Politics & Government
Berthel encouraged by efforts to recover from flooding
State senator says legislators need to take immediate action on more expensive electricity charges
By Scott Benjamin
He sees “broken towns” in a district that he has represented for more than seven years.
The area that he grew up in.
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Route 67, the main highway through Oxford, “was broken in five or six places. There were unprecedented amounts of rainfall. Where do you begin to recover.”
Two women perished. Homes were lost. Alternate shelter has been sought.
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Klarides Village, a shopping mall, in Seymour had water “almost over the roof” from the torrential downpour that arrived on Sunday, August 18. Businesses are out of operation.
However, state Sen. Eric Berthel (R-32) of Watertown is encouraged that there have been “food drives” and “clothing drives.”
He notes that he was part of the rescue efforts 19 years ago when Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana and parts of Texas. People helped their neighbors.
That is now happening in the 32nd state Senate District.
In a phone interview with Patch.com, Berthel said the people in his district are “resilient.”
Roads - or at least sections of some of them - have re-opened. In some cases they are not open to trucks. Rail repairs are under way.
Culverts and bridges need to be replaced.
“You don’t go to Home Depot and buy a bridge,” explains Bethel.
He says he was on the phone with Gov. Ned Lamont’s (D-Greenwich) chief of staff, Matthew Brokman, hours after the devastation. The next day at noon Lamont was in Oxford announcing that the state would do everything it could.
“He showed people that it was important for him to be there,” said Berthel, noting that it was on the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
The governor sought a federal declaration of emergency which Democratic President Joe Biden promptly signed.
The state Department of Economic and Community Development has provided a $5 million small business grant.
“I have to give credit where credit is due,” Berthel said. “The executive branch stepped forward.”
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Greenwich) announced the day after the floods that he would seek funding through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
Berthel said, “There are thresholds to be met. Oxford alone is beyond the threshold.”
Berthel said the officials who spoke at the news conference in Oxford largely, but not completely, kept politics out of the discussion.
Some people “could not restrain themselves from making this about climate change,” he lamented.
Said Berthel, “The day after the storm was not the time to do that.”
On another topic, each Republican state senator and representative has signed a petition to call a special session to address surging electricity costs.
Hartford Courant columnist Kevin Rennie wrote, “The state entered into a decade-long deal to require Eversource and United Illuminating, the state’s largest utilities, to purchase significant amounts of power from the Millstone nuclear power plant in Waterford. The electricity the companies purchase from Millstone and then distribute to customers is often at a price far higher than what they would pay on the open energy market. We, the ratepayers, make up the difference.”
“That difference between the locked in rate and the market rate accounts for more than 3/4 of the recent hike in costs,” he stated.
Regarding the 2017 agreement, Berthel remarked, “When we look at what has happened since then and the other mitigating factors, it is time to reconvene the General Assembly in special session and fix that and un-do what we did. This is not working.”
“I’m not sure what the opposition is from my colleagues on the left,” he added.
Lamont opened initial discussion on the issue on Thursday, September 5.
CT Mirror Budget Reporter Keith Phaneuf wrote that the Democratic legislative leadership has said that the Republican cost-cutting program doesn’t make sense since it would violate the fiscal guard rails that were established in 2017.
State Rep. Bob Godfrey (D-110) of Danbury, the deputy speaker pro tempore, said the Republicans have not produced a bill for a special session.
“We don’t vote on ideas,” said Godfrey. “We vote on bills. I haven’t seen one from the Republicans.”
He said that he voted against the agreement with Dominion, which owns Millstone, in 2017.
“It was a bad agreement then,” Godfrey remarked. “It is a bad agreement now.”
Berthel said all of the customers of Eversource and United Illuminating are paying a public benefits’ charge for the moratorium that Lamont signed when he was operating under executive orders during the pandemic. He said struggling electric customers didn’t have to pay their electric bills. There was “no fear” that service to them would be shut off.
The senator said that now those fees that were not paid are part of the public benefits charge.
Berthel said the electric suppliers offer options in which customers in arrears could pay their delinquent bills over years.
“It never should have been a free ride forever,” he commented.
Budget reporter Keith Phaneuf wrote at CT Mirror that, “Republicans are talking about using roughly $215 million from last fiscal year’s surplus to mitigate that hardship expense. And they also want to dedicate roughly $80 million more to neutralize the electric vehicle program’s impact on bills over the next year.”
Berthel said, “We need to fix the public benefits piece. We need to fix and re-do the Millstone piece and that will provide some relief.”
