Coast Guard Museum fundraising to receive $50 million boost
New London — Congress this week will vote on a massive $1.5
trillion government spending
package that includes $50 million toward construction of the
National Coast Guard Museum in New London.
Sen. Chris Murphy, who announced the news Wednesday, said in
a statement that the $50 million, and removal of a prohibition of federal
funds being used for construction costs, represented “a breakthrough for the
Coast Guard, for New London and southeastern Connecticut.”
Murphy is the chairman of the U.S. Senate Appropriations
Subcommittee on Homeland Security, and had pushed for the funding with support
from Sen. Richard Blumenthal, U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, and U.S
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District, Chairwoman of the House Appropriations
Committee.
“After years of plans and proposals, hopes and expectations,
the Coast Guard Museum is going to be built with construction to begin next
year,” Murphy said in a statement.
“This project will not only create hundreds of jobs and
annually pump millions into the local economy, but also inspire the next
generation to serve. The Coast Guard is the only long-standing branch of the
armed services without a national museum. We owe it to the brave men and women
of the Coast Guard — past, present and future — to finally make the museum
a reality, and today is a tremendous step toward fulfilling that commitment,”
he said.
The news comes just days after retired U.S. Coast
Guard Capt. Wes Pulver, president of the National Coast Guard Museum
Association, provided an update on the progress
of the museum to city officials. Preliminary construction work at City
Pier Plaza will start this summer if permits are in place, he has said.
“The funding proposed for the National Coast Guard Museum in
the 2022 federal budget is a game changer,” Pulver said in a statement
Wednesday. “With this extraordinary support championed by Senator Murphy and
the Connecticut delegation, we plan to break ground this summer. We celebrate
all that this means for our Nation, the region, and for our Coast
Guard.”
The omnibus spending package to be taken up this week by
Congress consists of 12 fiscal year 2022 appropriations bills and supplemental
funding to support Ukraine and COVID-19 management. The bills included in the
omnibus provide $730 billion in nondefense funding, a 6.7% increase over
fiscal year 2021. The bills provides $782 billion in defense funding, a 5.6%
increase.
The $50 million for the Coast Guard Museum is included in
the fiscal year 2022 Homeland Security bill.
“This grant is going to go a long way to turbocharging
construction,” Courtney said Wednesday. He said it’s been 15 years since
Congress made the decision to locate the museum in New London.
“It’s definitely time to move on this,” he said.
Courtney, who said he intended to vote in favor of the
spending package later on Wednesday, expects the funding boost will stimulate
more attention and potentially more private donations.
There has been $20 million in federal funds appropriated to
the museum in prior years for things related to the museum exhibits but not
toward actual construction costs.
The spending package was expected to be taken up by the
House on Wednesday and the Senate later this week.
Data center developer requests Groton Town Council make a decision soon
Groton — The Town Council will hold a meeting next
week to vote on a revised proposed data center agreement for land south of
Interstate 95 between Hazelnut Hill and Flanders Roads, after the developer
requested the council make a decision soon.
Thomas Quinn, manager of NE Edge LLC, which is seeking the
host fee agreement with the town, said he is working with a very large
data center company and some preliminary siting decisions will be made by the
end of the first quarter, which he said is fast approaching.
Town Mayor Juan Melendez Jr. said at Tuesday night's
Town Council Committee of the Whole meeting that NE Edge LLC had contacted
him this week to request that the council vote next week on a final
agreement. Melendez asked the councilors for a consensus about
whether or not they were prepared to vote next week, with Councilors Rachael
Franco, Juliette Parker, Bruce Jones, Melinda Cassiere and David McBride in
favor of holding the meeting.
Town Manager John Burt said he has been working with Quinn
to incorporate ideas
from councilors and the public into the draft agreement. Burt said he
is meeting with Quinn on Thursday to hammer out more details of
the proposed agreement. Burt said he's not yet satisfied with the
language, but they might be able to get through the latest issues on
Thursday.
