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CT Construction Digest Tuesday February 16, 2021

OP-ED | Lamont Transportation Plan Dwindles from Revolutionary to an Afterthought

Susan Bigelow  If you for some reason wanted an indication of whether Ned Lamont was going to run for another term, the budget he released last Wednesday should satisfy you. It’s a conservative budget that relies heavily on federal aid and the Rainy Day Fund in order to avoid raising taxes. It also ditches the idea of tolls entirely in favor of slapping a mileage fee on truckers. In short, this is the sort of budget the white, suburban middle class will feel nothing at all about.

So yeah, he’s running.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, plenty of people are complaining. There are lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who are rightly angry that the budget actually freezes Education Cost Sharing grants to towns at their current levels in order to let one-time federal stimulus money make up the rest. There was also no embrace of a public option for health care, just a plea for those well-known gushing rivers of compassion, insurance companies, to help the neediest with premiums. 

Perhaps the most talked-about point in the governor’s budget was his call to legalize marijuana. In the past that would have put off the kinds of voters Lamont might need to win an election, but legalizing marijuana has become a mainstream position over the past couple of years. Lamont risks very little by supporting legalization, especially as other nearby states who have already legalized rake in the cash. 

This is a very different budget than we saw in 2019, when Lamont put the state on a “debt diet” and pushed hard for passenger car tolls on our highways. The debt diet was not popular with lawmakers. Tolls, on the other hand, were absolutely loathed by almost everyone.

Both of those things are gone now. The loss of tolls is what gets me the most.

I really wanted to see those gantries go up. Not because I love paying money to the state! No, it’s because you and I know that Connecticut needs to invest heavily in our transportation infrastructure in order to, for example, not fall apart completely.

The tolls would have made it more costly for out-of-state drivers than in-state ones to use our roads, and it would have meant that each and every driver would at least think about the cost before heading out on the interstate. It also would have caused people to seriously think about eco- and urban-friendly public transit as an alternative. The money from tolls could have been used to make public transit cheaper, more reliable and more frequent.

But passenger car tolls died in the legislature, as did truck-only tolls. Instead of billions in revenue, the government is now planning on piling yet another fee on the trucking industry in order to raise a paltry $90 million.

This is deeply unfair. While trucks do cause a lot of wear and tear on the highways, trucking companies already pay tons in fees to the state. And the trucks we often grumble about when stuck on the highway behind them are the ones making sure we maintain our standard of living during the pandemic. They literally have kept this country running. For this we want to punish them? 

Second, yes, $90 million is not a ton of money. The idea is that by shoring up the Special Transportation Fund we’ll have access to all that sweet, sweet federal stimulus money, which will rain down upon us like a monsoon in the desert. Blessed are we, saved from the consequences of our own bad choices.

The thing is, the federal stimulus isn’t agreed on yet. There’s a lot in the governor’s budget that assumes we’ll be getting plenty of money from the feds, and there’s very good reason to think that’s true, but it’s never a good idea to count chickens before they hatch. A local legislator assured me in early 2020 that funding for transportation projects, fueled by truck-only tolls, was only weeks away. But that never materialized. Everything that was waiting on that money is still waiting.

Fixing the budget with federal stimulus money also completely forgets the most important lesson of the past four years: when it comes down to it, we’re on our own. We can’t count on Washington to haul our ashes out of the fire. We have to be as self-sufficient as possible.

I would have liked to see another try at tolls or, better, a big fat tax on all the rich people who can easily afford it. But that’s not what we got.

It’s a disappointing beginning to a re-election campaign.

Susan Bigelow is an award-winning columnist and the founder of CTLocalPolitics. She lives in Enfield with her wife and their cats.

The views, opinions, positions, or strategies expressed by the author are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of CTNewsJunkie.com.


What are Gov. Lamont’s transportation priorities for Connecticut? Here’s the list.

Rick Green  Gov. Ned Lamont has promised to make transportation improvements a priority in his proposed state budget, declaring that “this is personal.”

