As investment in EV charging infrastructure ramps up, electric grid may need more than $1B upgrade

Andrew Larson

As Republicans cast doubt on the state’s 2035 electric vehicle mandate, Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration says it’s confident there will be enough charging stations to meet demand when the requirement for all new car sales to be electric takes effect.

Automakers are preparing for the switch, rolling out electric versions of models ranging from SUVs to pick-up trucks, and electric utilities are working to develop the distribution framework needed to supply nearly twice as much electricity by 2050.

“If the infrastructure is not built, I think that could become a serious impediment to customer adoption (of EVs),” said Digaunto Chatterjee, vice president of system planning at regional utility giant Eversource.

Eversource needs to build 14 new substations — at a cost of $100 million to $150 million each — to reliably serve the additional 4 GW of electricity needed to power EVs by 2040, Chatterjee said. Eight existing substations need to be upgraded, at a cost of $10 million to $25 million each, he added.

That’s an overall estimated investment of up to $2.3 billion to prepare for larger-scale EV adoption — costs likely to be borne, wholly or partially, by ratepayers.

Electric vehicle charging demand within the territory of United Illuminating, the state’s other electric utility, would further drive up the total statewide electricity demand — and require UI to upgrade its infrastructure as well, according to Eversource.

Chatterjee said he believes new substations and other upgrades can happen if policymakers work together, the state Public Utilities Regulatory Authority provides a cost-recovery mechanism to utilities and third-party vendors collaborate to build charging stations.

“I think it can be done,” said Chatterjee, who currently drives an electric vehicle. “I’m positive, because of, frankly, my selfish interest. If we don’t get this done, I’m gonna have to trade my car off because it’s going to be really, really painful to drive my electric vehicle.”

Meanwhile, the state is incentivizing private investment in charging stations, providing millions of dollars in state funding that can cover 50% of the cost of installing chargers.

The magnitude of the state’s infrastructure needs, coupled with uncertainty about EV technology, has many Republicans wanting to “hit the brakes” on the 2035 deadline.

Using catchphrases such as “A ban without a plan,” GOP lawmakers are stoking opposition to the mandate ahead of the legislature’s Regulation Review Committee meeting on Tuesday (Nov. 28). The 14-member committee, composed of seven legislators from each party, would need eight votes to block the regulation and send it to the General Assembly for review during the next session.

Republican leaders are urging the state to adopt air-quality standards that do not ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles, and that prioritize other emission reduction programs.

“We want to reduce our greenhouse emissions, we want to improve our air quality and environment,” said Senate Republican Leader Kevin Kelly. “It’s just that under the current proposal, there is no plan to implement what they want to do.”

State Rep. Holly Cheeseman (R-East Lyme), who sits on the General Assembly’s Energy & Technology Committee, voiced similar concerns, saying she’d prefer to let market forces determine whether people decide to purchase an EV.

“If people want it, let the market decide if it makes economic sense for them,” Cheeseman said.

Public health ‘crisis’

The state’s ambitious switch to electric-only sales of new cars starting in 2035 would significantly reduce tailpipe emissions, aligning Connecticut’s air-quality standards with California’s.

Connecticut suffers from some of the worst air quality in the country, especially along heavily traveled transportation corridors where air pollution is most densely concentrated, according to the Lamont administration.

The phase out of gas-powered cars would decrease motor vehicle-related pollution by more than 90%, said Paul Farrell, acting chief of the bureau of air management for the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP).

“That is going to go a long way, if not all the way towards helping Connecticut achieve federal health-based air quality standards that we have been out of compliance with since I started at DEEP 30 years ago,” Farrell said. “And we were out of compliance even before I started. So, this is a five-, six-decade public health — and I’ll use the word — crisis.”

In July, Lamont announced the state was proposing regulations that would require auto manufacturers to deliver 100% electric vehicles by 2035. However, it will remain possible to buy hybrids and gas-powered vehicles on the used market.

The requirement implements legislation adopted in 2003, requiring the state to adopt and remain consistent with California’s standards for passenger cars.

In addition, the Connecticut Clean Air Act, which Lamont signed into law last year, requires increasing percentages of medium and heavy-duty vehicle sales to be electric until 2032.

Connecticut joins Rhode Island, Maryland, New Jersey, and New Mexico in adopting California’s new standards.

