Eversource power line build to close parts of Shelton trail system
Brian Gioiele
SHELTON — City officials are reminding those who love
strolling the city's trails system to find alternatives to Shelton Lakes and
French’s Hill as transmission line construction continues in that area.
Eversource’s
"Stevenson to Pootatuck Rebuild Project," which entails
rebuilding existing 115 kV transmission lines between Stevenson Substation in
Monroe and Pootatuck Substation in Shelton, began in late February and is
expected to last through the end of the year.
New infrastructure improvements include the installation of
new monopoles and new wires.
In the process, Nature Resource Manager Teresa Gallagher
said the construction — with new towers being installed and the old ones
removed and several newly constructed or enlarged gravel access roads and pads
— will continue to cause temporary impacts to the Shelton Lakes Trail
System.
“People can be creatures of habit. We just want people to
know there are many trail options in the city,” Gallagher said. “We want people
to explore all those other options.”
One available option is the newly completed 1-mile Woodsend
Trail, located in Housatonic Woods Preserve above Indian Well on land purchased
by the city late last year. Gallagher said the Shelton Trails Committee’s
annual Trails
Day Hike on June 3 at 10:30 a.m. will mark the grand opening of the
trail.
“With the Eversource work going on, we moved quickly to get
this new trail ready for use,” Gallagher said.
Gallagher said the Eversource work stages will proceed
generally south to north, starting near French's Hill.
The Eversource crews have placed "trail closed"
signs wherever the hiking trails intersect or follow the powerline corridor.
Eversource has also erected construction fencing across the trail, which
Gallagher says the city suggested they do because “our experience shows that
some trail users disregard signs and pass through the Trails Committee's active
work zones, even under leaning trees that are in the process of being cut down
with a chainsaw.
For more information, visit eversource.com/stevenson-pootatuck.
Stamford's proposed south side school split across two campuses to cost city $65.8M
STAMFORD — A pair of new schools that will form a K-8 campus
in the Cove neighborhood will cost the city roughly $65.8 million, according to
early estimates.
The money will go toward
building two new schools a mile apart — a K-4 facility at 83 Lockwood
Ave. and a new 5-8 school at the current site of K.T. Murphy Elementary School
on Horton Street — and would involve demolishing current structures at each
location and also tearing down Toquam Magnet Elementary School.
Toquam is part of the plan because students currently zoned
for that school would go to the new two-campus school once completed.
The total price tag for the work is $158.3 million, but the
city is expected to receive state funding for approximately 60 percent of the
total cost.
School and city officials had previously looked for a
location to build a full K-8 school in the city's southern portion, but failed
to find a suitable spot. An early idea to build
a school at Cove Island Park faced immediate pushback and was quickly
scrapped.
School officials are currently pitching the concept of the
two-school campus to city boards to secure funding to apply to the state. The
Board of Representatives will cast a final vote on the funding on June
5. If approved, the plan would need to be submitted to the state by the
end of June in order to be considered for reimbursement. Local officials will
know by December if they will receive state funding.
The work is part of a 20-year
master plan that would include improvements to all schools and would
call for building or expanding four schools, including the proposed south
Stamford K-8. As part of the plan, four schools would shutter: Cloonan and
Dolan middle schools, Toquam and Murphy.
During a meeting of the Board of Education's Operations
Committee this week, a representative from architectural firm SLAM
Collaborative presented the latest updates on the school project. By the end of
the meeting, the committee voted in favor of the educational specifications for
the two-site school.
Kemp Morhardt, principal with SLAM, said the K-4 facility would
be the first stage of the project. The current building at 83 Lockwood is
occupied by nonprofit DOMUS, with a row of portable classrooms perpendicular to
the structure used by preschool Children’s Learning Centers of Fairfield
County. Those would be torn down to make way for an L-shaped building with
parking and a bus drop-off zone along Williams Street.
Construction would begin in 2025. Students from K.T. Murphy
would transfer to the new school in 2028. Then Murphy would be demolished, with
construction on a new school at that site starting in 2028. The plan is for the
new building to open in 2030, at which point Toquam will be demolished.
Expected enrollment for the Lockwood site is 591 students,
with 473 students at the future school at K.T. Murphy, for a total student
body of 1,064.
