Two designs remain for Connecticut's future Mixmaster. Here's what happens next
Two concepts have advanced to the environmental review
stage, but only one will emerge as the best option for reconstructing the
nearly 60-year-old interchange where Interstate 84 and
Route 8 intersect in Waterbury.
The state
Department of Transportation recently issued an email update about the “New
Mix,” a long-term program to modernize the collection of stacked highway
bridges known as the Mixmaster. The agency said a federal and state process has
begun to assess how an overhaul of the interchange could affect the
environment.
Through a years-long study completed in 2025, DOT
has already narrowed down the many ways the Mixmaster could be
replaced to two options.
One alternative, the “Modern Crossover Interchange,” calls
for part of Route 8 to be reconstructed on the east side of the Naugatuck
River. The other alternative, the “Naugatuck River Shift,” would move
the river eastward, allowing Route 8 to be unstacked on the west riverbank.
Now, the two options “will be studied in greater detail,”
DOT said in its email update. “This work will help identify a preferred
alternative that best meets transportation needs while considering
environmental, community, and economic impacts.”
The environmental review process is expected to take about
three years, with a final decision issued in fall 2029, according to a DOT
fact sheet.
“Throughout the process, there will be multiple ways to
learn more about the project and alternatives, engage with the project team,
and provide feedback,” the fact sheet says.
Either the Naugatuck River Shift or the Modern
Crossover Interchange would cost an estimated $3 billion to $5 billion in 2022
dollars. DOT has said construction on the core of the interchange isn’t
expected to start until the mid-2030s or early 2040s.
The Mixmaster has been rehabilitated multiple times over the
years, with the most recent major project completed in 2024.
But many components are expected to reach the end of their
useful lives by 2045, according to DOT. The interchange also doesn’t meet
current safety and traffic flow standards and is costly to maintain because of
its stacked bridges, the agency has said.
A 2018 analysis found that another rehabilitation project
“would not substantially improve the interchange’s functionality, nor would it
extend its lifespan significantly relative to the cost of a full replacement,”
according to the website
for the New Mix program.
“There is a limit to how much the lifespan can be extended
for the interchange’s steel support structures and for the decks upon which
cars travel,” the website adds.
The program also includes “early action projects” to make
improvements in the area while planning continues for large-scale construction
work.
One of those projects is currently underway. It includes
removing the Exit 21 off-ramp on I-84 eastbound and extending an auxiliary lane
to the Exit 22 off-ramp. The project is expected to wrap up in summer 2028.
Connecticut DOT says UI’s monopole plan in Fairfield, Bridgeport would be ‘beneficial’ to railroad
In advance of today’s Connecticut Siting Council meeting to
reconsider UI’s plan to install monopoles throughout Fairfield and Bridgeport,
the state Department of Transportation has issued a letter saying it would be
beneficial to the railroad for the transmission lines to be removed from the
catenaries.
In the letter to the Siting Council, DOT Commissioner
Garrett Eucalitto wrote that the agency’s position remains unchanged on the
utility’s plan to remove the transmission lines from CTDOT railroad catenaries
and rebuild them on steel monopoles along the Metro-North Railroad corridor
from Fairfield to Bridgeport.
Specifically, Eucalitto wrote: “The design UI put forth in
its application aligns with CTDOT’s vision and objective on efficiently
improving transportation infrastructure.
“CTDOT also indicated that other alternatives, such as the
underground alternative within the railroad ROW supported by many of the
intervenors, would not be feasible for the Department. … [It] would add time,
cost, and significant adverse impact to railroad operations, in addition to
unnecessary and substantial risk to the rail infrastructure.”
He goes on to describe how CTDOT is engaged in historic
efforts to modernize and improve the infrastructure along the entire New Haven
Line with the ultimate goal of increasing train speeds – a regional and
national priority.
These improvements will include, but are not limited to,
rebuilding tracks, adding new catenary structures, installing track sidings,
building additional bridge spans and adding wayside equipment to support this
high-speed rail initiative.
