Image showing effects of UI project on home sparks pushback
FAIRFIELD — A rendering depicting a home from the 1700s cut in half to make way for a controversial United Illuminating project near the Southport railroad tracks has become the center of its own controversy.
The concerns are the image can insinuate demolition, despite a note printed on it that states “consequences of easement.” The company has said it doesn't plan to demolish homes.
The image was created by a Southport resident and shows the possible effects of an easement UI hopes to take to build a series of monopoles up to 195 feet tall within 19.25 acres of private property by 2029. The Siting Council, the state's regulatory body for transmission lines, is reviewing the project, which has drawn fervent backlash from Southport neighbors and both Fairfield's and Bridgeport's municipal leadership over environmental, economic and safety concerns.
Though the image appeared at a protest about the transmission project in November, the latest backlash came from Republicans over First Selectman Bill Gerber circulating the photo in a townwide email last Friday.
The email was part of “A Deeper Dive,” a new series that Gerber, a Democrat, said will unpack major town issues through “intensive examination,” with last week's iteration tackling the UI project.
Pamela Iacono, a former staffer in the office of then-First Selectwoman Brenda Kupchick, called the photo of the historic house “misleading” and inaccurate in an email she sent to Gerber and local media.
“By endorsing and approving such communications, we risk compromising the town's credibility,” Iacono said in the email. “Using town resources to disseminate inaccurate information is a serious concern that undermines the trust we place in our local government and in this instance may very well harm our fight against the monopole project proposal.”
UI spokesperson Sarah Wall Fliotsos doubled down on the company's claims about the photo, which UI officials view as inaccurate. She encouraged “good faith” discussion about the merits of the project, which she said will “modernize” the transmission infrastructure, strengthen electrical reliability, enhance the local tax base and create more economic opportunity. She said UI looks forward to working with Fairfield to execute the project design the Siting Council approves.
“While we welcome community interest and engagement throughout the Fairfield to Congress transmission rebuild project, facts matter,” she said in an email. “The Town of Fairfield's dissemination of inaccurate claims and misleading photographic depictions regarding the project's impacts in its ‘Deeper Dive' email distribution is therefore disappointing.”
David Parker, the Southport resident who took the photo before editing it with 3D software, said the image signifies the limitations that an easement would place upon a property rather than literal destruction.
“We weren't saying they were going to come in with a chainsaw and cut the house like that, but that is where the easement goes through the property,” Parker said.
Iacono also forwarded Gerber a separate email from Leslie Downey — a public outreach specialist with Avangrid, UI's parent company — who said the image is “not accurate at all.”
Downey said UI does not plan to demolish homes or businesses but acknowledged easements the company would request for safety clearances.
“If the project is approved, UI will work with all residents and businesses individually to minimize impacts,” Downey said in the email.
A map of UI's proposed project shows an easement and a treeclearing zone slicing through the Pequot Avenue home. The plans are visible on the 59th page of UI's mapping and drawings document. A copy of a UI easement contract also states the company would be permitted to “remove any structures” in the area of the easement without any required payment.
“The photograph is not misleading and accurately demonstrates that if UI obtains the permanent easements it has proposed, it will have the right to demolish this home,” Lisa Clair, a spokesperson for the town, said in an email.
Kupchick, who still serves on the Board of Selectmen as a selectwoman, raised the issue to Gerber on the same day as Iacono's email. She recommended the lobbying firm the town hired to rally opposition within state government against the UI project should take charge of communications about the project, instead of the town's communications director, a new position Gerber created after taking office.
“I know there was some concern about some of the communication coming from your communications person that may not be completely accurate, so I think that we should definitely let professionals be communicating on something of this high level,” she said during this week's Board of Selectmen meeting, where the firm was hired.
Kupchick led the town to intervene against the monopole project, though after the deadline to do so, and attended the November protest in Southport
Gerber objected to Kupchick's comments at the meeting and said a lawyer reviewed the email before sending it. He called the concerns about the image “unfounded.”
“There are a lot of professionals involved in that communication,” Gerber said. “I agree with you, professionals have to be involved. And I've received a letter, an email, sort of insinuating otherwise, but that email was reviewed in detail by legal.”