Morhardt said each site presents space limitations. The
Lockwood site is 4.6 acres, while Murphy sits on a 2.7-acre lot. In order to
secure grant funding, neither project can exceed state space standards, which
limits the size of the buildings even more.
Nonetheless, SLAM was able to find enough room to create
parking for staff at each school.
Currently, staff at K.T. Murphy often have to find
on-street parking. In the the new plan, 79 parking spaces are included in the
design to accommodate about 60 to 65 faculty and staff members. At Lockwood,
the number of parking spaces is 106, for an expected staff of 75 to 80
employees. Further, a redesign will allow for new bus drop-off locations and
places for parents to drop off students.
"Given these two sites and how small they are, you’ve
been able to apparently work miracles as far as where buses and drop offs will
go," said Michael Hyman, chairman of the Operations Committee.
The proposed size of the Lockwood building is about 71,600
square feet, while the K.T. Murphy replacement building is slated to be about
79,300 square feet.
One of the proposals for the Lockwood site to add a media
center that could stay open during hours when children are not in the school
building so that members of the community could use it. Superintendent Tamu
Lucero said the school district is examining ways to partner with Ferguson
Library to run the space and that such a collaboration could be considered for
any new school construction projects going forward.
"It seems to us that it would be actually a win-win for
the school district, as well as the community," Lucero said.
District officials are trying to come up with ways to
revive the district's school media centers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic,
when specialists who ran the centers were eliminated because of a massive cut
made to the school district's budget.
Lawmakers vote to expand Connecticut's paid sick day law, making it available to nearly all workers
HARTFORD — Nearly all workers in Connecticut, regardless of
industry, could soon be eligible for up to two weeks of paid sick leave each
year under legislation approved by Senate lawmakers on Thursday.
Dating back to 2012, Connecticut’s
Sick Leave Law already guarantees certain “service” workers at companies
with more than 50 employees get at least one week of paid sick days each
year.
The bill
currently before lawmakers would expand that eligibility to all
private-sector workers, with the sole exception of construction workers who are
covered by collective bargaining agreements. In addition, covered employees
would be able to accrue sick time faster, gaining up to 80 hours — two weeks —
of time off each year.
“We believe that this will bring us in line with other
states as well as providing greater opportunities for those in our state who
may need paid sick days,” said state Sen. Julie Kushner, D-Danbury, who
co-chairs the Labor and Public Employees Committee.
Connecticut’s neighboring states all currently mandate paid
sick leave for most workers. However, laws in Massachusetts, Rhode
Island and New
Jersey require only up to 40 hours of paid leave, while New York offers
a guarantee of up to 56 hours of sick leave for workers at larger
companies.
The proposal has elicited the strong support of unions,
workers and physicians, who touted the health benefits of allowing workers the
ease of taking time off to care for themselves and family members.
A coalition of manufacturers, small businesses and other
employers, meanwhile, submitted testimony to lawmakers earlier this year,
arguing that they are still attempting to accommodate the costs of
Connecticut's Paid
Family and Medical Leave Program, which went into effect last year.
“Why are we doing this to Connecticut businesses?” wrote
Mary Fitzgerald, the president of Acme Wire Products Co. in Mystic.”We are the
backbone to our economy and workforce and put our employees at the forefront of
everything we do. Connecticut already has the most generous paid family and
medical leave program in the entire nation.”
The bill drew opposition from Republicans in the Senate, who
argued that it would saddle businesses with additional costs and interfere with
private negotiations over benefits and wages.
“We are limiting the ability of both the employee and the
employer to be able to negotiate for what is best for them,” said state Sen.
Rob Sampson, R-Wolcott.
According to legislative analysts, the bill would extend
paid sick leave to 1.6 million workers in Connecticut.
In his closing argument for the bill, Senate President
Pro-Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven, noted that most lawmakers and other
high-income workers already enjoy paid sick leave, among other benefits from
their jobs.
Such benefits are rarely extended to workers at the bottom
end of the economic ladder, he said.
“A day’s pay makes a huge difference to a low-income
worker,” Looney said. “The financial hardship of [missing] even a small number
of days could be virtually cataclysmic.”