“Annie and I went over the Mianus River Bridge down in Greenwich a few hours before it collapsed a generation ago. So I know,” Lamont said in his speech outlining his spending strategy for the next two years. “If the thinking had been, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ then that thinking needs to change.”

With a proposed “highway use tax” on heavy-weight vehicles like tractor trailer trucks, Lamont says Connecticut can collect enough revenue from long-haul truckers who pass through the state to finance more than $1 billion in transportation projects over the next five years.

This will “address safety, traffic congestion, and modernization of our transportation system” the Lamont administration says.

Here are some of the big ticket items across Connecticut:

Improvements along I-95 to address specific safety concerns and congestion bottlenecks

The completion of the Route 7/15 interchange in Norwalk

More train service on the Waterbury line

Substantial cuts in support for New Haven Line and Shore Line East

Improvement to the I-691 / Rt. 15 Interchange

Waterbury and Danbury congestion mitigation projects

Fewer Express Buses

Traffic Signal Removal on Rt. 9

Late night bus service in greater New Haven until 1 a.m.

Expanded electric bus conversion program

Stamford Transportation Center modernization

Purchase of new dual power locomotives

Highway bridge maintenance

Railroad bridge reconstruction and station Improvements in Westport

Improved pedestrian crossings and sidewalks

Fixing up rural roads

Removing dying, dead and damaged trees along highways


With DRVN in New London out of salt, snow removal contractors face long lines, added costs

Erica Moser  The past few days, private snow removal contractors who had been used to quickly getting salt from DRVN Enterprises in New London found themselves waiting in hours-long lines of trucks in New Haven and Providence.

Seven years ago, seeing a flawed salt distribution system in Connecticut, Steve Farrelly began operating DRVN at State Pier. But he is being forced out as a result of the redevelopment at the pier for offshore wind, and on Thursday, he ran out of his remaining salt there.

"It's a disaster of epic proportions," said Rick Whittle, owner of Allied Snow Plowing Removal in Mystic. The trip to Providence or New Haven means an extra two hours of travel, using subcontracted dump trucks at $90 an hour. Whittle ran through the math of added business costs at a frenetic pace, arriving at $144,000 per season if there are 20 weather events.

He said the money will be be passed on to customers, which for him include the Coast Guard Academy, courthouses in New London, state-run group homes, and Backus Hospital. He is locked into contracts for this season but indicated he'll need to raise prices next year.

Whittle said the Sunday-Tuesday-Thursday snow pattern last week also caused trouble, because "there's no way in 48 hours to get all the madness controlled."

Gateway Terminal said in a statement, sent mid-day Monday through a public relations firm, that wait times for contractors were about two to two-and-a-half hours. Gateway serves private contractors, while Morton and Champion serve the Connecticut Department of Transportation and municipalities.

Gateway Terminal said all three have ample supply for the winter, with another 55,000 tons being unloaded this week and a second vessel anticipated by mid-March. Farrelly said he didn't think the issue was a volume shortage but a distribution shortage.

Kurt Hayes, owner of Hayes Services LLC in East Lyme, had been getting salt from DRVN but said he sent two trucks to Providence on Friday and had to wait in line for two hours. He said he will add a service charge for customers, which include retail facilities and condo complexes, noting he "saw the writing on the wall" with DRVN and put this contingency in his contracts.

Hayes voiced public safety as his primary concern but noted that while DRVN was displaced because of a green energy project, "now you've got hundreds of trucks sitting for hours."

Max Reiss, spokesman for Gov. Ned Lamont, said in an email Monday, "We have been made aware of contractors who had previously relied on the supply in New London, now needing to make different arrangements to fulfill their needs. This is not new, as contractors from all over Connecticut and even from other states have utilized the supply in New Haven for their salt needs for years."

What happened to DRVN?

Farrelly wrote to customers Thursday, "We are disappointed and frustrated to inform you that effective immediately, we will no longer be operating in the port of New London due to the unfortunate events that have unfolded in the last year and a half." He added that DRVN had a contingency plan with the Port of Albany while working on a more permanent solution.

