Congressman
Larson has invited us to join him at a press conference on his bill the America Wins Act on Monday next week.
Date:
Monday – August 12, 2019Time: 11am (Please arrive early)
Location: Great River Park
301 E River Dr, East Hartford, CT
Route 1 bridge in Stamford to close weekend of Aug. 16
Ignacio Laguarda
STAMFORD — The new Route 1 bridge over Interstate 95 is already in place, but that doesn’t mean traffic detours are over quite yet.
The bridge will be closed the weekend of Aug. 16-18 as work nears completion. On that Friday, the bridge will be closed to traffic from Courtland Avenue to Seaside Avenue starting at 6 p.m. and is not expected to be reopened until 6 p.m. Sunday.
The work will involve pouring concrete and tightening the connection of the bridge to the road on each side of the structure.
Traffic will be detoured from Route 1 to Courtland Avenue and Hamilton Avenue. Drivers on I-95 heading south will not be able to exit the highway at Exit 9 during the work.
The Exit 9 northbound on- and off-ramps will remain open, as will the southbound on-ramp to the interstate.All travel lanes on the highway will remain open and be unaffected by the construction.
Earlier this summer, the old 1958 bridge was replaced over two weekends using a construction method known as accelerated bridge construction. The $15 million project was completed early on both weekends.
Many expected traffic gridlock around the area during the bridge replacement phase, but residents and police said congestion was manageable.
O&G Industries, a business based out of Torrington, completed the project.
Connecticut Port Authority to unveil details of $93 million State Pier deal
Julia Bergman
New London — The Connecticut Port Authority plans to unveil the details of the $93 million harbor redevelopment plan for State Pier, which it has spent months negotiating in private, at a public meeting next month.
Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development David Kooris, who made the announcement Wednesday at a meeting of the port authority's board in New London, said an exact date has yet to be confirmed but that the forum likely will be held in mid-September.
Kooris is serving as acting chair of the board following the resignation of Bonnie Reemsnyder last month. He has pledged to increase the level of transparency by the port authority, which has been criticized for negotiating the redevelopment plan behind closed doors with no opportunity for public comment.
The port authority, State Pier operator Gateway, Danish offshore wind giant Ørsted and its partner Eversource continue to negotiate a plan to transform State Pier into an offshore wind hub. Connecticut is set to receive 300 megawatts of electricity from Ørsted-Eversource's Revolution Wind farm south of Martha's Vineyard by 2023, and the state is banking on up to 2,000 megawatts from offshore wind by 2030.
The parties involved told The Day last week that negotiations are on schedule, with attorneys likely to finalize details and sign a contract within a few months. The Day on Monday filed a Freedom of Information Act request for a memorandum of understanding executed by the parties and announced by Gov. Ned Lamont in May.
Separately on Wednesday, Lamont indicated publicly his intention to appoint New London Mayor Michael Passero to fill one of two upcoming openings on the port authority's board. The terms of board members Parker S. Wise and Nancy J. DiNardo expire on Dec. 17, and the governor, under the port authority's bylaws, gets to appoint their replacements.
Passero has argued that the mayor of New London should get a permanent seat on the board to guarantee the city has a say in what happens to State Pier, which is owned by the state and not taxable by the city.
Passero said the offer to fill one of the upcoming openings initially was made at the end of this past legislative session, and that while he was honored, he remains committed to the goal of securing a permanent seat for New London. The governor, through a statement from spokesman Max Reiss, also conveyed his support, saying he proposed changing state law during the last legislative session to give New London a permanent seat on the board. The effort failed, but Lamont said he'd try again this session.
Meanwhile, Lamont has initiated an in-depth review of the port authority and the state's other quasi-public agencies in response, in part, to recent upheaval at the agency, including the resignation of previous board chair at the governor's request, and the executive director of the port authority being placed on paid leave for reasons that remain undisclosed.
The "all encompassing" assessment by the governor's staff will look at the port authority's operational and managerial activity, board activity and action, and "aspects of any deals in the works or recently completed," Kooris said. Lamont has asked the board not to take any major action while that review is underway.
Separately, the resignation of Reemsnyder opens up a seat on the board. Under the port authority's bylaws, the House Majority Leader Rep. Matt Ritter, a Democrat, gets to appoint her replacement. Todd Murphy, a spokesman for Ritter, said he is working with the governor to identify potential candidates, but intends to wait until after the General Transportation Committee's Aug. 20 hearing on recent issues at the port authority before coming to a decision. Ritter has 30 days from the time he receives official notification of the resignation to appoint a new person to the seat.
The terms of two other board members, Grant Westerson and Terry Gilbertson, expired on June 30. It is up to the Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, a Republican, and the Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, a Democrat, to reappoint them or choose replacements.
Stonington school project to cost $3.5 million less than what was approved
Joe Wojtas
Stonington — The renovation and expansion of Deans Mill and West Vine Street schools will cost taxpayers about $3.5 million less than the $69 million in bonding approved by voters.
With $27 million in state funding, the project will end up costing taxpayers about $38.5 million.
K-12 School Building Committee Rob Marseglia announced the expected savings during Wednesday night’s Board of Finance meeting.
He told the board that the goal of the building committee since the start of the projects was to use quality materials to ensure the two schools will last another 50 years without the need for any work other than routine maintenance.
He said there is an estimated $850,000 savings at West Vine Street School and $2.5 million at Deans Mill. In addition, there was a $200,000 savings from the Pawcatuck Middle School roof project.
The savings, which Marseglia called a “decent chunk of change,” occurred even though additional costs were incurred to remove all the asbestos and PCB contamination from the two schools.
