November 29, 2019

CT Construction Digest Friday November 29, 2019

Hearing set on Bristol road improvements
SUSAN CORICA
BRISTOL -- The Connecticut Department of Transportation will conduct a public information meeting regarding proposed major improvements on Route 72 at the intersection with Route 69 on Tuesday, Dec. 3, at 7 p.m., in the City Hall Council Chambers, 111 North Main St.
The snow date for the meeting is Thursday, Dec. 5.
The meeting will begin with a design presentation, followed by a question and answer session with DOT personnel. Plans of the proposed project will be on display for public review at City Hall two weeks prior to the meeting.
The project is identified as State Project No. 17-187. It is intended to reduce congestion, address traffic operational inefficiencies, and improve safety for vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclists.
“The purpose of the meeting is to share the current project schedule, proposed landscaping and parking layouts,” said Mayor Ellen Zoppo-Sassu. “Construction is scheduled for spring of 2022, but there is a lot of work that has to be done now, to keep the project moving forward, including acquisition of certain properties, the eventual demolition of them, and final design plans.”
“It’s really important that the state hears from the residents and businesses in the neighborhood at this stage,” said Councilman Peter Kelley. “We have already told them that some of their plantings and proposed landscape design is not the right fit for this area. We want to give them as much constructive feedback as possible, so the eventual construction project is quick and efficient.”
“There is a lot of infrastructure in this project area that we need to be aware of, from the right of way issues, to the Pequabuck River bridge, the utilities and traffic signals, and the potential to dead end Divinity Street and extend Pratt Street,” said Raymond Rogozinski, Public Works director.
“When you do major work in an older neighborhood, there are opportunities to update accessibility items like the handicapped parking and parking lot configurations, traffic islands and pedestrian crossings,” said Councilwoman Mary Fortier. “I’m interested to see how these improvements are being integrated.”
“We have some great opportunities to create more green space and open up access to the river,” said Councilwoman Brittany Barney. “With the city’s recent Connectivity grant for bike pathways from the Boulevard up through Rockwell, I am looking forward to see how they are planning for the sidewalks, signage and curbing materials.”
The DOT says the configuration of the intersection will be improved by realigning Route 72 to the north, which will soften curvature along Route 72 and allow geometric improvements to the intersection.
The project includes dedicated left-turn lanes to be added to both approaches of Route 72. The existing dedicated left-turn lanes on the approaches of Route 69 will remain, but will be realigned so the movements do not overlap. The new geometry of the intersection will allow for tractor trailers to make all turns.
The existing Divinity Street/Route 72 intersection will be eliminated; Divinity will be shortened to terminate at its intersection with Landry Street. A new “T” type intersection will be formed by extending Pratt Street north to Route 72. The Pratt leg will be stop-sign controlled and a left-turn lane will be provided on Route 72 to accommodate vehicles turning left onto Pratt.
Sidewalk and crosswalk enhancements will be included to provide pedestrian connectivity throughout the project limits. Four-foot-wide shoulders will be provided throughout the project limits to improve bicycle safety.
The proposed realignment of Route 72 will result in the reduction of parking spaces in the existing parking lot located at the northeast corner of the 72/69 intersection. To compensate for the reduction, the DOT says reasonable efforts to provide additional parking within the project limits will be included, with details and locations being coordinated with city officials.
The DOT expects the project to include five total-property acquisitions and seven property sliver acquisitions.
The estimated construction cost for this project is approximately $6 million, which is anticipated to be paid for by 80% federal funds and 20% state funds.
More detailed information is available at the DOT’s Office of Engineering, 2800 Berlin Turnpike, Newington, Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., excluding holidays. More information is also available by contacting Matthew Vail at 860-594-3274 or matthew.vail@ct.gov.

Shelbourne scores extension on Talcott Plaza redevelopment plan
Joe Cooper
The city of Hartford is giving one of downtown’s most prominent landlords six additional months to decide whether it plans to salvage the vacant One Talcott Plaza garage.New York’s Shelbourne Global Solutions LLC once planned to raze the garage near Main Street by year-end as part of a tax-break deal it inked with the city. But Shelbourne now says there may be potential to repair and reopen the garage, following findings from a recent engineering study performed on the site. On Monday, Shelbourne received near unanimous approval from the city council to extend the deadline to determine the fate of the garage until June 30. The previous agreement called for the garage to be demolished in preparation of new site construction by Dec. 31, city records show.   The council’s approval also requires Shelbourne to increase its planned investment at the complex, which includes vacant office space at the corner of Main and Talcott streets, to more than $10 million.  Shelbourne has bought more than $200 million in downtown real estate since 2014. Earlier this year, Shelbourne was part of a trio of landlord-developers to propose a $100 million residential-commercial redevelopment linking Trumbull and Main streets, via the Pratt Street retail corridor. That project proposes to create 375 new apartments and townhomes, in addition to 45,000 square feet of retail, mainly along the south side of Pratt, where Shelbourne owns much of the commercial space. Shelbourne ran into trouble after the city’s 2016 revaluation more than doubled the taxes on three of its most prized Class A office towers downtown, including 20 and 350 Church St. and 100 Pearl St. In total, its tax bill jumped from $2.6 million to $5.4 million. After suing the city in pursuit of new valuations, the two sides reached a settlement agreement in 2017. That deal handed Shelbourne property-tax relief on several of its downtown properties, saving them more than $1 million in the most recent tax year The deal also tasked Shelbourne with redeveloping One Talcott Plaza, which includes three lots at 1006 Main, 30 Talcott and 36-70 Taclott streets. Shelbourne agreed to pay back taxes on the property and invest $10 million redeveloping the site.

 
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November 27, 2019

CT Construction Digest Wednesday November 27, 2019

Top Democrats unite behind Lamont on truck tolls
MARK PAZNIOKAS and KEITH M. PHANEUF
Gov. Ned Lamont and Democratic legislative leaders united Tuesday behind a transportation financing concept that would rely on trucks-only tolls, a breakthrough for a governor whose own party had repeatedly frustrated his major first-year objective of modernizing Connecticut’s aging highways and commuter rail system.
Senate Democratic leaders, who had summarily dismissed Lamont’s two earlier proposals for tolls on all motor vehicles as politically unpalatable and rejected his characterization of transportation infrastructure as a crisis, endorsed the new approach and insisted it should be refined and passed in special session, most likely in January.
“It is absolutely essential that we get this done,” said Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven. “There is a real crisis in our state that we cannot just delay any longer in terms of the needed reconstruction of our roads and bridges. We need to get this done now. We don’t want the issue to drag into the 2020 session. We think we have momentum on that issue, and the time to move is now.”
With the Democratic governor and leaders of the Democratic legislative majorities agreeing on a transportation financing approach for the first time since Lamont made his initial proposal in February, their challenge is to fully develop what is now a detailed outline and convince their caucuses it is financially sound and politically defensible.
Lamont and the legislators spoke to reporters after a meeting at the Executive Residence that marked the end of the administration’s efforts to find a bipartisan approach to financing CT2030, the governor’s $21 billion list of transportation projects that he says can remake commuting life and spark economic growth over the next 10 years.
“This plan works, and the numbers add up,” Lamont said.
Rhode Island implemented the nation’s first trucks-only tolls last year, drawing a legal challenge from the trucking industry that is pending. Lamont proposed trucks-only tolls during the 2018 session, only to push for a broader plan once elected.
House Democrats resurrected the idea after the Senate balked at automobile tolls.
“I think that the House has really shown us the way by coming out with the truck-only plan, which is in effect a return to a version of what the governor had proposed in the election last year and is in fact the only plan that is voter approved, given the virtue of the fact he was elected running on that proposal,” Looney said.
Taking turns standing before a fireplace in a formal living room at the governor’s residence, the legislative leaders quickly delivered a preview of how the plan will be promoted by Democrats and panned by Republicans in special session and during the 2020 campaign for control of the General Assembly.
Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, whose caucus offered an alternative to tolls that would have required spending $1.5 billion of the $2.5 billion budget reserves, said no one believes that state government can be trusted to stick with truck-only tolls.
“The confidence it’s going to remain a truck toll is very low,” Fasano said.
Democrats say they would be open to any legislative language, including a constitutional amendment, clarifying that automobile tolls are off the table in Connecticut.
House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, said Republicans are stoking fears about what could come next, rather than debate what Democrats are actually proposing.
He warned the GOP alternative would leave Connecticut without the financial cushion to weather a recession, jeopardizing residents who rely on state services and potentially exposing them to tax increases.
“My question to them is why are they picking truck drivers over our middle class?” Aresimowicz said.
Each side accused the other of intransigence, and the exchange continued in an exchange of emailed statements.
“The comments made by legislative Democrats and Gov. Lamont following today’s meeting were nothing but political talking points defending their insatiable desire to tax people more,” Fasano said. “They want tolls, they want to borrow more, they want more tax revenue from Connecticut residents – on top of their new taxes on plastic bags and groceries. They do not want to work with Republicans to do what is truly best for our state and its residents. They want tolls. Period.”
The Lamont administration responded in kind.
“Senator Fasano must be talking about a completely different meeting and a totally different plan,” said Max Reiss, the governor’s communications director. “Today, Governor Lamont asked legislative leaders from both sides of the aisle to come together and discuss for nearly two hours how to grow the state’s economy and fix its broken transportation system. For the last several months, the governor’s administration has invested considerably in collaboratively working towards a bipartisan solution – one that included Senator Fasano.”
With some creative financing, the Democrats say they could come within $1 billion of the $21 billion spending goal of CT2030, even though truck tolls would produce an estimated $180 million, slightly more than half the $320 million projected the plan Lamont released on Nov. 7. Lamont needs a dedicated revenue stream to obtain low-cost federal financing.
That tolling revenue gap is significant. Democrats did not disclose all the details for making up the difference, but they highlighted two solutions.
Low-interest federal loans the state is seeking for bridge and rail improvements would be financed over 35 years, rather than the 27 years anticipated in Lamont’s earlier plan. According to the administration, this would save an average of about $16.3 million per year in debt costs between 2020 and 2030, a total of about $180 million.
Another element is a more modest version of the GOP alternative: Using some of the budget reserves to pay down pension debt, which would lessen the annual contributions now required. Lamont and Democratic legislators would tap between $250 million and $260 million earmarked for the budget reserves after Sept. 30, 2021.
By then, according to projections by the administration and the legislature’s non-partisan Office of Fiscal Analysis, the reserves will exceed the statutory limit of 15 percent of operating costs, or about $3 billion. Once that threshold is crossed, excess reserves automatically are used to pay down pension debt.
The GOP option would have transferred $1.5 billion from the rainy day fund into the pension fund immediately, allowing the state to reduce annual pension contributions by almost $130 million per year through 2030 and put those dollars into transportation.