Eric Callahan, an attorney for the town, would then
take a look, and they would be able to distribute the proposed document to
Councilors on Friday.
If approved, the agreement would be the first step
before the developer then seeks land use approvals, sets the
criteria to potentially locate one data center or
more on the land and sets the revenue the town would receive in lieu of
taxes, Burt has
said. State legislation allows for 20- to 30-year tax exemptions,
and Quinn said he envisions the data center proposal would bring
about $1.5 million in annual revenue to the town.
McBride said he has questions and concerns regarding
the proposed agreement and overall plan, but he supported taking the vote
because he thinks it's the job of the councilors to make those decisions.
"I still have a lot to review as well but I think that
gives us ample opportunity, and the public has had time to provide feedback
because they’ve provided us a vast amount of feedback," added
McBride, who said he's not a "yes" or "no" on the agreement
at this point.
Franco confirmed that the council will have the
opportunity next week to discuss the proposed agreement in a
Committee of the Whole meeting and then can vote, so she said she's in
favor of moving forward with the meeting.
But Councilors Scott Westervelt and Aundré Bumgardner
both said they were not in favor of holding a meeting until they have time to
read the document. Councilor Portia Bordelon also said she feels the
councilors should have a chance to fully vet the document and for the public to
comment.
Several councilors said they have walked the property, and
Jones also visited data centers in New York and New Jersey with Representative
Town Meeting member Edward Jacome to get comparisons on the size of data
centers and how much noise they produce.
"NE Edge team appreciates the Town Council advancing
this project to a (host fee agreement) vote along with each and every
Councilor's efforts, and the Town Manager's substantial time
commitment," Quinn said in an email Wednesday. If the agreement
advances, he said the NE Edge team "looks forward to working with
Groton and the boards necessary to achieve final approvals and will do our very
best to be good neighbors."
He said about 20 companies are assessing
the opportunity throughout Connecticut to build data centers. "Groton
offers some unique benefits including main trunk fiber," he said, among
other assets.
People raised
concerns at a Feb. 24 public presentation about the potential
impact of the data center proposal on the environment, including
electricity, water use and possible effects on wells in nearby
neighborhoods, as well as concerns about traffic and a loss of tax revenue.
Labor unions said they were in favor of the development
because it would bring good-paying jobs. Quinn has estimated that, depending on
the size and type of the facility or facilities, it would bring about 80
to 160 full-time jobs.
Melendez had said the town officials got ideas from
the meeting on how to improve the proposed agreement, but town
officials were unlikely to meet the March 8 deadline that Quinn had
been seeking.
During public comment during last week's Town Council
meeting, people continued to raise concerns, from environmental impact to
wanting more information about the developer's background, as well as some
support for job opportunities.
Burt, Cassiere, Franco, Jones and Melendez said they
met with Flanders Road neighbors to hear their questions and concerns during a
Coffee with Councilors event at the Groton Public Library on Saturday.
Melendez said that after Quinn reached out to him to request
the council vote next week, he brought the question to the council. But
Melendez said that he personally was opposed to taking a vote next week,
because he doesn't think he's confident that the proposal won't affect the
neighbors, and he wasn't prepared to vote until he felt confident.
In a statement Wednesday, Bordelon said she was
"profoundly disappointed" with the council's decision to go forward
with the vote next week. She said a final revised draft of the
agreement is not yet available for the councilors and the public to
review, and councilors won't receive the document until late Thursday or
Friday.
She said she would like to see the final revised
draft go through "the regular steps, with at least two reads in
successive COW (Committee of the Whole) sessions, a public hearing on a revised
draft and then a vote at a regular Town Council (meeting) with public comment.
Sadly, this does not seem likely to occur."
Bumgardner said Wednesday he has significant concerns with
respect to the environmental impacts on the site and surrounding properties,
including around the reservoir, Groton Open Space Association's properties to
the south and residential neighborhoods.
"This is the largest development we've seen since
Pfizer and Electric Boat broke ground on their facilities, so it's
incumbent on the council to get this right," he said.
