Jim Cameron
Good business leaders care about their customers. They want to keep them happy and actively seek feedback. Such is not the case at the state Department of Transportation.
The DOT’s new commissioner, Joseph Giulietti, has missed several important opportunities to interface with riders in his first 100 days in office. Not that he hasn’t been working. He just hasn’t been meeting with customers.handling himself quite well answering questions and defusing angry riders.
After leaving the railroad, he became a consultant last year to T Y Lin’s study of how to improve running times on the railroad to achieve the “30-30-30” dream espoused by the Fairfield Business Council’s Joe McGee. That $400,000 study, using Giulietti’s input, said it could be done.
But if it was going to be so easy to cut running time from Stamford to Grand Central (now 51 minutes at best) to just a half-hour, you’d think he’d have done so as president of the railroad. But he didn’t.
Instead, according to the new timetable, running times were increased by as much as 16 minutes, angering and confusing commuters. But the commissioner has been silent.He did accept an invitation to attend the April 17 meeting of the official Connecticut Commuter Rail Council, but then canceled on short notice. Council Chairman Jim Gildea says a staffer promised to reschedule, but has not yet called.
A few days later, the new timetable was released and included a nasty surprise for Waterbury branch riders. Their usual 4:42 p.m. train from GCT arriving in Bridgeport at 5:58 p.m. used to connect to their Waterbury train. But under the new timetable, the Waterbury shuttle leaves four minutes before the New York train arrives. The next train is three hours later.
Waterbury riders would make the 6:03 p.m. Bridgeport connection if they left GCT at 4:11 p.m. Try explaining that to your boss.
How could such a scheduling mistake be made? Where was Giulietti?
When the Commuter Council asked for answers, they got excuses. The mistake was corrected when U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., wrote a letter to Metro-North.
Giulietti finally made a public appearance on April 26 when he and Metro-North President Catherine Rinaldi took a ride with Hearst Connecticut Media. Jacqueline Smith, a Hearst columnist and editorial page editor, challenged them in December to ride the Danbury branch to see the conditions.
Giulietti and Rinaldi accepted the invitation and boarded the post rush-hour 9:05 a.m. train from Danbury. They first had a meet-and-greet at the train station with Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, who obviously knew they were coming. At Bethel, First Selectman Matt Knickerbocker came aboard to lobby for transit-oriented development.
Smith interviewed Giulietti and Rinaldi all the way to South Norwalk. But when I asked Smith what happened when the railroaders talked with commuters, she said they didn’t. They were too busy being interviewed and lobbied, I guess.That’s sad.
When they finally had a chance to ride the rails and talk to their customers, Giulietti and Rinaldi turned fact-finding into a PR photo op.
Giulietti’s predecessor as commissioner, Jim Redeker, was a constant presence in public (and to his employees). He attended numerous Commuter Council, business group and community meetings.
But where’s Joe?
Highpointe plan granted one-year extension in Norwalk
Kelly Kultys
NORWALK — After months of back and forth, the Zoning Commission granted an one-year extension for the approvals for the Highpointe development, planned for the block of Main Street, North Avenue and High Street.
Developer Paxton Kinol, of Belpointe Capital, had received approval in February 2016 to build 278 apartments in six-story buildings, called Highpointe West and Highpointe East, with parking, street-level retail, interior courtyards and a swimming pool. About 10 percent of the units would be priced as affordable under the city’s Workforce Housing Regulation.
The development has been called the “gateway to the city’s business district” and the northern start of the area designated in the Wall Street-West Avenue redevelopment plan.
But since its approval, construction has yet to get under way as contract negotiations over the properties have stalled, according to the attorneys. There have also been zoning violations on the site, city officials said, which is why the Zoning Commission voted to grant only an one-month extension, in an effort to get the violations cleared up and questions answered.
“The reason why you’re here is because we haven’t some clarity and I believe in addition to that the property may have had some issues,” Zoning Commission Chair Nathan Sumpter said on Thursday. “We’re not here to waste your time but we also, we don’t want to feel that you’re thinking we’re just jerking your chain that’s not what we’re doing.”
Kinol accused the commission of treating him differently than other developers, by only grant one month extensions.
“What we do is not easy,” he said. “Raising $100 million to invest in your city is not easy and we’re asking for extension. We think you normally grant annual extensions to everybody else and we would like an annual extension instead of a one-month extension.”
Steve Kleppin, the city’s director of Planning and Zoning said that Kinol and his partners on the application are lucky they didn’t get outright denied on the site.
“I don’t like the last inference you just made,” he said. “First of all, they probably should have denied the application several times because if there’s a violation on the property, they shouldn’t be approving things.”
One of the complicating factors for the project is that Kinol’s company owns most of the properties included in the plan, but a few are still owned by Nick and Gino Vona, who were represented at the meeting by Attorney Tom Vetter, of Norwalk.