After roughly two hours of debate Thursday, the Senate voted
20 to 12 along party lines in favor of the legislation, sending it to the House
for further consideration.
Hamden Middle School expansion nixed as officials point fingers over why
HAMDEN — After being in the works for five years, a plan
to expand Hamden Middle School to accommodate sixth-grade students has
been nixed, but the reason for the decision depends on whom you ask.
Board of Education members, including Chairwoman Melissa
Kaplan, said the Legislative Council’s reluctance to borrow
additional funds for the project prompted the district to abandon it.
Without the expansion, it may not be possible to pursue a
new proposal
to racially balance the schools, Kaplan said in a May 10 letter announcing
the board’s intent to drop the middle school project.
Meanwhile, town officials said additional operational costs
and traffic and safety concerns associated with the expansion caused school
administrators to abandon the plan.
Superintendent of Schools Gary Highsmith said both town and
board officials cited legitimate reasons for not going forward with the
project.
"It’s not a 'this story' or 'that story,' it’s all of
that information together. That is the reason why the middle school isn’t going
forward," he said. "It was a perfect storm."
The expansion would have allowed the district to move sixth
graders from the elementary schools to the middle school, offering them more
learning opportunities and freeing up space for universal pre-K.
It originally was part of the Reimagine,
Restructure, Results Initiative, a $30 million districtwide proposal approved
in 2019 aimed at addressing declining enrollment and impending racial
imbalances in the district.
Also known as the 3R plan, the proposal involved closing two
of Hamden’s eight elementary schools and establishing an intradistrict magnet
program.
In the following years, however, Hamden abandoned most key
components of the 3R plan. By late last year, the middle school expansion was
all that remained. By then, the estimated cost of the project had gone up to
approximately $22 million — double the $11 million price tag the council
originally authorized. It was the second time the price had risen; in 2021, the
council approved another $5.9 million to meet a new price tag of $17 million.
District officials were quick to point out that even with
the increase, the state was expected to reimburse the town for 80 percent of
the total cost of the project.
Looking for funds
In November, Legislative Council members said that for them
to approve another $5 million for the project, the board would need to present
a new redistricting plan.
Kaplan said the school board offered preliminary versions of
a redistricting plan based on a “sister schools” model. Under the model,
floated in January but never finalized, Hamden would restructure the town’s
elementary schools to serve three grades each, dividing its eight elementary
schools into pairs of “sister schools.”
Still, Kaplan said town leadership seemed reluctant to
support the project.
“After months of meetings with the town leadership … it
became clear to both the BOE and school administration that the council and the
mayor’s office evinced skepticism in continuing the project,” Kaplan wrote in a
May 10 letter to the town. “During these conversations, we discovered that
Legislative Council leadership had concerns about having to pay the additional
construction costs even though we were willing to use our resources to help offset
these increases.”
The board and school administration were “disappointed”
about not being able to move forward with the project, Kaplan wrote.
In an interview, Kaplan pointed to comments Legislative
Council President Dominique Baez made during a PTA-sponsored equity panel.
“We have to sign off as a council and say we can pay $22
million, and the council’s very leery about saying an extra $5 million is
available,” Baez said, according to a recording of the meeting, which was held
in February.
Hamden already has one of the highest property tax rates in
the state. Additionally, a 2021 state report found the town had more
debt per capita than any other Connecticut municipality,
To justify bonding the extra money, “we have been asking for
a really whole view of what that would mean to our yearly payment for debt, for
our school system and to the Wintergreen money that came into our lap,” Baez
said, referring to money the town obtained from the sale of Wintergreen School.
Asked about Kaplan’s letter, Baez issued a statement saying
the council had been asking the board for a plan for the future of its school
buildings – and that the board never delivered.
The board never formally requested another $5 million for
the middle school project, which would have led to a vote, Baez said.
“I truly felt like the (middle school) extension was an
opportunity to bring jobs and subsequently dollars into residents’ pockets. The
news they wouldn’t deliver ANY ask to the council was not something I rejoiced
over.”
Other concerns
Mayor Lauren Garrett questioned the accuracy of Kaplan’s
letter, contending that school administrators told the town they did not want
to pursue the project for other reasons.