Massachusetts has already passed legislation requiring all new vehicles sold to be electric by 2035. In 2022, New York became the second state to mandate zero-emission vehicles by 2035.

EV growth

Connecticut over the years has seen an increase in the number of electric vehicles and EV chargers.

As of September, the state had 2,106 Level 2 and Level 3 EV charging plugs, a 34% increase from the prior year, according to the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, a coalition of state air agencies that promotes regional cooperation.

Level 2 plugs typically take several hours to charge a car battery. DCFC, also known as Level 3 fast chargers, can take as little as 15 to 20 minutes.

The existing chargers support 36,269 electric vehicles registered in Connecticut, according to July 1 data from the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Of the total, Connecticut had 1,704 Level 2 plugs in September, according to the data, which equates to 46 plugs per 1,000 electric vehicles — above the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s recommendation of 40 Level 2 plugs per 1,000 EVs.

Connecticut had 402 DCFC plugs in September, which equates to 11 plugs per 1,000 EVs — also above the recommendation of 3.4 DCFC plugs per 1,000 EVs.

Many electric car drivers juice their vehicles at home overnight, using Level 1 chargers that plug into regular outlets, Chatterjee said. By keeping their vehicles fully charged at home, they may only need to use charging stations for long trips.

The typical range for an electric vehicle is about 250 miles.

While the number of charging plugs is growing, critics say the pace isn’t happening fast enough.

Connecticut needs approximately 125,000 to 150,000 electric vehicles by 2025, and 500,000 EVs by 2030, to meet the state’s statutorily mandated greenhouse gas reduction target, according to an announcement from Lamont’s office in June 2021.

By 2025, the state will need more than 8,000 public and workplace electric vehicle charging ports, and by 2030, more than 25,000, according to attorney Lee D. Hoffman, chair of law firm Pullman & Comley, and former co-chair of the firm’s real estate, energy, environmental and land use department.

“So, what you’re talking about is a tenfold increase in essentially six years,” Hoffman said. “Is it doable? Absolutely. But it’s a big public works project. And it’s, I would submit, on the scale of rural electrification during the ’30s and ’40s.”

Farrell, of DEEP, said it’s tricky to calculate the number of chargers that will actually be needed because the technology is constantly evolving.

“The range of these EVs is increasing every year, so people rely less on public charging,” Farrell said. “... So, we’re in a place where it’s a little bit complicated on how you make that determination. And I think we tried to err on the conservative side, to ensure that we are going to have enough public charging.”

State, federal funding

Chargers are being installed across the state at apartment complexes, retail stores, workplaces and other highly trafficked areas, especially along highways. A large Tesla charging station at the 777 Main St. apartments in downtown Hartford has 16 Level 2 ports.

Recently, Hartford-based Noble Gas Inc. began installing charging stations at its highly amenitized service centers in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

The state is offering a bevy of incentives to develop EV charging infrastructure, which can cover 50% of the build-out costs.

The state has allocated $6 million of its nearly $56 million share of a 2016 nationwide legal settlement with Volkswagen, over the German-based car maker’s vehicle emissions cheating scandal, for charging infrastructure. That money is being used to fund 54 projects across Connecticut.

Also, $52 million is coming to Connecticut in the first five years of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program. The federal funding is through the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

About $1.8 million has been awarded for charger deployment at state government sites, and an additional $3.3 million has been awarded for municipal projects. Also, nearly $1 million is being dedicated to non-government projects.

Nationally, the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has made more than $7.5 billion available to build charging stations, adding thousands of new sites across the country.

In geographic locations that lack private investment in charging infrastructure, the state said it plans to develop its own.

“I think it’s exactly the state’s role to gapfill, where there’s a lack of private investment,” Farrell said.

Meantime, the state Department of Administrative Services is converting its fleet of 3,600 vehicles to electric and currently has 44 electric vehicles in service, according to spokesman John McKay.

The state’s goal is for 50% of its vehicles to be electric by Jan. 1, 2026.

Four Corners no more: CT turning some intersections into roundabouts

Tom Condon

The intersection of Routes 82 and 85 in Salem, sometimes called the Four Corners, used to have a lot of crashes, many of them serious.

Now it doesn’t.

