Solar energy farm approved for 104 acres in Winsted
Kurt Moffett
WINSTED – The Connecticut Siting Council has approved plans for a solar energy farm off Platt Hill Road.
According to the council’s ruling last month, Lodestar Energy is permitted to build a 1.99-megawatt solar photovoltaic facility on a 104-acre wooded property not far from Highland Lake.
The location was formerly the site of a controversial 26-home subdivision that was never constructed.
Michelle Bachman, executive director of the Siting Council, has estimated that one megawatt could power 750 to 1,000 homes. Thus the Lodestar project could potentially generate electricity for 1,500 to 2,000 homes.
The Siting Council is the only authorizing body in the state for renewable energy projects. Lodestar is an Avon-based renewable energy company.
The council ruled that the project meets air and water quality standards of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and would not have a “substantial adverse environmental effect” on the property and surrounding area.
If the project is not built within three years, the council’s decision becomes void and any work that has been done must be dismantled and removed.
Lodestar lawyer Carrie L. Ortolano could not be reached for comment. Construction has not yet begun but Lodestar has estimated it will take three to four months to build.
The town supported this project when it was proposed more than a year ago. Former Town Manager Robert Geiger wrote to Bachman in December that the town shared the state’s and the region’s concern “about the significant electric generation capacity shortage projected for northern Connecticut.
“Due to the location and topography of the site, we agree with Lodestar Energy that there will be little to no impact to abutting property owners and the surrounding area,” Geiger wrote. “We are confident that Lodestar will continue to cooperate with the town throughout the construction and implementation phases of this project and it will be of great benefit to the town of Winchester.”
Lodestar intends to donate 75 acres to Winchester Land Trust. The project will only consume roughly 14 of the 104 acres.
Land Trust President Jennifer Perga said the group is “definitely planning on having an informational kiosk, probably on or near Platt Hill Road. We did talk about having access (with the owner) to bring students, but haven’t firmed that up recently. I think it’s safe to say that we hope to have occasional access to the site for educational purposes in the future.”
In 2005, the developers of the Trade Winds Farm subdivision had to overcome the objections of a neighborhood group that was opposed to the project. They also appealed twice in court to overturn rejections by local boards.
With three days left in legislative session, the rush is on to get bills passed
KEITH M. PHANEUF and MARK PAZNIOKAS
Democratic legislative leaders have not only resolved most
of their differences with Gov. Ned Lamont on the next two-year budget but have
a package that could appeal to a Republican minority whose influence over the
agenda grows as time runs down in the 2021 session.
But as leaders weeded one controversial item after another
out of the budget, they left themselves a hefty list of related items to debate
and pass as separate bills with just three days before the constitutional
adjournment deadline of midnight Wednesday.
“We’re humming along in good position,” House Speaker Matt
Ritter, D-Hartford, said at midday Saturday on the budget status. “I am more
optimistic today than yesterday that there’s a good chance there might be a chance
for bipartisanship on this.”
Democrats control the General Assembly with majorities of
24-12 in the Senate and 97-54 in the House, but the ability of the minority
party to influence what bills are called for votes grows in the last days
simply by the threat to talk unwanted bills to death.
That means a priority of progressives — a bill that would
make Connecticut the second state after Oregon to guarantee stable shift
schedules for employees of national retailers, fast-food franchises and
restaurant and hotel chains — is vulnerable to a GOP filibuster and unlikely to
be called for vote.
Rep. Robyn Porter, D-New Haven, co-chair of the Labor and
Public Employees Committee, expressed frustration Friday that the House had not
taken up the so-called “fair work week bill” that the Senate passed on a 20-16
vote on May 19. She was disinclined to let leadership use the waning clock as a
reason not to call the bill.
“Leadership has the power to make all things possible,” she
said.
Lawmakers have reached a consensus on the legalization of recreational
marijuana, which was seemingly on life support due to the complexities of the
related issues of social equity related to licensing and the expungement of
criminal records. Unresolved is whether there is time to get the bill through
both houses.
House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, the
leader of a working group trying to craft a final version of a pot bill, said
that they crafted a version acceptable to Lamont and, he hoped, at least 76 of
the 97 House Democrats, the number necessary for passage. “Labor peace”
language sought by progressives to help unions organize cannabis businesses is
the draft, which could cost some moderate votes. Ritter said a vote on the bill
might require a special session.
Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven, a lead player with Rojas in
the negotiations, said Sunday he is pushing for a vote in the Senate on Monday.