Pot, tolls, gambling, taxes: Here’s where they stand
“My clients are still very interested in proceeding with this,” Vetter said. “Both sides have been talking but it’s not the easiest thing to do on a project like this.”
Kleppin said that both parties are lucky the approvals haven’t been pulled yet.
“I think they granted you and the Vonas leeway several times, so you should be lucky that you got that when it was a violation three different times because there were contractor yards that were illegal, there were structures built without permits — I think that’s pretty cut and dry,” Kleppin said.
One of the other issues the commission raised was that Vetter’s clients have asked to turn one of the properties under the plan from a one-family home into a two-family home in the interim.
“It doesn’t make much sense to me that you want would want to convert it to two family because once you convert it, now there’s income coming in,” Sumpter said. “That doesn’t sound like the kind of situation where that property is going to be demolished.”
Vetter said his clients were looking into doing that to help keep the property in shape while negotiations continued.
“That this one piece, a single family house right now is in some disrepair, if any work is going to be done to shore it up, we figured might as well get the framework inside so that could potentially be a two-family if this doesn’t work,” he said.
Still, Vetter, Kinol, and Kinol’s attorney Jacqueline Kaufman all emphasized they wanted to get a deal done.
“I’m very certain about where we’re headed, where my client is headed,” Kaufman said. “I believe that we share the same vision.”
Kinol said that he hoped to have a contract in place by the end of the calendar year to start moving on this project.
“All we’re doing is losing money,” he said. “Coming to these things, paying attorneys, is just losing us money. We want to start construction.”
The one-year extension allows the approvals for the site to continue for that year. If work has not yet started at the site, Kinol would have to come back for another extension. He said that he hoped this would be the last request for this site.
Southington replacing water mains in Plantsville section
SOUTHINGTON — Water main replacement work will make it more difficult to drive through downtown Plantsville for about three months starting Monday.
The $1.2 million water department project will be followed by a town effort to repave and improve the roadways around the South Main, West Main and Main streets intersection.
Bill Casarella, the department’s supervisor, said since the town is repaving the roads it’s a good time to replace water mains that date from the late 1800s.
Crews will begin cutting the trench in the road on Monday around 845 S. Main St. Casarella said the department decided to start there since school buses need to use the intersection until the end of the academic year. He didn’t expect crews to start on the intersection until mid-June.
Work will also take place from the Summer Street–West Main Street intersection to just east of the West Main-Main-South Main streets intersection. Homes in the area should consider replacing their water service line.Most of them are old, some of them are as old as the main,” Casarella said. “It’s a very good time.”
Work on the intersection will take place at night. Other road work will take place during the day from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Casarella said there’ll be at least one lane open while construction is underway.
Dawn Miceli, Southington Chamber of Commerce board chairwoman and Town Council vice chairwoman, said while the construction will be a disturbance, it provides needed infrastructure to the area and a vital facelift.
“Yes, there’s going to be some upheaval down there,” she said. “The village of Plantsville has needed attention for many years. Some business owners felt they were the ugly stepchild and never got the necessary improvements and maintenance. Over the next two years, they’ll be getting all that and more.”
The town’s Plantsville project includes road design changes to eliminate on-street parking, granite curbs and brick walkways.
Miceli said it’d be important to keep businesses informed about the work. Casarella said despite the congestion of the intersection during construction, nearby businesses will remain open.
Amazon on pace to open North Haven facility this summer
Mary Ellen Godin
NORTH HAVEN — The 1.2 million-square-foot Amazon plant on Route 5 will be equipped to ship over 1 million items per day during the peak holiday shopping season.
Richard Dyce, director of operations at the new plant, told about 180 area business leaders late last month that the Amazon robotics fulfillment center set to open in August is more technologically advanced than any currently in operation throughout the company’s massive network.
Amazon eyed the former Pratt & Whitney site in North Haven, less than a mile from the Wallingford line, for its proximity to a major highway and ability to serve the New York City and Boston markets. The plant will have almost 2,000 employees.
“This version of the Amazon building is far beyond any other building at this time,” Dyce said during the town Economic Development Commission’s spring breakfast. “We’ll be able to support a larger volume. We will continue to grow in the state of Connecticut.”
Amazon also has a sortation center in Wallingford, a fulfillment center in Windsor, a delivery station in Bristol, and a hub at Bradley International Airport.
“Amazon has invested more than $500 million into the state,” Dyce said. “We have contributed $200 million to the state’s economy.”
The Economic Development Commission invited Dyce to be the guest speaker at its semi-annual breakfast April 25 to introduce Amazon to the business community. It was among its most heavily attended breakfasts, commission members said.
Dyce has a background in electrical engineering and moved to the area to get a master’s degree in business administration from Yale University. He worked in various roles for Pratt & Whitney, and was a quality engineer for Proctor & Gamble before Amazon reached out.