Marseglia said work at West Vine essentially is finished while the work at Deans Mill is estimated to be done in October or November. He added the parking lot at Deans Mill will be paved before school classes begin next month.
Marseglia suggested that the bonding savings could offset the more than $4 million in high school and middle school repairs being discussed as part of a potential $6.9 million bonding request voters would need to approve later this year.
The savings, however, cannot be directly spent on the proposed school projects. Instead, funding for them would have to be approved as part of a new bond.
East Lyme bridge to be rebuilt over next three months
East Lyme — The state Department of Transportation announced Wednesday that it will schedule periodic lane closures, detours and alternating one-way traffic on Route 1 while it rebuilds a bridge between Lovers Lane and Heritage Road over the next three months.
Crews are scheduled to work on the bridge from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday from Aug. 12 through Nov. 24.
The project will replace a corrugated metal pipe arch culvert, originally built in 1982, with a "precast concrete box culvert," while 200 feet of roadway reconstruction will take place adjacent to the bridge. An existing sanitary sewer line also will be relocated to the south of the bridge.
Traffic control personnel and signing patterns will be utilized to guide motorists through the work zone.
Drivers will need to detour the area Oct. 14-27 by using Interstate 95 and Route 161.
MGM suit takes new tactic to blocking tribes
Mark Pazniokas
MGM Resorts International sued the Department of the Interior on Wednesday in a fresh bid to bar tribal competitors in Connecticut from constructing an off-reservation casino in East Windsor or pursuing rights to another one in Bridgeport.
The 33-page suit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington represents a strategic shift by MGM, which previously had accused Connecticut of constitutional violations in its no-bid authorization of an East Windsor casino to compete with MGM Springfield.
The aims of the new suit are broader than stopping East Windsor: It argues that Interior and its Bureau of Indian Affairs have no authority to accept amendments to Connecticut’s gambling compacts with its two federally recognized tribes for any off-reservation commercial gambling.
“The amendments are not limited to an East Windsor casino: they facilitate commercial, off-reservation gaming by the tribal joint venture anywhere in Connecticut, and state legislators have recently proposed granting the joint venture an exclusive, no-bid license to operate a casino in Bridgeport, Connecticut,” the suit says. “The amendments thus confer a statewide, perpetual competitive advantage on the joint venture.”
The suit was filed as the state seeks a path to legalize sports betting in Connecticut, one that Gov. Ned. Lamont had hoped to smooth by striking a grand bargain with the tribes and MGM.
But the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribal nations, the respective owners of Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun on reservations in eastern Connecticut, reaffirmed Monday that they will not give up plans for East Windsor in return for sports betting or any other inducement.
Two days later, MGM is laying down its own marker, filing a suit that has been in making for months or longer. The suit asks a federal judge to vacate Interior’s approval of the amendments, alleging a violation of a federal Indian gaming law and the Administrative Procedure Act.
“MGM Resorts is filing this lawsuit because the Interior Department’s decisions violate established federal law and prevent MGM from competing on equal terms in Connecticut,” the company said in a statement.
Lamont said the lawsuit was what he was trying to avoid.“As I have consistently said, our state needs to reach a global gaming resolution that will avoid years and years or complex litigation,” Lamont said. “The gaming industry in Connecticut represents a significant portion of our economy, and as other states have demonstrated, there is room to grow it.
Molly Block, the press secretary of the Department of the Interior, said its officials cannot comment on ongoing litigation.
Andrew Doba, a spokesman for MMCT, the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribal nations partnership behind the East Windsor plan, said the suit should change nothing in the debate over sports betting or other gambling in Connecticut.
“The choice for Connecticut policymakers can’t get any clearer,” Doba said. “We can either let a Las Vegas company that generates not one dime of revenue for the state push us around, or we can stand strong with the tribes and an industry that’s generated more than $8 billion in tax revenue and currently employs 18,000 people.”
The procedural, political and legal history undergirding the new lawsuit is complicated, some of it unique to Connecticut. It is the legacy of a strategic retreat by Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. a quarter century ago on the issue of casino gambling.
Weicker cut a deal with the Mashantucket Pequot and, later, Mohegan tribal nations to permit slot machines at what would become two of the world’s largest casinos, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun. The deal both opened the door to casino gambling and imposed a limit — one that still complicates any expansion of gambling in the state.
It gave the tribes exclusive rights to casino gambling in Connecticut in return for 25 percent of their gross slots revenues. That served two purposes: creating a revenue source that has produced $8 billion for the state, while effectively pricing out competitors unable to guarantee a similar return.
But the deal did not anticipate changes in public attitudes towards casino gambling — Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York casinos now compete with the tribes — or a U.S. Supreme Court decision that recently struck down federal restrictions that had largely limited legal sports betting to books operated by casinos in Nevada.Once Massachusetts gave MGM the rights to open a casino in Springfield, the tribes sought permission to open a satellite operation off I-91 in East Windsor, about 12 miles from Springfield. With a special act passed in 2017, the General Assembly effectively granted the tribes’ joint venture, MMCT, the state’s first commercial casino license.The act did not take effect, however, unless Interior accepted amendments to Connecticut’s gambling agreements with the tribes. The requirement was meant to guarantee that a new commercial casino — even one owned by the tribes — would not violate the exclusivity agreement of the older agreement and jeopardize the 25 percent revenue sharing.
Tribes are free to conduct gambling off their reservations, without approval of Interior. The Mohegans, for example, unsuccessfully competed with MGM for a Massachusetts license, and the tribe’s gambling operation runs casinos in Pennsylvania, Canada and South Korea.