Farrelly said he ran three trucks to Albany, dropped off salt in Bloomfield, and reloaded, something he could've done in 25 minutes from New London but that took seven hours.

Farrelly said he's telling existing customers — which include many municipalities, the University of Connecticut and Electric Boat — to do what works for them, because he doesn't have definitive answers and doesn't want to mislead anybody. Some are seeking new suppliers.

How did it come to this?

In January 2019, the Connecticut Port Authority reached an agreement with Gateway — a competitor of DRVN in the salt business — to run State Pier. Last February, because of the anticipated construction at State Pier, DRVN and other businesses at the pier were given a deadline of March 31 to leave.

The mild winter left DRVN with 95,000 tons of salt. DRVN got an extension to July 31, then Dec. 31, then Jan. 31, and then Feb. 28.

"The reason that they're being dislocated is to make way for what I think is a significant opportunity for the state and the offshore wind industry," said John Henshaw, who became executive director of the Connecticut Port Authority in September. He added, "It's difficult, obviously, for a business to relocate, but I do think the state is pursuing the right course and making the right kinds of investments."

Henshaw said his understanding is that DRVN was offered several options and said they had almost a year to find somewhere to move.

But Farrelly commented, "Whatever they offered to me is not a true, workable solution in my business world," and his inability to find another place wasn't for lack of trying.

Farrelly said he looked in Bridgeport, Ledyard, Montville and New London, and none of those options worked. He got approval to store salt on a property he owns in Portland, but he's restricted to 25 loads a day there whereas he did 250 at State Pier.

"If I had an equitable solution, I would be long gone," he said. "Why would I want to stay and be a tenant of my competition?"

With all the talk about the opportunities around wind, Farrelly questioned, "Where is the merit for what we've done, the jobs that we've created, the importance of the distribution of salt to preserve public safety? Why does that get discounted?"

What about municipalities?

DRVN has been providing salt to many municipalities, including Montville, Salem, the City of Groton, Voluntown, Plainville, Deep River, Essex, Rocky Hill, Wethersfield and New Haven.

On Friday, as salt distribution issues became apparent, The Day spoke with people from six municipalities, and all said they currently have enough salt.

Voluntown First Selectman Tracey Hanson said DRVN's departure from New London left the town looking for another supplier, while trying to not go over budget. She said they're in good shape for a little while but need more before the end of the winter.

Steve Biekert of the public works department in the City of Groton said they're "in a good position," and that he got 100 tons of salt from DRVN at the beginning of last week. But he said Friday he tried to call a certain vendor four or five times and hadn't gotten a response.

Waterford and the Town of Groton both switched from DRVN to Champion before winter began.

Greg Hanover, director of public works in Groton, said Champion delivers within a few days of the town calling and he's had no issues. His counterpart in Waterford, Gary Schneider, said the town may order 500 tons of salt but only get 200 or 300. But he thought that was more about the amount that could be transported in a workday than about supply in New Haven.

"The trucking is not keeping up to what the expectations are, and we were all spoiled when the pile in DRVN was over in New London," Schneider said.

East Lyme and Ledyard have contracted with Morton for at least a few years. Joe Bragaw, director of public works in East Lyme, said the town built a new dome about three years ago that doubled storage capacity, and said as of Friday the town had enough salt to get through four or five storms.


After waiting for decades, Hartford’s Park and Main apartment development raises hope it will bring lasting change to a city neighborhood

Kenneth R Gosselin  HARTFORD — Apartment construction at the corner of Park and Main streets in Hartford — the southern gateway to downtown — is already transforming a decades-old desolate stretch of the city, and the owners of the nearby Colombian restaurant say they hope it will bring long-lasting change to the neighborhood.

“We’ve heard about this for many years, so we always say, ‘When is it going to happen? You’re talking about it too much. It seems like a dream,’” said Diana Arbalaez-Castano, who has co-owned the Donde Julio Restaurant with her husband, Julio Castano, for the past decade. “But now that they are finally doing it, I have high hopes.”

