This story has been updated to reflect the Connecticut Siting Council’s vote and Fairfield First Selectman Christine Vitale’s reaction, on Thursday afternoon.
BRIDGEPORT – The on-again, off-again, on-again saga of the proposed monopoles in Fairfield and Bridgeport has now been delayed until Oct. 16.
Although Gov. Ned Lamont had submitted a letter to the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) Wednesday requesting a delay on the council’s vote for United Illuminating’s application to install the monopoles in Fairfield and Bridgeport, the council actually acquiesced to a request from intervenors who had the legal standing to make such a request, according to Siting Council Executive Director Melanie Bachman. The council voted 8-0 for the delay until next month’s meeting after CSC member Brian Golembiewski made a motion for the vote.
“Yesterday Governor Lamont’s office submitted a letter to the Siting Council requesting to postpone the final decision on this matter to explore alternatives,” Bachman said. “Unfortunately, Gov. Lamont does not have legal standing to request postponement because the governor is not a party or intervenor to the proceeding. Under the Uniform Administrative Procedure Act, only parties or intervenors can submit motions. The Siting Council is an independent multi-member, quasi-judicial agency that does operate under the Uniform Administrative Procedure Act.
“Also, yesterday the council received a letter from parties and intervenors to the proceeding from the Town of Fairfield, the City of Bridgeport and the SCNETI group requesting the council to remove the vote on the final decision on this matter from its agenda.”
Only the council can remove an item from a publicly-noticed meeting agenda by a motion to table, Bachman noted.
The council’s action comes one day after elected officials and residents held a press conference in Bridgeport calling for the delay and an open discussion with the utility regarding the plan to renovate and relocate about 7 miles of electric transmission lines along the Metro-North Railroad corridor from Sasco Creek in Southport to the Congress Street substation in Bridgeport.
“This delay is an important step toward ensuring that the voices of our communities are heard and that alternatives to the current proposal are given the serious consideration they deserve,” said Fairfield First Selectman Christine Vitale. “Fairfield and Bridgeport residents have spoken loudly and clearly: the south side monopoles are not an acceptable solution.
“While UI has shown no interest in meeting with the Town to address our concerns, the message is now loud and clear that the burden is on them to come back to the table with a new plan that protects our property rights, safeguards property values, and respects the economic development impact on our communities.”
She added that the delay gives the municipalities their first real opportunity to work together to develop a solution that delivers reliable energy without sacrificing Fairfield and Bridgeport neighborhoods and businesses.
Local and state elected officials and residents on Wednesday said they wanted a lot more than a delay of the CSC’s decision to approve a certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need which is necessary for UI to take property by eminent domain and be granted easements.
State Sen. Steve Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, read from the letter submitted by the governor to the Siting Council on Wednesday morning: “It’s in the best interest in the state of Connecticut, not just the Town of Fairfield or the City of Bridgeport, to ensure all parties involved have a meaningful opportunity to explore and discuss potential alternate paths forward on this project.”
From Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim to Fairfield First Selectman Christine Vitale to state Reps. Stafstrom and Antonio Felipe and state Sens. Tony Hwang and Herron Gaston, public officials made their message to UI clear. They want the utility to come to the bargaining table and offer some kind of compromise or alternative to installing 195-foot high monopoles through Fairfield and Bridgeport.
One local stakeholder who would be directly affected by the proposed UI monopole plan is Shiloh Baptist Church’s Rev. Carl McCluster. In a speech straight from a church, he sounded a warning to residents and lawmakers alike.
“Let me just say this,” Rev. McCluster said. “Shiloh Baptist Church and our colleagues and community partners and leaders refuse to accept the corporate and political instinct and intent demonstrated in these deceptive and late-breaking unscrupulous tactics.
“If we have to march, we’ll march. If we have to sue, we’ll sue. We will stand together until this gets done.”
Rev. McCluster called last week’s meeting of local officials with UI President and CEO Frank Reynolds and his legal team an example of a “corporate giant trying to run over residents” by pushing through the monopole plan without proper input.
“We will not turn back. We won’t go back,” he said when referring to the plan recently approved in a straw vote by the CSC. “The proposed plan was sent in a postcard to many people in our community. It did not tell the story of the intent of UI. The lies that were told. The unwillingness of the government to force the new members of the Siting Council to read all 6,750 pages of testimony that was given to the Siting Council before trying to reverse their decision.
The governor joined the gathering of nearly 100 rally-goers on Tuesday to give them the news that he asked and UI agreed to request a delay in the vote to consider other alternatives to the relocation and rebuild of its existing 115kV electric transmission lines along 7.3 miles of Metro-North Railroad corridor located east of Sasco Creek in Fairfield and UI’s Congress Street substation in Bridgeport.
What elected officials want
Mayor Ganim and First Selectman Vitale took turns making their case for opposing the plan as is.
“We ask what UI did in Greenwich, and I think Norwalk too, at a cost to us – the residents of Bridgeport and Fairfield,” Ganim said. “The answers that we got (in the meeting with UI on Friday) were arrogant to say the least with smug looks. It was disrespectful.
“I thank the governor for verbally interceding to grant a delay so we can take a look at this. The process has been called into question. To see a 180-degree turn from a position with no foundation or substance lacks transparency that is unacceptable.”
Meanwhile, Stafstrom was also critical of the Siting Council process.
“I think you need to go back before the last meeting where there was a straw poll, which essentially came out with only two members were in favor of UI’s initial application, four members opposed and one who abstained because he hadn’t time to read the whole record,” he said. “There was no initial testimony after that. There was nothing submitted. No depositions done. You had four members, enough to tank the project, who said this is a bad application.”
Sen. Hwang, who also addressed the process issue, called for a new docket for the project to improve transparency.
“Another part of this integral part of this discussion needs to be – and we reiterated it to the governor – that the integrity and due process of the Connecticut Siting Council is under question,” Hwang said.
He thinks it is suspicious how the Council so quickly changed their vote in a second straw poll following a loss in New Britain Superior Court by a judge who remanded the application.
“The timeline in which the suspicious turn of events needs to be vetted and clearly definied in due process,” he said. “The reversal of Docket 516R is unexplained. I think the most important thing we need to ask for is a new docket that is under the constraints and the transparency and accountability that was ‘bipartisanly’ passed by the General Assembly.”
Vitale, who represents Southport residences and businesses who stand to lose property to eminent domain, focused on the details of the project.
“We still have a lot of questions: cost of undergrounding (transmission wires),” she said. “I don’t understand how it could it cost $100 million to bury the lines through Southport, Fairfield, and Bridgeport. The numbers don’t add up. We need more information.
“I want to talk about the economic impact of this. We all know that a strong Bridgeport equates with a stronger Fairfield and a stronger Connecticut. Running giant monopoles through Fairfield, businesses will lose parking, their own private property.”
She and others at the press conference brought up that the cost of undergrounding those wires in Greenwich were only $25 million.
Sen. Gaston compared to the inequity between what the utility did with a similar project and what is proposed for Bridgeport and Fairfield.
“The fact of the matter is they have disrespected the voices of our community. Bridgeport and Fairfield are not cesspools where you feel you can dump your litter. You need to listen to the people. If you can do it in Greenwich, and put it underground, then why can’t you do the same thing here in Bridgeport.”
Sen. Hwang defended the rights of the local churches and Southport Library that would be in the path of the proposed monopoles.
“I stand here in unison with Fairfield and Bridgeport to say that our churches are not for sale, our libraries are not for sale, our environment is not for sale and our communities and neighborhoods are not for sale,” Hwang said in responding to the plan to use eminent domain to take private property to make way for the monopoles.
