Home Care In Clinton, CT

Life seems to flow slowly, timelessly, inside the gates of the Kelseytown Reservoir in the upper reaches of Clinton, nestled in the Cockaponset State Forest far from Route 1 and the bustling shoreline.

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There, the Connecticut Water Co. has operated one of its five surface water treatment plants since 1980, turning out up to 4 million drinkable gallons a day with just a few people watching over the pipes, valves and holding tanks in a ballet of nature and chemistry. Kelseytown has hydrated local customers since 1904, long before Connecticut Water formed.

It's a calming scene but as Paul Andrews, the company's water treatment plant supervisor, leads me on the water's path, the reality comes clear: This treatment plant, with $12 million in new upgrades just in the last five years, is part of a complex, expensive and changing water landscape in a state that still has some 400 independent, community water systems.

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We are about to see a rate hike request from Connecticut Water to the state's Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, a case that will test the for-profit company's claim that it needs more money to modernize its home state's water purification and delivery. The company is expected to file preliminary papers for the rate case this week and while executives aren't saying the percent increase they will seek, it could be substantial.

This rate case comes at a watershed moment, pardon the pun. Regulators are not in a generous mood these days with utilities when it comes to spending customers' money. PURA, as the authority is known, has just whacked two utilities -- Aquarion, the state's largest water supplier, and United Illuminating, the electric company in parts of Fairfield and New Haven counties -- in rebukes that were heroic to weary ratepayers but bloody to the utilities crying foul.

Now comes Connecticut Water Co. with its bid. Third sacrificial lamb in the lion's den? No, says Craig Patla, the company president. He's confident that his company has the culture regulators want to see as they embrace something called performance-based ratemaking, driven by new state legislation.

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"Connecticut Water is confident that our record of serving customers, communities, employees and the environment does make us a different kind of utility and in going through the rigorous process of a general rate case, we’ll get to proof that out," Patla said. "We are ready and willing to meet the standards of prudency and service to stakeholders that the authority has set.”

Balance among 'building blocks'

Patla, sitting in his company's modest offices on Route 1 in Clinton, described the five "building blocks" of Connecticut Water: employees, customers, shareholders, communities and the environment.

"We believe strongly that when we have balance for those five building blocks that we will achieve success for all of those building blocks," Patla said. "We measure our employee satisfaction twice a year. We measure our customer satisfaction twice a year."

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A longtime industry veteran, Patla doesn't see a fight, but rather a sort of kumbaya moment -- my words -- that will bring out a different reaction from the PURA lion, when it comes to weighing the company's performance, not just reimbursing it for spending money.

"We welcome that concept," Patla told me. "A lot of the metrics around performance, we excel at...We don’t fear it because we perform well in the components that are being measured."

I have no way to judge the merits of Patla's claim that his company is a different kind of utility. In theory, a utility of any kind ought to be able to use larger size to shave costs for customers. That never seems to work out. So regulators closely monitor shareholder profits. Connecticut Water, which owns a water company in Maine, was bought out in 2019 by SJW Group, the publicly traded parent of the San Jose Water Co. in California.

Like its larger competitor, Aquarion, Connecticut Water has been buying up many of the old community water works, at their request. These tiny systems might have lower rates but many of them can't do the job anymore in an age of droughts and severe storms caused by climate change; PFAS and other emerging contaminants; tighter regulations; declining volunteer ranks; and aging infrastructure that these providers on old wells have let slip.

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Connecticut Water, with about 110,000 customers in Connecticut and 232 employees, runs 66 non-connected water systems in 60 cities and towns, some with just one or two wells.

Following two tough rulings

All of that requires big ongoing investments. But in March, PURA whacked Aquarion's $32 million rate hike request down not just to zero, but to a $2 million giveback for customers. Aquarion, a unit of Eversource, the giant regional electric utility, filed a lawsuit. A state judge issued a rare stay of the rate reduction in May and the case is pending.

Then last week, PURA allowed just $23 million of a $131 million rate hike request from United Illuminating, after a July draft decision that would have left UI with less than $2 million more from ratepayers. UI has not said whether it will appeal in the courts.