The first phase of the $26 million Park and Main mixed-use development — 39 mixed-income studio, one- and two-bedroom rentals — is expected to begin leasing in April. A second phase of 87 apartments on the northern side of the intersection is scheduled to break ground next month.

While the Castanos have waited for a decade for change, the push to redevelop the vacant, city-owned lots stretches back even longer to the 2000s and a grand vision for high-rise buildings that collapsed without a financing deal.

Park and Main is far more modest with three stories over storefront space, but city officials see a vast potential for the project, partly funded with a state taxpayer-backed loan of $8.4 million from the Capital Region Development Authority.

“To see that long vacant space filled with a building that will soon bring residential and retail life to the street is an exciting thing,” Mayor Luke Bronin said during a recent tour of apartments in the first phase. Redeveloping the corner was a campaign priority when Bronin first ran for mayor in 2015.

The apartments are being developed by a partnership of Spinnaker Real Estate Partners of Norwalk and Hartford-based Freeman Cos. Park and Main is Spinnaker’s first project in Hartford, but the developer is expected to become a major player in the city’s redevelopment, including nearby 55 Elm and the area now dominated by parking lots around The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts.

City planners see the Park and Main development as a crucial, pedestrian connector between Bushnell Park and development near The Bushnell and the national historical park that is planned for the former Colt manufacturing complex.

For the Castanos, the upcoming leasing couldn’t come at a better time. Their business dropped off more than 25% in the pandemic. Their restaurant space is modest, so they can’t have tables right now, meaning occupancy went from 20 to zero. Donde Julio is getting by on take-out. Before the pandemic, the Castanos were close to expanding into an adjacent space.

“We are all struggling right now, all the businesses around here,” Arbaleaz-Castano said. “So I hope all the changes, all the new buildings, that new people are going to come.”

Beyond helping to recover from the pandemic, Arbaleaz-Castano said she hopes more activity in the area will make it more attractive in the long run to visitors from all over.

“So maybe when this is done, and there are more people around this place and it’s not too empty or too quiet, it will be more comfortable for people to go around,” Arbaleaz-Castano said.

“Esperanza,” Julio Castano said. ‘Hope.”

Attracting new tenants

The long-anticipated Park and Main apartments will come up for lease at an uncertain time for new downtown Hartford rentals, however, as the apartment market navigates through the coronavirus pandemic.

New downtown apartment buildings that opened prior to the pandemic initially saw a dip in the occupancy, but in recent months have shown encouraging signs of recovery.

A recent survey by CRDA of 25 apartment projects it had financed since 2012 drew responses from 15. Of those responding, owners and managers reported occupancy ranging between 80% and 100% and between 70% and 100% of renters paying on time. Only one building had to call renters. CRDA did not identify the building.

According to the survey, building owners are taking steps to either keep or attract new tenants. The approaches include waiving amenity fees, offering payment plans or move-in specials, and many are offering lease renewals with no rate increases.

“Most of the buildings that were operating Pre-COVID are back to pre-COVID levels,” Michael W. Freimuth, CRDA’s executive director, said. “The ones that have struggled are the ones that came on last year, either were in construction or early lease up.”

Freimuth said the apartment projects with fewer amenities have had a tougher time.

Park and Main will offer amenities such as fitness center, media room, co-working center and rooftop deck, but those will be in the second building not expected to be completed until this fall.

Matt Edvardsen, a principal at Spinnaker and director of asset management, said the developer remains upbeat about the city’s future prospects — and Park and Main in the coming months.

“We’re confident that we will lease it up, and we believe the downtown remains relatively stable,” Edvardsen said. He said Spinnaker forecasts the rentals will be close to fully leased by the end of September.

Asking rents are still being determined prior to the first leasing and are expected to be slightly lower than the central business district. The project’s apartments will include 20% that are designated as “affordable.”