Melendez said the details of the time and date of next
week's meeting, and whether or not there will be an opportunity for public
comment, are still being worked out.
During next week's meeting, the council could take a
vote or also could decide to table the issue, Melendez said.
The council did not have a regularly scheduled meeting for
next week, so if the meeting were not scheduled, the data center agreement
could have been on the agenda for the March 22 meeting or a
later meeting, depending on what the council chose, town officials said.
Fairfield approves two new dorms at SHU despite some concerns
FAIRFIELD — The Town Plan and Zoning Commission approved two
new dorms at Sacred Heart University on Tuesday, despite residents’ concerns
about the proposal’s possible impact on the neighborhood.
Sacred Heart requested a zoning regulation amendment and a
special exception permit to create freshmen housing on Jefferson Street. In the
last hearing, Richard Fitzpatrick, the attorney representing the university,
said the amendment would expand the permitted lot coverage and floor area for
university use in the R3 zone, which currently prohibits additional
construction.
When it came time to vote on the two parts of the
application, they passed 6-to-1, with Commissioner Kathryn Braun as the lone
dissenting vote.
Commissioner Steven Levy said the university’s request was
in line with what the body had done with similar proposals made by Fairfield
University.
“This would be consistent with how we’ve previously handled
colleges and universities in other parts of town, recognizing that the
increased density in that area... would be consistent with the use and the
appropriate development of the premises,” he said.
Residents
had raised concerns at a public hearing, saying the development could
negatively affect parking, traffic, lighting and flooding in the area.
During the hearing, Fitzpatrick said the special exception
permit would allow the university to build two dorm buildings at the former
site of the Jewish Home for the Elderly. He noted the commission
already approved the modification or construction of other buildings
on the property.
The 15.48 acre property abuts the rest of Sacred Heart’s
campus on the east, south and west, according to town documents. The proposed
buildings would be three stories tall and connected by a bridge on the third
floor. They would total about 133,600 square feet and would add 484 beds in the
form of 115 four-person suites.
The proposal includes building a single-story parking deck
for a total of 219 parking spots, according to documents.
Levy said the drainage and site plan infrastructure had
already been in place to accommodate the proposal. He also said the building
would likely reduce traffic because fewer students will have to commute to
school.
“For all those reasons, I think it meets the criteria... and
should be approved,” he said.
Braun did not support the proposal on Tuesday, saying that
part of town is extremely dense. She said the town’s plan of conservation and
development says that, while there have been institutional uses developed in
that area, the commission should prevent the over expansion of those uses. She
said the planning document also said any future development in that area should
be sensitive to the neighborhood’s residential uses.
“By allowing even more density, more height, more build out,
more floor area by up to almost 500 students living there, plus support staff
and everything else, I think it’s overburdening the neighborhood,” she said.
“We should be looking to de-densify some of these parts of our town. By
allowing this, it just encourages too much development activity, too much
traffic problems.”
Allowing the development would only benefit the university,
Braun said.
“At some point, it has to stop,” she said. “Maybe it’s grown
enough. Maybe they can expand into Bridgeport. It will affect property values
and the quality of life of existing residents in that neighborhood.”
Braun also raised issues with the size of the project.
Commission Chairman Thomas Noonan said he supported the
regulation amendment, adding the building was expected and planned
“I am for this building to be built,” he said. “I don’t
believe this is an expansion of use. This is certainly creating more density,
but it’s keeping it contained in the campus.”
Noonan said the POCD encourages the expansion of both SHU
and Fairfield University.
Commission Vice Chair Lenny Braman agreed with Noonan’s
comments, adding the university is a tremendous resource for the town.
“That’s not to say that we don’t take a hard look at
proposals and applications from the university,” he said. “But the increase in
coverage, increase in density here is... incremental, modest and appropriate
given the surrounding neighborhood and the institutional use that is already
there.”
BRISTOL – Union trade workers with various local agencies
voiced their displeasure with the Bristol City Council for not taking part in a
project labor agreement connected with Bristol City Hall renovations, that they
say would have brought jobs to local workers.