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Connecticut Water's rate request follows a 2021 rate case that gave the company a 7.1 percent average increase, or about $7.3 million. Patla talks about the company's efforts to encourage water conservation -- not easy in a part of the world where life's liquid runs in abundance most of the time -- and he talks about those building blocks.

"I would make the argument that pursuit of balance really sets us apart," he said.

We'll see how that goes in the hearings.

Back at the treatment plant at the Kelseytown Reservoir, we see water flowing into tanks with compounds that make particles come together to form "floc" sludge, then we see the water filtering up through that sludge, then filtering through four feet of granular, activated carbon. Then the system adds lime, phosphate, chlorine and fluoride in critical amounts with disastrous results if done incorrectly.

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Making filtered water from raw water, as Paul Andrews calls it, requires a different kind of balance than what Patla describes. Different, but related through the modernization of a fractured industry. The question is how much we the drinking, flushing, showering, washing and lawn-watering public need to pay to make it flow.

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Steve Sullivan had been involved in coaching soccer at some level on the Connecticut shoreline for a half-century, including the last six seasons as the Morgan-Clinton girls head coach.

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As much as Sullivan loved the sport, he loved “building relationships” even more through the sport, according to Sullivan’s niece, Kerry McGowan.

“It became really clear to my family and I just how many connections he made throughout the shoreline,” McGowan said. “It was really just about building connections and letting people know that they were important to him. He really encouraged his player not just to be good soccer players, but also good human beings and do what’s right off the field.”

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Sullivan died on July 12 at Connecticut Hospice in Branford. Sullivan, also affectionately known as Coach Sully, was 72. There will be a celebration of Steve Sullivan’s life, a Sullybration, on Saturday, Aug. 5, at the Indian River Complex in Clinton from 2-6 p.m.

“He wanted us to have a party. That was what he felt most passionate about. He wanted everyone to celebrate and wanted to be remembered that way,” McGowan said.

Morgan has won three Shoreline Conference tournament titles, including the last two against Portland (2021) and Old Saybrook (2022) respectively. Morgan reached the 2018 Class M state semifinals, falling to eventual champion Lewis Mills in penalty kicks. The Huskies reached the Class M quarterfinals in 2017.

He was an assistant under Megan Kilbride before taking over head coaching duties in 2017.

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Denise Tanner is one of the organizers for the Sullybration. Her daughter, Lilly, will be one of the senior co-captains on the team this fall.

“He was just so special to them. This whole season will be dedicated to him,” Denise Tanner said. “He always was a very good motivator, able to get the girls to show their true potential.”

A pizza truck and an ice cream truck are expected to be at the Sullybration. So is a DJ. There could be an alumni game depending upon how many people show up, Tanner said.

Sullivan coached youth soccer in Guilford and in Clinton for about four decades.

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“We are hoping for a really big turnout,” Tanner said about the Aug. 5 event, adding all were welcome, including former players, assistant coaches, opposing players and coaches, family and friends.

For further information, visit the Sullybration Facebook page.

Sullivan was the New Haven Register’s Area Coach of the Year following his first Shoreline title in 2018. He was also a two-time Coach of the Year for the Shoreline.

A 1969 Guilford High graduate according to his obit, Sullivan worked for the United States Postal Service, retiring in 2004.

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Morgan is expected to post the opening for the position by the end of this week.

Memorial contributions may be made to Friends of Joel in care of the Joel Elementary School in Clinton, where Sullivan worked as a recess aide the last couple of years.

Clinton — A developer’s plan to build a complex of 40 one-bedroom apartments — with 10 percent affordable units — on a motel property located in an industrial zone was unanimously rejected by the Planning and Zoning Commission on Monday night.

Despite at least one commissioner commenting that the Westbrook-based Dattilo Group’s proposal looked like an improvement for the motel, known as A Victorian Village Inn, at 345 E. Main Street, the commission was overwhelmingly against expanding housing they said is already out of place in an industrial zone.

Commissioner Ellen Dahlgren said her issue was with Dattilo Group’s proposal to put a floating zone on the property, which would allow them to build their apartment complex despite the motel being a non-conforming use on an industrial-zoned property.

“These folks could be planning to build the Taj Mahal there or some landmark, it has nothing to do with the specific proposal. In fact, the proposal sounds like an improvement over what’s there,” Dahlgren said. “But the use of this floating zone is something that I just think of as a bad component of our regulations.”