Gov. Ned Lamont, Democrats unite around truck-only tolls, rule out passenger cars in compromise

After months of fits and starts, Gov. Ned Lamont and Democratic legislators joined together Monday on a new plan for truck-only tolls, pledging to avoid tolls on passenger cars.Democratic leaders said they would go as far as passing a constitutional amendment that would ban tolls on passenger vehicles in order to allay fears among drivers that the tolls would eventually be extended to all vehicles.After meeting for more than 90 minutes behind closed doors at the Governor’s Residence in Hartford, the Democratic leaders emerged with a revised, updated plan in the long-running saga over highway tolls that has become the most hotly debated topic of the year at the state Capitol. The new proposal saves money by dropping Lamont’s 10-year transportation plan from $21 billion to $20 billion. In addition, Democrats are exploring paying back low-interest federal infrastructure loans over a 35-year period, rather than the original plan for 27 years. While the overall costs are traditionally higher when payments are extended, the individual yearly payments would be lower and more affordable, officials said. Top legislative leaders said they have not held caucuses with rank-and-file House and Senate Democrats on the details of the plan, but they said there was more support among lawmakers for truck-only tolls than for tolling passenger vehicles. Lawmakers are targeting the large tractor-trailers they say cause far more damage to the roads than passenger cars, adding that an estimated 40 percent of the bill would be paid by out-of-state drivers. Lamont said after the meeting he wants to move forward with the truck-only proposal that was presented recently by House Democrats that calls for 12 tolling locations around the state that would generate about $180 million per year. The governor’s original plan, released earlier this fall, called for tolling all vehicles at 14 locations to raise about $320 million a year. “We like this plan. This plan works, and the numbers add up,” Lamont said. “I’m here to solve problems — not to study problems. ... Let’s get this thing started in an honest and comprehensive way.” At the same time, Republican leaders who attended the meeting with Lamont said afterward they remain opposed to any tolls. “It’s very difficult for Republicans to support a toll plan, given the fact that there is a no-toll plan on the table,” said Senate Republican leader Len Fasano of North Haven, who earlier this month released a transportation plan without tolling. “It is very difficult to find support [among Republicans] in the House or the Senate for a toll plan. ... We believe a truck toll is a non-starter.” House Republican leader Themis Klarides of Derby agreed, saying, “We don’t actually believe the trucks-only plan works.” The Senate Republicans’ transportation plan would use $1.5 billion of the state’s $2.5 billion rainy day fund to help finance transportation improvements. But Lamont has been relatively cool to the idea, saying it is “risky” to take emergency funds that would be needed during a recession to close the state’s budget holes. House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, a Berlin Democrat, said that spending 60% of the rainy day fund would be a mistake. “When that recession comes, and there’s no money left in the savings account, we will cut education, we will cut nonprofits,” he said. "That’s why we came up with the truck-only tolling plan.''  House Democrats have proposed a hybrid of Lamont’s earlier — and then discarded — plan to impose tolls only on trucks. The Democrats are seeking 12 overhead tolling gantries in the same spots proposed by Lamont — except for Route 9 in Middletown and on the Merritt Parkway in Norwalk because trucks are not permitted on the Merritt. Senate Democrats, who have not released their own plan, met privately with Lamont for nearly two hours recently in their caucus room and rejected the governor’s earlier plan for tolls on all vehicles. Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said that the truck-only plan “is, in fact, the only plan that is voter-approved, given the fact that [Lamont] was elected, running on that proposal.”  He added, “It is absolutely essential that we get this done. ... We need to get this done now. We don’t want the issue to drag on into the 2020 session.”  If Democrats rally around the plan in a way that they have not all year a vote could be held before the next legislative session begins in February. Lamont’s wide-ranging transportation plan calls for fixing roads and bridges, along with spending a combined $5 billion for railroad lines that include Metro-North, the New Haven-to-Hartford line, and the Shoreline East commuter line that runs from New Haven to New London. While Lamont was talking to legislators inside, a group of about 15 anti-toll protesters gathered outside the Governor’s Residence on Prospect Avenue in Hartford’s West End. Some cars and trucks passing by blew their horns in agreement as the protesters held up signs against tolls. "Election 2020 is right around the corner, and I can’t see them coming up with a solution by then,'' said Patrick Sasser, a Stamford firefighter who leads a grassroots organization called No Tolls CT. “Trucks-only will be the gateway to all vehicles — cars, trucks, everything. We have not trust for this system. Once you put one gantry in, you’ve opened a Pandora’s box.”

Lamont, Democrats say they will push trucks-only tolling
Ken Dixon
HARTFORD — Democrats and Gov. Ned Lamont on Tuesday pushed their trucks-only tolling plan to improve highways and railroads, charging that a Republican alternative to use more than half the state’s emergency reserves could put the budget into a dire position when the next national economic downturn occurs.
During an hour-and-40 minute meeting in the Governor’s Residence, as about 16 anti-toll protesters roamed the sidewalks outside, Republicans came no closer to agreeing with Democrats on tolls.
But Democratic legislative leaders said they would sharpen their plan to use some of the emergency fund, and toll large and medium-sized trucks to the tune of about $180 million-to-$200 million a year. While they declined to say whether they thought they could finally get enough support in their majority caucuses in the House and Senate, they seemed more aggressive and unified on the issue than they have all year.
Lamont said the Republican proposal would heap even more debt on taxpayers through increased borrowing.
“We laid out a plan that gets our Special Transportation Fund fixed, takes care of our roads and bridges in a real way without raiding the rainy day fund, without piling on $700 million a year in debt on the backs of Connecticut taxpayers,” Lamont said. “This plan works and the numbers add up.”
The governor said that Democrats and Republicans will continue to keep talking.
“Why are they picking truck drivers over our middle class?” said Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin. “Because that’s what’s going to happen. When that recession comes and there’s no money left in the savings account, we will cut education, we will cut non-profits, and the other side of the aisle will say ‘ah, terrible managers they are. They didn’t plan for something like this happening.’ Well, we did, but we also plan to move our infrastructure in the state of Connecticut forward and that’s why we came out with a trucks-only tolling plan.”
Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, said he would even support a constitutional amendment assuring residents that the trucks-only gantries on at least a dozen bridges would be the limit of tolling. He said defaulting to Lamont’s 2018 campaign plan for trucks-only tolls seems to have the backing of voters.
“It is the only plan that’s voter-approved, given the virtue of the fact that he was in fact elected,” Looney said. “The focus has to be on those trucks, both in-state and out-of-state. There is a real crisis in our state that we cannot just delay any longer in terms of the needed reconstruction of our roads and bridges.”
Looney hinted that a special legislative session could still be held next month or January, prior to the budget-adjustment session that begins Feb. 5.
“I think we’ve come up with a good plan and a good compromise,” said Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk. “It is extremely important that we get this issue done, behind us and that the people of Connecticut have confidence in fixing our transportation infrastructure that’s gone on, unfinished, for too long.”
House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, suggested that families driving into neighboring states over the holiday play a game, totaling out-of-state trucks. “I want you to count the 18-wheelers and I want your kids to total the license plates that come from those states. It’s going to be Oklahoma, Nevada, everything around the country and they will pay in every single state,” Ritter said. “They pay nothing here.”
Ritter said that in 2017, a bipartisan budget stressed the need to keep the emergency reserves robust, but the Republican proposal would use more than half of it.“Truck tolling is a non-starter,” Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, told reporters who had been kept on the sidewalk with the protesters and about 10 construction-union officials who favor of tolls, then finally allowed into the West End neighborhood mansion’s living room after the talks.
Fasano said that residential confidence in the General Assembly’s ability to keep its word on the expansion of government is low.
“We make promises and haven’t kept them in the past,” Fasano said.
House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, said that the meeting, while ultimately a failure on the part of Democrats to persuade the GOP lawmakers on tolls, was a sign that both sides were actually communicating.
“We should have done this eight months ago, 10 months ago,” Klarides said. “The problem is they’re still stopped in their thought process on tolls, and we do not feel that that’s anything we can ever support. I think the shame of it is we can agree to a lot of things as long as tolls are not the basis for the transportation funding.”
Fasano in recent weeks offered a plan to take $1.5 billion of the $2.5-billion emergency reserves called the rainy day fund, pay down part of the unfunded pension liability, then use savings in fringe and health benefits to invest in an $18-billion transportation infrastructure plan similar to Lamont’s, which had totaled $21 billion for 10 years, but on Tuesday was reduced to $20 billion.
In a follow-up email to reporters, after the governor and the Democratic leaders spoke, Fasano said that if Democrats have the support for tolls, they should schedule a vote.
“They do not want to work with Republicans to do what is truly best for our state and its residents,” Fasano said. “They want tolls, period.”