Would revising the 2017 agreement require negotiations with Dominion?
Berthel said, “Sure, I would think so. Yes, I would think so.”
Berthel said Lamont also should promptly appoint members to the two vacant seats on the Public Utility Regulatory Authority (PURA).
Having five members is “more powerful, more deliberate,” commented Berthel.
Rennie recommended in his column that PURA should be separate from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
When asked if he agreed, Berthel said, “That is not an easy ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer.” He said that if PURA was separated there should be a “a required mechanism” for communications between DEEP and PURA so that everyone has the best information.
On another subject, Berthel said he agrees with state Senate Republican Leader Stephen Harding (R-30) of Brookfield that there have been “too many multi-family housing projects” constructed in the 198-acre Brookfield Town Center central business district.
Two complexes just north of the Four Corners intersection on Federal Road are about to open and in months there will be 40 apartments occupied as part of Emporium Plaza, which will have a supermarket and smaller retail shops south of the Four Corners.
Berthel said he was encouraged that Brookfield Democratic First Selectman Steve Dunn has recommended a moratorium on multi-family housing projects until the updated Plan of Conservation and Development is completed.
Regarding higher education, reporter Kaitlin McCallum wrote recently in the Hartford Courant that, state “Senate President Martin Looney and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff sent UConn President Radenka Maric an open letter calling for a plan to accommodate more students.”
”In our meeting [with UConn administrators in March] it was stated that UConn could accommodate 40,000 students, while not diminishing the academic quality of the students or diminishing the distinction of the education,” the letter says. “As such, we respectfully reiterate our request for a comprehensive plan to expand the enrollment of the University of Connecticut.”
Berthel, who is the senior vice president for government affairs at Post University in Waterbury, said that the proposal by the top two state Senate Democrats “is realistic to the point that we can afford it. UConn is very expensive for us to run.”
He underscored that the university has produced many successful graduates and has national championship men’s and women’s basketball teams.
However, Berthel said there have been recent fiscal years where UConn administrators request a sizable budget increase, submit a tuition increase on students and then “they come back halfway through the year and ask for more money.”
“We have to be very deliberate and careful,” he cautioned.
State Rep. Patrick Callahan (R-108) of New Fairfield recently told Patch.com that Western Connecticut State University (WCSU), which he graduated from in 1989, is seeking $80 million in repairs.
Berthel said, “[legislators need to take] a real hard look at the cost of doing business at WestConn versus the benefit of that.”
He added that WCSU is “a great school” that plays “an important part in the economy” of the metro Danbury area. A number of students from the southern portion of his district, such as Bethel and Brookfield, attend WCSU.
However, enrollment declined by 26.7 percent at WCSU from 2018 to 2023, according to Alex Putterman of CT Hearst Godfrey has said that bout two years ago, WCSU had almost depleted its financial reserves about two years ago.
Berthel said WCSU made a poor decision in using some of its federal pandemic relief funds for operating expenses, which “should not have been allowed.” He said the university now faces “:remarkable funding cliffs in the next budget.”
Some legislators believe “maybe it is time to reduce the size of the state university system,” he commented. “I am not saying that I am for or against that.”
Berthel said part of his concern about the proposals for UConn and WCSU, as well as other colleges, is “that enrollments continue to decline yet the expenses continue to increase.”
After serving on the Watertown Board of Education, where he rose to become vice chairman, Berthel initially won election to the state House in 2014 and then was elevated to the state Senate in a February 2017 special election.
Berthel faces Democrat Jeff Desmarrais of Watertown, a financial planner, in the November 5 election. This marks the third consecutive election that they have squared-off in the district, which has not elected a Democrat since 1891.
Growing up in Southbury, Berthel’s fourth-grade class took a field trip to the State Capitol and in groups of four students they went into the governor’s office on the second floor and met then-Gov. Ella Grasso (D-Windsor Locks), who was in her first term.
He said Grasso was “motherly” and even had LEGO pieces on her desk.
Berthel said Grasso, the first woman to be elected governor in her own right, told him and his classmates that, “Someday one of you might serve in the state government.”
Berthel added, with a slight laugh, “I guess she was prophetic.”
Resources:
Phone interview with Eric Berthel, Patch.com, on Saturday, August 31, 2024.
Phone interview with Bob Godfrey, Patch.com, on Thursday, September 5, 2024.
https://patch.com/connecticut/brookfield/alumnus-callahan-says-wcsu-needs-money-overdue-repairs