The reason for the welcome decline is deceptively simple: the state changed the geometry of the crossroads. In 2012, the Connecticut Department of Transportation installed a modern roundabout in the center of the intersection.

The numbers make the point: From 2003 through 2008, the junction saw an average of 22 crashes, nine of them injury-related, each year. However, from 2018 to 2022, the average was down to 10 crashes, one injury-related, each year — a 55% decline in crashes and a 90% drop in injury-related crashes.

“I think it has saved lives,” said Salem First Selectman Ed Chmielewski.

A retired New London police sergeant, Chmielewski said that before the roundabout was built, the intersection was “deadly, with numerous accidents.” Now, he said, “we get some fender-benders, but we’re not seeing serious injures and fatalities. Life Star isn’t landing to take people away.”

The data from Salem is reflected around the state and the country. According to the Federal Highway Administration, roundabouts have 78% fewer injury and fatal crashes than signal-controlled intersections and 82% fewer than two-way stop (sign) controlled intersections.

The need for safer roads is clear; 2022 was the deadliest on record for fatal car crashes in Connecticut, taking an estimated 368 lives.

The message is not lost. The state Department of Transportation and a good number of towns are moving briskly to build more roundabouts, among other safety measures, so there could be one coming to an intersection near you.

Yield on entry

Though they may appear similar, modern roundabouts are decidedly not the same as traditional rotaries, or traffic circles. The latter have dotted the country’s roadscape since at least 1905, when Manhattan’s Columbus Circle opened. The older circles or rotaries are typically larger than modern roundabouts, so drivers don’t necessarily have to slow down to enter them, especially since cars in the circle were supposed to yield to cars entering the circle. Well, some do and some don’t, often causing delays, confusion and crashes.

Hartford’s Pulaski Circle is a prominent example. The circle is at the end of the Whitehead Highway connector to I-91 and brings cars from the interstate to the Capitol area. There is room for two lanes, but they aren’t marked, creating something of a free-for-all at busy times.

According to a traffic analysis conducted as a part of the Greater Hartford Mobility Study, there were 109 crashes at Pulaski Circle from 2018 to 2022.

CDOT has eliminated some older traffic circles and turned a couple into modern roundabouts. That could well happen to Pulaski Circle. The department is in the “early concept design phase” of a redo of the intersection, said a CTDOT spokesperson.

The modern roundabout, invented in Britain in the 1960s, is a radical rethinking of the traffic circle. In the old rotary model, cars already in the circle were supposed to yield to cars entering the circle. But Old Blighty flipped the switch and required cars entering the roundabout to yield to those already in the circle, a concept known as “yield on entry.”

Roundabouts have raised center islands and raised medians or “splitter islands” in each leg of the intersection, which channels incoming cars off to the right in a counterclockwise direction around the circle, from which they can exit with a right turn onto an outgoing split lane. So, all traffic is going in the same direction, virtually eliminating head-on or right-angle collisions. About a quarter of fatal crashes, and half of injury-related crashes, happen in or around traditional intersections, according to the Federal Highway Administration.

Vehicles approaching the roundabout have to slow down, to find an opening to merge into the circle and then to follow the tight turning radius. Slowing is good; speed is a factor in most crashes and in about a third of fatal crashes. “Drivers Can’t Run Roundabouts” read a bumper sticker created some years ago to support a roundabout in eastern Connecticut.

Roundabouts can be built with multiple lanes, but virtually all in Connecticut are single-lane, considered the safest model. There are also mini or compact roundabouts, sometimes used at tight urban intersections.

As Stamford Garage Comes Down, Future Plans Remain Uncertain

Angela Carella

STAMFORD – The notice that the state Department of Transportation has posted at the entrance to the Stamford train station parking garage is good news.

It says the DOT will start to demolish the long-deteriorating garage on Feb. 1. Stamford residents who know the fraught history of the garage would say it then will do what it was built to do – fall down.

But the notice is also a sign of foreboding. 

The last time DOT officials wanted to take down the 830-space garage, they entered into a “public-private partnership” with a developer who proposed a million-square-foot housing, office, hotel and retail complex for the Station Place site, and planned to push commuter parking out to South State Street.

Stamford residents balked at the idea of not only increasing the hike for commuters, but adding to the already impossible congestion on Station Place and surrounding streets.