At last summer’s groundbreaking, the market-rate rents were estimated to range from $1,200 for studios to $1,400 for one-bedrooms to $1,700 for two-bedrooms. Affordable units for low- and moderate-income tenants are expected to be about $200 less a month. The apartments, ranging in size from 400 square feet to 1,100 square feet, include stainless steel appliances plus a washer and dryer in each unit.

Construction got underway in earnest in October and moved fast because the structure was built in prefabricated blocks, built in another state, shipped to Hartford and lowered into place.

On the ground floor, storefronts could range in size from 900 square feet to 2,200 square feet, Edvardsen said. No leases have been signed, but Spinnaker eventually sees a coffee shop, juice bar or cafe as potential tenants.

Reviving Main Street

From the top floor of the apartment building, there is a new view of South Green’s Barnard Park, an island in the middle of where Hartford’s Main Street splits into Wethersfield and Maple avenues.

A new project, “Re-imagining Main Street,” envisions the park — now rundown, sullied by litter and documented drug dealing — with a future that could make it an oasis for the neighborhood. Traffic whizzing through the area could be calmed by a roundabout at the intersection, either a circle or a peanut shape that would visually flow into the park.

While funding for planning and construction still need to be secured, consultants say the roundabout would eliminate some of the wide swath of asphalt, making the area more of a “front door” to the neighborhood.

“With the Park and Main development, with the actual residents there, there will be pressure to do improvements to the park — lighting, seating, a fence around it. Right now there is a lot of mid-block crossing, which makes Main Street seem a lot like Frogger,” Anthony Cherolis, Transport Hartford coordinator for the Center for Latino Progress, said. (Frogger is the 1980s-era video arcade game, where the object is to get frogs home safely by crossing a busy street.)

The first phase of the apartments also now stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the South Park Inn, a soup kitchen and a shelter for people experiencing homelessness. While it was raised early on as a concern by the developers, they say they will be able to coexist with the shelter.

The city has no plans to push for a relocation of the shelter.

“This is the center of a vibrant, diverse neighborhood,” Bronin said, “and, as in any urban center, there are many different uses, many different buildings and many different people who share their city together.”


‘People don’t want to be poor:’ Bill touts apprenticeships as a key pathway to good-paying jobs

Rob Ryser  BROOKFIELD - Billy Vasaturo grew up in his father’s glass shop on Federal Road. But when the young man decided he wanted to get into the family business, there were no short cuts. Vasaturo started on the ground floor, as an apprentice.

“I’m different than the average employee because I’m the owner’s son, but I get treated the same as anybody else,” said Vasaturo, 32, who has completed his 6,000 hours of training as a glass installer and only needs to pass the state test to be a certified glazier. “I learn new stuff every day.”

Across Connecticut, Vasaturo’s story is retold thousands of times in automotive garages, machine tool factories and scores of other trades where the path to good-paying jobs is not college but the “earn as you learn” apprenticeship track that was launched in 1937, when the nation was in the grips of the Great Recession.

As Connecticut and the nation try to climb out of the worst economic crisis since that time, lawmakers want to see more stories like Vasaturo’s.

A $3.5 billion bill that would expand apprenticeships to more job seekers in more fields passed the House of Representatives earlier this month, with the hope of giving workers displaced by the COVID-19 pandemic a practical and proven track to full-time work through on-the-job training.

“When this bill came before my committee, I advocated for it because college is not the pathway for everyone,” said U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, a second-term Democrat who represents greater Danbury, and sits on the House Education and Labor Committee. “With this pandemic and so many people filing for unemployment (the Biden) administration has already said it has a commitment to address the work force and find creative ways to retrain people.”

The bill would bring $2 million to Connecticut’s Office of Apprenticeship Training to build new partnerships with unions, trades schools and companies, to reach traditionally underserved job-seekers, and to make sure there are more success stories like Stewart’s Barbershop in Bethel.

As barbershop owner Everton Stewart tells the story, a woman who was in-between careers walked into his shop with her apprenticeship paperwork already researched, and asked to be his apprentice.