“We should be doing this inside of this session. This
session was about equity,” Winfield said. “I think we can figure out how
to do this within the bounds of the session. I’ve expressed this to my
leadership. They are mulling it over.”
The main elements of a budget deal came together Friday when
Ritter, Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, and
Lamont announced the framework for a tentative deal, then built on
that over the weekend, leaving leaders hopeful the House could begin voting
Monday.
A two-year plan that will spend about $46 billion over the
next two fiscal years combined will keep annual spending growth close to 3%,
raise municipal aid sharply, and keep taxes flat.
There’s plenty appealing about that, top Republicans in the
House and Senate said.
“I could see Republicans voting for this budget,
potentially,” said House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora of North
Branford. GOP opposition to tax increases is unalterable, as has been the
governor’s this spring.
“Where we are today is where the Republicans have always
been,” added Senate Minority Leader Kevin Kelly of Stratford.
But that bipartisan appeal comes with a price. Other
proposals that normally would be wrapped into the budget bill must be voted on
separately, making time a valuable commodity.
Lamont pushed hard this year for two revenue-raisers to
bolster Connecticut’s cash-starved transportation program: a new highway usage
tax on large, commercial trucks and a regional initiative to reduce auto
emissions. The latter could add 5 cents per gallon to the price of gasoline by
2023.
Democratic leaders promised Lamont a vote on the truck fees,
and said the Transportation Climate Initiative might get a vote this year, or
might be revisited in 2022.
But neither will be included in the budget bill.
The same goes for ongoing efforts to legalize and tax the
sale of marijuana for recreational purposes.
But both Candelora and Kelly predicted that it would be hard
to get broad-based GOP support for any budget that includes recreational pot
sales, if Democrats chose to include it in the budget bill.
And though lawmakers refer to “the budget” in the singular,
the state’s blueprint for the next two fiscal years has many components.
There is a measure that actually appropriates the dollars,
and that’s the bill that would draw GOP support.
But “the budget” also requires a series of policy
adjustments to implement program changes and new services related to those
dollars. The so-called “implementer” portion of the budget sometimes is
included in the appropriations bill, sometimes in a stand-alone measure.
It’s still not clear whether that must be kept separate this
year, since the implementer also is a magnet for last-minute policy changes
majority Democrats want — and which Republicans generally oppose.
Similarly, the state’s two-year spending plan also is
complemented by a biennial bond package, a plan to borrow billions of dollars
for a host of capital projects and programs. The tentative deal will include
hundreds of millions of dollars in new annual financing to support investments
in poor urban centers — a key Democratic base. The bond package also might need
to stand by itself, since the GOP has raised questions about both the
affordability of urban bonding, and about oversight of the funding.
Further complicating matters, both Candelora and Kelly noted
GOP support for the actual appropriations still could unravel after a final,
tentative package is presented Monday or Tuesday — especially if it’s laced
with too many gimmicks or fiscal shortcuts.
For example, the plan does involve shifting a portion of
state sales tax receipts outside of the traditional budget — and therefore the
spending cap — to allow legislators to nearly double two grant programs that
reimburse towns for state and nonprofit property they cannot tax. It also will
boost Education Cost Sharing grants to local school districts by roughly $100
million per year by 2023.
Democratic lawmakers agreed to scale back a portion of that
cap workaround to appease Lamont.
Candelora said he was pleased that the cap workaround was
diminished but will be reviewing that provision closely.
“I think those concerns have to be balanced against what good
proposals are in that budget,” he added.
Looney conceded that debating and voting on a budget, a
related policy implementer, a bond package, marijuana, and two controversial
transportation measures — all before Wednesday — is a huge task.
But he wouldn’t close the door on any item just yet.
“All of this can be subject to negotiations,” he added,
“almost up to the very end.”
Exterior of addition to Bristol Hospital Emergency Department nearly complete
Justin Muszynski
BRISTOL -- The exterior of a 12,500-square-foot addition for Bristol Hospital’s Emergency Center is all but complete, and the project is on pace to meet its December deadline to coincide with the hospital’s 100th anniversary.
“The outside is pretty much complete,” said Thomas Roche, director of facilities and construction at Bristol Health. “The roof is almost done.”
Both the wiring and plumbing in the addition -- which sits adjacent to the current Emergency Department -- are nearly complete, Roche added. And the sheetrock in the building is about halfway done.
The addition has more of a rounded feel to it than the traditional building, with a design that resembles an infinity sign.
