it’s done,” Chehotsky said. “It does look better than when we had manholes sticking up and an obstacle course out there.”
The city pursued the project, Weissberg said, primarily to improve traffic safety and cut down on motor vehicle accidents along Pratt Street by reducing the number of travel lanes and adding turning lanes.
“It’s a traffic safety, access management project first, it's a paving project second, and it's a beautification project third,” Weissberg said.
The project transformed Pratt Street from a four-lane road with no turning lanes into a boulevard-style roadway with one lane in each direction separated by turning lanes and landscaped medians in between.
Speed reduction
Having only one “through” lane in each direction has significantly cut down on average vehicle speed, according to Weissberg.
“The speed reduction is amazing. It no longer feels like a road where you’re taking your life into your hands crossing or driving on,” he said. “Human nature is just to drive faster than the guy in front of you...here there’s no ability to race because it’s a single file.”
Vehicle speed has dropped despite the road’s speed limit of 25 mph remaining the same.
“You want to have the roads designed so that you almost don’t even need to know what the speed limit is,” Weissberg said. “...What was happening was we had an airport landing strip as our road and people drove it as such.”
Pedestrian safety
The project improves pedestrian safety by widening parking lanes and creating more distance between oncoming traffic and people getting out of their cars. The new medians also give pedestrians crossing a “safe space” to stand when they cross the street away from a crosswalk, Weissberg said.
The city needed to install medians along Pratt Street for the project to fill in the gaps between the center turning lanes. The city, in part, chose landscaped medians over painted and other types of medians because they’re more environmentally friendly and a “much more attractive solution,” Weissberg said.
“It was a traffic safety project first and foremost. What you always want to do is separate your turning movements from your through movements, so that results in the turning lanes. Then the question is, ‘How do you handle what’s left.’ So you can either go with a flush median or a painted median or you can go with a raised median. And then once you go with a raised median, you start asking what type of material do you want to put in?”
Mulch and vegetation were planted inside each median. A “rubberized material with granite in it” encapsulates the mulch in each to keep the mulch from spilling out. The rubberized material is pervious, allowing it to absorb water from melted snow.
“The goal is to make it attractive but keep it low maintenance as well,” Weissberg said.
Gateway to downtown
With the improvements, city officials want to see Pratt Street serve as a “gateway” greeting motorists who exit off Interstate 691 and drive downtown.
Many members of the public, though, haven’t been as optimistic.
“Now that it’s done, the thing I’ve heard the most is ‘waste of money,’” Chehotsky said about customers’ reaction. “They know it’s (grant funded) but you still have to maintain it. They feel that the middle is just going to end up being overgrown bushes and nip bottles. Most people just have a really sour view of Meriden as a whole.”
The work on Pratt Street cost $3.2 million, all of which is being covered by state funds allocated for the project.
“I think most people are not really in touch with how things work because they figure, ‘Why waste (the money) on this when we could have used it on something else.’ But that’s not how it works. I think people are just quick to say, ‘Waste of money, could have been better used,’” Chehotsky said
New mixed-use apartment building opens in New Haven
NEW HAVEN — There’s new link in the Hill-to-Downtown neighborhood.
The opening of “Parkside at City Crossing” was celebrated Thursday with a look at the new four-story mixed-use building that is billed as “the first completed project of the city’s Hill-to-Downtown Community Plan.”On hand for the ribbon cutting at 22 Gold St. were Mayor Toni N. Harp; Randy Salvatore, president and CEO of RMS Companies, the developer of the property; David Lehman, commissioner of the state Department of Economic and Community Development; Nathan Karnes, development manager for the Department of Housing; New Haven Alders Delores Colon, D-6, and David Reyes, D-5; and Serena Neal-Sanjurjo, executive director city Livable City Initiative, according to a release.
The project was designed by New Haven-based Kenneth Boroson Architects, and includes 110 apartments. “The building has a mix of one-, two-, and three- bedroom apartments, tenant amenity rooms and a first-floor retail space at the corner of Gold Street and Washington Avenue,” the release said.
“This project has quickly transformed a street-level parking lot into a vibrant, mixed-use neighborhood,” Harp said, in the release. “It brings critical improvements to a key area of the city and advances a shared vision for a vibrant future throughout the Hill to Downtown corridor.The state Department of Housing provided $5 million in “Just in Time” funding for the project, allowing 30 percent of the units to be offered as affordable housing, the release said.