Workers made their statements during the public commenting
portion of the City Council meeting this week. Bristol Mayor Jeff Caggiano said
the project had been opened to all businesses who wished to bid.
“I’m here to follow up on a project labor agreement that was
rescinded on Dec. 14, 2021, relating to the City Hall renovations. I’m proud to
stand here tonight with my brothers and sisters of the building trades. As a
labor leader in this city and a resident, I was quite disappointed by the
action of the City Council on December 14,” said Greater Bristol Labor
Federation President Mike Petosa.
According to city documents, the council unanimously voted
to “notify and instruct the Construction Manager to terminate the Project Labor
Agreement between D’Amato & Downes A Joint Venture and the Greater
Hartford-New Britain Building and Construction Trades Council and The North
Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters” at the December 2021 meeting.
Petosa continued that public labor agreements were always a
“hot topic” in Bristol, yet he felt that neighboring towns “swore by
them.”
“(Fall) of 2021, the previous city administration voted in
favor of the project labor agreement and on Dec. 14, 2021, your administration
rescinds it,” said Petosa.”That’s a pretty tough pill to swallow.”
The president said that Council member Cheryl Thibeault said
such an agreement would increase the cost of City Hall around “3 to 4.5 million
over” and Petosa replied the figure was “totally off the mark.”
“On Jan. 12, we had a District Three meeting that was hosted
by Councilman (Andrew) Howe and Councilwoman Thibeault at the Manross Library.
I asked Councilwoman Thibeault where she got her figures regarding the PLA. She
said from the architect,” said Petosa.
Petosa encouraged the council to do some research on what
labor unions had brought to Bristol. Several fellow union workers voiced
concerns in league with Petosa and that some of them were unemployed or
traveling hours away for work when they might not have had to otherwise.
“A PLA would have ensured that a skilled workforce
consisting of local residents in various trades would have been employed on
this project,” said Petosa. “They’re the same people that pay taxes, own homes,
shop in Bristol and support nonprofits. What you did was to slap them in the
face, plain and simple.”
Bristol Mayor Jeff Caggiano said to his knowledge that the
city had never chosen to go with a project labor agreement because it closed
bids from local contractors that might not be union affiliated.
“We opened up a competitive bid process that anybody could
bid on and I felt bad for some of the people that spoke and said they had to
travel (hours or more) away,” said Caggiano. “Their companies are welcome to
bid on any of these projects.”
The mayor said the hope was that more businesses would bid
on the project and this could reduce projects. He said construction projects
these days however could be harder to predict.
“Costs of projects have gone through the roof with the cost
of materials, the inability to get materials and lengths of process,” he
continued.
According to the city’s purchasing department, in fiscal
year 2019, the city budgeted around $1350,000 for preparatory analysis on a new
City Hall and then more in 2021 to total around $1.65 million to cover design
costs. In 2022, around $31.8 million was appropriated to bring the total amount
appropriated for a new City Hall to around $33,450,000. Costs continue to go up
for construction needs, said city officials, and final totals may not be
conclusive until April.
The mayor said the City Council wants to approve bids for
the project at its April meeting and get construction underway in May. City
departments will continue to move to new locations in the city throughout the
month.
Caggiano also said he was open to holding a meeting with those who voiced concerns at the council meeting.
Gilbane commits $4B to diversity, will strive again to hit 20% goal
Gilbane doubled down on its industry-wide push for more
diversity in construction, committing $4 billion in contract awards to
underrepresented firms over the next five years, including veteran, minority
and women-owned businesses.
Annualized, the amount would represent about 13% of
Gilbane's revenues, which were $6.2 billion in 2021. The firm awarded $812
million in projects to minority- and women-owned companies, as well as small
businesses, last year. That was 18% of the awards it put out, short of its 20%
goal.
In an exclusive interview, recently appointed President and
CEO Thomas Laird said Gilbane's executive bonuses could potentially be tied to
hitting diversity goals in the future. "It needs that level of
intensity," Laird said. "We're shining a bright light on it, and our
leaders know that."