Lamont Joins Democratic Lawmakers In Backing Truck-Only Tolls




NY developer proposes $40M mixed-use development along CT River in Hartford
Joe Cooper, Greg Bordonaro
New York developer is looking to build a sprawling $40 million mixed-use complex on the Connecticut River in downtown Hartford.The proposed development by Acqua Ark LLC, of Rye, N.Y., aims to include a variety of retail, restaurant and event spaces along city-owned land within Riverfront Park adjacent to the Mortensen Riverfront Plaza at 300 Columbus Blvd.Acqua Ark President George Bryant on Tuesday said the complex would be built on land-based floating technology that it’s leveraged in recent projects in Europe. The "amphibious" promenade would be able to float and rise upon the water during flood conditions, he said.
Moreover, during typical flood stages, the promenade would be connected to the Mortensen Plaza in a way that allows continuous use, he added. He is scheduled to present his vision to the city's planning, economic development and housing committee Tuesday, Dec. 3.  “This is a preliminary vision, but the elements of the technology have been done before,” Bryant said. “Everything we are looking at has been accomplished some place else.” Bryant said the ambitious proposal would mark his firm’s first major development project in Connecticut. Acqua pitched a similar waterfront project in Bridgeport in recent years, but city officials denied it. Under the proposal, Acqua plans to fully fund the mixed-use complex with help from several minority partners. City and state funding has not yet been proposed for the project at this point, Bryant said. The proposed site is currently zoned as open space and has no structures on-site. Bryant’s vision for redeveloping the waterfront property sprang out of Hartford City Councilman John Gale’s resolution last year that encouraged development along the Connecticut River, including dining options, a marina and houseboat accommodations. That resolution, however, got pushback as environmental advocates, including the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), who warned Mayor Luke Bronin and other city leaders to remain cautious of any proposed development along the river given that the waterway regularly floods.  Climate change is also likely to continue deteriorating the banks of the Connecticut River, they argued. On Tuesday, Gale, a former engineer, said he understands the challenges of riverfront development but he thinks they can be overcome."The engineer in me says this is a serious proposal," said Gale, adding he hopes the vision sparks a conversation about the project's feasibility. "The idea is to whet people’s appetite," he said. Gale said Bryant reached out to him about the idea last April, shortly after this resolution started getting press coverage. Gale said cities all over the world have exploited their riverfronts while Hartford has remained a laggard. For example, San Antonio's Riverwalk adds $2 billion to that city's economy. Before Bryant’s vision begins to take shape, Acqua would first need to score a slew of approvals from the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission, DEEP and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Posted by at

November 26, 2019

CT Construction Digest Tuesday November 26, 2019

Lamont, legislators to reopen transportation talks today
and
Legislative leaders are going to the Executive Residence today to talk to Gov. Ned Lamont about the prospects of passing a transportation financing bill in special session, uncertain if the governor is ready to commit to one of the two competing ideas outlined by Senate Republicans and House Democrats.
Based on his public statements in recent days, Lamont is inclined to reject a Senate Republican plan that would use nearly two-thirds of the budget reserves and instead embrace a House Democratic proposal for trucks-only tolls as a key element in a dedicated revenue stream necessary to obtain low-cost federal financing.
“I would hope at this meeting at least some lines are drawn, that everybody expresses where their lines are,” said House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby. “Do we go forward on this or do we not?”
If Lamont endorses trucks-only tolls, lines will be drawn: With GOP leaders saying they are unalterably opposed to tolls or other sources of additional revenue, the Democratic governor presumably would then open direct talks with the Democratic majorities in the General Assembly.
“We need to know,” said Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven.
But it was unclear Monday if Lamont was ready to abandon all hopes of bipartisan support for a 10-year plan of transportation improvements that he says would spark economic growth by creating 26,000 construction jobs and speeding commutes by modernizing Metro-North and eliminating highway chokepoints.
Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, said he did not know what to expect.
“I don’t know what the agenda is,” Fasano said.
Max Reiss, the governor’s communications director, declined to say precisely what the governor intends to tell lawmakers, but observed it is time for policymakers to at least broadly assess the varying approaches and talk about finding a path forward.“It makes the most sense to sit down and discuss where we are and then make a decision about what the coming weeks and months will look like,” Reiss said.
The timing of the meeting is awkward. Lamont and many legislators plan on attending the funeral of Rep. Linda Orange, D-Colchester, in the morning, then return to Hartford to meet  at the governor’s official residence.
Thanksgiving travel plans ruled out another day this week.
The meeting today comes as a coalition of unions, construction companies, regional councils of government and chambers of commerce urged legislative leaders to enact a transportation financing scheme by year’s end.
“We believe this matter demands your utmost attention,” they said in a letter. “Despite each of you acknowledging that Connecticut is facing transportation funding challenges, the state’s transportation systems are stifling mobility and spiraling into a state of disrepair.”
They said an additional $400 million in annual transportation spending is needed to maintain a state of good repair and incidental upgrades and another $300 million is needed for projects to improve travel times.
A struggle to finance transportation for the next decade has dominated the governor’s first 11 months in office.
 “There are just some issues that are very difficult to pass,” said House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford.In February, Lamont proposed charging tolls on cars and trucks at 50 points on Route 15 and Interstates 84, 91 and 95. It never came to a vote. On Nov. 7, Lamont released a plan calling for 14 tolls on all motor vehicles, but Senate Republicans and Democrats leaders quickly responded that their caucuses would not support tolls on cars. 
But the transportation spending priorities in his plan, CT2030, were broadly applauded. Unlike the original proposal, the new version made a case for why the projects were needed and how they would improve the quality of life in Connecticut. And the administration also added a new element: relying on low-cost federal financing.
The Democratic administration has established a working relationship with the Trump administration on transportation. The director of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Build America Bureau visited Connecticut to brief lawmakers on available federal aid, and the governor’s chief of staff, Ryan Drajewicz, has been invited to participate next week in a Build America panel discussion in Washington.
The Senate Republican minority offered an alternative to tolls or other new revenue: Using two-thirds of budget reserves to pay down unfunded pension liabilities, freeing up $130 million in annual pension contributions that could be directed to transportation.
Lamont and Democratic legislators said they were uncomfortable drawing so deeply on reserves. House Democrats responded with a trucks-only tolls proposal, the campaign position of Lamont.
Fasano said the only fully vetted plans are the ones proposed by the governor and the Senate Republicans. The House Democratic plan is conceptual, not fully realized, he said.
“You’ve got a concept,” he said. “There are a lot of questions.”
If Lamont passes a transportation financing plan with only Democratic votes, the governor will have to compromise on his so-called “debt diet,” his insistence on spending less than $1 billion a year in new general obligation bonding. Between 2012 and 2019, the state issued an average of $1.59 billion annually in general obligation bonds.G.O. bonds are the principal means used to finance municipal school construction, capital projects at public universities — as well as various community-based initiatives in legislators’ districts — and are repaid from the budget’s general fund. Connecticut’s bonded indebtedness per capita ranks among the highest of all states and annual payments already consume 10% of the annual budget.
The regular 2019 legislative session ended in June without Lamont and Democrat legislators agreeing on a bond package. Lawmakers want at least $1.3 billion.
The stalemate has taken a toll on Connecticut cities and towns. The state provides $150 million per year in non-education grants to communities — including a $60 million road maintenance grant used chiefly for winter snow removal — using borrowed funds obtained through bonding.        

    • Study finds region has adequate housing for new Electric Boat employees
    Julia Bergman
    A study looking at the impact of thousands of new residents coming to work at Electric Boat over the next decade has found there will be adequate housing for them in the region but it’s likely that these new employees will rely on cars to get to and
    from work.
    The study, which began in 2018 and primarily looked at housing and transportation, is intended to provide guidance to planners as they navigate future development in their municipalities.
    Electric Boat is gearing up to build 12 new ballistic missile submarines, in addition to its current work building attack submarines, and as a result, employment in southeastern Connecticut is expected to grow by about 5,000, peaking in 2029.
    While many of the new hires will likely already be living in the region, the study estimates one third will come from outside southeastern Connecticut.
    At the same time, more sailors and their families are expected to come to the area with the construction of these new submarines, which are much bigger than the attack submarines. A ballistic missile submarines has two crews consisting of about 150 sailors each whereas an attack submarine has a single crew of about 135.
    At the peak, there will be about 600 Navy sailors and families living in the area, about a third of whom are expected to buy or rent in the local community, said Capt. Todd Moore, commanding officer of the Naval Submarine Base. Moore said the study fits in nicely with his mission to increase the appeal of Groton to sailors.
    “I see that as one of my big mandates here, based on the fact that we compete with other naval installations for sailors, I want to make our base and the surrounding community even better than they are (now) in order to entice sailors to want to come and live here, and when their time in the Navy is done, retire here and continue to contribute to the community,” Moore said.
    The peak in Navy sailors is expected to happen several times throughout the late 2020s to late 2030s, given the construction schedule for the ballistic missile submarines. These sailors will only be stationed in Groton during construction, as the ballistic missile submarines, known as the Columbia class, will not be based here.
    Bob Ross, executive director of the state’s Office of Military Affairs, said at the start of the study there was concern that the increase in sailors and EB employees would strain the region’s housing market, but the findings prove otherwise.
    From 2012 to 2017, the region’s population declined by 5,600 residents, or 2%, and “that created some excess (housing) capacity that we didn’t realize was there until we really started looking,” Ross said.
    The study says there’s a need for about 500 additional housing units, but that the various housing developments already approved in the region will address that demand.
    Nearly 2,000 EB employees were surveyed about their housing and transportation preference as part of the study. The majority of the respondents said they are interested in buying as opposed to renting and are interested in single-family homes.
    However, of the newer employees surveyed, those hired in the past three years, almost 40 percent said they prefer to rent and about a third of them said they prefer to live in an apartment or condominium.
    Most of the employees surveyed said that they would consider paying more than $1,500 per month for housing to be unaffordable. The starting salary for a new hire at EB is about $40,000 per year and the average is $60,000 annually.
    The study finds that affordability will continue to be an issue and may be exacerbated with the greater demand for housing.
    “Some new workers may find challenges in locating the types of housing they seek in the locations they want,” the study says.  “A number of housing programs are active in the state and should be explored to facilitate new housing at varied income levels, and to support rehabilitation of existing housing stock, in order to help homeowners bring their houses up to modern standards to be attractive to potential buyers.”
    The study also recommends that new housing developments consider existing transportation capacity as well as the potential to respond to demand for alternative travel modes, such as transit, walking, and biking.
    Among the EB employees surveyed, most would prefer to drive alone to work and for their commute to be less than 30 minutes each way. However, employees under 35 who responded to the survey are significantly more interested in walking and biking to work.
    The study found that the traffic resulting from new workers will be manageable on most roadways in the region, with some problem areas in the City of Groton including Five Corners, Poquonnock Road at Rainville Avenue, and Eastern Point Road.
    The study proposes improving bicycle and pedestrian conditions on those roads, and calls for a more in-depth review of congestion and safety issues at points along Route 12 in Groton, Route 32 in New London and Waterford, and Route 85 where it intersects with Interstates 95 and 395 in Waterford and New London.
    Amanda Kennedy, assistant director of the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments which received a grant from the Pentagon's Office of Economic Analysis to do the study, said the findings show that the percentage of employees likely to take public transportation to work is not enough to justify major changes to service. But she said the council of governments and City of Groton officials are in “early discussions” with EB about establishing satellite parking lots and shuttle service in the city.
    The Pentagon provided $330,423 to the council of governments for two studies: one to examine housing needs in the region, and the other to look at land use around the submarine base to ensure development by surrounding communities doesn't impede base operations and vice versa.
    Of the funds, $246,000 was allotted for the housing study. The council of governments contributed about $36,000 in staff time.