“It just gives it a nice feel with the curves instead of square corners,” Roche said.
In addition to the feel the curved design provides, Roche said it also allows Emergency Department staff to more easily monitor and keep an eye on patients.
Once the addition is complete, Roche said, staff from the existing Emergency Department in December are expected to move into the new space. The addition will serve as the sole emergency area while the old space is renovated for five to six months.
“The ER has to keep running,” Roche said. “That area is getting completely gutted.”
“That whole side will mirror this side,” he said, adding that the curved design will also be present in the old space once it is renovated.
The addition and renovations are part of a multi-phase, $15 million project to the hospital’s Emergency Department. A previous phase of the project was completed in 2019, when the hospital unveiled its new 10-bed Emergency Center Behavioral Health Unit. The 2,700-square-foot unit is designed to meet the mental health and substance abuse needs of the community in light of the nation’s opioid epidemic.
The addition and renovations will increase the Emergency Department’s bed capacity by about four to five beds, Roche said, but more importantly, the rooms will now be larger.
“There’s more space for families and visitors,” he said. “They’re more comfortable.”
“It’s going to be exciting for the community.”
WASHINGTON - The inconclusive employment report on Friday gave ammunition to both political camps, fueling Republican complaints that the White House's agenda is holding back the U.S. economy, while Democrats said it helps demonstrate the case for Biden's jobs proposals.
President Joe Biden called the job gains in the report "historic progress" in a speech from Rehoboth Beach, Del. on Friday. "It's testament to the new strategy that growing this economy, not only growing it, we're going from the bottom up in the middle out."
"It should be surging," Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, said of the economic recovery on a call with reporters. Brady blamed Biden's proposal for tax increases, and spending efforts including the $1.9 trillion stimulus that the GOP unanimously opposed, as the reason the recovery in his view has slowed. He added that Biden's "policies are clearly holding America back economically."
The report showed economic progress as the nation rebounds from the coronavirus and the vaccination campaign accelerates across the country, with employers adding about 559,000 jobs in May. But it included some troubling signs as well, as roughly 8 million Americans remain out of work compared to before the pandemic. Initial hopes that the U.S. economy would rapidly recover all the lost ground from the pandemic have now all but fizzled, putting new pressure on policymakers to take further action.
The president spoke with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., on Friday as they try to hammer out a bipartisan agreement on infrastructure spending, a deal that has so far eluded negotiators. A spokesperson for Capito said the two continued negotiating the package and agreed to speak again on Monday.
"Now is the time to build on the foundation we've laid. While progress is undeniable, it is not assured," Biden said in his speech. "We have a chance to seize on the economic momentum from the first months of my administration."
The president also said that it "makes sense" for enhanced unemployment benefits to expire in September, as they are set to under current law, following intense criticisms from the GOP and business groups that they are discouraging workers from rejoining the labor market.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki also signaled a dramatic shift Friday in the administration's posture on the unemployment benefits. She said Republican governors who have cut the benefits "have every right to," and she evaded a question about whether the administration believes the benefits are contributing to a slower pace of job growth.
"That's a really difficult thing to analyze," she said.
Psaki's message Friday was markedly different from comments she made after last month's jobs report.
"We are seeing little evidence that enhanced unemployment benefits are currently impacting or affecting Americans' willingness to work," she said in early May.
In his remarks, Biden pointed to projections by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development that showed the U.S. economy would grow at 6.9 percent this year, which would be the fastest pace in about four decades. The White House has pointed out that no other major country besides the U.S. is now projected to grow faster than expected before the pandemic, a fact the administration attributes to the $1.9 trillion relief plan approved by Democrats this spring.
"No other major economy in the world is growing as fast as ours," Biden said while in Delaware. "No other major economy is gaining jobs as quickly as ours."
Restaurants, bars, and other parts of the service sector drove much of the increase in hiring despite the complaints about a labor shortage. The unemployment rate ticked down to 5.8%, the lowest rate since before the pandemic. Wages also grew relatively quickly, rising by an annualized rate of 7.2% - likely faster than any period since the 1980s - said Jason Furman, an economist who served in the Obama White House.
Still, the number of people participating in the labor market held largely steady, a worrisome indicator for an economy supposed to be springing back to health. April showed particularly sluggish jobs growth. And employment in construction fell as that industry struggle struggled with high lumber prices and uncertainty related to supply chain bottlenecks that have plagued the economy. The U.S. is not expected to return to its pre-pandemic employment levels for more than a year at the current rate of growth.