Dive Insight:
Gilbane has been a vocal advocate of advancing diversity and
inclusion in construction in the wake of George Floyd's murder. A conversation between
Gilbane Chairman Thomas Gilbane, Jr. and Turner Construction CEO Peter Davoren
during the subsequent social upheaval led to the industry's inaugural Construction
Inclusion Week last year.
And for good reason. Examples abound of hiring
practices that shut out underrepresented contractors, and the
field's macho
and racist image. The result has been young, diverse workers staying
away during a historic labor shortage.
Laird said Gilbane needed to do more to change that.
"And that means 18% on a goal of 20% is not good
enough," said Laird. "So we are going to strive harder yet."
Part of the challenge of hitting those goals, Laird
emphasized, is the smaller number of diverse contractors who are big enough to
take on multi-million dollar projects. That was an issue discussed in a
recent Congressional hearing on diverse contracting practices.
Laird pointed to the Cleveland, Ohio, market as an example.
"It's an area where it's very diverse, yet the diverse
contracting capacity is very thin," Laird said. "So we are very
focused on trying to create that capacity in Northeastern Ohio."
Since November 2020, for example, Gilbane has targeted the
issue with its Rising Contractor Program, which pairs diverse contractors with
mentors in its business units. Participants engage in classroom curriculum
focused on real-world opportunities to win work. If a bid is unsuccessful, they
get feedback on why.
"Until we provide that support, that help, that
nurturing, it will continue to be a struggle, and it's just not
acceptable," Laird said. The program has produced 138 graduates since
inception.
A focus on ESG
The pledge to commit $4 billion in contracts to diverse
contractors and veteran-owned businesses — and report on those efforts publicly
— is also part of Gilbane's forthcoming environmental, social and governance
(ESG) report.
Investors are increasingly focused on how public companies
conduct themselves in those three areas, and Laird said customers are now
pressing the privately-held firm about it, as well.
"It's becoming more of an expectation," Laird
said. "We have clients asking for our ESG platform. A year ago, those
questions weren't being asked, and now they are."
Laird was initially appointed interim CEO of the
153-year-old, family-owned company in
January, before being named president and CEO shortly after. He started
with the firm straight out of college in 1986, and has held positions
throughout the firm's Mid-Atlantic and Central Regions.
Laird's promotion followed the hasty retirement of CEO Mike
McKelvy, who resurfaced
three weeks later as CEO of energy contractor McDermott. While
McKelvy's eventual retirement had been planned for, the acceleration of the
timeline took the firm by surprise, Laird said.
Asked if he could change one thing, Laird said it would be
to bring down the company's attrition rate in today's highly competitive jobs
market.
"There's a lot of opportunity, and people have been
recruited away for financial reasons," Laird said. "I'm a good
example of somebody that stuck to it with a great company, and has benefited
from that. Seeing others that feel differently make different decisions, I wish
I could stop that."
Statewide experiment to divert organic waste from trash underway in Meriden
Mary Ellen Godin
SOUTHINGTON —About 1,000 Meriden households are the
first in the state to participate in a food scrap co-collection program in the
hopes of demonstrating how waste diversion solutions can help address the
statewide disposal crisis.
The Meriden households are customers of HQ Dumpsters
& Recycling in Southington, a trash hauler who is participating in the
four-month scrap collection program. The participating households, located
outside the inner city, are scraping their plates and cooking pots into green
bags to be turned into bio-gas at Quantum Biopower, another
Southington facility.
Representatives from Meriden, the state Department of Energy
and Environmental Protection (DEEP), HQ Dumpsters and Zero Waste hosted a press
conference Wednesday announcing the program at HQ’s sorting facility on
Triano Drive in Southington.
The pilot program in Meriden is funded through a
$40,000 DEEP Save Money And Reduce Trash (SMART) grant. The residents were
given the green bags to dispose of food scraps and other organic waste, to
be collected at the same time as other trash in an orange bag.