    Hartford’s State House Square undergoing $12M facelift
    Joe Cooper
    Downtown Hartford’s State House Square is getting new life in its fourth decade of operation.
    More than $12 million is being spent to upgrade elevators, lobbies and a food court in the three-tower office and retail complex located across the street from Constitution Plaza.
    “Many of these office buildings in Hartford were built around the same time in the mid-to-late 1980s,” said David Jakubowski, the tower’s general manager. “They are all at the point in their life cycle where they need a capital injection.”
    The installation of new elevator cabs and interior and dispatch-system improvements are the most expensive upgrades, costing owner-landlords FBE-State Square LLC and MAC-State Square LLC approximately $7 million.
    An overhaul of 90 State House Square’s lobby will be finished in the coming weeks as construction crews turn their focus to adding similar chic improvements to the lobby at 10 State House Square in the first quarter of 2020.
    The three-year renovation project was originally slated to kick off last summer with a $1.5 million overhaul of the 478-seat food court at State House Square, but a pipe break delayed physical work from beginning until August this year.
    Upgrades to seating, lighting and flooring at the 22,000-square-foot food court, home to Moe’s Southwest Grill, Dunkin’ Donuts and other fast-food vendors, will be completed by year-end, Jakubowski said. The project also includes retail-unit improvements.
    The renovations, he said, will significantly improve the dining experience for both office tenants and downtown consumers.
    Built in 1987 for $250 million, the lower level of State House Square was originally designed as an urban shopping mall, with a food court located on the second floor of the complex. It was later moved to its current location on the ground level in 2000.
    About 85 percent of State House Square’s office space is filled with lead tenants including Travelers Cos., Pullman & Comley, UBS Realty Investors and Jackson Lewis PC. Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Greater Hartford YMCA are among the retail tenants on-site.
    The 844,000-square-foot complex also houses a U.S. Post Office and a parking garage with 445 spaces. A fitness club and pool, now leased by Greater Hartford YMCA, was improved through a $6-million renovation project in 2015, Jakubowski said.
    A year earlier, the owners invested $8 million in an on-site central and heating cooling plant to reduce operating costs. It recorded savings from that project in less than four years, he said.
    That includes Hartford health insurer Aetna, which had a major presence at the complex and acquired it out of foreclosure in 1996 from a partnership led by developer and former Hartford Whalers owner Richard Gordon, and the defunct Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Co.
    Aetna then sold State House Square less than a decade later to Virginia’s Harvard Group International, which then sold the property to its current owners.
    In 2016, FBE-State Square LLC and MAC-State Square LLC, both based in New York City, modified their original $87.5 million mortgage obtained in 2007 to acquire the complex.

     CT’s pathway to energy and economic sustainability
    Joel Rinebold
    Connecticut continues to move forward with aggressive implementation of an energy strategy that includes procurement of offshore wind, development of solar facilities, installation of fuel cells, and development of biomass facilities.
    This renewable-energy agenda with zero- or low-carbon fuels makes good sense to increase energy sustainability and long-term reliability, reduce waste, improve air quality, and reduce carbon for climate control.
    This energy agenda also appropriately includes replacement of older obsolete baseload facilities with new high-efficiency combined cycle natural gas facilities derived from our aerospace industry that are reliable and cost-effective as we transition into a fully sustainable energy environment.
    Development of these energy resources in Connecticut helps to provide jobs related to construction and operation. These values are not insignificant in that they provide thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in revenue to the Connecticut economy.
    New renewable-energy technologies made in Connecticut or supplied with components from the Connecticut manufacturing supply chain will further improve the value proposition for Connecticut with additional jobs and revenues.
    High-tech businesses seeking to operate in Connecticut will also find this green-energy economy of value to support product lines that include IT server farms, bioscience and health care.
    The message here: Connecticut is a technologically advanced state and we should continue to use our manufacturing and supply chain industries to research, manufacture and develop advanced renewable-energy technologies.
    In addition, where and when possible, these technologies should be interconnected in Connecticut to provide reliable service directly to consumers.
    With this policy for energy sustainability and action to facilitate transformation through replacement of older obsolete power facilities, Connecticut will be on a favorable pathway to provide clean, cost-effective and reliable energy to consumers in Connecticut that will further enhance Connecticut’s position as a world-class manufacturer and global leader in clean-energy technology.

    Shelton’s final Shelter Ridge public hearing set Jan. 9
    Robert Sample
    The Shelton Inland Wetlands Commission will hold one final public hearing on the controversial Towne Center at Shelter Ridge project on Jan. 9.
    The plan, which would occupy a parcel at the end of Mill Road where it meets Bridgeport Avenue, has been a source of intense opposition since it was first proposed three years ago.
     It calls for a multi-story structure with apartments, retailers and restaurants. There is an option for a medical facility and an assisted-living center as well.
    Project stakeholders must now submit comments to a project study done by Westport-based LandTech, an engineering firm that specializes in environmental consulting. LandTech was hired by Inland Wetlands Commission to study the impact the proposed Shelter Ridge project will have on adjacent wetlands and wildlife.
    Study contributors include the attorney for the project’s developer, the city’s own attorney, members of the commission and the engineer who represents Save Our Shelton, an organization initially formed to fight the Shelter Ridge proposal. The study was also posted to the city website on Nov. 22.
    Commission Chairman Gary Zahornasky pointed out that he and his fellow commissions had not yet had the opportunity to review the LandTech report. He invited Shelton residents to submit their concerns to the commission during the review process, which the commission will complete by its Dec. 12 meeting.
    Earlier zone change
    In March, 2017, the Shelton Planning and Zoning Commission approved a zoning change for the Shelter Ridge property, establishing it as a planned development district (PDD). Many Shelter Ridge opponents said they saw the zoning change as setting the stage for the property to ultimately be developed for commercial purposes.
    In the words of Sorghum Road resident Mary Kay Novak, “The horse is out of the barn.”
    Zahornasky and other wetlands commissioners reassured residents at last week’s meeting that the earlier zone change had nothing to do with the commission’s own review.
    “We are going to review this proposal just from a wetlands point of view,” Zahornasky said. “We are going to look at everything involved (in the proposed development) and we are going to make our determination based on if it impacts wetlands or storm water. We’re not bound by anything the P&Z or the applicant has proposed.”
    “We are operating independent of any zone change,” added Commissioner Kenneth Nappi. “We’re looking at it as, ‘does it protect inland wetlands?’ If we don’t like certain things, (the developer) will need to make certain changes. And if they don’t, we won’t approve it.”
    There was no formal public comments section at last week’s meeting — that will take place at the Jan. 9 hearing. Despite that, attendees had plenty of comments and questions.
    A valid zoning approval?
    Novak questioned why the 2017 zoning change had not been reviewed first by Inland Wetlands prior to the favorable vote by P&Z.
    “How can that be a valid vote?” she asked.
    “That’s because the vote by P&Z was for the zoning change only,” said Nappi. At the time there was no formal project proposal and thus no impacts for Inland Wetlands to review.
    Buddington Road resident Mark Widomski, a Planning and Zoning commissioner, said that the Connecticut statute governing these kinds of matters requires an Inland Wetlands report prior to the approval of a zoning change.
    “How are we at this point, when it should have been done (reviewed by Inland Wetlands) in the first place?” he said. Widomski was not a member of P&Z when the zoning change was approved.
    Nappi said that a more recent Connecticut court case substantiated a municipality’s ability to make a zoning change without prior review by Inland Wetlands, absent any project plans.
    Striking a fair balance
    Save Our Shelton member Greg Tetro questioned why the LandTech report is not being treated as the final decision against or in favor of the project.
    “I don’t know why it wouldn’t stop right there,” Tetro said.
     Zahornasky said that the report had yet to be reviewed by anyone on the commission or any of the other project stakeholders, and because of its volume would take some weeks to complete.
    Any application process has to be fair,” said city attorney Francis Teodosio. “The applicant has the right to respond to the LandTec report.”
    Teodosio said that at the public hearing, all sides will be permitted to present their arguments. That includes Steve Trinkaus, a civil engineer based in Southbury who specializes in storm water and wetlands issues for municipal projects.Zahornasky said that the multi-side nature of the proposal and its size work to make the Inland Wetlands Commission’s review process both exhaustive and time consuming.
    “Our commission has never before been presented with a project plan as voluminous as Shelter Ridge,” Zahornasky said. “At the end of the day, we’re confident we’re going to do our due diligence and make the right decision.”

    Posted by at

    November 25, 2019

    CT Construction Digest Monday November 25, 2019

    The Real Story: House Speaker on competing transportation funding plans VIDEO
    House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz (D-Berlin) discusses the competing plans to fund badly needed transportation infrastructure projects throughout the state, including Governor Lamont's (tolls and federal loans), House Democrats (truck-only tolls), and Senate Republicans ( Rainy Day Fund, and borrowing).

    Transportation could make Lamont a one-term governor
    Greg Bordonaro
    ov. Ned Lamont is still in the first year of his first term, but I don’t think it’s too early to say that the issue of transportation could make or break his chances at re-election, if he chooses to pursue a second term.
    And it won’t be easy for him to get a win on the politically charged issue, whether his $21-billion transportation infrastructure plan passes, or not.
    Lamont is well aware of the political risks he’s taking, and shows no signs of backing down, even if it means he only gets four years in office.
    “What you don’t want to do is be so focused on the second term you start trimming your sails and pulling your punches and end up popular but you didn’t get a damn thing done,” Lamont told me in a recent interview. “I am the opposite of that.”
    The biggest problem for Lamont, and what may cost him the most politically, has been his inconsistency and poor messaging on tolls. We all remember during the 2018 campaign, Lamont supported a trucks-only tolling plan, but changed his mind soon after being sworn into office. In February, he awkwardly rolled out a broader plan to toll all cars and trucks, and install dozens of gantries across the state, without identifying how the billions of dollars in new revenue would be specifically used.
    The flip-flop and lack of clarity cost him dearly, as the plan gained no traction. If Lamont had supported a full-blown tolls plan during the campaign, he may not have won.
    Meantime, his second tolling plan — part of the broader CT2030 initiative to fund improvements to highways, mass transit, airports and ports — was instantly batted back by his own party, as Senate Democrats said they wouldn’t support adding “user fees” to the state’s roadways.
    I think Lamont’s latest transportation plan is more palatable than the first, but it’s a huge miscalculation to unveil such a wide-scale, second-try initiative without support from your own party.
    House Democrats and Senate Republicans have both offered alternative plans to fund infrastructure investments, which wouldn’t raise as much money as Lamont desires, but could pass as a win, or at least a partial victory.
    However, the politics are complicated. House Majority Leader Matt Ritter (D-Hartford) pitched Lamont’s original trucks-only toll plan, though voters may still be unhappy if they view that as the first step to broader highway user fees.
    Republicans’ no-tolls alternative would tap the state’s rainy day fund to finance infrastructure improvements. However, that plan would force Lamont to break another campaign promise to not raid the rainy day fund unless it was needed during an economic downturn.
    When asked if he’s worried about how much political capital he’s spending on transportation, Lamont was honest.
    The longer-term question, in my mind, is whether an issue this early into Lamont’s tenure can cost him a chance at re-election in 2022.
    There are differing views on that.
    “I don’t think it’s too early to be thinking about his re-election chances,” said Gary Rose, a political science professor at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield. “We are in a situation right now with governors and presidents where it’s the constant campaign anyway. If this fails, it’s not as if people are going to say ‘well, this was back then.’ It’s going to be one of the trademarks of his governorship.”
    Roy Occhiogrosso, a former advisor to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, doesn’t necessarily agree with that.
    Occhiogrosso said Malloy didn’t start thinking about re-election until he was much deeper into his first term. And the former governor took on two issues early in his tenure — balancing a multibillion-dollar deficit with spending cuts, a major tax increase and union concessions, as well as education reform — that were very difficult to get through the legislature and cost him significant political capital, but ultimately not his chances of winning re-election.
    “This is not unusual for an administration in its first year to struggle to get a big issue through the legislature,” Occhiogrosso said. “It’s pretty standard.”
    Personally, I think Lamont could be a one-term governor depending on how the transportation issue plays out. And given that he’s 65 and not a lifelong politician, I don’t think that would be the end of the world to him, especially if he thinks he positively impacted the state’s future.