The CSC had to reconsider its prior approval of United
Illuminating’s project to install several large overhead monopoles through both
municipalities as part of a plan to update the transmission line near the
Congress Street substation. That was because New Britain Superior Court Matthew
Budzik ruled in April that CSC should not have approved the monopoles north of
the Metro-North train tracks.
UI applied for a certificate of environmental compatibility
and public need for the Fairfield to Congress Railroad Transmission Line 115kV
Rebuild project last year. That project calls for relocating and rebuilding the
existing electric transmission lines from the railroad catenary structures to
new steel monopole structures along about 7.3 miles of the Metro-North Railroad
corridor.
The meeting is scheduled for 1 p.m. To watch on Zoom, click
on this link.
The Meeting ID is 816 7109 0607. The Passcode is Eqc7Ty. To join the meeting
via phone, dial +1 929 205 6099 US (New York). Meeting ID is 816 7109 0607.
Passcode is 825434.
CT prosecutors seek 12 years for ex-school construction chief as he asks for no prison time
Recommending a long term behind bars, federal
prosecutors described Connecticut's former top school construction
official Konstantinos
“Kosta” Diamantis as a calculating betrayer of the public trust.
However, Diamantis himself is requesting a much lighter
sentence that includes no prison time.
Convicted
of taking bribes and other crimes after a trial last year, Diamantis
bullied school contractors into handing him bundles of cash and hiring his
daughter for "a low-show job at inflated rates," prosecutors wrote in
a memo seeking to lock up the disgraced former state legislator for up to 12
years and 7 months.
"For his greed, corruption and abject lack of
integrity, Diamantis is deserving of a sentence with the advisory guidelines
range of 121 to 151 months of imprisonment," prosecutors wrote.
Diamantis, 70, a lawyer who resigned
from the state bar in February, is to be sentenced on Thursday. A jury
last October found him guilty of 21 counts of bribery, extortion, conspiracy
and making false statements to federal investigators.
Free on a $500,000 bond, Diamantis is asking
the court for home detention and maximum probation.
“Mr. Diamantis does not minimize the seriousness of the
jury’s verdict or his breach of the public trust,” his attorney, Norm Pattis,
wrote in a motion to U.S. Judge Stefon Underhill at U.S. District Court in
Bridgeport.
Although the sentence would not carry prison
time, Pattis said, it would include restrictions against future government
employment or contracting, financial disclosure and monitoring, payment of
restitution when appropriate and a prohibition against profiting from his
crimes.
“His request rests on the combined force of his age, lack of
physical dangerousness, loss of the position that enabled the conduct,
financial ruin, loss of professional status, diminished earning capacity,
family circumstances, and the limited additional sentencing value of a decade
or more in prison,” Pattis said.
In his trial testimony, Diamantis said that in his spare
time, he acted as a lawyer and consultant for a masonry company and a
construction administration firm that worked on multimillion-dollar school
projects in Hartford and Tolland. In the end, the jury believed executives
from the two companies who already had pleaded guilty to charges in connection
with the scheme that spanned 2018-21.
Antonietta Roy, owner of Construction Advocacy
Professionals, said she feared she might not keep contracts, so she hired
Diamantis’ daughter for an administrative job at $45 per hour and gave Kosta
Diamantis $4,500 in checks and cash.
The nine-day trial also included testimony from John
Duffy, Diamantis' former brother-in-law and vice president of Acranom
Masonry of Middlefield, who said the company's successful bid on a project was
budgeted to include a $70,000 payoff for Diamantis.
In their sentencing memo, Assistant U.S. Attorneys David E.
Novick and Jonathan N. Francis bulleted reasons Diamantis should serve prison
time. Those points included:
The "persistence and sheer duration" of his
corruption. "This was not a one-off error in judgment — which, in any
event, would have been very serious for a senior state official exploiting his
office for personal gain," prosecutors wrote.