“She had all of her classroom hours already, because she had taken some theory courses in beauty school, so all she needed was her barbershop hours,” said Stewart, 41, a barber for 15 years. “So I was able to help her.”

After a year-and-a-half - and 2,000 barbershop hours under her belt - the woman was not only a state certified barber, but she had a job in Stewart’s shop.

The National Apprenticeship Act of 2021 comes at a dire time for the Connecticut economy where the 8 percent unemployment rate is down from a high of 10 percent in the summer but is still above the national jobless rate of 6.7 percent.

Connecticut’s labor czar welcomed the bill and its potential to boost the state apprenticeship program, which he called ‘a vital part of workforce preparedness.”

“While many people think of this program as one for young people who have vo-tech education, it is also instrumental for men and women who are switching careers, so it builds a strong employment pool for the trades and other craftspeople,” said Kurt Westby, the state’s labor commissioner.

Thomas McSherry, president of Fire Control Service in New Milford, agrees.

“There are very few people out there with the right experience, and the fire suppression license is difficult, so generally we get younger guys from an auto dealership or a landscaping business and we basically start them from scratch,” said McSherry, who starts apprentices between $15 and $17 per hour.

After 6,000 hours of job training, which takes three years, fire suppression system technicians who pass the state test start earning $25 per hour. “Everybody wants to go to college, which is great, but there is real potential for these guys - no question about it - because there is a limited number of people with licenses out there.”

Removing barriers

The hope is not only to help job seekers who may be considering a change of careers as the COVID-19 pandemic approaches its one-year anniversary in greater Danbury, but also to reach more women and traditionally underserved job seekers in communities of color, Hayes said.

“People don’t want to be poor. People don’t want to be unemployed,” said Hayes. “If we create opportunities and invest in people to help them become self-sufficient, people will contribute to the community. People will buy home. But we have to remove the barriers.”

It’s too soon to say whether the Apprenticeship Act of 2021 will pass the Senate, although Hayes and other lawmakers say they are optimistic.

“We passed this legislation in November, but unfortunately the Republican Senate majority failed to take it up,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, in a statement after the House passed the act on Feb. 5. “Now, with a new Democratic Senate majority, I am hopeful that this important legislation will receive the consideration it is due, and I am confident that, if sent to the President’s desk, it will be signed into law.”

Across Connecticut, there are 5,900 active apprenticeships in industries ranging from automotive and culinary to construction and plastics, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Compare that to 280,000 active apprenticeships across the country - an increase of 40 percent since 2016.

Some 94 percent of people who complete a registered apprenticeship find full time jobs, with an annual average income of $70,000, the labor department says.

Those statistics are backed up by Bart Ogden, president of Ogden Electrical Service in Danbury, and by Tino Punturiero, the owner of Samanna Plumbing & Heating in New Fairfield, who praise the work ethic of their apprentices and said they had jobs waiting for them once they passed the state test.

Bruce Ratcliff Jr., president of AC 2000 in Southbury, said the apprentice program is not only practical but versatile.

Ratcliff, who has four apprentices working toward their 8,000 hours to certify as heating and cooling mechanics, said the program creates a path to good-paying full-time work for students right out of technical school, and for people in mid-career looking for skilled work.

“One time I had an apprentice in his mid-30s with a family, so I brought him in at a higher (hourly wage) level because I knew his work ethic,” Ratcliff said.

Members of Connecticut’s Congressional delegation such as U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney said one way the state can offer the “earn as you learn” model to more people is to create apprenticeships in new business sectors such as health care, technology and finance.

State Sen. Julie Kushner agrees.

“We need an expansion of our understanding of apprenticeships into fields that haven’t had apprenticeships, such as paraeducators in the schools,” said Kushner, a Democrat who co-chairs the state legislature’s Labor and Public Employees Committee. “Right now, a lot of people are working on low wages and we want them to have a pathway to better jobs and better benefits.”