“It became clear that the school administration did not want
to continue with the project, and that’s when I requested a letter from the
Board of Education … reiterating that,” she said. “I myself did not put
barriers in the way of that project moving forward.”
Administrators previously have warned that moving sixth
grade to the middle school would come with additional operating costs, which
Garrett said was cited as one reason for discontinuing the project.
At-large Legislative Council member Cory O’Brien also said
the administration provided reasons for discontinuing the project unrelated to
construction costs. One concern was that the expansion would exacerbate
existing traffic issues at the middle school, he said.
Highsmith said multiple factors made the district decide to
opt out of the project. Those included the increased operating costs and
traffic problems at drop-off.
Administrators also had concerns about expanding the middle
school due to pandemic-related "dysregulation," Highsmith said
“We had to reflect on whether it made sense for us to add
hundreds of students into that school," he said.
But Highsmith also said Kaplan's letter was correct; the
town's financial position and the Legislative Council's concerns about rising
construction costs were a problem, he said, especially as the district
struggles to maintain its existing services.
Moving forward with the middle school did not appear
"fiscally prudent" in the context of other budgetary challenges, he
said.
Walter Livingston Morton IV, a board member who also is
running for mayor, publicly defended Kaplan’s letter, calling it an accurate
representation of what occurred.
“There’s just been a lack of … consistent communication and
a constant changing of what the goal line is and what (town leadership is)
looking for,” he said. “I completely stand by Melissa Kaplan’s letter.”
Morton said he was “frustrated” by what occurred and
believes elected officials were not fulfilling their promises to support
education.
O’Brien took issue with that stance. At a recent budget
hearing, the council agreed to give the school district an additional $700,000
over what the mayor requested for the school district budget, he said.
In the meantime, the board is going back to the drawing
board to come up with a redistricting plan. It has asked the Legislative
Council to release money from the Wintergreen proceeds to hire a full-time
staff member in charge of overseeing racial balancing in the district, Kaplan
said.
In her letter, Kaplan warned that moving the sixth grade to
the middle school had been essential in freeing up space to create sister
schools and establish pre-K classrooms, a model that now will be
“difficult, if not impossible” to implement.
But the sister schools model is not yet off the table,
according to Highsmith.
"The question we have to try to get answered now is
whether sister schools can work without the sixth grade being moved out” of the
elementary schools, the superintendent said.
Rocky Hill warehouse complex proposed
A building warehouse complex totaling 120,000 square feet in
Rocky Hill, which would require a zone change from office park to business
park.
Property owner, applicant and developer Brook Street Rocky
Hill LLC, headed by principal Miodrag Delmic, has submitted a site plan
application to the Rocky Hill Planning and Zoning Commission for properties at
553, 565 and 595 Brook St.
Delmic bought the three parcels in August 2021, for just
over $1 million.
Delmic is proposing to build four new warehouses on the
site: two will be 30,000 square feet with six bays each; one will be
20,000 square feet with four bays; and one will be 40,000 square feet with
eight bays.
The warehouses are being built on speculation as their uses
have not been identified, Delmic said.
Miodrag Delmic and his wife Dajana have
been on a buying spree of mid-sized office and industrial properties since late
2021.
The couple live in Rocky Hill and run bulk ammunition vendor
Target Sports USA out of a Cheshire industrial property. The online ammo store
has been the Delmics primary business, but the couple has been diversifying,
investing heavily in commercial real estate, including purchases in Windsor,
Wethersfield and West Hartford.
A zone change for the Rocky Hill properties would be
required as the area is now zoned for an office park and would be changed to a
business park.
The parcels total nearly 13 acres, two of which are vacant.
The 553 Brook property contains a two-story building and garage, both of
which will be removed to make way for the development.
The complex would have 187 parking spaces, 17 of which would
be ADA accessible.
Two driveways, one on the far west and another on the far
east of the property, would allow access from Brook Street. The parcel is near
an apartment complex, a BJs warehouse store and Connecticut Department of
Transportation facility.
The developer presented the plans to the town Open Space and
Conservation Commission and received approval.
Putting Spotlight On Apprenticeships
LUCY PERRY
A convergence of factors may mean a boost for construction
employers trying desperately to fill jobs. The cost of a college education and
a rewrite of the National Apprenticeship Act are giving a boost to the
industry's labor pool. As many people choose to forego four years of college to
start work, apprenticeship programs are becoming a more enticing route to
construction careers.