The memo further stated that "Diamantis's crime
was a fundamental betrayal of trust placed in him by the State of
Connecticut."
Diamantis used his power to dictate the award of critical
contracts. Connecticut's school construction funding system "left
less-affluent districts and those otherwise in urgent need vulnerable to
Diamantis's corrupt schemes," prosecutors wrote.
Diamantis's exploitation of vulnerable school districts
meant those communities were subjected to contractors who were hired not
for the quality of their work, but because they were paying bribes. For
example, Diamantis forced Hartford officials to hire Acranom for the
fourth phase of a Weaver High School project, even though the company's
previous work was "so shoddy" that much of it had to be redone,
prosecutors wrote.
Diamantis faces a second trial scheduled for early next year
on additional public corruption charges. Federal prosecutors claim
Diamantis quashed
a state audit of a Bristol eye care practice that was engaged in healthcare
fraud when he worked in the state Office of Policy and Management.
Diamantis allegedly took $100,000 payments to try to
persuade state officials to cancel the probe of Family Eye Care, federal
officials said.
Ahead of his sentencing on Thursday, Diamantis also
has sought
a pardon from President Donald Trump, which could allow him to keep
his $75,000
annual state pension.
Enfield voters to decide on $511 million school renovation project in November
ENFIELD — Voters in Enfield will
decide in a Nov. 3 referendum whether to approve a $511
million school renovation and expansion project involving four elementary
schools and the conversion of Eli Whitney Elementary School into Eagle Academy
Therapeutic Day School.
The renovation and expansion project would include work
at Hazardville Memorial, Prudence Crandall, Edgar H. Parkman and Henry
Barnard elementary schools.
District officials say it is driven by aging facilities, changing educational
needs and enrollment growth.
The Enfield Town Council unanimously approved the referendum
date during its Sept. 2 meeting.
Schools
Superintendent Steven Moccio said the pre-referendum committee
investigated the various options and sought to minimize the number of school
transitions for families.
“Right now, our families go to a pre-K school, then
transition to a kindergarten-through-second-grade school and then to a
third-through-fifth-grade school,” he said. “This plan would allow students to
have one home base from pre-K through fifth grade.”
Four schools seems like the right number, Moccio said,
explaining that the decision was informed by input gathered through community
conversations.
During the last legislative session, work at
Prudence Crandall and Hazardville Memorial was approved for state funding.
The remaining three components — Parkman, Barnard and Eagle Academy — must now
go through the state approval process, according to Moccio.
Enfield is one of several Connecticut districts pursuing major
school construction projects. Projects in Milford, Norwich, Seymour,
Stamford, Waterbury and Westport secured spots on the state’s 2026 building
priority list.
Recently, a planned $122 million project to build a new Pulaski
Elementary School in the Meriden Public Schools was added to the
state’s priority list, with construction expected to begin this winter.
The total cost for the Enfield project is estimated at $511
million. Enfield’s share is projected to be $89 million, with state expected to
reimburse approximately $422 million of the cost, according to the district
and Tecton Architects.
The referendum’s authorization of $511 million for the
project includes:
$105 million for Hazardville Memorial Elementary School;
$114 million for Prudence Crandall Elementary School;
$109 million for Parkman Elementary School;
$122 million for Barnard Elementary School; and
$61 million to convert Eli Whitney Elementary School into
Eagle Academy.
The referendum also would authorize the town to issue up to
$89 million in bonds or notes. The remaining costs would be covered by state
grants and other available funds.
The Enfield project would be completed in two phases.
Hazardville Memorial, Prudence Crandall and Parkman are scheduled to reopen in
fall 2030. Construction on Barnard and Eagle Academy is expected to begin in
2030, with completion projected by 2032, according to officials.
The first phase would be designed between 2026 and 2028,
with construction beginning in 2028. Design work for the second phase would
take place between 2028 and 2030, followed by construction beginning in 2030.