That was a decade ago, when DOT officials said the land they own on Station Place, directly across from the train station, was the state’s most valuable real estate. In public documents, DOT officials said their priority for choosing a project would be how much money the developer’s proposal would generate for the state.

Then the DOT took a mile of South State Street, city property, to build a new parking garage for the Stamford train station.

The DOT chose a developer, John McClutchy of JHM Group, for the Station Place project. But McClutchy ran into problems with his partners and the public-private project died.

The old garage, though, continued to crumble, so the DOT went ahead with building a new one on South State Street.

Replacement almost ready

That now is nearly complete. It appears that DOT officials think it will be open by Feb. 1, since that’s the day they plan to start tearing down the 1985 garage on Station Place.

But the DOT is figuring that out, spokesman Josh Morgan said.

“We are still working on some of the final details in advance of the anticipated February 1 start date,” Morgan said Tuesday. 

Demolition is expected to take about six months, Morgan said.

“During the demolition, Station Place will be open to one-way traffic. However, there will be times during the work, such as when the existing pedestrian bridge is removed, that the entire roadway will have to be closed and detours put in place,” he said. “We’re still developing those plans in coordination with Stamford officials.”

A 2004 addition to the original garage will “remain intact and in use,” Morgan said.

He did not reply to a question about the DOT’s plans for the Station Place site.

DOT officials who’ve been asked over the last several months have not offered details, except to say they are looking for opportunities. 

The former DOT commissioner, Joe Giulietti, has said the agency was seeking investors for a project on Station Place. His predecessor, Jim Redecker, brought in McClutchy. 

Redecker at the time refused to release details about McClutchy’s plans, saying they were “proprietary,” even though the development was to be built on public property using $35 million in public funding.

Why move the garage?

According to a section of the DOT’s website that explains the Stamford garage project, agency officials moved it to South State Street “to optimize the use of state-owned land adjacent to” the train station. 

“The South State Street site will help disperse traffic and parking activity from Station Place,” according to the website, which does not address whether a development on Station Place would only bring traffic back in.

The website says the DOT did not put the new garage on Station Place because “the department needs to maintain as much state-owned commuter parking as possible during construction of the new garage.”

The only information on the website that directly addresses the agency’s intent for Station Place says, “There are currently no plans for redevelopment of the site for parking or other uses.”

The reaction of Stamford residents to train station projects is based on decades of distrust.

It began around 1980, when the Federal Railroad Administration decided to award $50 million to Stamford for a new train station and four-level garage. The federal government agreed to pay 70 percent of the cost, the state 20 percent, and the city 10 percent.

Problems from the start

The railroad administration chose the design and architects, and the city oversaw the construction that began in 1983.

A few months after work started on the garage, a city building official found cracks in the support beams, and shut the project down. 

It was discovered that the concrete contractor had skimped on installing steel support rods. The contractor fixed the beams by adding a huge garage support column, but the structure continued to fail. 

The federal government took over construction, made repairs, and the garage and train station opened in 1987.

Within two years, the garage was too small. Stamford had become the busiest stop on Metro-North Commuter Railroad, after Grand Central Terminal in New York. The new garage was hundreds of parking spaces short of demand.

A 1,200-space addition was not built until 15 years later. But, soon after it opened in 2004, DOT officials said they had to close the original garage, far before its lifespan, for repairs.

The Station Place garage kept losing concrete, exposing the reinforcement rods and showing daylight through the floors. In 2015, chunks of concrete fell from one floor into another below, and the DOT shut down half the garage for good.

Soon, the whole thing will come down.

The new station garage

On South State Street, the $82 million new garage has seven levels and about 930 parking spaces, roughly 130 more than the old one.

The new garage has a pedestrian ramp from the second level to the Track 5 platform at the train station; and a glass-enclosed pedestrian bridge that extends over Washington Boulevard from level four of the garage to the train station.

During public hearings held by the DOT before construction of the new garage began in 2021, commuters asked how much longer it will take to get to the train station from South State Street, given that the old garage was adjacent.

According to DOT records from the hearings, the response from agency officials lacked specifics, saying it “will depend on where you park in the garage and to which track you are going or coming from. As an example, your travel time from Level 2 in the new garage to Track 5 for a trip to New York will be shorter than a comparable trip from the original garage or the 2004 garage. However, a return trip from Track 4 to the new garage will be longer than a comparable trip to the original garage or the 2004 garage.”