    Getting There: Tolls are dead, so now what?
    Jim Cameron
    Connecticut’s Senate Democrats are gutless weasels. There, I said it.
    They have put a stake through the heart of Gov. Ned Lamont’s CT2030 transportation plan, not because they didn’t understand its reasoned approach and necessity, but because they cannot support its funding through tolls. They are more interested in their re-elections than their constituents’ future.
    Never mind that, in a closed door caucus, they excoriated their governor in a 20-minute emotional attack that went on without a calming word by their leader, Sen. Martin Looney. They have just rolled over and admitted that NoTollsCT leader Patrick Sasser’s promise of “Support tolls, lose at the polls” has anointed him to lead the state’s political agenda.
    Rejecting tolls, how would the Senate Democrats pay for our transportation rebuild? Looney lived up to his name by suggesting marijuana legalization and its taxation. Never mind that the federal government would laugh at suggestions that taxing an illegal drug would pay for their loans to fix roads and bridges.
    Why not take half of 1 percent from the state sales tax and dedicate it to transportation? That would bring in $350 million a year and leave an equivalent hole in the General Fund with no way to get filled.
    Or how about sports betting? Isn’t that just another tax, this time on the ignorance of those who bet? Where is Sasser’s opposition to those taxes? If he claims that tolls are taxes, aren’t taxes taxes?
    Sin taxes should not pay for our transportation. The users of that transportation should pay. Metro-North riders already pay the highest commuter rail fares in the U.S. and those of us who drive already pay gasoline taxes.
    Why does everybody want someone else to pay for the service that we use?
    Meanwhile, we can kiss goodbye to $125 million a year in free money — the tolls that would have been paid by out-of-state drivers cruising through Connecticut. Should we expect their pot purchases en-route to the casinos to come anywhere near to that lost revenue? Hardly.
    The Democrats are out of ideas, so now the minority Republicans get to step in. Sure, they say, let’s take $1.5 billion from the state’s “rainy day fund” and use that. The economy may be firing on all cylinders today, but what happens when the next recession hits? What do we do when it rains? Punt?
    And Senate Republican leader Len Fasano, never one to trust the Department of Transportation, would also recreate the Transportation Strategy Board to oversee its projects. As a check and balance or with oversight? With a staff and consulting budget, further bloating the bureaucracy?
    The Legislature already oversees the DOT’s planning and budget, and the Transportation Committee regularly quizzes its commissioner on his priorities and projects. Do we really need another layer in decision-making, slowing up projects already decades late in getting underway?
    Does the date June 28, 1983, mean anything to our lawmakers? Do they remember that as the date of the collapse of the Mianus River Bridge on Interstate 95 in Greenwich, costing three lives? Do they need another such “accident” to underscore the significance of their duties to fund transportation? Or do they just care more about getting re-elected?

    E. Hartford Mayor: This Kentucky city offers a roadmap for redeveloping Founders Plaza
    Joe Cooper
    A little-known city in Kentucky could serve as a blueprint for redeveloping the area surrounding East Hartford’s tallest office tower, according to Mayor Marcia Leclerc.
    Leclerc recently traveled to Covington, Ky., for an awards ceremony honoring East Hartford’s Police Department and witnessed the transformation the city of some 40,000 people has undergone thanks to various recent redevelopment projects.
    Like East Hartford’s link to downtown Hartford via the Connecticut River and Founders Bridge, Covington is also married to Cincinnati, Ohio, by the Ohio and Licking rivers. Covington in recent years has leveraged the riverfront area near the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge and proximity to Cincinnati to foster investments in transportation infrastructure, entertainment amenities and new and revitalized housing units.
    East Hartford, meantime, is planning to achieve a similar vision, first by redeveloping the half-century-old Founders Plaza on Pitkin Street into a mixed-use residential-retail center with up to 2,000 new apartment units. Redeveloping the 12.6-acre property, proponents say, would create a vibrant urban destination that connects the business district along the Connecticut River to the Founders Bridge leading into downtown Hartford.
    The town this year has been collaborating with the tower’s landlord, Merchants 99-111 Founders LLC, the Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) and Hartford’s Tecton Architects on conceptual plans aimed at making Founders Plaza a “live, work, play destination.”
    “The economic prowess [Covington] experienced by developing the Kentucky side of the river and the attributes they’ve brought to that has really springboarded a Cincinnati that is much like Hartford with deterioration of older buildings that needed reinvestment,” Leclerc, a member of CRDA’s board of directors, said at the quasi-public agency’s regular meeting Thursday night.
    “We were able to walk from Kentucky over to Cincinnati via a bridge, and I just thought that it had remarkable attributes similar to East Hartford and Hartford and the potential of what could be here,” she said.
    Excluding privately held properties, Leclerc said less than 3 percent of raw land is left for development in East Hartford. Founders Plaza, largely blanketed by surface parking lots, offers a significant opportunity to spruce up one of the town’s top assets, she said.
    The redevelopment proposal was created out of the town’s 2014 Plan of Conservation and Development, which called for improving and linking together some of East Hartford’s key developments, including Founders Plaza, Rentschler Field and Goodwin College.
    CRDA Executive Director Michael Freimuth said the five minute walk from Founders Plaza to downtown Hartford is a potential draw for investors and prospective residential tenants.
    “That is the heart of the grand list in the town of East Hartford, and this is a critical element with the riverfront site being one of the easier ones to develop,” Freimuth said.
    As the town and CRDA look to field redevelopment proposals over the coming months, a study will be completed to determine whether or not to extend the life of the tower’s adjoining 333-space parking garage at a cost of about $3.5 million, or demolish it and rebuild. East Hartford already has $500,000 in state Bond Commission funding, secured by CRDA, for the planning and design of a new parking garage at Founders Plaza.
    There are 72 low-income neighborhoods in 27 municipalities across Connecticut that have been tagged as OZs, including in East Hartford, Hartford and West Hartford.
    Approximately 75 percent of the tower is currently filled with tenants including Jefferson Radiology, Premier Research and Howard Lee Schiff.
    The roughly 257,000-square-foot office building in recent years has lost several major tenants, including CareCentrix, Amenta Emma Architects, and administrative offices for Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, all of which relocated to downtown Hartford. Mortgage lender 1st Alliance Lending has also ended operations there last week.

    Dead trees are taking their toll on the Department of Transportation’s budget
    PAUL HUGHES
    The increase in dead and dying trees in Connecticut continues to strain the state Department of Transportation’s tree removal budget.
    DOT officials are seeking the approval of the Finance Advisory Committee to reroute $1 million in the department’s 2020 budget to hire more contractors to remove trees. The agency has already spent $3.5 million out of the $4 million in alloted funds.
    This is not the first such request. In April, DOT received the FAC’s approval to transfer $4.9 million within its 2019 budget for tree removal because costs were so much higher than anticipated.
    The new request to the FAC states additional funding is needed to meet unbudgeted emergency efforts to combat the statewide tree mortality issue.
    The panel of state officials and legislators must approve internal budget transfers that exceed $50,000.
    Tree mortality is on the rise across Connecticut because of several years of drought conditions, emerald ash borer and gypsy moth infestations, storm damage and other factors.
    The DOT specifically cited infestations from the emerald ash borer in its request for the $1 million budget transfer. This invasive insect is inevitably fatal to ash trees. Although ash trees are not a large component of Connecticut’s forests, they are somewhat common along roadways.
    Damaged, dead, and diseased trees can fall without warning, potentially causing injury or property damage. There have already been confirmed deaths in Connecticut from falling trees and limbs.
    Ash borer put a big dent in many towns’ finances
    The town of Oxford’s budget for tree services has quintupled in recent years because of the devastating emerald ash borer infestation.<t-3>
    Town officials informed the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities that Oxford’s spending on tree maintenance and removal jumped from $30,000 annually to $150,000.
    The emerald ash borer was first detected in Prospect in 2012. Since then, the ravaging, invasive species of beetle has spread to 136 of the state’s 169 cities and towns located in all eight counties, according to the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.
    In addition to the ash borer, a gypsy moth infestation has contributed to the rise in diseased, dying and dead trees. Drought conditions and storms have also added to increase in tree mortality.
    The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities said the corresponding spike in the cost of tree maintenance and removal is overwhelming some local budgets. It compiled some figures to support an appeal to Gov. Ned Lamont and the legislature for state assistance.
    The town of Litchfield has seen its tree maintenance budget increase to $105,000 a year. The town removed 73 ash trees last year. In late spring, there were nearly 2,000 ash trees located in the public right of way that needed to be removed.
    The town of Bethlehem has been able to clear only two miles of dead or dying trees out of 44 miles of town-maintained roads. With limited resources, local officials reported to CCM that the town can only address trees that pose an imminent threat to public safety.
    The town of Winchester has budgeted $20,000 for removal of ash trees that the emerald ash borer has killed.
    Officials in the neighboring town of Goshen reported they have just started seeing the effects of the ash borer infestation. Goshen last year spent $43,200 on tree removal contractors and an additional $2,040 on wood disposal.
     
