Towns grapple with broadband, garbage and how to use federal funds

GOSHEN — State Commissioner of Revenue Services Mark Boughton told the members of the Northwest Hills Council of Governments (NHCOG) that over the next five years Connecticut will receive about $6 billion in federal funds for infrastructure projects.

The list includes funding for water infrastructure and broadband coverage.

Boughton spoke to the NHCOG members at the regular monthly meeting (online) Thursday, Feb. 10. The organization is made up of the first selectmen of 21 Litchfield County towns.

He said the federal government has some $550 billion in funds available to states for existing and future infrastructure projects.

Broadband internet

Wayne Hileman of Northwest Connect and Henry Todd, first selectman of Falls Village, told the group that Google Fiber has approached NW Connect about bringing broadband internet service to northwestern Connecticut.

Todd said any successful plan to bring reliable, high-speed internet to the area will have to be a combined effort between the public and private sectors. “Each town going it alone won’t do it.”

Todd said, “We need critical mass” (enough subscribers) to interest a private company such as Google.

He proposed that towns with relatively small populations form “an informal coalition” in order to move ahead.

Hileman emphasized that Google approached Northwest Connect, not the other way around.

“They’re essentially asking for a conversation.”

Northwest Connect is a grassroots group seeking to improve internet and mobile phone service in the region.

He added that, “Google is not interested in deals with individual towns. They want to deal with a regional entity.”

Towns and trash

Tom Kirk, president of the Materials Innovation and Recycling Authority (MIRA), reiterated his past message to the NHCOG members: The MIRA trash-to-energy facility in Hartford is indeed closing as of July. MIRA is asking its member towns to commit to a five-year plan to ship municipal solid waste out of state.

Of the 21 towns in the NHCOG, only Kent is not a member of MIRA. (Kent is a member of the Housatonic Resource Recovery Authority.)

Kirk said MIRA will set a tipping fee in the last week of February. The tipping fee for member towns will likely be $116 per ton.

The towns will have 30 days from that meeting to decide whether to get on board with what Kirk described as a short-term solution.

Kirk was not sanguine about the long-term prospects, describing the waste disposal crisis as “a 10-year failure of foresight and leadership.”

He said options such as “pay as you throw” or increased separation of food waste from the solid waste stream are helpful but do not represent a cure-all.

“From an environmental standpoint, trash-to-energy is still the best option.”

Michael Criss, chair of the NHCOG’s legislative committee said he was keeping an eye on proposals to modify property and motor vehicle taxes and changes to the state’s education funding formula.