“It was an opportunity to do something with high growth,” he said.
Dyce trained at Amazon’s New Jersey operation in 2016, and went to the Windsor plant prior to its opening in 2017 to prepare for the North Haven plant’s opening.
“We led that building through two peak seasons. It was the number one building in productivity among like-sized buildings,” he said about Windsor.
Amazon is in the final months of construction and is working closely with job training and placement specialists to have 1,800 full-time workers in place when the trucks start rolling. Amazon starts its pay rate at $15 per hour for tier one workers.
“Hundreds of people are applying for jobs and attending workshop sessions” said First Selectman Michael Freda.
The jobs range from entry-level warehouse workers who pick, package and send products, to second and third-tier process assistants, and operations managers in a variety of different roles.
The fulfillment center will also have human resource and information technicians, full-time emergency medical technicians available 24 hours a day and physical therapists to offer injury prevention training.
”There are a variety of different roles,” Dyce said. “It will run the spectrum.”
To date, more than 300 people attended Amazon hiring events the Workforce Alliance hosted at the New Haven and Meriden American Job Centers. A total of 150 were hired or extended job offers, said Workforce Alliance spokeswoman Ann Harrison.
“As the North Haven facility prepares to open, the Workforce Alliance is setting dates for hiring events at the American Job Centers, but also at other locations in surrounding towns,” Harrison said in a statement. “As soon as the new job descriptions are available, we will be finalizing dates for events in North Haven, New Haven, Meriden and possibly Wallingford.”
During the EDC event, Dyce also talked about Amazon’s plans for community engagement.
“Volunteerism is something we’ll really be focused on inside the building,” he said. “I am the point of contact for community engagement ... I look forward to partnering with a lot of you...”
Work to connect the Valley Service Road to the facility has been delayed. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is overseeing the work through a wetland area and won’t have it completed by the August opening, said Richard Lopresto, chairman of the Economic Development Commission.
The service road was to provide delivery trucks and Amazon employees an entrance to the facility without clogging Route 5. Lopresto said it probably won’t be completed for a year.
Pot, tolls, gambling, taxes: Here’s where they stand
Ken Dixon, Kaitlyn Krasselt and Emilie Munson
Tolls, pot, gambling, debt and taxes.
They are among the most contentious issues in what has been an intriguing first legislative session with Ned Lamont as governor.
But with five weeks left in the session, Democratic lawmakers have yet to vote on the top policy changes that they and Lamont have proposed.
Bills on these topics have passed legislative committees and now await votes by the full House and Senate. But even with Democrats holding majorities in the House and Senate and the governor’s office, many bills face obstacles to passage. Here’s where we stand on major legislative issues:
Tolls
Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz expects a vote on tolls this month, but the exact details of a proposal remain under closed-door negotiations. The plan most likely to succeed calls for more than 50 overhead electronic gantries. The Finance Committee recently approved a study commission on the issue. But with opponents barking throughout the state, and revenue from tolls years away, unless the state agrees to accept payments in exchange for the construction and operation contracts, the legislation isn’t one of the most-attractive proposals facing lawmakers.
Debt diet
State borrowing to pay for school construction, UConn investments and community projects has driven a wedge between Lamont and Democrats in the legislature. In February, Lamont announced plans to put Connecticut on a “debt diet,” cutting borrowing by $600 million — or about a third — annually through the State Bond Commission, which he controls. The move was applauded by Republicans, but concerned Democrats in the legislature decided not to implement Lamont’s debt diet in their state spending plan. On top of that, in a rare bipartisan move Wednesday, the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee voted to wrest power over the state’s credit card away from Lamont and give control of the Bond Commission to legislators. Democrats and the governor will now have to negotiate a bonding plan they can agree on.Raising minimum wage
As recently as this week, there were references to a $15 minimum wage for nonprofit social services providers in a budget bill that passed in the appropriations committee. Advocates take that as a good sign that a fair wage bill will pass this session, it’s just a matter of negotiations over how long the roll out will be. Lamont has proposed taking 4 years to get to $15 from the current $10.10, while more progressive Democrats have suggested it could be done by 2023. Still others think it should take longer. Another point of contention? Lamont proposed tying future minimum wage changes to the federal employment cost index, and some legislators definitely aren’t sold on that idea. So, it’s safe to say there’s plenty of negotiating left on the table on this one.
Paid family and medical leave
While most Democrats in the legislature favor paid family medical leave — making it likely to pass — there are still a lot of details left to hammer out. The general idea is to implement a 0.5 percent payroll tax on all employees in the state in order to create a paid Family Medical Leave Trust Fund, which would pay them during their approved leave.Of course, Republicans oppose the idea as a payroll tax, saying it’s too burdensome on employees and businesses. Among issues of debate among Democrats are the definition of family and how long paid leave should be granted. The proposed legislation is for up to 12 weeks, but some are concerned about the impact that could have on small businesses with few employees.