West Haven's new Washington School coming later, but at lower cost to taxpayers, officials say

Brian Zahn

WEST HAVEN — Although the demolition of Washington School, an elementary school from 1909 due to be rebuilt, has gone past its planned summer start date, the city's lead project manager said it's been for a good reason.

When the City Council first approved funding to rebuild Washington Elementary School in May 2020, the total appropriation was just under $19.4 million — equaling roughly $3 million in additional costs on top of $16.4 million the city would pay less an expected state reimbursement rate of 67.14 percent on the estimated $38 million project. On Monday, Ken Carney, owner of a local remodeling company who has volunteered to oversee various capital projects in the city including the high school construction project and the disbursement of American Rescue Plan Act funds, told Board of Education members the city would pay closer to $9.5 million.

Carney had told the school board in February that the project was short about $6.5 million because of ballooning construction costs, although he'd received a "verbal commitment" from state officials that they'd help to make up the difference.

He said the process by which the city leveraged more state funding had multiple components, including demonstrating to state officials that rebuilding Washington School was less expensive than renovating it. Several of the features of the building, including narrow stairwells, wide hallways and the existing masonry, made it so the building could not easily be pushed back on the site to create more accessibility and a bus loop. Carney said a renovation project also would take 18 months longer to complete in phases, which would add to the costs of the project.

Carney said the city's pitch to the state was convincing and the state granted a higher reimbursement rate to the city: a 77.14 percent reimbursement rate usually offered for school renovation projects instead of the 67.14 percent rate. He said the city also obtained a space waiver with the efforts of the city's state delegation.

"The space waiver says you can build a larger building and [the state] will apply [its] reimbursement formula to it," Carney said. 

As a result, the state has agreed to reimburse more of the project as it grows from a roughly 45,000-square-foot footprint to a 61,000-square-foot footprint. 

According to a letter sent to West Haven Public Schools on Nov. 9, the state Department of Administrative Services approved an increase in its reimbursement rate due to a revision in the estimated total costs of the construction, which increased from $38.8 million to $41.7 million since the project was approved in 2020.

"With the space waiver, the new construction and the increase in budget, you end up with an affordable job," Carney said.

Carney said the efforts of state Rep. Dorinda Borer, D-West Haven, now the city's mayor-elect, and Democratic state Sen. James Maroney, whose district includes West Haven, in "meeting with us and helping us through the process and the complicated paperwork to get all this done” as well as passing special legislation for the space waiver was critical to the project's success. Carney said he believes the project also is a reflection of the city building committee's dogged efforts and determination.

"The High School came out beautiful and I'm confident Washington School will be just as impressive," Borer said in an emailed comment. "While bricks and mortar don't define an education system, it is important to have our students be able to walk into a state of the art facility with better air quality, security, and accessibility just to name a few."

Borer said she intends for her administration to become very involved in school construction projects at a city and school board level, such as facilitating collaboration between the city and state, keeping projects on track and "bringing in fresh faces and perspectives for the oversight."

Washington students have been relocated to Molloy School, which had been used as district office and storage space before coming back online as a school this year during the planned construction.

Carney said demolition of the former Washington School building is due to take place between Dec. 8 and Jan. 29. The project is estimated to be completed in 18 months and Carney said students should be able to attend the new school for the 2025-26 school year.

New Canaan residents raised $40M to build a new library in 18 months: 'On time, on schedule, on budget'

Mollie Hersh

NEW CANAAN — As construction wraps up on a new town green space and library, the outpouring of donations during the fund-raising campaign have put the New Canaan Library on track to complete its work on budget.

Even with a multi-million dollar change in plans, fundraising for the new New Canaan Library has been so successful that in October, the library asked the town to cut its $10 million dollar loan down by $3 million and the reduced total still covers not just one, but two library buildings.

The library was granted the $10 million credit line in August 2021 for construction of the new library and a town green, estimated at $38.5 million. When making the request to reduce its credit line to the Board of Finance on Oct. 10, Board of Trustees Chairman Robert Butman said the library had only spent about $4 million of that amount.

“The fundraising, I think, exceeded everybody's expectations,” said Board of Finance Chairman Todd Lavieri during the Oct. 10 meeting. “The fact that we're here cutting the line of credit in half is really remarkable. So, kudos.” 