    TOWNS AND CITIES are also struggling with unexpected tree removal expenses, according to the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities.
    “Municipal officials believe that this crisis shows no sign of abating in Connecticut,” said Joe DeLong, executive director of the statewide association of cities and towns. “This is a bona fide public safety, public health, and environmental crisis for the most affected towns and cities.”
    The town of Middlebury has spent $230,000 on cutting and removing 700 dead trees, with an additional $230,000 needed to remove the 700 remaining dead, dying, or diseased trees on roadsides. Ash trees make up a large number of the diseased, dying and dead trees.
    “This thing has just overwhelmed us,” said First Selectman Edward St. John.
    He said Middlebury had been spending about $50,000 a year on tree maintenance and removal using town crews before costs spiked in recent years.
    “I don’t have any money to go beyond our own crew,” St. John said. “We are going to continue because of the hazards. We are the unluckiest people in the world because these ash trees will come down with no warning whatsoever. It isn’t necessarily wind. They will drop on a calm night. God forbid if somebody is driving by in their automobile.”
    Nearly 60% of Connecticut is forested, and leafy Middlebury has many tree-lined roads within its 18.5 square miles.
    “We’re a rural community, and trees are very much a part of our heritage here. They have been for generations. We love of our trees, but the unsafe trees need to be removed, and the safe trees need to be maintained properly,” St. John said. “I’m not one to cut everything down. That is not our style out here, but we are dealing with a major problem. We are not the only community.”
    MAYORS AND FIRST SELECTMEN are asking Gov. Ned Lamont and the legislature provide additional state funding for hard hit communities.
    “It would be nice if the state gaves towns some help,” Middlebury’s St. John said.
    In addition, local officials are asking eligibility be expanded for existing grants for removing infested trees. They also want a more streamlined application process for state permits to burn tree debris.
    The Connecticut Conference of Municpialities requested Lamont convene of a working group of state agency commissioners, municipal leaders and utility representatives to collaborate on a comprehensive and sustainable plan to tackle the problem of tree infestation.
    St. John said the impasse over state bonding is also depriving towns and cities of a source of funding for tree removal.
    The failure of Lamont and legislators to agree to a two-year bonding package on time has already delayed the expected release of first installment of the Town Aid Road grants. Historically, $30 million in payments are made every July and January.
    Middlebury has used part its TAR funding to pay for tree maintenance and removal, St. John said.
    TREE REMOVAL COSTS have exceeded the DOT’s budgeted assumptions for the last two fiscal years.
    The department sought the $4.9 million transfer within its 2019 budget because the $4 million that had been budgeted was insufficient.
    The DOT needed $4 million more to hire more contractors to supplement its 10 tree removal crews, and another $900,000 to buy four 70-foot aerial bucket trucks with chippers for its own crews. An agency spokesman said the trucks have been purchased, and they have been deployed to each of the DOT’s four districts
    The department has spent $3.5 million of the slightly more than $4 million in available funds for tree removal services since the 2020 fiscal year started on July 1. This sum included $2.8 million that was carried over from the 2019 budget.
    The DOT is now projecting another $1.5 million will be required for its tree removal program.
    In addition to that $3.5 million, the department reported spending $2 million on staffing salary and overtime related to tree removal through October. The DOT spent $184.3 million on payroll in 2019, including $23.2 million in overtime.
    The DOT advised the FAC that an additional $1 million is available for transfer for tree removal due to a delay in filling 443 vacancies. The department is currently authorized to have 3,387 full-time positions.
    The FAC is scheduled to consider the transfer request on Dec. 5.

    Pratt Street redevelopment project includes renovation of apartments at old Sage-Allen
    department store

    A financially-troubled apartment complex in the heart of downtown Hartford -- redeveloped in the mid-2000s around the rescued facade of the old Sage-Allen & Co. department store -- is close to another rescue a decade later.A partnership planning a $100 million redevelopment of the Pratt Street corridor plans to acquire the Lofts at Main and Temple, currently mired in a foreclosure, to form the second of three parts of the larger redevelopment project.The Lofts include apartments and storefronts that stand at the top of Pratt Street when looking east from Trumbull Street. To the rear is student housing, once envisioned as bringing college students into downtown.“The property is very important,” Martin J. Kenny, who heads Hartford-based Lexington Partners, one of the development partners said Friday. “It is right in the center of the downtown area.”Lexington with its partners LAZ Investments and Shelbourne Global Solutions LLC would acquire the building after buying a mortgage that was sold last year to an investor by the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority at a steep, $25 million loss to the state.CHFA sold the $42.6 million mortgage for $18.25 million to Elizon DB Transfer Agent in November, 2018. CHFA said this week it no longer wanted to invest more in the apartments. The property had failed to turnaround and the value of the building kept declining.CHFA sold the $42.6 million mortgage for $18.25 million to Elizon DB Transfer Agent in November, 2018. CHFA said this week it no longer wanted to invest more in the apartments. The property had failed to turnaround and the value of the building kept declining.Acquiring the mortgage would give the development partners control of the building. Lexington already took over management of the building in October.“The student housing never really worked,” Kenny said. “It wasn’t executed well. This gives us a chance to start anew.”In the redevelopment, the 42 townhomes of student housing would be converted to 84 "micro-apartments’ and 12 townhomes of market-rate rentals, with a complete redesign.“Have you ever been back there?” Kenny said. “It looks like a jail.”On Thursday, a major obstacle to purchasing the mortgage was removed when the Capital Region Development Authority agreed to convert a $5.4 million loan on the property into an equity investment.The move, CRDA executive director Michael W. Freimuth said, protected the funding -- inherited from the old Capital City Economic Development Authority -- from foreclosure and helped speed up redevelopment efforts.“Our note was holding up a timely transaction, that’s the essence of it,” Freimuth said. “The angst on this is CHFA has already walked away from their value, and we said we we’re just not going to go that same route.”The University of Hartford had been the biggest supporter of the student housing at the Lofts.Beginning in 2005, the university made a commitment to fill 136 beds per year and to spend up to $2 million over ten years to make up for any shortfall. The commitment was fulfilled in eight years. The university once ran a shuttle to its campus, but after 2015, the university no longer actively promoted the site as university housing..Lexington and its partners plan to invest $13 million in renovations that also will include the addition of eight apartments to the front of the complex. They also plan changes in the storefront space that could include a food hall.Kenny said it is possible that the Sage-Allen name could be resurrected in the redevelopment. The old department store’s name is more synonymous with the location than the Lofts at Main and Temple ever was, Kenny said.The developers have sought $3 million from CRDA in state taxpayer-backed loans for this part of development. CRDA has not made a decision.The Lofts is part of a ambitious project -- announced in June -- that includes the addition of apartments on the south side of Pratt Street in buildings owned by Shelbourne and the renovation of the long-shuttered Talcott Plaza parking garage, also owned by Shelbourne.Shelbourne had initially planned to demolish the parking garage. The switch to a renovation is forcing a change to a tax-abatement agreement on other Shelbourne properties downtown that still must be approved by the city council.The developers expect to seek a total of $20 million in state assistance. CRDA has approved $12 million for the first chunk of work on Pratt Street, but the State Bond Commission has yet to vote on it.
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    November 22, 2019

    CT Construction Digest Friday november 22, 2019

    Governor Lamont has proposed a 10-year transportation plan. Visit CT2030 

    Senate Republicans have proposed a 10-year transportation plan as well.  Visit Fastr CT

    The plans deliver the same projects over the next 10 years!  The plans would provide a faster commute, safer travel, jobs, and economic activity!
    The Senate Democratic Caucus will not support Governor Lamont’s plan because they are nervous about voting for tolls.
    The Senate Democrats are “taking a look” at the Senate Republican Plan.
    The Senate Democrats have no plan!
    Call the Senate Democratic Leadership!
    Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney 860-240-0375
    Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff 860-240-0414
    Ask them…since they oppose Governor Lamont’s and "taking a look" at the Republican Plan…
    What is their plan to fix Connecticut’s failing transportation systems?


    Jacqueline Smith: A déjà vu on tolls, or the road to nowhere

    At the time, I was a reporter at the New Haven Register and drove that route every work day. To save money I bought a little black plate (I think it cost $50 at the Motor Vehicle Department) that attached to the car’s front bumper and allowed me to cruise through the toll. A rustic EZPass of sorts. I thought it was cool.
    For all this heated debate about tolls in Connecticut, it’s forgotten that once we did have tolls. For quite a while.
    Aside from turnpike tolls by private contractors going back to the late 1700s, more modern versions came with the parkway tolls in 1939 and in the mid-1950s with construction of the 129-mile Connecticut Turnpike and eight toll plazas. This became Interstate-95.

    In 1983, the Legislature decided to remove those tolls, as well as ones at three Hartford-area bridges, prompted by a horrific accident that killed six people at the Stratford toll plaza that year. On June 24, 1988 tolls closed on the Merritt and Wilbur Cross Parkways, 49 years after opening.
    (Trivia tidbit: The last toll in Connecticut was paid on April 28, 1989 at the Charter Oak Bridge in Hartford by William Thornton, president of the Manchester Sand & Gravel Company. He was the first person to pay the toll, at age 13, when the bridge opened in 1942.)
    On Wednesday morning I was once again crossing the Sikorsky bridge on my way to the New Haven Register, this time for a Hearst Media Group Editorial Board meeting with Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano. You can guess the topic.
    It has been a frothing time of competing plans — tolls/no tolls/truck-only-tolls — raised and shot down, sometimes within hours.
    Turns out, state residents also have strong feelings about the subject and want the politicians to listen. My column last week, “Let’s hear from the people on tolls,” drew quite a reaction from readers — both for and against — and I’d like to give them a chance to be heard.
    “Every time I hit a pothole or look at the bridges in disrepair, what needs to be done, I’m in favor of tolls and a higher gas tax. If we want good roads and bridges, we need to pay for them,” wrote Harvey Paulin of Derby, a self-described senior citizen and “first time reply-er.”
    Bernard Waleski of Shelton is not convinced. “This reads like a press release from Governor Lamont’s office,” he said of my column. “The legislature’s problem is spending not generating money. No tolls.”
    Elizabeth Broncati of Norwalk wants “nothing to do with tolls.” They are the bane “of driver’s existence, especially I-95 in Fairfield County. In fact, maybe this is the time the rest of the state pays more for highways, instead of Fairfield County again footing the bill for the rest of the state.”