Demand for workers, rising cost of college tuition and
burdensome student loans, have apprenticeship programs "quietly gaining steam,"
according to a CNBC report.
"People at the margin are saying ‘I don't know if I can
wait four years to make a living,'" said Hafeez Lakhani, president of
Lakhani Coaching in New York.
European Model
The apprenticeship tradition of combining on-the-job, paid
training with classroom instruction has its roots in European history.
In Germany alone, more than half of all high school
graduates participate in an apprenticeship program. Yet it's been slow to catch
fire in the United States, according to a National Student Clearinghouse
report.
The DOL figures more than 581,000 people were in a
registered apprenticeship program this year. That's a 103 percent increase over
the decade. However, 12 million people are enrolled at a four-year school
today, according to a Captimes news organization article.
David Boetcher of IBEW 159 in Madison, Wis., said the idea
of pursuing a college education is ingrained in American high school graduates.
Meanwhile, lucrative jobs requiring shorter, less expensive
training go unfilled. But the tide may be turning, he told Captimes.
"People are seeing that a college degree, while being
asked for by every employer, isn't as necessary, and it's gotten horrifyingly
expensive."
"Apprenticeship helps to get people into workspaces with
very succinct training," said David Polk, Wisconsin Department of
Workforce Development.
That model of programmatic training "encompasses the
job learning and classroom learning to take a person from novice to
skilled," he said in the Captimes article.
"Employers are hungry for young talent and new talent,
and they are just more open to going down the path of apprenticeship models in
the skilled trades."
Over the past 50 years, "there's been a shift away from
the occupations that people do [in] this narrow focus of college," said
Pete Stern, Madison ironworkers union.
"It's great to be a pharmacist, doctor, lawyer,
accountant, but they have to have buildings to do them, and people are starting
to realize that," he said.
Funding Where It Counts
As a result, the push to shed a brighter light on the
benefits of apprenticeships is gaining support at both the state and federal
level.
In April, a bipartisan group of House education and
workforce committee members introduced the National Apprenticeship Act of 2023.
Creating near one million registered, youth and pre- apprenticeship
opportunities over five years, it earmarks almost $4 million for the cause.
"The Registered Apprenticeship system is one of the
best tools we have to connect workers with in-demand skills with good-paying
jobs," said committee ranking member Bobby Scott of Virginia.
At the same time, the system provides employers with a
pipeline of talented workers, he added.
"The National Apprenticeship Act of 2023 is a clear
win-win for workers and employers, and it will help grow the economy."
The Act codifies and streamlines standards for registered,
youth and pre-apprenticeship programs. That includes requirements for
apprenticeship agreements and program registration to ensure consistency in
quality standards and worker protections. It codifies existing regulations and
practices to ensure that all individuals have an equal opportunity to
participate in programs under the national system.
It also works to increase diversity in the occupations
offered and the individuals participating in programs. It codifies the DOL's
Office of Apprenticeship as well as the responsibilities of the State
Apprenticeship Agencies.
The agreement supports the creation and expansion of youth
apprenticeships, college consortiums and data sharing agreements.
Last fall, President Biden launched the Apprenticeship
Ambassador Initiative, a network of businesses and organizations supporting
registered apprenticeship. The more than 200 businesses and organizations have
existing registered apprenticeship programs in more than 40 industries.
They have committed to expand and diversify these programs
over the next year, according to the Biden administration. They will develop
460 new programs, hire more than 10,000 new apprentices and hold 5,000
outreach, promotional and training events.
The goal is to help other business, labor and education
leaders launch similar programs.
"Ambassadors will also use their expertise to scale
innovative practices and increase access to registered apprenticeship for
underserved populations," said President Biden.
The administration touts the program as a high-quality,
debt-free equitable "earn and learn" model with a nationally
recognized credential system. They maintain the program "helps employers
hire a more diverse workforce."
Improved Employee Retention
The program also provides workers with on-the-job learning
experience, job-related instruction with a mentor and a clear pathway to a
good-paying job. It builds on Biden's efforts to expand registered
apprenticeships, including investing hundreds of millions of dollars in them.