And while the governor has made it clear he favors shopping out the contract for managing the program to a private company, legislators and state workers prefer the program be managed by the state Department of Labor.
Cannabis use for adults
While Connecticut’s marijuana users have been driving up Interstate-91 to Northampton, sending their discretionary dollars to Massachusetts, Connecticut lawmakers seem stuck on a complicated package of reforms. Some lawmakers, even self-styled progressives, and nearly all Republicans, do not support legalization. The Connecticut bill includes expunging criminal records of those arrested for small amounts of marijuana; investing in treatment organizations; finding ways to test for marijuana intoxication in drivers; and getting inner-city communities that have been impacted over the decades by the war on drugs involved in a new retail-cannabis market.
While the multi-tiered legislation remains alive, it would likely require a major proponent to step forward during the final weeks of the legislature to keep the legislation from failing.
Sales taxes
Gov. Ned Lamont originally proposed expanding the sales-tax base by adding services that have enjoyed exemptions, including haircuts and accounting and lawyers’ services.
Of course, the latter plan, in a legislature dominated by lawyers, didn’t go over very well. Likewise, every state lawmakers has accountants — and haircutters — among their constituents. So those proposals were ignored in the bill approved Wednesday by the General Assembly’s Finance, Revenue & Bonding Committee.
Bonnie Stewart, executive director of the 6,000-member Connecticut Society of Certified Public Accountants, praised the committee action.
“The notion of taxing tax preparation services was fundamentally flawed, as it posed what Connecticut taxpayers viewed as a penalty for filing one’s tax return in a complete, accurate, and timely manner by engaging professional assistance — in effect, having to pay a tax on paying their taxes,” Stewart said. “The committee made the correct decision.”
Gambling
When the U.S. Supreme Court lifted prohibitions on sports betting in May, many states rushed to legalize the practice and seize a cut of the multi-billion market. For Connecticut, sports betting is tied up with a two-decades old gambling compact with the state’s Indian tribes, who run the state’s only casinos. Several pieces of legislation, including sports betting, adding a commercial casino in Bridgeport and allowing online Lottery games, will all hinge on Lamont’s negotiations with the tribes. Lamont has been close-lipped about those discussions to date. Rep. Joe Verrengia, D-West Hartford, who chairs the Public Safety and Security Committee, added Wednesday that lawmakers have agreed that sports betting and commercial casino legislation must advance together — an agreement that could handicap both.
Health care public option
In step with Democrats across the nation, legislators have advanced legislation Thursday to create a public option called “ConnectHealth,” offering low-cost coverage to people who do not have employer sponsored health insurance. The proposal would also allow small businesses and nonprofits to get coverage through the state health plan. There’s bipartisan support for lowering health care and prescription drug costs. But some lawmakers are concerned about the effect of a public option plan on private insurers, an influential industry in the state, and whether the legislature would get to vote on the final plan.
Judge allows lawsuit challenging Waterbury commercial plaza to move forward
ANDREW LARSON
WATERBURY — A Superior Court judge has denied an effort to quash a lawsuit against the city filed by the wife of former Probate Judge Thomas P. Brunnock.
In November, Corporation Counsel Linda T. Wihbey filed a motion to dismiss Catherine Brunnock’s suit, which alleges the Zoning Commission erred in its approval of plans for a 230,000-square-foot commercial plaza.
Wihbey claimed the plaintiff lacked standing to sue because she signed an agreement in 1994 to not oppose future plans on the property. In exchange for dropping her opposition, the agreement awarded Catherine Brunnock $100,000 and 4.3 acres of land.
Judge Barbara Brazzel-Massaro, in her ruling denying Wihbey’s motion to dismiss, determined the 1994 agreement between Catherine Brunnock and the developers at the time has no bearing on the current case.
In a memorandum of decision, Brazzel-Massaro noted there is no stipulated judgment in the court file and no recording of the agreement.
Wihbey said she will continue to defend the Zoning Commission’s decision on its merits.
In 2015, a developer known as 84 Vistas purchased the 40-acre property sandwiched between Reidville Drive, Saddle Rock Road and Split Rock Drive, where the Brunnocks live.
84 Vistas, which is not affiliated with the previous developers, obtained a zone change approval from the Zoning Commission in December 2016 despite opposition from East Mountain neighbors. The commission voted to rezone the property, changing it from single-family residential to a commercial arterial designation.
A principal of 84 Vistas said Friday he expects the city to prevail in the suit, saying he believes the zoning application and decision were proper.
“We continue to move forward with this project, and refuse to give any consideration, monetary or otherwise, to anyone with self-serving interests,” said Joe Pisani, owner of Pisani Steel Fabrication and a member of the development team.