    A lifelong resident, he “believes Connecticut has not changed for the better.”
    Oversight of transportation projects is also a concern for Martin Katz of Wilton. “CT2030 (Gov. Lamont’s plan) is a comprehensive plan for infrastructure improvements that have been neglected for years. But what is the ‘plan’ to manage these projects? ... Most residents have no confidence in CT to implement cost effective improvements. ... Residents don’t want another User Tax that has no end in sight!”
    Carol Salvato of Wilton sees tolls as “inevitable.” “I am in favor of tolls with a 75 percent discount locked in for CT residents for 50 years and a sealed tight lockbox for proceeds. We pay tolls in all of the states for road maintenance and if we don’t institute tolls for CT we will pay through taxation for repairs anyway. .. I don’t want tolls either, but my practical mind dictates the necessity of them.”
    Charles H. Parkhurst of Greenwich has an idea. “Since tolls are regressive I suggest that the state sales tax (which is also regressive) be lowered to a level that makes the combination roughly revenue neutral. ... With more and more electric cars on the roads who pay no gas taxes, it’s only fair that they also contribute to the maintenance and upgrade of the roads and bridges.”
    Helen Robinson of New Haven agrees that “politicians have had a BIG say in the tolls debate, but not much has been heard recently from citizens. .... They pay tolls in NY and Mass, and they resent truckers and others who get a free ride to cause wear and tear on our roads.” She would like to see a more extensive poll.
    The last Quinnipiac Poll on tolls (one of 25 questions regarding the 2018 state elections) indicated 53 percent of Connecticut voters opposed tolls on state highways, with 40 percent in favor. Drilling down into the statistics, Democrats were more likely to support tolls than Republicans. I wonder if positions have shifted since the August, 2018 poll and the intense debate.
    I know that my thinking has evolved in the past year with the realization that fixing our highways, bridges and rail systems will end up costing taxpayers one way or another. With borrowing, we pay 100 percent (even with low interest rates); with tolls at least out-of-state drivers will pay an estimated 40 percent.
    Fasano is adamant against tolls. I asked if there was any room for compromise, for example, on the Democrats’ idea the other day for trucks-only tolls. No, he replied without hesitation. Trucks one day, cars the next.
    I credit Fasano and the Senate Republicans for doing the hard work and coming up with a reasonable response to Lamont’s CT2030 plan. They call it FASTR CT, for Fiscal Accountability & Sustainable Transportation Reform. But a criticism is that it takes money from the Rainy Day cushion to pay down pension liability.
    So here we are. Lamont’s own Democratic party isn’t behind his plan for limited tolls, and Republicans certainly won’t go there. Democrats’ trial balloon of trucks-only tolls crashed, and Republicans don’t have a majority for their plan.
    Up in Hartford they’re saying that tolls are dead for now, and possibly even for the next General Assembly session that opens in February. But that doesn’t mean taxpayers aren’t worrying about tolls — one way or the other. It doesn’t seem fair to leave everyone hanging.
     
    Jim Shay
    The state Department of Transportation will hold a public hearing on the rehabilitation - or replacement - of a 55-year-old Route 8 bridge in Thomaston that is in poor condition.
    The public information meeting will be held on Thursday, Dec. 5 at the Lena Morton Gallery at Town Hall, 158 Main St. in Thomaston. The formal presentation will begin at 7 p.m. In the event of inclement weather, the meeting will be held on Monday, Dec. 9 at the same time and place.
    The bridge carries southbound Route 8 over Reynolds Bridge Road. The 2015 estimated average daily traffic is approximately 16,500 vehicles.
    “The purpose of the project is to rehabilitate Bridge 01729, which was originally constructed in 1964. The project is being initiated to address the structural deficiencies of the existing structure to improve the condition of the bridge to a state of good repair. Bridge 01729 carries Route 8 Southbound with two lanes of traffic,” DOT said in a release.

    “A full superstructure replacement is recommended due to the deterioration of the existing concrete bridge deck and impact damage to structural components, with components of the existing bridge rated to be in poor condition.” One lane of traffic will be maintained on Route 8 throughout construction.
    Reynolds Bridge Road may be intermittently closed and traffic detoured for short durations while the bridge is removed and replaced. There are no right-of-way impacts associated with the proposed improvements.
    Construction is anticipated to begin in fall of 2021 based on the availability of funding.
    The construction is estimated to be completed by the fall of 2022.
    The estimated construction cost for this project is approximately $3.3 million. The construction of this project is anticipated to be undertaken with 100-percent state funds.
    Plans of the proposed project will be on display for public review. Department personnel will be available during the meeting to discuss this project. More detailed information is available at the Department’s Office of Engineering, 2800 Berlin Turnpike, Newington, Connecticut, Monday through Friday between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., excluding holidays. Anyone wishing to discuss the project may contact Bryan H. Reed at (860) 594-3418 or by email at Bryan.Reed@ct.gov.

    Legal ruling moves Hartford one step closer to DoNo redevelopment
    Matt Pilon
    An attempt by spurned Dunkin’ Donuts Park developer Centerplan to wrest back some control of development parcels around the ballpark has failed.
    The state Appellate Court on Wednesday denied a request by Centerplan to place liens back on four parcels surrounding the stadium, which prompted Mayor Luke Bronin to say the city will press forward with a planned $200-million, mixed-use development in the area to be spearheaded by another developer.
    The city successfully requested that those liens be lifted after winning a jury verdict in July that found Centerplan and Dono Hartford LLC -- both controlled by Robert Landino -- were at fault for stadium-construction delays that led the city to terminate its contract with the companies.
    Centerplan is still appealing that decision.
    Bronin said Wednesday’s Appellate Court  ruling “fully clears the way forward” for developing the parcels around the ballpark. He said the city is in the final stages of negotiating a development agreement with RMS Companies of Stamford, which is led by Randy Salvatore.
    Phase one of RMS’ plan includes a $46-million investment to build 200 apartments, with retail and parking, on one of the four parcels. RMS would have the option to develop the other three parcels, if certain conditions are met.
    An attorney for Centerplan did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday morning.

    Wooden: Spending reserves would weaken investor confidence in CT
    Keith M. Phaneuf and Mark Pazniokas
    Spending state budget reserves to bolster transportation could undermine Connecticut’s readiness for the next recession, weaken investor confidence and increase borrowing costs, state Treasurer Shawn T. Wooden warned in a letter released Wednesday.
    In a letter hand delivered Tuesday to Gov. Ned Lamont and legislative leaders, Wooden also said the rainy day fund’s growth over the past two years has bolstered Connecticut’s standing with Wall Street credit rating agencies.
    “After years of difficult budgets and fiscal crisis, the state is on a better course,” Wooden wrote. “The Budget Reserve Fund has reached historic levels because of fiscal discipline and smart policy.”
    The warning from the treasurer overlapped with an almost identical message from the Office of Fiscal Analysis Wednesday.  In its annual report, OFA said Connecticut needs to keep its rainy day fund intact as protection for the next recession.
    Prior to that, the largest fiscal cushion Connecticut ever had was the nearly $1.4 billion it banked just prior to the start of last recession in mid-2009.
    That reserve, which represented 8% of annual operating costs, quickly was exhausted in the last recession and Connecticut still borrowed nearly $1 billion to cover operating debt.
    As an alternative to Lamont’s proposal to impose tolls on cars and trucks at 14 bridges across the state to finance a major transportation rebuild, Senate Republicans have proposed spending 60% of the current $2.5 billion reserve, which amounts to about $1.5 billion.
    Those dollars would immediately be deposited into the cash-starved pension fund for state employees. In turn, this would trigger lower contribution rates. And Senate Republicans say this annual savings could be funneled into the transportation program over the next decade.
    The Senate Republican plan still would leave $1 billion in the rainy day fund. Assuming current economic trends continue, nonpartisan analysts say that reserve could grow to $1.3 billion by the end of next summer and above $1.7 billion by mid-2021.
    But there is historical evidence to support Wooden’s caution.
    During the last recession, General Fund tax receipts fell from $12.5 billion in 2008 to $10.9 billion in 2010 — a drop of $1.6 billion.
    The treasurer said his office is preparing two significant bond offerings in the coming weeks. Connecticut issues bonds on Wall Street to finance a wide array of capital programs including municipal school construction; projects at public colleges and universities; highway, bridge and rail upgrades; improvements to wastewater treatment facilities; state building maintenance; and various, smaller projects in legislators’ home districts.
    Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano responded Wednesday, saying: “It’s extremely disappointing that the treasurer would rather play politics than work together on policy. The treasurer has already made up his mind before he’s had any conversations regarding the details of the plan or reviewed the numbers.”
    Fasano said he contacted Wooden on Monday and asked for a meeting to discuss the Senate Republicans’ proposed investment in transportation.
    “When investors look at the state’s actions, they must look at the whole picture.,” Fasano added, questioning the substance of Wooden’s discussions with investment bankers. “I have no idea what the treasurer presented and to whom because he has not even met with me yet to review the Senate Republican plan. What numbers did he show? Who did he talk to? What analysis did he provide?”
    Lamont told reporters Wednesday morning that he shared some of Wooden’s concerns.
    But the governor said he appreciated Fasano’s efforts and would consider a less aggressive use of the budget reserves, perhaps in concert with other sources, such as the trucks-only tolling plan proposed Tuesday by House Democrats.
    “The Senate Republicans have a credible plan out there. I’ve got to look at it. The House Democrats, they have a credible plan out there,” Lamont said. “We have a plan, which I think is really good.”
    The governor’s first year in office has been dominated by his efforts to restore solvency to the Special Transportation Fund and speed commutes by making improvements to Metro-North and eliminating highway bottlenecks.
    Lamont’s original proposal for raising nearly $800 million through a comprehensive system of tolls on automobiles and trucks on Route 15 and Interstates 84, 91 and 95 never came to a vote.
    “My job is to get people to yes. My job is to reach a solution,” the governor said.
    Lamont said he believes legislative leadership is engaged and ready to find a way to finance a significant portion of CT2030.
    “I’m encouraged in this sense — all the different groups know we have to increase our investment in transportation,” he said. “We don’t all agree on how to pay for it, but I think we’re going to find some common ground.”

