Selectmen, Officials Briefed On Fairfield Hills Utility Installations

By John Voket

A hastily assembled round table meeting to keep selectmen informed on several rapidly developing projects at Fairfield Hills was notified as a Board of Selectman meeting Friday, January 11. According to state Freedom of Information guidelines, the public must be notified when all three selectmen are meeting together even if it is not a formal or regularly scheduled Board of Selectmen meeting.

During that hourlong meeting, selectmen met with representatives from the local Public Works Department, the Fairfield Hills Authority, O&G Industries, the town attorney, and an engineering consultant and town land use director.

Discussion on several pending matters included details about the installation and possible funding options for a utility “loop” the town is poised to install ringing the campus to provide phone, gas, electricity, and fiber optic cable to virtually any existing, planned, or future commercial development within the appropriately designated areas of the campus.

Public Works Director Fred Hurley said town workers and equipment would provide excavation and site preparation for utility installers. Fairfield Hills Authority Chair Bob Geckle said after the meeting that this was a logical and economical alternative to hiring an outside contractor.

Mr Hurley said once the trenches were provided, each utility would bring in crews to lay rubberized pipe for gas service, and cable for electricity, IT, and communication services. With the trenches provided, the public works official said the gas utility would assess the town a fee of approximately $280,000, which would in effect, be a security deposit against the total cost of that job.

Mr Hurley advised the initiation of digging by town crews should be authorized “right now.”

“The Newtown Youth Academy has to have utilities by October 1 [2008],” he said, “[and] we need to have gas in by July 1 to honor all obligations [of the Youth Academy lease].”

Mr Hurley then reviewed a timeline that incorporated about one month for telephone crews to complete their installations, and another six to eight weeks for electrical crews.

He explained that the gas line would ring one side of the loop, which would conform to existing or planned roadways around the campus, and the electrical, IT, and phone cables would be laid in a trench on the opposite side of the same pathways. Then, hubs would be installed at increments where they could be tapped for any future development site without the need to do extensive re-excavating of the roadways.

Turning to the costs, Mr Geckle and O&G project representative Jeff Cugno said Newtown was among three projects in the region on the short list for a federal Economic Development Agency (EDA) grant. While the application for that program was made for $3.5 million, Mr Cugno said in his experience, the grants typically amount to $1 million per project.

All parties involved agreed that the total of all utility work beyond what is provided by the town would amount to about $1 million. If the town failed to win the EDA grant, Mr Geckle said the utility installations could be underwritten by between $1 million and $1.3 million left over from an original bonding plan.

Mr Geckle said he expected upfront money from leases for Newtown Hall and Stratford Hall, which are nearing completion. That revenue would be approximately $1.1 million. He also reminded the panel about a pending reimbursement from the state for school office space, and the possibility of getting other grants already in process.

Mr Hurley suggested considering making all roads inside the campus town roads, so ongoing maintenance and some initial work could qualify for state town road grants.

Coordinating Federal Grant

After some discussion, the selectmen agreed that plans should move forward expeditiously to install the new utilities loop as part of the original scope of the project. In conjunction with this project, Selectman Herb Rosenthal suggested working closely with Congressman Christopher Murphy’s office to coordinate on the EDA grant process, and Paul Mangiafico suggested doing the same with Senators Christopher Dodd and Joseph Lieberman.

Mr Rosenthal said he thought Newtown was in the best position to get the federal grant because the town was ready to go on the project. Mr Cugno concurred, saying that two other local projects were still in concept or planning stages.

In other discussion, it was determined that engineering consultant Richard Harral would produce and maintain a project flow-chart to keep all parties appraised of all simultaneous activities occurring on the campus.

In other matters, Land Use Director George Benson said he was concerned when he read reports about funding for a Parks & Recreation building in a newspaper article. Mr Benson said typically, private developers come to the Land Use Agency before they even buy land.

“It makes the process smoother. We have staff who can help,” he said. Moving forward, Mr Benson said he would like to become involved with any development projects on campus in their conceptual phase so he could involve land use, public works, and engineering early-on in the process.

Before closing, First Selectman Joseph Borst was reminded that he would play a critical role in helping best position the town for the federal grant. Mr Cugno confirmed that he has never seen a successful federal grant process outcome where the chief elected official was not thoroughly involved in the process.

Mr Borst said he would be happy to travel to the EDA regional office in Philadelphia whenever needed to help support the information gathering process on the grant application.