Connecticut is facing a solid waste disposal crisis, as
traditional options for disposing of municipal solid waste have
declined or become more expensive. With fewer and rapidly aging disposal
options in the state, residents and municipal leaders expect tipping fees
to increase at the remaining in-state waste-to-energy facilities, along with
rates for out-of-state landfills, leaving businesses and towns vulnerable to
unpredictable cost increases, and potential long-term liability, according to
DEEP.
“The City of Meriden is leading the way by launching this
pilot at a critical time for Connecticut’s waste system,” DEEP Commissioner
Katie Dykes said Wednesday. “These strategies have been shown to work elsewhere
in the U.S. and abroad. DEEP is thrilled to support Meriden’s path breaking
efforts to test this approach for the first time here in Connecticut.
DEEP has worked closely with municipalities over
the past year through the Connecticut Coalition for Sustainable Materials
Management to scale up sustainable solutions to the state’s waste problem.
About 50 towns expressed interest in the co-collection program, and more than
30 are moving forward, Dykes said.
“We look forward to supporting the progress of this
pilot as a model for others to replicate, and, if successful, explore at
scale,” she said.
Diverting organic waste
The organic trash will be transformed into bio-gas through a
process called anaerobic digestion, or composted for use as a nutrient-rich
soil or fertilizer. Tipping fees are about $65 a ton for the organic waste
versus more than $100 for regular trash. Diverting organic material can reduce
customer collection costs and municipal solid waste disposal costs, Dykes said.
The pilot program will provide the city and the state
with data on how the process of food scrap co-collection can reduce
the amount of residential trash. Thirty-five percent of what state
residents throw away is organic material — food scraps and yard waste — that
can be diverted from the trash for composting, anaerobic digestion, or
processing into animal feed.
Zero Waste of Raleigh, North Carolina is DEEP’s consultant
on the program. According to Kristen Brown of Zero Waste, each bag of
trash holds about seven bags of food waste, including meat and other
organic material residents might not want to use in a compost pile. The green
bags and orange bags can be put in the same cart and separated at HQ. Between
25 and 50 percent of the 1,000 households are co-collecting and more than 75
percent have put out one bag. Annually, they expect an average of 350
pounds per customer, Brown said.
The city and DEEP will continue to analyze the data and
decide if it will be permanently funded. A bill now in the General Assembly
would allocate more than $5 million to the program. The city is also planning a
social media survey to educate and gauge resident support.
“There is a lot of momentum,” said Meriden City Manager
Timothy Coon.
The city’s engineering and public works departments brought
the grant proposal to the city to apply.
“Cost-effective solid waste collection is very important to
our citizens,” Coon said. “We have staff members participating, so we will have
firsthand knowledge of how it could work.”
Economic impact
Meriden has an inner district with over 6,000 properties
serviced by the trash hauler, and 8,000 tons of trash generated per year, and
an outer district with over 12,000 units serviced by private haulers.
“With tipping fees for waste disposal seeing 50% to 75%
increases over the past couple of years, the economic impact to all residents
is significant. Fully implemented programs could help keep costs down,” Coon
said.
The $40,000 in pilot funds covered the purchase of the
special color-coded bags for food scrap separation over the four-month duration
of the project, as well as personnel to sort the bags, and the shipment of food
scraps to Quantum Biopower.
"We are excited to offer this opportunity as we
continue to find ways to reduce costs to our customers and improve the
environment,” said Jack Perry, owner of HQ Dumpsters and a Southington
town councilor. “We hope that this program encourages more involvement from the
solid waste community on ways to reduce the overall cost of managing solid
waste.”
DEEP has found that food scrap collection programs are most
effective when paired with unit-based pricing programs for trash. Unit-based
pricing is a method of charging for trash disposal based on the amount
disposed, which incentivizes residents to participate in available food scrap
collection programs to reduce the amount of trash they pay to throw away.
Unit-based pricing is globally recognized as the single most
effective action a municipality can take to reduce waste, increase recycling,
and reduce climate impact, according to the DEEP.