The initiative aims to launch an apprenticeship accelerator
to speed new program approval from months to days.
Open Campus reports that apprenticeships are becoming the
darling of labor. "Everybody wants to do it," said Mary Alice
McCarthy of New America.
The big question said McCarthy, senior director of New
America's center on education and labor at New America, is "Where do you
put the money?"
One solution floated is to channel more public support for
"apprenticeship intermediaries" to help set up and run the programs.
Nonprofit group Apprenticeships for America said nonprofits,
for-profits or public institutions are potential candidates.
Intermediaries are "going to be able to recruit the
apprentices, the employers and stitch it all together," McCarthy told Open
Campus.
Jennifer Carlson of career service Apprenti describes the
group as a consortium of 80 apprenticeship-delivery organizations across
industries. She said apprenticeship training "allows for people with
nontraditional work skills to find an alternate pathway into high-demand,
high-wage roles."
Trident Technical College, a two-year institution located in
South Carolina, is one intermediary currently in partnership with local K-12
schools.
Employers are invested, said Melissa Stowasser, assistant
vice president of community partnerships at the college.
"The employers have skin in the game" and are
paying the salaries and providing mentors to apprentices, she said. "They
are committed."
For Tom Howard, owner of Lee's Air in Madison, Wis., the
program was meant to address a growing labor shortage.
"The reality is, as air-conditioning and plumbing
companies, we are desperate for labor," he said. "It's a massive
problem."
Lee's covers the cost of training and supplies and matches
apprentices with full-time jobs at the company. Once workers complete the
program, "we have a pretty high retention rate," he said.
But these days, apprenticeships are becoming more mainstream
across the industry, Howard added.
"Companies that have these programs have a huge
advantage because we can create the labor."
It's all a win-win for the employer and the apprentice, said
Polk of the Wisconsin DWD. Employers ensure they have a skilled, productive
workforce, and apprentices get paid for on-the-job training that advances them
into the professional world.
Biden maintains his initiative will have long-lasting and
economic benefits. But not everyone in the construction industry agrees.
One-Sided Approach
The Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) organization
is vocal about its objections to the narrow focus of Biden's initiative.
The association said it would take 12 years for
government-registered apprenticeship programs (GRAP) to make a dent the more
than half a million worker void the industry needs to fill right now.
Instead, ABC has gotten behind other workforce legislation,
including Training America's Workforce and the Freedom to Invest in Tomorrow's
Workforce
ABC estimates that the industry's GRAP system yielded just
45,000 workers who completed four- to five-year apprenticeship programs last
year.
"Construction of American infrastructure, funded by
robust investments will be delayed, subject to added costs or not built at
all," said Ben Brubeck, ABC vice president of regulatory, labor and state
affairs.
That's unless lawmakers champion all-of-the-above workforce
development policies for the construction industry, he said.
"Unfortunately, the Biden administration and some in
Congress are pushing policies exclusively promoting GRAP to build the
construction workforce."
This benefits special interests, said Brubeck, because 75
percent of all GRAP enrollees are affiliated with union programs.
"Yet, the government's own data demonstrates that the
restrictive GRAP system is not meeting the industry's need for skilled
labor," he added.
It "therefore cannot be the only solution supported by
government to meet market demand and develop a diverse and inclusive
workforce."
A May DOL listening session on the National Apprenticeship
System rewrite "could result in new restrictive policies favoring special
interests at the expense of the broader construction industry," said
Brubeck.
ABC said the national apprenticeship act "further
entrenches" the "rigid" system and fails to address workforce
needs of the nation's construction industry.
It also "substantially restricts apprenticeship opportunities
currently serving thousands of contractors, the association maintains,"
said the association.
"ABC's 68 chapters are educating craft, safety and
management professionals using innovative and flexible learning models."
That's in addition to more than 300 GRAPs across more than
20 different occupations with a goal to develop a safe, skilled and productive
workforce.
"ABC member companies administer GRAPs independent of
ABC's network," said Brubeck.
Members invested an estimated $1.6 billion in construction
industry workforce development in 2021, he added.
"GRAPs are one of many solutions that are part of ABC's
all-of-the-above solution to workforce development," said Brubeck. CEG