Pair of Seaside bills die in committee

Formica says his intent in proposal was to raise the conversation

Two legislative proposals that would have forced state officials to backtrack on their plan to turn the Seaside property in Waterford into a state park appear to have died before the two committees that raised them could take a vote.

State Sen. Paul Formica, who proposed the bills that were taken up by the Environment and the Government Administration and Elections committees, said Thursday that he intended only to question the state’s plans for Seaside, and never anticipated that the bills would make it to a vote in the General Assembly.

One bill, taken up for a public hearing on March 5 in the Government Administration and Elections Committee, would have required the state to sell Seaside to a private bidder.

A second bill, the subject of a public hearing March 16 in the legislature’s Environment Committee, would have put the responsibility for collecting information and determining Seaside’s future in the hands of four state and town officials.

Preservationists, environmental advocates and state officials were opposed to both bills, saying they would undercut the ongoing process to turn Seaside into a park with a privately run hotel lodge and put the historical buildings there at risk.

Environment Committee leaders declined to add the bill before that panel to the list of measures they would vote on at their meeting Wednesday, the committee’s last planned meeting for the session that ends in May.

“During the public hearing process, it became clear that there were many concerns (about) this proposal,” said state Sen. Ted Kennedy Jr., D-Branford, a co-chair of the Environment Committee. “His point is that we need to make some decision on Seaside . ... message received.”

The Government Administration and Elections Committee declined to take up the bill proposing the Seaside sale at its meetings March 9 and Friday.

That committee has until March 28 to vote on any bills its members wish to send to the House or Senate. Two co-chairs of the committee did not return a request for comment Friday.

“It was not my expectation that this bill would ever pass,” Formica said Thursday. “It was my intent to raise the conversation about the process (and) the amount of money DEEP has paid consultants.”

Formica proposed the bills as Department of Energy and Environmental Protection officials reach the next phase in the yearslong process to determine how to proceed after Gov. Dannel P. Malloy decided in 2014 that Seaside, a vacant former tuberculosis hospital and residential center for people with developmental disabilities, would become a state park.

DEEP Deputy Commissioner Susan Whalen said that the department soon will issue a request for proposals from developers interested in renovating the aging buildings at Seaside and running a hotel there, in accordance with the plan DEEP officials decided on in January after years of deliberation.

Whalen and DEEP Commissioner Robert Klee spoke against the bills at public hearings this month.

Formica also claimed Thursday that his raising the Government Administration and Elections Committee bill led DEEP officials to decide against spending $10 million on repairs to the facade of Seaside’s main building before signing a lease with a private developer. Whalen said that spending was never part of DEEP’s plan.

“We are inviting prospective partners to take a look at this project and tell us what they need,” Whalen said Thursday. “We’re looking to have the most cost-effective proposal in terms of state investment here.”