    New York legislators say Gov. Ned Lamont is targeting New Yorkers with toll on I-684 in
    Greenwich

    Plans for a toll on I-684 in Greenwich have drawn the ire of New York state legislators who say Gov. Ned Lamont is specifically targeting New Yorkers by charging drivers during the 1.4-mile stretch the highway cuts through Connecticut.“In effect, it would create a ‘New York’ tax on our constituents who must transverse this small section of Connecticut in their drive within New York State,” Sens. Shelley B. Mayer and Peter B. Harckham and Reps. David Buchwald and Kevin Byrne wrote in a letter to Lamont’s office and legislative leaders dated Wednesday.Out-of-state drivers would pay 85% of the toll revenue at the Greenwich site, according to a projection included as part of the governor’s CT2030 transportation plan.“Governor Ned Lamont is focused on ensuring that Connecticut residents get the best possible transportation plan," said Max Reiss, a spokesman for the governor.While I-684 passes through Greenwich, there are no on-ramps or exits in Connecticut. And New York handles routine maintenance of the stretch that travels through Connecticut, including snow plowing. The 28.4-mile highway connects I-84 in Brewster, New York, near Danbury, to I-287 and the Hutchinson River Parkway in White Plains, New York.The New York lawmakers said drivers would likely get off the highway and take local roads to avoid the toll, increasing traffic in the communities they represent.“This proposed toll encourages drivers to avoid the toll by taking detours off I-684 onto the secondary roads through Connecticut and New York, resulting in increased local maintenance and road repair costs,” they wrote.The Journal News, a New York newspaper that covers Westchester County, posted a story on its website with an interactive map that detailed how drivers could avoid paying the toll, which a headline described as the “panhandling panhandle.”The toll, with a base rate of 50 cents, would be situated where the highway passes over the Byram River. The money raised would go toward a bridge there that is in need of $13 million worth of repairs, according to Lamont’s transportation plan In the Connecticut state legislature, Sen. Alex Bergstein, D-Greenwich, told The Journal News that while she supports tolls, she was opposed to the gantry in Greenwich. “I do not believe in taxation without representation, and I was surprised to see a proposed toll on 684 that runs from New York state into Connecticut for a short stretch,” she said. “I do not support fees on that portion of 684. However, I do believe that drivers using Connecticut’s major highways should contribute to their maintenance and improvement. New York and every state in our region has tolls for this reason.”The New York lawmakers said they were committed to working with Lamont on improving shared infrastructure “but we cannot do so in a matter that explicitly targets and has a disproportionate impact on our neighboring residents, particularly low- and moderate-income residents.”The fate of the I-684 toll, and the rest of Lamont’s 10-year, $21 billion plan, is uncertain. Senate Democrats rebuffed his proposal for 14 tolls across the state while Senate Republicans have released their own transportation plan that relies on dipping into the state’s rainy day fund to finance repairs in lieu of tolls. House Democrats meanwhile have voiced their support for truck-only tolls, a proposal Lamont campaigned on last year but ditched in February, saying it would not raise enough money for needed repairs. House Republicans say their own transportation plan is forthcoming.All sides are expected to meet Tuesday to discuss the options that have been presented.

    Debunking Connecticut’s enduring tax myth

    It was one of the talking points casually employed last week by Patrick Sasser, a leader of the No Tolls CT movement: Why should anyone believe a suggestion by Gov. Ned Lamont that the tolls he was seeking could be temporary, when that was how the income tax was sold in 1991?
    Carol Platt Liebau, the president of the conservative Yankee Institute, made the same argument in a statement published on Nov. 7: “No sensible person can believe the claim that these tolls would be temporary, given Connecticut’s long history of ‘temporary’ taxes that have turned out to be permanent — including the state income tax.”
    The income-tax-as-temporary complaint has taken root among Republicans in recent years and blossomed on Twitter and Facebook. It was repeated by two Republican gubernatorial candidates in 2018 — Bob Stefanowski and Timothy Herbst — and casually mentioned in an interview this year by the House Republican leader, Themis Klarides.
    There is only one problem. It is a myth.
    The public record is unambiguous. On Feb. 13, 1991, Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. told a joint session of the General Assembly of his intention to make sweeping and permanent changes to Connecticut’s tax system — sharply cutting the sales, corporations and investment income taxes and imposing a tax on wages.
    Six months later, after three budget vetoes, the legislature acceded to Weicker’s wishes by adopting a tax package different from the original proposal, but still a top-to-bottom overhaul of the tax code.
    There was no sunset provision striking it from the books after five years, as Rep. Mike France, R-Ledyard, recently said he once believed.
    In fact, an element of the final debate in the House was that there would be no going back once the new revenue source was on the books. “It lets the genie out of the bottle,” said Rep. J. Peter Fusscas, a Republican from Marlborough. “Once it’s out, it ain’t never going back in.”
    As he prepared to sign the budget, Weicker spoke of it as the foundation for the future, not a stopgap: “When I sign this budget Connecticut will be closing the book on its past, and it’ll be facing toward the future.”Temporary? Hardly.
    So, how did the narrative change?
    “This is a really interesting question,” said Emily Thorson, a Syracuse University political scientist who has written articles about misinformation in politics and is currently writing a book on the subject.
    Thorson said falsehoods about policies, as opposed to people, have their own dynamic. They can slip into public consciousness over time, especially when they take root outside political campaigns, where candidates are challenged by opponents and fact-checked by journalists. 
    “With policy perceptions, it’s not about what a candidate did or didn’t do,” Thorson said. “Misconceptions about a particular policy, these are pretty common.”
    Thorson said examples include the perception that U.S. foreign aid consumes a significant piece of the federal budget. (One poll found a belief it constitutes 25%, not the actual one percent.) Or that benefits under a federal welfare program, TANF, can be collected indefinitely. (TANF, an acronym for temporary assistant for needy families, limits how long recipients can get aid.)
    When a public policy no longer is in the news, it is especially vulnerable to misinformation. The proponents move on, memories fade, and details get simplified or twisted.
    Thorson said this can happen without malicious intent.“They are often the result of people trying to piece together information in a fragmented media environment,” she said.
    It’s been 28 years since Connecticut adopted a tax on wages, and the turnover in the General Assembly is nearly complete: 100% in the Senate (though three current senators were House members in 1991), and 97% in the House. 
    Connecticut does have a history of taxes proposed as temporary, but that never quite go away. A surcharge on the corporations tax was imposed in 1989 with the expectation it would disappear in two years. It is still around.
    Republicans say the myth of a temporary income tax took root because it reflects something real: a mistrust in government, particularly on issues of taxes and finance.
    “The bottom line is people don’t trust government,” said Rep. Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford. “I think that’s what we need to recognize.”
    “People feel government has tricked them so many times. They are right to feel that way,” said Joe Markley, a former state senator who was the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in 2018. “The most temporary thing about the income tax were the low rates.”
    Weicker’s original proposal was to impose a 6% income tax and cut the 8% sales tax to 4.25%.
    The version adopted by the General Assembly on Aug. 21, 1991 imposed a 4.5% income tax and cut the sales tax to 6%. The 13.8% corporate tax was  lowered to 10.5% over two years. Income from capital gains, dividends and interest, which had been taxed between 7% and 14%, were treated as regular income, taxed at 4.5%.
    Income tax rates now range from 3% to 6.99%. The sales tax is 6.35%, with an additional percentage point on restaurant food and other prepared meals that was adopted in 2019.
    Markley is a passionate Weicker critic who helped his friend, former state Sen. Tom Scott, organize a massive anti-income tax protest at the State Capitol after withholding began in 1991. But he is a character witness for Weicker and the other income-tax supporters on the question of whether the tax ever was pitched as temporary.
    “This is the one sin they didn’t commit,” Markley said.
    Markley said he sometimes corrects people on Facebook when they repeat the falsehood.
    Not everyone is easily persuaded.
    France, the state representative from Ledyard who once believed the income tax was passed with a sunset provision, reacted angrily in May 2018 when this reporter corrected him. 
    “I was taken aback,” he said this week.
     But he checked the legislation, found no sunset provision and now accepts it never was intended to be temporary. France said he cannot recall who first suggested otherwise; it was just part of the conversation in his political circles.Sasser, the tolls opponent, said he could not recall how he came to believe the income tax was meant to be temporary and was surprised to learn the story was false. Liebau, of the Yankee Institute, did not return a call for comment.
    Rep. Bob Godfrey, D-Danbury, who was in his second term when he voted for the income tax, said the persistence of the rumor is a sign of the times.
    “It’s the age of Trump. It’s the age of ‘fake news.’ People make up narratives that are total fiction,” Godfrey said. “This crap gets out there all over the place, and no one bothers to do their own fact checking.”
    Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, who voted for the income tax as a House member, said he is stunned every time someone tells him that the income tax was meant to be temporary.
    “I keep hearing that all the time,” Looney said. “It’s completely fictitious. Who would work that hard and bleed that much for something that was temporary?”
    In 1971, Connecticut adopted an income tax, but repealed it before it ever took effect, one potential source of the confusion today.
    But Looney is among those more inclined to think that Republican John G. Rowland’s promise in 1994 to eliminate the income tax once he was elected governor muddied memories. “Maybe some people transformed that into a representation it was supposed to be temporary,” Looney said.
     Rowland never submitted a budget that would have eliminated the income tax during his nearly 10 years as governor.
    The income tax was revived as an issue in 2018 by Stefanowski, the GOP gubernatorial nominee. The centerpiece of his campaign was the one that helped Rowland 24 years earlier:  A claim he could eventually eliminate the tax on wages, now the single largest source of tax revenue in Connecticut.
    Stefanowski used to describe the tax as temporary in stump speeches until it was reported as inaccurate by CT Mirror. His campaign manager, Patrick Trueman, said he then looked for news stories supporting Stefanowski’s claim and found none, and Stefanowski dropped the reference in his speeches.
    Trueman said Scott, who was an adviser to the campaign, was among those who told Stefanowski the tax was meant to be temporary. “Tom Scott,  who was there and quite frankly ought to know better, repeated it again and again and again,” Trueman said.
    Scott said Trueman is mistaken. Scott said he never told anyone the tax was proposed as temporary, only that he heard a vague rumor during the long tax fight in 1991 that proponents might try to pick up support by changing it to a temporary tax — something that never happened
    “We never tracked down the source,” Scott said. “It was part of the noise.”
    Stefanowski said that while he was wrong to fall for the myth that the income tax was intended to be temporary, the man who defeated him has proven that taxpayers have every right to mistrust politicians.
    Lamont insisted during the campaign he was opposed to all tolls except on trucks. In February, Lamont reneged on that pledge by proposing a comprehensive system of tolling on all motor vehicles.
    “There is a general mistrust of government,” Stefanowski said. “He made it worse.”
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