Dahlgren said the floating zones “undermine the predictability” of zoning, which is meant to let people make decisions about where to buy, sell or develop property. She said they should be removed from the town’s zoning regulations, and from the Plan of Conservation and Development when that comes up for review in 2025.

Commissioner Bo Clark said the town’s regulations don’t allow the enlargement of “non-conforming” uses like the motel – which was built on the site but later disallowed by zoning changes. The 1955 motel was built before the town set up the “I-2” industrial zone, which doesn’t allow residential development.

“If we adopt this and land [the floating zone] on this particular site, we’d be creating a mechanism to circumvent our own regulations,” Clark said.

Clark also said the proposed floating zone would allow too much density – technically allowing up to 54 units of any size on the 1.8 acre site, despite the developers saying they planned to build 40.

He said that would allow up to 75 percent of the lot to be covered with buildings, while the town doesn’t allow more than 30 percent in its residential zones. It’s particularly a concern for that environmentally sensitive area, he said.

“Should a septic system fail, and no onsite solution can be found, it’s incumbent on the town to find a solution to that,” Clark said.

Commissioner Martin Jaffe said he wasn’t personally opposed to floating zones as a concept, but said there were problems with Dattilo’s proposed zone. Part of their pitch was that four units – 10 percent of the development – would be designated “affordable,” he said.

Including some affordable housing in a multifamily development can be attractive to towns like Clinton that fall under the state’s 8-30g affordable housing law, which allows developers to build housing while overriding many local zoning regulations if 30 percent of the development is deed-restricted as “affordable.”

Jaffe said the 10 percent set-aside falls well short of the state law aspiring for 30 percent, and it wouldn’t bring the town closer to having 10 percent of all its housing stock restricted as “affordable,” which would exempt the town from 8-30g. The town is at 2.8 percent according to the state’s latest count.

Residents of the motel, who live on the site, said it was one of the only places in town that was affordable for laborers and people on fixed incomes, and feared being pushed out and being unable to afford the new rents – even with Dattilo saying they would designate four apartments as “affordable.”

Jaffe said that 8-30g doesn’t allow developers to bypass zoning to build housing in an industrial zoned-property like 345 E. Main St. And in this case, it would be putting more people near “tens of thousands of gallons of explosive propane gas” next door, he said.

“Certainly the policy of discouraging lower-income, affordable housing within industrial areas is a sound policy,” Jaffe said.

Brendan Crowley covers energy and the environment for CT Examiner. T: 860 598-0050

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In an era when speed and quantity are celebrated, Mark Hough is a bit of an anomaly. As a luthier in Clinton, he considers it a successful year when he makes one violin.

Building one of his award-winning violins from scratch isn’t Hough’s only focus, of course. Hough is a skilled string repair artisan as well, as the dozens of violins hanging from the workshop in his 18th century home attest. People come from around Connecticut and beyond to see if he can help close a seam on their cello or help their viola or violin sound better.

“Making violins is not all about speed. If it was about speed, we’d have all our instruments made on machines,” Hough said. “It’s about enjoying making the instruments and putting your own handiwork in it.”

As a financial reality, most of Hough’s time is restoration and instrument adjustments. “It’s amazing how finicky violins can be. You can buy a flute for $200 and it will pretty much take care of itself,” he said. “A violin you really have to treat it like a pet or a person. You have to be aware of little signs that say I’m not doing so well.”

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It’s also about finding the right wood. “We generally are all wood addicts,” he said, noting that luthiers are always on the lookout for the perfect wood. His current wood stash comes from a Connecticut architectural salvage company that was advertising wood from a 150-year-old Wisconsin barn. “Visually I could tell it was perfect,” he said, ticking off the tightness of the wood’s grain and the size of its tiger flaming. (Flaming is that classic undulating pattern, or flame, so common in maple woods.)

“This was one of a kind,” Hough said. “One hundred fifty years ago tiger maple in America was being used in furniture. The fact that a tree of this quality would end up at a sawmill and be used to hold up the sides of a barn is so astronomically low. I think I have enough to make one (violin) a year for the rest of my life.”