"It's not an eye-popping report, but a very solid one - right down the fairway," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, in an interview. "Half a million [new jobs] in any other time would be boom-like, but it's 'meh' in the sense we're still down 7.6 million jobs from pre-pandemic times."
Republicans were quick to point to the shortcomings in the report and argue it underscores the weakness of Biden's economic policies.
"As we emerge from the virus, our economy should be booming, but today's lackluster jobs report shows President Biden's policies have stalled our recovery," House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., wrote on Twitter. "Washington needs to stop paying people NOT to work. Bidenomics is bad for America."
Republicans have in particular seized on the $300 per week unemployment benefit approved by Democrats as part of the stimulus package in March as holding back hiring. Those payments will soon stop in more than 20 states, all run by Republicans.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., slammed the policy in an op-ed Friday, lauding Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., for cutting off the benefits but blaming the policy for hurting business's ability to hire new workers.
"Much of the reason has to do with the Biden administration's unemployment benefits, which are so massive that they're incentivizing would-be workers to stay home instead of looking for jobs," he wrote in the Tampa Bay Times. "Even with vaccination rates soaring and COVID-19 case counts plummeting, the administration's policies are now, for millions, precluding getting back to normal."
Before April, some Wall Street forecasters projected that the economy would add over one million jobs per month. After the disappointing numbers in April, forecasters revised their estimates down to around 650,000 new jobs - a prediction that still proved too optimistic.
"If you look at the CBO forecast, we are way behind," said Adam Ozimek, chief economist at Upwork, referring to the estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. "It's not sufficient to say we only fell slightly below consensus expectations. That consensus had the slowdown baked into it."
The jobs report showed that 7.9 million Americans were not working because their employer had closed or lost business due to the pandemic, according to Constance Hunter, the chief economist at KPMG. At the time the survey data was collected, 48% of working-age adults had not yet received even one dose of the vaccine.
"That seems pretty huge. That's a lot of people," Hunter said.
White House officials pointed to strong growth in manufacturing, particularly in the auto industry, as a sign that the economy is beginning to spring back to life. Biden's jobs and families proposal calls for spending $4 trillion on infrastructure, child care, and other domestic policy policies, although that spending would not begin until after the U.S. is already set to be back at full-employment under most economists' projections.
Newington greenlights Rte. 5 mixed-use project
Matt Pilon
ewington officials have approved a Massachusetts-based developer’s mixed-use proposal that would bring 269 apartments and nearly 80,000 square feet of retail space to a vacant property along the Berlin Turnpike.
The town’s planning board voted unanimously last week to approve a series of zoning and site-plan applications submitted in April for 3333 Berlin Tpke./Rte. 5 from Framingham-based Grossman Development Group.
Grossman and its multifamily collaborator on the project, Criterion Development Partners, needed a series of approvals to move forward with building their planned apartments, restaurant/brewpub, fitness facility and retail space in excess of 40,000 square feet in the town’s so-called planned development district.
Grossman has not yet announced tenants, but it has worked with Whole Foods at its developments in several other states.
Besides its Newington project, the company also acquired a retail plaza in Middletown for $16.3 million.
Developer Mendel Paris, who recently purchased the property at 2279 Mount Vernon Road for $3.5 million, said he’s in talks with multiple schools about setting up some kind of high school, possibly a technical school, on the grounds. Briarwood, which in its last years was known as Lincoln College of New England, specialized in fields such as dental hygiene, mortuary sciences, nursing and occupational therapy, and its vacant classrooms still contain labs and other spaces that could be used in a trade school setting, according to Paris.
“It’s a natural fit for the property,” he said. “And it’s not doing anyone any good sitting empty as it is.”
In the near term, Paris said plans are in the works to use the property to host a prep school-style summer program for 17- and 18-year-olds. If ultimately launched, that program would start at the end of this month and run through August, he said.
Paris is a member of a New Haven-based business entity known as PGX Holdings, which acquired the former Briarwood campus in May. The other partner in PGX is Moises Grunblatt of Woodbridge, state records show.
The unused parcel, which is situated near the Bristol town line, currently houses seven buildings, mostly built between 1967 and 2008 to serve as classroom space.
Lincoln College of New England moved out of the property in 2018 and shut down in 2019. The institution was known as Briarwood College between its founding in 1966 and early 2010.
The future of the former campus has been in limbo for the last few years. There had been plans to redevelop the property into luxury homes for the 55 and older community and affordable housing, but none came to fruition.