The new library is one of the most expensive and ambitious projects in the town's history, New Canaan Library Vice President of External Affairs and Philanthropy Ellen Crovatto said.

A former investment banker, Crovatto has spent countless hours spearheading the Capital Campaign for the New Canaan Library project.

“It's worth it," she said. "I live in this town. There was no way I was prepared to fail.”

The New Canaan Library is an association library, not directly run by the town; some 75 percent of its funding is provided by a grant from New Canaan. The remaining quarter of the cost is paid through fundraising such as donations to the library's Annual Fund.

The actual funding for the new library project "flipped (the ratio) on its head," Crovatto said.

“Three quarters came from private philanthropic dollars to raise this, to do this building, and we only asked the town for one quarter,” she said. “So we felt like that was being good partners.”

Fundraising began quietly as Crovatto and others started reaching out to donors with what they were attempting to accomplish. Their goal was to raise half of the funds ahead of revealing the full scale of the project to the town publicly, Crovatto said. Within a year of their personal outreach —by the end of 2019 — they hit their benchmark of about $15 million.

The library was able to raise the full $40 million on schedule with the help of several multi-million dollar gifts, including $3 million from Dede and Jim Bartlett for the upgraded auditorium and $3 million from Michael and Allison Rees for the new children’s library.

“Not only did this building come together, was built and finished in 18 months, on time, on schedule, on budget… But we also completed the Capital Campaign in a really, I think, impressive amount of time,” Crovatto said. “This is really a 100-year game changer for our town, and we had a lot of fans and a lot of people who were happy to support us.”

Sharon Teles, tasked with leading the campaign for the green, said the outdoor space was an “easy sell” largely because it tapped into an existing desire in the town for a common space downtown.

“It lends itself to so many different kinds of recreation, like picnicking with friends, finding a quiet spot to read, group events, concerts, plays, terraces for events,” she said. “It's just so thoughtfully designed that it is just very appealing across the board to people.”

The library’s micro-campaigns have also proven lucrative, raising about $2 million Crovatto said.

The library raised about $300,000 from engraving names on auditorium chairs, $1,000 per chair. An art display in the children’s library allowed donors to purchase illustrated tiles by artist Felix Doolittle of insects along New Canaan’s pollinator pathways.

For the green, the library was able to sell naming rights to 15 benches for $25,000 each.

Teles said she was inspired by the adopt-a-bench program from her time with the Central Park Conservancy, which offers personalized bench engravings for $10,000.

“I wanted to make sure that our benches could also provide some sort of personal message,” she said. “Allowing people to bring that sort of passion to their giving — I think it makes people willing to increase (their) support when it's connected to something that they care so much about.”

Three years into fund-raising, the campaign was thrown for a loop when the Planning and Zoning Commission ruled that instead of demolishing the previous library as planned, the original 1913 structure — called the legacy building by the library board — had to be saved and, to leave room for the new building, shifted 75 feet from its original location.

In a Nov. 8 Board of Selectmen meeting, board chair Butman estimated the cost of the legacy building work would be about $3 million, meaning the library would have to raise at least $1 million for its share of the cost. So far, the library has used its endowment to pay for the work.

Butman said a fundraising campaign for the historic library will likely kick off in the new year, though what that will look like is not final.

“It's not clear at this stage of the game, what the final purpose of that building is going to be,” Butman said. “So it's a little hard to get a detailed campaign going, but I suspect that that will be a primary effort on our part (in) the first quarter of next year.”

With longtime library director Lisa Oldham departing at the end of the year after a decade overseeing the facility, holding off on deciding what to do with the 1913 building makes sense, Crovatto said.

“We want to leave some room for whoever the new CEO is going to be,” she said. “I've got some thoughts and, hopefully, there'll be something to talk about in the coming months.”

Since opening in February, the library has reported about 2,700 new library card sign-ups.

Looking at the completed library, Crovatto said she was extremely proud of her fundraising team and the work they put in to accomplish such a massive feat within the timeline and budget.

“The biggest energy that we got was from the incredible response from the community, their belief in our ability to execute and their belief in the project,” she said. “I really took that greatly to heart, and it was a prime motivator. So I’m proud.”