“The big difference between old and new wood is how you work it,” he continues. “With new wood you have to be aware that it’s going to change as it gets older. It has to be made with enough thickness so that as it ages it won’t lose its voice. I’m concerned with the longevity of those instrument tones.”

It is this attention to detail that helps make Hough violins appealing to violinists.

Sarah Zahorodni is a violinist, composer and arts administrator in Boston. She had tried several other violins before finding Hough’s, which was made in 2016. “It’s always a whole journey,” she said of looking for a different instrument. “The more you try, the more there is to compare and think about. You’re always inching toward this perfect instrument that you hope exists and when you find it, it feels great.”

Zahorodni grew up in Connecticut, so in some ways finding Hough and then falling in love with this instrument was a homecoming of sorts. “It spoke so easily,” she said. “The sound was sweet, warm and ringing. It had a singing quality and such depth to the tone.”

And Zahorodni knew that sound would only improve the longer she played the instrument. The sound of all string instruments changes over time as the wood ages and the instrument opens up. Buying a new instrument, then, is a bit of a leap of faith. The sound in its first year will be very different in five or 10 years. “You can imagine what the sound is going to be like,” Zahorodni said of first playing her Hough violin. “You’re going to go on a journey with the instrument. The sound is going to change and only get better. I was at a growing point of my musical instruction so it was like we were both learning and both growing.”

Hough began his stringed instrument journey when he was 17. He became interested in woodworking while being home schooled, so his mother got him a book about Mittenwald, Germany, where most of the local economy centers on violin making. “I read about this town and told her I want to go there and study violin making,” he recalled.

His mother talked with other home schooling mothers and learned that one of them was married to a luthier who had been looking for an apprentice for two years — and that this acclaimed luthier, Lawrence Wilke, lived just six houses away from Hough. “It was a clear sign I was supposed to do this,” Hough said.

Hough studied with Wilke for a few years before moving to a music shop and ultimately opening his own workshop, Mark Hough Violins and focusing on building instruments. “In the violin making world, you have everything from real technical artists who put all their energy into perfecting the craft and you have others who are more free spirited and not as interested in making the perfect violin as opposed to making one they like,” he said. “I’m drawn to making one that makes the perfect sound.”

And after decades, Hough said he’s found his magic sound formula.

“It’s taken me years to figure that out,” he said. “It has to have the ability to play the entire spectrum of sound, whether it’s the deep, rich, gut rumbling sounds up to singing, light, floating sounds. It needs to be even from the lower strings up to the top of upper strings. It needs to have a strength that feels like it’s almost pushing back at you. You don’t want an instrument that gives in when you push it hard. It has to be ready to give more when you ask. When you play an instrument like that you feel like you can do anything. For a player, that’s the best you can have going into an audition or concert — that the instrument is there with you just encouraging you.”

WESTBROOK, CT — The Westbrook Outlets could be demolished in favor of a massive, $425 million development with 595 apartments, 100 townhomes, a new hotel, restaurants, and entertainment space, according to The Hartford Business Journal.

Lexington Partners is pitching the project for the nearly 50-acre site at 314 Flat Rock Place in Westbrook with construction possibly beginning in 2025.

Making way for the development would require demolishing four retail buildings totaling 257,115 square feet, along with a cinema.

It's estimated that only 25 percent of the Westbrook Outlets shops are occupied. (Read the full story in The Hartford Business Journal.)

Westbrook Cinemas was reopened at the shopping center last year by Shoreline Entertainment at the former home of the Marquee Cinema, which closed due to the impact of the pandemic.

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Westbrook Outlets are far from the only retail center facing an uncertain future in the state. Many other shopping centers could soon have residential developments as well.

A developer has plans to convert an abandoned Lord & Taylor space at the Danbury Fair Mall into 144 residential units.

In Milford, the Connecticut Post Mall's owners have gained zoning approval to allow housing on the site. This could come in three phases, with each phase adding 250 residential units.

For the Trumbull Mall, the community is discussing whether the mall could be torn down to make way for housing as well.

At the Crystal Mall in Waterford, several food court restaurants recently closed. The mall has also experienced anchor store closings and was sold at auction last year.

See related: Several Restaurants At Waterford Mall Food Court Close: Report